How does VGL get their orchestral scores?

[JB4GDI]

I'm pretty sure they cost a lot of money, but how exactly does VGL get their orchestral scores? Do you guys have special people to talk to in order to get the rights to play it, and when you get it is it the actual note-by-note arrangement or something you really need to work with to get it orchestra-playable? And is there all sorts of paperwork you need to fill out?

Sorry for asking a ton of questions (I know you guys are busy), but I've been dying to know this for a long time. I've been messing around with arranging music for my college's orchestra (simple songs from the SNES and Genesis days), but I'm no music major, and it's really hard to pick out instruments in music recorded with a full orchestra. It would be nice to see what some of the final scores look like, and I've wanted for a long time to actually hear some of my favorite, but more obscure songs played by an orchestra. I was just wondering what the process would be for getting something like the score to Metal Gear Solid 3 or one of Namco's pieces from Katamari Damacy.

Thanks,
-Jaime

[DHalo]

I'm pretty sure that most of the music they get (if not all) is directly from the original composer.

[spoonodoom]

I'd've thought so, but that makes things get confusing - why do Square Enix give their music but not footage? It makes no sense...

[Terraguy]

What I believe happens is this:

The organizers (in this case Tommy Tallarico and John Wall + lawyers) seek out the game companies/composers for rights to play the music. In return, they gain the rights to perform such music.

Then, either the composers offer their sheet music for playing, or it is arranged by the organizers who received the rights (I think this is cleared up when they ask for rights).

Finally, it is performed (there may be royalty fees too).

Of course, I don't really know how it works. This is a good question that I'm also wondering (but I mean, it probably is nice arranging :)).

[JB4GDI]

What I believe happens is this:

The organizers (in this case Tommy Tallarico and John Wall + lawyers) seek out the game companies/composers for rights to play the music. In return, they gain the rights to perform such music.

Then, either the composers offer their sheet music for playing, or it is arranged by the organizers who received the rights (I think this is cleared up when they ask for rights).

Finally, it is performed (there may be royalty fees too).

Of course, I don't really know how it works. This is a good question that I'm also wondering (but I mean, it probably is nice arranging :)).

Yeah, I'd imagine it goes something like that, but I'm also wondering if there's an official way people or orchestras can go about getting the real stuff. While it's awesome that you can get pre-arranged medleys from Halo and Advent Children from Alfred Music, 2 songs out of 10,000 isn't really a lot of options.

-Jaime

[Birdo]

nope, that's not how it happens....

Mr. Tallarico gets down on his knees, and he BEGS them for the music.

[Terraguy]

Maybe if we grovel long enough, SE will give us rights to the video... *ponders*

[Tommy Tallarico]

What I believe happens is this:

The organizers (in this case Tommy Tallarico and John Wall + lawyers) seek out the game companies/composers for rights to play the music. In return, they gain the rights to perform such music.

Then, either the composers offer their sheet music for playing, or it is arranged by the organizers who received the rights (I think this is cleared up when they ask for rights).

Finally, it is performed (there may be royalty fees too).

Of course, I don't really know how it works. This is a good question that I'm also wondering (but I mean, it probably is nice arranging :)).



You summed it up pretty accurately! We try to work with all of the composers but the reality is that a lot of our scores may cover different games/composers/era's, etc. so we have to take everyone's work and come up with something brand new. This takes a lot of time and money sometimes to do something unique... but we take great effort in making sure everything sounds the best it can be... and for all of the different sized orchestras we use!

Good question. Hope that helped.

Thanks,



Tommy

[JB4GDI]

Thanks so much for the quick reply, I really appreciate it! Can't wait for the concert at Yale this Saturday!

-Jaime

[sLIMshadyKP]

I've been messing around with arranging music for my college's orchestra (simple songs from the SNES and Genesis days), but I'm no music major, and it's really hard to pick out instruments in music recorded with a full orchestra.

I know I'm responding 2 years after this post, but I'm also thinking of getting my orchestra to play one or some video game music, as well. Does anyone know where I can find orchestral scores for video games?

