Hidenori Maezawa (#3229)

[CaptainCommando]

1up interviewed "H. Maezawa" of Contra fame. That really was a fantastic composition; one of the best opening themes for an action game, particularly an arcade game.

Reading through it now!

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3172388

Awesome! Hidenori built the VRC6! He also lists his philosophy on composing on the Famicom:

1UP: That's the interesting thing. Maybe it was the challenge, or maybe just the sound of the hardware, but something about those games really worked. Did you feel at the time that the games you were creating were something special?

HM: Here's how I explained it to people back in the day. Say you have Tokyo Tower; when you say to people you're going to create Tokyo Tower, you'd first think about what sort of materials you'd have to gather to build it. That's something you can do with current technology. But back then, we were working on low-spec hardware, so we couldn't properly express Tokyo Tower. What we did instead was -- there's a sort of art craft here in Japan that's made of bamboo. You use the bamboo and you can make really detailed models, and they have their own distinctive flavor. So that's how I always described my work: a tiny, detailed bamboo art craft version of Tokyo Tower. It had its own distinct flavor, and it was tangible -- you could reach out and touch it more easily than the real Tokyo Tower, and it was the work of just one person. So in a way it's more real than something you see on TV or on a movie screen. That's probably why the work had its own unique warmth.


So basically, he had this idea of how the music WOULD sound if they had proper technology, but he knew that they had to express it differently using the technology they had. So while the chiptune is not the same as the perhaps 'ideal' form of the rock arrangement, the chiptune does have its own unique feel to it, and so is treated as a separate and standalone work - the chiptune is not a bamboo model prototype for Tokyo Tower, but the model is an actual work of art. This statement reminds me of a T-shirt that I have, which has the tank from Combat with a thought bubble coming out of it and a giant Sherman tank inside. "Is the tank dreaming of what it wants to be when it grows up?" Well no, it's a question of simulation and representation. The pixel tank represents what is in the thought bubble, and it simulates some aspect of its operation, but the pixel tank is its own thing. "This is note a tank."

[Chris]

Cool interview. I'm interested that Hidenori Maezawa was the sole composer. Like so many of Konami's old projects, multiple people got credited for it -- I believe Kyouhei Sada (perhaps Atsushi Fujio and Takayuki Ogura too) also contributed. Maybe in sound design roles? I try, but I still don't properly understand Konami. That said, I'm glad to see a bit more info on Maezawa since he did some good remixes for Tatsunoko vs. Capcom.

[ntwrk506]

I already kind of posted this in a different Artist Discussion thread, but to clarify, Hidenori Maezawa didn't actually compose the music to Contra and Super Contra. He only arranged the pre-existing arcade music in order to adapt it to the Nintendo and Famicom. The only original music he did compose was for the cutscenes in the Famicom version of Contra, which weren't used in the Nintendo version. All the music from the arcade version of Contra was composed by Kazuki Muraoka, so he is the actual composer. And for Super Contra, it was Kazuki Muraoka and Motoaki Furukawa.

About Kyouhei Sada, he must have done the sound effects and/or programming for the home consoles, because Maezawa said in the interview that he ported all the music by himself.

[Garnobium]

The music to SCAT and Abadox credit Sada exclusively (well as far as I know) and they have something of a Contra sound to them. Would that be a programming matter?