Interview with Akira Yamaoka - Mad Maestro (Nintendo Power)Date published: 2009.04.01 Two critical elements of Silent Hill’s Potent atmosphere have always been its haunting music and discordant audio effects. The man responsible for the series’ unique sound is Akira Yamaoka, and he’ll be contributing his talents to Shattered Memories. We had the opportunity to chat with Yamaoka about how he approaches his work, his sources of inspiration, and what keeps him up at night. Nintendo Power: The Silent Hill Series has always had a very distinctive sound. How did you arrive at that? What were some of your sources of inspiration? Akira Yamaoka: I always wanted to propose a new music style that did not exist anywhere in the world of game music. I wanted to deconstruct game music, see what remained and create something different. The music for any form of entertainment should not have set formats. Be creators tend to stick to those anyway. It’s just because it’s easier that way. Based on the scenes [in Silent Hill, for example], picking an existing style of music like classic, kind of sad music, would have been much easier. Game music was like that in the past. It usually starts with lots of little bitsounds, and therefore a lot of it sounds similar and could all be categorized into the “game music” genre. Therefore, with Silent Hill, I wanted to deny and forget about the genre and recreate game music. I thought about what would be a new, different style of game music. That’s how Silent Hill’s music was created. Nintendo Power: Are you trying anything new or different with the music for Shattered Memories? Yamaoka: I am still in the process of trial and error. Since we are making a Wii version for the first time in the series, I would like to try something different. Nintendo Power: How did the scenario or characters of the Wii title influence your compositions for the game? Yamaoka: The scenario and characters do influence my compositions. The Silent Hill titles dig down deep into people’s psyche. You might not notice the differences in the music at first, but as you continue to play the game and listen to the music closely, you will feel the differences. I want everyone to feel the deep psyche of the sound. Nintendo Power: How do you get yourself in the right mood or frame of mind to write a piece of music for Silent Hill? Yamaoka: I don’t really get into any sort of mood before writing music for Silent Hill. I just try to stay calm and think normally. Writing music for this series is very special to me because it just comes naturally, and I don’t need to get into some special mindset to write. For other works, I usually need to get some sort of inspiration before I can start writing. Nintendo Power: What do you think the music brings to the Silent Hill experience? What do you try to accomplish with your soundtracks? Yamaoka: Music is an essential element to all kinds of entertainment, not just horror. When viewing entertainment, we are influenced by both what we see and what we hear. This combination of sight and sound is what makes entertainment fun and I wanted to pursue this with the Silent Hill franchise. What you see and what you hear should portray the mood we are trying to relay during gameplay, and that’s what I’m trying to accomplish. I want this combination of sight and sound to give the user a powerful emotional experience. Therefore, I don’t try to create Silent Hill music with just sounds. I carefully study the visuals of the game when writing my music. Nintendo Power: What’s the secret behind using music or sound to create heightened sense of fear? Yamaoka: Actually, there are many secrets for that. First and foremost is "irregularity.” People are analog creatures, but at the same time they like and feel comfortable with the digital sense. In our daily lives, we wake up in the morning, work, eat, and sleep. Everyone has a routine. When something breaks and the sense of rhythm starts to change. People live every day with expectations of what’s going to happen next. When things don’t happen as we expected, or when the rhythm breaks, we start to get very nervous. One of the horrors in Silent Hill, “anxiety,” is often create by such irregularity. For example, the sound the player is listening to suddenly changes, the noise starts all of a sudden and the rhythm starts to get irregular. I often break the regular rhythm and create the sound that players don’t expect to hear. In short, I betray the user’s expectations. This is one of the most important methods of creating sound for Silent Hill. Nintendo Power: For some of the earlier Silent Hill titles, you were actually involved in the game design. Why have you decided to step back from taking a larger creative role? Yamaoka: There are various reasons for that/ (Laughs) I am thinking about taking a creative role again some day. I would like to contribute to the creative side as a master of horror or Japanese horror. Nintendo Power: Which Silent Hill title is your personal favorite thus far? And which is your favorite just in terms of the music? Yamaoka: My favorite is Silent Hill 2. It’s theme was “Crime and Punishment,” and the feel was completely different from the that of the other games. It was a special title to me because it was unique. Originality is very important to me. Even just as far as the music is concerned, my favorite is Silent Hill 2. I like the first Silent Hill, but I think I was too free to make anything in that one. I feel that I was able to fully demonstrate my creativity and narrow my focus in Silent Hill 2. Nintendo Power: Generally speaking, what are some of your personal musical influences? Yamaoka: ’80’s European music. It was a movement when I was a junior-high student. New wave and punk rock were very powerful at that time. I loved the mellifluous, aesthetic feel of the European music. I was strongly influenced by not only the music, but the culture and entertainment of the time. The whole thing, including the music and the visual images, influenced me. If I were influenced just by the music, I would not be making Silent Hill-type music. I would probably be fixated on music genres and be making very boring music. I think every kind of entertainment should stimulate not only one sense, be all the senses. I was influenced by the ’80’s European culture and entertainment because it was exactly like that. Nintendo Power: What songs are getting the most play on your MP3 player lately? Yamaoka: I, have my iPod with me now. Let me check. (Laughs) it seems I have been listening to The Rasmus, Museo Rosenbach, Mogwai, Last Laugh, Ignition Technician, HIM, and Goldfrapp. Nintendo Power: What is your greatest fear? Yamaoka: Nothing. (Laughs) I am not afraid of anything. I just make my way no matter what happens in my life. Or maybe I should say that I’m too busy to fear anything. I’m not just saying this to be cool! (Laughs) |