One of the things I enjoy is a capella remixes of video game music. There’s a lot of reasons I find that compelling: Can’t underestimate the nostalgic power of something you’ve heard over and over growing up, and some of the music is just really good. But one reason why it’s compelling is that both old video game music and a capella singing are great examples of creativity through constraint. Of course, any musical composition is creative, but there’s a different sort of lateral thinking required if you want to evoke the musical tropes of orchestral music without the benefit of an actual orchestra.
Want an epic pipe-organ theme for your ominous final level, but all you have is an 8-bit soundcard? Do it anyways!
(Though I would love to find a great rendition of that on an actual pipe-organ. This one is awesome in parts but trips over some of the super-hard arpeggios, this extended cover doesn’t stumble, but it slows the tempo down quite a bit.)
A capella music faces a very similar issue, and thus in the case of covers of old video game music, provides a striking twist on one of the aspects that made the original great. Same creative essence, different constraint.
For an example, let’s consider a track from one of the greatest games on the Super Nintendo, Secret of Mana. The soundtrack for that game was composed by Hiroki Kikuta, a brilliant composer with a knack for getting the most out of the limited hardware. This track is an early theme from the game called “Into the Thick of It” (少年は荒野をめざす, “A Boy Heads Into the Wilderness”). Here’s the original:
And here’s a rendition by a capella musician Smooth McGroove (see also on Patreon):
Of course, you can provide a similar twist by taking things in a different direction. Here’s a full orchestral version (a medley, but the song above can be found from 4:52 to 6:10):
ComplexMeme 