[Myrph]

SquareSound is a fairly good website for finding sheet music for a variety of games, although I'm not sure how much orchestral stuff they sell. That being said, however, they do stock the VGL suite score here (http://www.squaresound.com/orchestral-suite-from-video-games-live-featuring-kingdom-hearts-halo-and-civilization-iv-p29799.html) which features a medley of songs from the Video Games Live concerts.

JWPepper also has music from VGL, however it offers tracks from individual games, which you can see here (http://www.jwpepper.com/catalog/lsearch?option=results&weblist=submbshow31&crumb=Complete%20Shows&urlreturn=/sheet-music/band_show.jsp&label=VIDEO%20GAMES%20LIVE), rather than a medley of tracks.

Beyond that, I'm not sure what else is out there. Google is probably your best friend for something like this, although you'd need to be quite specific in your searches and be prepared to weed out all the rubbish and useless finds. I hope you find something worthwhile and if you do find something else which you find useful please share it here for the next person to require such help!

[Terraguy]

You may be able to search some up through SheetMusicPlus, and it never hurts to search through the composer's website (I know that Christopher Tin does some selling of some of his scores through his website (I think)).

And of course, there is also fan arrangements, which can vary heavily in quality, from excellent to downright poor.

[Songbird]

This isn't quite what you're asking for, but sometimes when people post videos of themselves playing video game music on the piano they may also post a video of how to play the song they just did. So maybe you can get some ideas from them for your orchestra?

[Tommy Tallarico]

What I believe happens is this:

The organizers (in this case Tommy Tallarico and John Wall + lawyers) seek out the game companies/composers for rights to play the music. In return, they gain the rights to perform such music.

Then, either the composers offer their sheet music for playing, or it is arranged by the organizers who received the rights (I think this is cleared up when they ask for rights).

Finally, it is performed (there may be royalty fees too).

Of course, I don't really know how it works. This is a good question that I'm also wondering (but I mean, it probably is nice arranging :)).


You pretty much nailed it.

In the instance of a song that has already been recorded by a live orchestra for the game, we just get the scores directly from the composer. But most of the time we like to arrange a few different songs into one segment so me & Jack will arrange the score, then we get an orchestrator to do the orchestration for our different orchestra sizes, then we pay a copyist to copy out all of the individual parts for the orchestra players. We ONLY use the very top people in Hollywood and London to do this and I believe it's reflected in a lot of our arrangements.

Then we need to create the video (usually me) and the lights... then the synchronization of everything (music, lights, video, click-track), etc. It usually takes around 2 weeks to do an entire segment and the cost (depending on what exactly the composer gives us) normally costs between $7,500 - $10,000.


Tommy

[Terraguy]

You pretty much nailed it.

In the instance of a song that has already been recorded by a live orchestra for the game, we just get the scores directly from the composer. But most of the time we like to arrange a few different songs into one segment so me & Jack will arrange the score, then we get an orchestrator to do the orchestration for our different orchestra sizes, then we pay a copyist to copy out all of the individual parts for the orchestra players. We ONLY use the very top people in Hollywood and London to do this and I believe it's reflected in a lot of our arrangements.

Then we need to create the video (usually me) and the lights... then the synchronization of everything (music, lights, video, click-track), etc. It usually takes around 2 weeks to do an entire segment and the cost (depending on what exactly the composer gives us) normally costs between $7,500 - $10,000.


Tommy

Uh, Tommy, you realized you already answered this 1.5 years ago?

You summed it up pretty accurately! We try to work with all of the composers but the reality is that a lot of our scores may cover different games/composers/era's, etc. so we have to take everyone's work and come up with something brand new. This takes a lot of time and money sometimes to do something unique... but we take great effort in making sure everything sounds the best it can be... and for all of the different sized orchestras we use!

Good question. Hope that helped.

Thanks,



Tommy

:D The added information was nice though, so thanks anyway!

