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It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!
If there is, than Nobuo Uematsu is the one to set anyone straight on the matter. The guy is brilliant.
While I can't disagree with you on Nobuo Uematsus brilliance, there are quite a few other composers equally worth mentioning, not that anyone gets the impression taht he's the exception to otherwise mediocre music. Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill), Koh Ohtani (Shadow of the Colossus), Gary Schyman (Bioshock), Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Cross) to name just a few of my favourites.
There's also the fact that most people will have limited if any exposure to video game music. Fear of the unknown, maybe?
Personally I think there's a wealth of good music to be found that was created for video games, and it's not even that recent a phenomenon - I could name several great game themes from the 80s. They might be derivative by classical standards, and they're certainly repetitive (I suspect by necessity), but frankly I found many of them a lot more innovative than contemporary pop music.
Here's someone on YouTube playing a Rob Hubbard piece from 1985 [not originally for the piano]: [video:youtube]UolOHLFlOrc[/video] Original here .
J.S. Bach: Two-part invention No. 4 in D minor, BWV 775 Muzio Clementi: Sonatina in C Major, Op. 36 No. 1 Ole Olsen: Fanitull
15+ years later I still get e-mails from folks, mostly parents that hear their kids playing it. Some express mixed feelings, being torn between disdain for the violent nature of the game but being appreciative that their kids are being introduced to music they might not otherwise be exposed to.
In my case, the reason why I even started learning the piano were piano arrangements from videogames. I was an avid gamer and spent hours and hours on various vdieogames (seems pretty common with my generation lol) and probably the pieces that stuck to me were ones from the final fantasy series - composer Nobuo Uematsu. In my opinion purely, throughout his games his music has fit the various settings perfectly and to hear them arranged on the piano (those who fight, besaid island, attack, etc.) is pure joy which goes hand in hand with nostalgia.
A youtuber by the name of Zohar002 posted arrangements from the chrono trigger series such as corridors of time and secret of the forest and the one video that made me wanna start it all, shevat the wind is calling.
Interestingly enough, I JUST had my first lesson with a teacher and she asked me what pieces I wanted to play some day. I told her pieces from videogames and she gave me a little snicker. Didn't really mind though.
As others have said, different strokes for different folks. I'm not one to compare it to any other genre because I feel need to justify it and really in the end, it's just my cup of tea.
For example, "To Zanarkand" is a nice piece, but it's also fairly simple/derivative. I think it's okay to enjoy something while also acknowledging that it may not be as good as something else.
It's easy yeah, but it's not the point that it's suposed to be hard. If you listen to for example Etarnal Harvest, Creature Creation, Those Who Fight and One Winged Angel, then you will hear some harder stuff than to Zanarkand. But yeah, we cant compare Those Who Fight with La Campanella for example
