Composer Nico Mulhy: "I'm positive I understand how augmented chords change an emotional texture because of Nintendo music."

Composer Nico Mulhy: "I’m positive I understand how augmented chords change an emotional texture because of Nintendo music."

The fine folks at Snarkmarket pointed to this excerpt from an NPR interview with classical composer Nico Mulhy on the connections between a Nintendo childhood and composition: For me, living in the country, playing a video game was sort of like music minus one: The actions of my hands informed, in a

Kill Screen Staff

Kill Screen Staff Jun 7, 2011 ∙ 1 minute read

The fine folks at Snarkmarket pointed to this excerpt from an NPR interview with classical composer Nico Mulhy on the connections between a Nintendo childhood and composition:

For me, living in the country, playing a video game was sort of like music minus one: The actions of my hands informed, in a strange way, the things I heard. Collect a coin, and a delighted glockenspiel sounds. Move from navigating a level above ground to one below ground, and the eager French chromaticism of the score changes to a spare, beat-driven minimal texture. Hit a star, and suddenly the score does a metric modulation. All of these things come to bear in a later musical education; I’m positive I understand how augmented chords change an emotional texture because of Nintendo music.