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| Koji Kondo |
Koji Kondo is a famous video game music composer who is responsible
for the soundtracks of some of the world's most prestigious
video game franchises. His music is credited for being
groundbreaking and extremely dynamic.
Kondo's drive to create music took root in his childhood. According to IGN, Kondo first got into music when he began organ, piano, and synthesizer lessons as a child. He was interested in creating digital sound. This interest grew after he started playing arcade and table top games.
He wrote his first video game score for the arcade version of Punch Out!!. After his musical debut, he was hired by Japanese video game company Nintendo and was the only person in the company with a musical background; he studied at the Art Planning Department of the Osaka University of Arts.
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| Shigeru Miyamoto |
After impressing Shigeru
Miyamoto,the creator or the Super Mario and Legend
of Zelda series, for his work on the game Devil
World, Kondo was assigned
to Miyamoto's newly founded R&D4 department, where he would compose some of
his most famous works. His first real claim to fame was the creation of
the Super Mario Bros. theme .
This song is currently the most recognizable piece of video game music
globally.
In an interview with Nintendo Treehouse, Kondo recounts his
experience while creating music for his first musical hit and his
philosophy about creating immersive music. "Kondo reflected that he had to
play the original Super Mario Bros. first before composing any
music. He quickly realized that the score needed to have the speed and
liveliness of Mario himself, which explains the rhythmic verve of the game’s
themes. ... It required a lot of creativity, imagination, and trial and error
... Kondo believed that the music had to match the world or area. For
example, the underground should sound uneasy, which is why the theme has a
monophonic line (single melody line) and many instances of silence. It thus
sounds sparse and a little unpredictable." Ultimately, what made the Super
Mario Bros. theme so adored and recognizable was the rhythmic drive
Kondo worked so hard to perfect. 
After the creation of Super Mario Bros., Kondo
was assigned to compose the music for The Legend of Zelda. For
this game, Kondo drew upon music history and utilizes the leimotif,
which is a theme formally attributed to a person, place, thing, or environment.
A famous leimotif is the "Imperial March" which is
associated with the infamous Star Wars character, Darth Vader.
He believed that the incorporation of the leimotif made the
game more immersive and its incorporation made the game resonate more with the player.
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| Kondo's Home Office |
When he gets stuck, Kondo usually goes and thinks in his home
office.... his bathtub. Deemed "Bathtub Creativity" by Polygon, Kondo
thinks about many of his assignments when in the bathtub, channeling the power
of the human subconscious. According to an interview with Polygon, Kondo
states, "When I'm thinking of the main theme — the melody and the main
theme of any game, I don't really come up with those at work... Usually,
I'll be in the bathtub, I'm it's like 'oh, there it is!' Or I'll be sleeping,
and the melody is in my head. Or even, you know, I'll be walking down the
hallway in my house, suddenly the music pops into my head. It really doesn't
happen at work, it's always somewhere outside of the office."
Kondo is a big C creative of our time and continues to compose music. He draws upon his drive as a child to create music with his desire to make truly immersive music and the power of the human subconscious to compose the most memorable tunes of video game history.
Sources
https://www.polygon.com/2014/12/15/7393129/nintendo-mario-zelda-music-koji-kondo
https://www.ign.com/articles/2007/03/12/koji-kondo-an-interview-with-a-legend
https://www.zeldadungeon.net/interview-with-composer-koji-kondo-the-compositional-process/
It always amazes me how crazy cool composers are yet society rarely gives them the recognition professionals of other, similar fields get in masses. They seem to always fade to the background yet their work is sometimes some of the most recognizable and mainstream melodies. Its really interesting to hear that Kondo uses the game itself to create the music. I'm sure this makes the two connect a lot more than if he had just created something without a "muse" in mind. Hearing the two together is definitely a new, elevated experience versus experiencing them separately.
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