Professional Game Composers and Amateurism

If I were a professional game composer, I would definitely embrace fan arrangements and even contribute to a community with my own unofficial fan creations. It's homage. Arranging existing music is a great way for aspiring composers to get experience too.

I'm much more willing to embrace informed amateurism; that is, fans who are sensitive to the original's context and keep it in mind, and even possess a healthy amount of musical knowledge. I think there's a line that shouldn't be crossed, in the case of, say, trance remixes of Zelda music. Taking the music out of its original genre is something I'm not too fond of, especially if it were a piece of mine that were redone in such a way. But I know people like to do that, for whatever reason.

I particularly enjoyed Jeremy Soule's rearrangement of Terra's Theme from FFVI.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Liontamer

Ugh.

No.

Thank you for that polite response.

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whatever that's supposed to mean.

Don't play dumb. You know what it means. There's a reason appropriate music genres exist within different genres of games, why one style works where another doesn't, you should know that. I don't appreciate being completely dismissed just because you're so defensive. Pretty sure I don't want to listen to Saria's Song set to techno beats and warm pads. Don't worry, it's just my musical taste; it's not going to jeopardize yours.

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Originally Posted by Liontamer

That's all it deserved.

Grow up.
Are you one of those people who are so 'open-minded' that no musical style is too inappropriate for you to consider and you end up going 'whoa this guy is pretty deep.'

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The genre of an arrangement isn't required to fit the mood of the game the original music is from.

Right, but why don't you consider where I'm coming from for once instead of being an immature ass about it? GoldfishX said it well. Create an outside-the-box remix for the sake of going outside the box? OOooooh let's all commend their bold vision because I'm open-minded. That's where I draw the line. I'm going to stick with my Zelda example here: you can't possibly tell me that BogusRed's heartbreaking piano rendition of Into the Golden Sunset is on the same level as some random upbeat hyper-techno remix of Saria's Song. Sorry, you can't endorse everything, as you claim to. Where are your standards? What makes one arrangement viable and another worthless, if you're so accepting?

Which is kind of my point when I mentioned the term informed amateurism. Don't you dare tell me that my opinion isn't meaningful just because it doesn't align with your standards of artistic vision or intent.

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In many cases, an arrangement is a standalone work, not "within a game" or requiring anything to do with "original context."

"Hey guys, I'm going to create an arrangement of Aeris's theme, but I don't want anyone for any reason to be reminded of Aeris or Final Fantasy VII EVER."

Originally Posted by GoldfishX

Going out of your way to make it sound radically different...No offense to anyone, but it seems rather ego-driven to me. Like, using the original track to promote yourself. I guess that's all well and good if you like the actual arranger's work from the start, but not so good for a listener looking for a satisfying arrangement.

Agreed. It boils down to who you are serving in the end: yourself or the community.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Arcubalis

IA real arranger should be able to interpret the music and take it somewhere different stylistically, and add their own voice to the piece.

Yes. My beef is with people who don't do this, but still change the style dramatically. Liontamer The Defender seems to think I would hate a worthy jazz arrangement on principle. Or the Final Fantasy Piano Collections. It's stuff like the Zelda main theme thrown into Fruity Loops and given a repetitive electronic bed that I can't abide.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by CHz

... crappy trance ... Because that's the only thing you've slung around so far, so it seems to me that you just can't stand the stuff period.

Pretty much, yeah.

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Either that or you just hate bad quality arrangements that sound like they were whipped together in fifteen minutes

I like arrangements that display some formidable musical knowledge on the arranger's part.

I was speaking idiomatically.