Last week, Chris Nyaradi went to the Exchange District Brewery to race. Mario Kart In the tournament, players pick up a Nintendo Switch controller and take on the role of Morton Bowser Jr., one of Bowser's seven troublesome minions, as they race down the hellish curves of Rainbow Road.
The system went on mute as the Little Brown Jug's digital engine began to rev. But as the floating Lakitu signals the start and the banana peels begin to fly, the familiar soundtrack of one of the best-selling franchises of all time, provided by the brewery's first-ever ensemble called Bandwagons, plays. echoed through the taproom. Gig.
In things like video games, Mario Kart, Pixels are just one piece of the puzzle. Upbeat music and slippery sound effects reflect the intensity of the matches as contestants settle their own personal scores and a little revenge. Without Link's theme music, Hyrule is just a temple in the sky.
Michaela McKenzie / Free Press Harpist Samantha Ballard will perform at the Veeps N Bops concert at the Park Theater.
Winnipeg has an established tradition of hybrid events that combine video games and live instruments. The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra hosted a series called “Video Game Live” throughout the 2010s. But these types of shows are experiencing a small boom in cities across North America. Nyaradi said hundreds of gamers flocked to Minneapolis last weekend to hear his video game music for three days at the latest edition of VGM CON.
Jensen Maxwell, events and content coordinator for Little Brown Jug, said the success of the cart event was due to 56 participants paying $15 each and 54 spectators paying $15 for Wilfrid Laurier. I attribute this to the bandwagon (Fred Warner, Casey Kurtz, MacKenzie), which I credit to the fact that I brushed it off one by one. Walpole, Nolan Gottfried, Ben Kidd) transcribed and arranged the live score.
“Video game music is notorious for being very catchy,” says Maxwell. “It gets stuck in your head and stays there.”
That's the idea behind Nyaradi's current project, a live video game concert series called Beeps 'N' Bops, hosted by Bonus Stage, which bills itself as “Canada's premier geek event production company.”
Bonus Stage coordinates video game concerts in cities across Canada and last year visited Winnipeg for the first Beeps 'N' Bops. This concert name throws a bit of shade at those who dismiss video game music as formulaic or basic.
Nyaradi, a SEGA kid who grew up in Fredericton, New Brunswick, in the 1990s, says that assessment couldn't be further from the truth. “Even terrible games often have great music,” says a professional animator.
Last year's concert was held at Rec Room, an entertainment complex operated by Cineplex, and about 80 people participated. On Thursday, the event moves to the Park Theater with an eclectic lineup ranging from jazz (8-Bit & The Single Players) to metal (Super FX) to keyboard loops (OrchKeystra).
Also scheduled is Winnipeg harpist Samantha Ballard. He has made a full-time career playing Lyon and Healy Style 23 strings.
Ballard, 30, started playing the harp as a teenager after realizing it was an instrument with a little less competition at the professional level compared to the flute, piano and saxophone.
By grade 9, the Shaftesbury High School alumnus began taking lessons with local pro Erica Schultz, and after graduating, Ballard took her instrument with her to the University of British Columbia, where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in music. .
This decision paid off. Ballard currently teaches harp to 20 students online and performs at weddings and other events.
However, her musical work is not limited to weddings. She primarily performs videos of her game music, and has 30,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, and about 60,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel, where she streams her performances live every Friday. .
He also recently recorded a harp for the soundtrack of a Netflix animated film. orion and darknessfeaturing Jacob Tremblay (room), Angela Bassett, Paul Walter Hauser (Richard Jewell “I, Tonya”), starring legendary German director Werner Herzog as the narrator.
Her latest single was a cover of: wind fish ballad from the soundtrack of The Legend of Zelda Link's Awakeningand her most recent album was a reimagining of harp-based music. Octopath Traveler, She is a role-playing game that I play on my Nintendo Switch. Her next album will be Octopath Traveler II.
“The music in that game is so well orchestrated, and the transposition is really genius,” says Ballard, who has to individually tune the instrument's 47 strings every time she plays. “Music can certainly go a long way in enhancing the emotional content of a video game. It can add many effects to the storytelling, and music, lyrics, costumes, props, etc. all work together to enhance the overall experience of a production. I am reminded of Wagner, who popularized the term “Gesamtkunstwerk'', which means to contribute to something. ”
“Sometimes it's not that deep,” Ballard added. Ballard recommends practicing for about an hour every day and listening to harpists Arie Frankfurter and Anneline Lennertz. “Music becomes something that keeps you company while you play the game.”
At the concert in the park, Ballard performs the following music: Octopath Traveler From as many Zelda games as can fit in one set. ocarina of time to Breath of the Wild.
The ballad also performed at the first Veeps N Bops concert last year, but the reception was anything but static, Nyaradi says. He says the only time he takes out his violin is to wish his friends and family a happy birthday.
“There were some metalheads who were into solo harp,” he says. “We found that people in Winnipeg were hungry for this kind of content.”
ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com
