Nintendo Interview: Koji Kondo

In this exclusive interview we chat with the Miyamoto of game audio - the industry's most legendary composer.

Page: 1  2 

Page 2

Kikizo: That reply is the same as Yuzo Koshiro gave us! Are you familiar with him?

Kondo: Ah yes Actraiser and so on, I know the name, and his games.

Kikizo: Do you speak or work with other game music composers often? Are there any other game music composers whose work you particularly enjoy?

Kondo: Well, we don't get together or meet all that often, mainly just at events such as, you know, game music concerts and stuff like that. But I think there are a lot of very talented composers out there that I have a lot of respect for. Among those would be Mr. Uematsu, Mr. Sugiyama, and Mr. Koshiro who you mentioned. And so, yes, among them, those three are people who I have a lot of respect for.

Orchestra is just one of the areas to enjoy in Wii Music

Kikizo: So then, what do you consider your core musical influences? What do you consider to be inspiration when you're doing songs for various games? Do you look for stuff that would kind of match the mood of the game?

Kondo: I guess it's just different with each piece that I create, and what piece for what game, but there are lots - nothing really specific. Basically, I am always looking for inspiration in different places, in all the music that I listen to - I try to find things that inspire me. ...To name names, someone that I find very inspiring and someone I admire a lot is Mr. Henry Mancini, who is a movie music composer. I really like the different genres that he's able to do, to incorporate into his music, and I really finds his melody line to be very inspirational. I would love to be able to create music on that level.

Kikizo: Do you compose as you're going along, seeing what the staff is doing with the game, or do you see a mostly finished program and then compose the music from there?

Kondo: I usually do it parallel to development, so I am watching the developers as they're making the game, and I do think about the characters, really, as they're finished, and using those characters as inspiration for the music, and seeing how they interact. So it's a parallel process.

Kikizo: Do you ever feel then, when you are developing the music, once it's done, "I should have done this differently" - or do you really see it as a finished package?

Kondo: Well, from time to time, I look back and say "I wish we could have taken this a different direction," but as far as game music and the software as a package, I look at the music as being one complete piece from beginning to the end of the game, and then all of the smaller sections of that piece, I look at how they flow together and how it balances for one complete piece, and how that melds with the game.

Kikizo: Out of all the compositions you've done, which is your personal favorite?

Kondo: Trying to pick one out of that large number of pieces is a pretty hard task, but I think Super Mario would be the one I'd have to pick, just because I didn't expect it to be a piece of music that is so well known and so familiar to so many people. So perhaps Super Mario.

Kikizo: You've had your music played in concert many times both in Japan and in the West, now. Miyamoto played some Zelda themes on his guitar, even. Does this give you a particular sense of accomplishment?

Kondo: Definitely. It's something that's obviously very, very pleasing to me, it's one of my dreams - having songs that I've composed being played throughout the world in concerts. It's obviously an accomplishment, and I'm very happy, very pleased about that.

Kikizo: Kind of on that same subject, have you heard any of the fan arrangements people have done?

Kondo: Yeah, there are a lot of people out there with a lot of talent. I personally think they're fantastic, they really surprised me. I have heard a lot of those, and really like a lot of them.

What can we expect from audio in Mario Galaxy?

Kikizo: Has the way you work inside Nintendo changed any within the last few years, since Iwata took over from Yamauchi? There have been a lot of internal changes since the switch.

Kondo: Well one of the things is, with the newer building we have, I have a big studio, so it's a lot easier to do voice recordings, as well as bring in a lot of instruments and do the recording at Nintendo without having to go anywhere. That makes the job a lot easier. ...As far as with the Wii, the fact that the Wii remote has a speaker in it just really opens the doors to a lot of different possibilities for different sound usage. I am looking forward to the challenge of incorporating new ideas with the Wii remote speaker.

Kikizo: What can your fans expect next?

Kondo: I am currently working on Wii Music which we showed a little of last year. Please look forward to it.

Kikizo: We certainly will. Thanks for this interview, Kondo-san.

Page: 1  2 

Click here for Kikizo's interview archive.