[sLIMshadyKP]

SquareSound is a fairly good website for finding sheet music for a variety of games, although I'm not sure how much orchestral stuff they sell. That being said, however, they do stock the VGL suite score here (http://www.squaresound.com/orchestral-suite-from-video-games-live-featuring-kingdom-hearts-halo-and-civilization-iv-p29799.html) which features a medley of songs from the Video Games Live concerts.

JWPepper also has music from VGL, however it offers tracks from individual games, which you can see here (http://www.jwpepper.com/catalog/lsearch?option=results&weblist=submbshow31&crumb=Complete%20Shows&urlreturn=/sheet-music/band_show.jsp&label=VIDEO%20GAMES%20LIVE), rather than a medley of tracks.


I saw that score very often when I was looking around for video game music for orchestras. Are video game music for orchestras really not in demand?What I'm really looking for is music from well-known videogames like Legend of Zelda or Star Fox.

I remember a year or two ago, our conductor randomly brought out some song from Advent Rising because he thought it would be cool if he had us play a song from a videogame. It didn't really work out.

[Terraguy]

I remember a year or two ago, our conductor randomly brought out some song from Advent Rising because he thought it would be cool if he had us play a song from a videogame. It didn't really work out.

That's really too bad. There's a lot of great potential in game music that most orchestra directors ignore because they opt for classical pieces (not that there's anything wrong with that).

As for more orchestral arrangements, it's quite time consuming to arrange a piece for an entire orchestra. In addition, demand for full orchestral music is low due to the limited number of people who actively search for full orchestral sheet music and play it in their free time. Most people prefer the piano (simpler, only needs one person, etc.).

[JB4GDI]

I saw that score very often when I was looking around for video game music for orchestras. Are video game music for orchestras really not in demand?What I'm really looking for is music from well-known videogames like Legend of Zelda or Star Fox.

I remember a year or two ago, our conductor randomly brought out some song from Advent Rising because he thought it would be cool if he had us play a song from a videogame. It didn't really work out.

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but wanted to add to this in case this person ever comes back (like I just did).

You know where you might find some luck? College music programs. If any college offers a class in arranging or orchestration, there's probably a good chance that someone worked on a video game song.

I went to WPI and had to do a music project so I did an arrangement of the Katamari Menu song (Suteki Hoshi no Sanpo wa Suteki) for an orchestra. A friend of mine had to do a similar project, so he did the Chrono Trigger theme for concert band. Yet another friend did an arrangement of the Mario 64 underwater song for percussion ensemble.

Maybe it's because we went to a tech school that we all decided to do video game arrangements, but I can only imagine there's a ton of stuff out there that's just hard to find. I'm pretty sure our school simply prints out the scores, plays them maybe once, and they go into the library for all eternity.

I would recommend starting there. See if any college music programs have any music programs (maybe start with the tech schools) and email their music department to see if they have any student-created video game arrangements. Or if you have a friend that's in a music program, ask them to whip you up something.

Other-idea-that-just-came-to-me: Contact the One-Ups or The Video Game Orchestra. They make their own arrangements, so maybe they can be of some help.

I'm with you though dude, there's just not an easy way to get video game music for orchestras. Maybe one day someone will start an online community for that purpose, but until then, we'll just have to keep searching.

-Jaime

[Brainiac]

Contact...The Video Game Orchestra.

I saw them at PAX East. They were great. I told them that they should try and team up with VGL if the tour ever drops by Boston (for which there is a TBA this year).

[JB4GDI]

That would be AMAZING.

I was late to the line for the Saturday Concert at PAXEast so I missed the Video Game Orchestra that night. Oh wells; they play near Boston semi-frequently.

-Jaime

[Phoenix.Wright]

MOAR thread ressurection.... "respawn lol!"

On a serious note, i've been reading (not like there were walls of words all around), and learning. It was quite interesting to know how the things work, and how much do they cost.
Tommy kindly made up the bill, around 7500-10000 USD per segment.
But, how much rights cost? I mean, i know they can vary depending on the game, but how much do they usually represent in the total, for one segment? Especially thinking of Phoenix Wright scores :) *insert maniacal fanboy pic here*