Music from Sega Games - orchestral/violin arrangements

June 23, 2021, 10:43 PM · Today marked a pretty fun day for Sega fans; and as a gamer myself as well as a violinist, I thought I'd do a quick post about them! I really haven't been keeping updated with Sega until very recently, and I think I came back at a good time!

First, today marks the day Sonic the Hedgehog came out for the Genesis in 1991! To celebrate, they did a virtual concert as a video premiere! The first half features the FILMharmonic Orchestra, led by Adam Klemens, playing several orchestrations of music throughout the Sonic series, from the Genesis early '90s games to the modern ones, ending with the new Sonic Colors Ultimate. I played some of these and recognized the music from others, but it was also nice to hear some new music in the mix as well. The second half stars the Tomoya Ohtani band, adding that 00's pop/rock band sound I know from my childhood, alongside the orchestra. It really created a fun pops atmosphere that was cool to see a blend of. It was a fun concert to watch and celebrate the Sonic franchise! I've been having fun playing Sonic 1, 2, and CD on my phone - in-between practicing violin, of course! :P

Secondly, today also marks the day the original Monkey Ball hit arcades across Japan in 2001! This series has been my childhood, and honestly, humming tracks from the game throughout my time at Steck may have contributed partly to my love of music today. Sega has done some cross-promotional stuff with their Sonic brand for their new game, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania, coming out this fall (and it's a remake of thee original games I remember playing as a kid!). I'm so excited to hear the musical remixes of these tunes they'll come up with! In the meantime, I released this cover of one of the game's tracks, and tried to lay into that (again) '00s pop/rock band sound.

Finally, on Nintendo's side, they recently released an official soundtrack in Japan for Animal Crossing: New Horizons. On the VGMdB (Video Game Music Database), they shared the credits to this album. It's fun seeing "violins" listed in all the instrumentation for the game. I really enjoyed listening to this soundtrack last year and in-game! Maybe one day, I can pick it up for myself if it's still available after a few Animal Crossing games have gone by. I still need a real acoustic wooden violin in my game! :) So cool on the site to see on of the violinists, like Hitoshi Konno, holding his violin with his profile pic, shown as playing in the Mario 3D World Big Band, amongst other things.

Apart from Animal Crossing, I don't think I've mentioned any of these other franchises or Sega before here! I really try to steer clear of mentioning too many gaming things, but recently I've been getting more obsessed with video game music, so... Hopefully it's okay, at least for now while I'm in this phase. We'll see what happens. At the end of the day, I think this is all still great music to enjoy even separate from the game, or as a nostalgia trip in 20 years' time when I barely touch my Switch anymore or something. Isn't that part of the power of music - to create (hopefully) cozy memories to stay with you when you need them most?

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Music from Sega Games - orchestral/violin arrangements

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