Album hails video-game music

18 tracks on new CD pay tribute to admired composers

I mean, when I was a kid I used to try to play Beethoven, Styx and Henry Mancini on the piano because I loved their music. And once I got some of the melodies down, I added a bit of my own flair.

I'm sure many of you who play instruments do that from time to time.

I know someone who composes video-game soundtracks for a living. I've written about him before. His name is Chance Thomas. He composed the game music for "Left Behind," "Lord of the Rings" and "King Kong."

His latest little project is a re-creation of Michael Giacchino's "Medal of Honor" theme. Thomas takes the work and, while keeping some of the structure and melodies, improvises it on the piano. It's a heartfelt rendition and lays the soul of the music on the table.

The work appears on a CD called "Best of the Best: A Tribute to Game Music," which was released by GameMusicCentral through its Web site, GameMusicCentral.com

Thomas' track is one of 18 that are collected on the CD. And the idea was to pay tribute to the games and music that were inspirations to these composers.

Along with Thomas, there are such names as Will Loconto, who did music for the shooter game "Daikatana," with a guitar-laden remake of Kenji Yamamoto's "Super Metroid Theme," and Lennie Moore, who composed music for the "Plague of Darkness" and "Dirty Harry" games — as well as numerous commercials and documentaries — cranking out a sample-infused, Joe Satriani-type, rock track of Lee Jackson's "Grabbag," inspired by "Duke Nukem."

Even New Age pioneer David Arkenstone makes his appearance on the CD. His style takes the already majestic "Legend of Zelda" by Koji Kondo and gives it an epic-cinematic boost.

Thomas said the project was started because of the composers' love for game music.

"Everyone contributing to the CD made their own selection, typically playing tribute to those composers whom they most admired and whose work they most enjoyed," he said in an e-mail. "My selection (the original composer Michael Giacchino) is a longtime peer and acquaintance. The melody he came up with lends itself well to improvisation."

Among the tracks are Chris Rickwood's version of Jason Hayes' "A Call to Arms — World of Warcraft," Winifred Phillips' choral rendition of Koji Kondo's "Go Mario — Super Mario Brothers" and Rod Abernethy and Jason Graves' revision of Nobuo Uematsu's "Zanarkand," from "Final Fantasy X."

As a bonus, the liner notes feature photos and autographs of the performers.

Old-school gamers will revel in these updated versions, and new gamers will probably feel the urge to go back to those classic games to hear those musical highlights.

E-mail: scott@desnews.com

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