Orchestra Hero

[steuard]

A month or two ago, Kim and I started playing Rock Band; it's a lot of fun. I've mostly been playing drums, in part because I've always been a little interested and in part on the theory that the skills there could transfer reasonably well to the real instrument. Better than the guitar, anyway!

I began to wonder if someone would eventually create "Orchestra Hero" so I could indulge my love of classical music, too. Kim and I spotted some significant difficulties, like:

• Shorter songs are good for game play, so rock works well but classical less so. Playing through a single piece (or even a single movement) could take up a whole game session. And how obnoxious would it be when the clarinetist "fails out" ten bars before the end of Beethoven's 9th?
• Rock band requires just three or four controllers for a standard rock setup, while to field an orchestra you'd need at least a dozen. Sure, not everyone would need to buy every controller, but it still fragments the market for those items. (And if you did get a dozen friends together to play, how would you show all the parts on the TV screen?)
• While a lot of people might end up enjoying Orchestra Hero, many fewer would think they'd enjoy it: the market just isn't there. (Related is the point that one fun thing about Rock Band/Guitar Hero is getting to play songs you already know. Fewer people know a wide range of orchestral music.)

By the end of that conversation, I felt disappointed to realize that Orchestra Hero probably wouldn't ever happen, but I moved on.

So it was a bit of a surprise to see an article on the NY Times website today entitled "Orchestra Hero". The article isn't actually all that great (the author spends half his time talking about his composing, which has pretty much zilch to do with the topic), and it doesn't really touch on any of those difficulties or suggest ways to overcome them, but it's still neat to see other people considering the idea.

It's made me start wondering if something like this could actually work. There are lots of classical CDs with titles like "20 Romantic Classics" or "Bach's Greatest Hits" that pick out short, well-known pieces, so maybe length isn't such a big concern if you're willing to give up playing full symphonies. You could reduce the number of controllers by combining similar instruments (e.g. one controller design might work as a clarinet, oboe, and even flute). Maybe someone will eventually create Orchestra Hero after all.

Comments

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

"Orchestra Hero" is such a hilarious title that someone should do it just for that :). (Oh, and you need to read Lemony Snicket's orchestra book, _The Composer Is Dead_.)

Some other thoughts on controllers...

* Lots of people have keyboards (although I don't know what the compatibility issues might be like); you get a lot of freedom if you're willing to include piano reductions as options, although you need people who are actually very technically skilled to get very far with that.

* You get a lot of freedom if you're OK with limiting the number of instruments people are playing, and letting the system provide the rest of them. I mean (not having played Rock Band, admittedly) the fun is working together and being part of the music, right? It would still be fun if you don't have people available for every part. So maybe your Orchestra Hero party just has a violinist, a clarinetist, and a timpanist. But that'd still be fun, and the computer could fill in all the other parts.

* Marketing would be extra-hilarious.

* For pieces, a lot of things have a theme-and-variations structure; you might be able to do suitable abridgements that just hit the theme. Although you'd have to kill yourself for being so grody and unfaithful to the source. But that's capitalism for you, right?

* I wonder how it would work to simplify the instrument-playing mechanic to the point that n00bs could usefully interact, but I guess that's the same problem Guitar Hero has solved.

* I would pay good money to see a Piccolo Hero, I think. I mean, "Piccolo Hero". Can you even say that with a straight face?

[patrissimo.livejournal.com]

My first bemani game was Taiko Drum Master, which combined pop hits, video game themes, and classical music. The classical music was super fun to drum to! They picked fairly long segments out - I seem to recall that some of the classical songs had tracks in the 6-12 minute range. Here they are:

Beethoven's Symphony No. 5
Carmen Prelude
Foster's Medley
Hungarian Dances No. 5
Symphony No. 25 in G Minor
William Tell Overture

[pearmeson.livejournal.com]

http://www.basicinstructions.net/images/151JugBand.gif

[steuard.livejournal.com]

I've yet to read any Lemony Snicket. I take it the books are good?

I think a full keyboard would be much more complicated than the other instruments, but any simplified model would just leave out too much. (Part of the problem is that it would inevitably look like a piano without enough keys: sort of the "uncanny valley" of musical instruments.)

The software in Rock Band is designed specifically to play all the parts unless 1) a player is actively in charge of one part and 2) they screw up. That should transfer over fine.

Marketing would indeed be hilarious. Also, Rock Band has features where you can pay for new and better clothes for your characters, or new haircuts, or other things to define their style. That would be amusing for a formal orchestra: "You unlocked new cuff links!" "A London cummerbund is now in your closet!"

Different instruments would simplify more or less faithfully, much as in Rock Band. The tympani would be close to identical (but smaller?). The trumpet would presumably have exactly the right fingering but omit the actual lip buzzing (and omit subtleties like fine-tuning pitch with finger slides). The violin would be extremely simplified, like the guitar is now; I think the woodwinds would be similarly stripped down.

I, too, would pay good money to see "Piccolo Hero", as long as I wasn't the one stuck trying to look like the hero. (But I think the piccolo would end up left out of Orchestra Hero entirely.)

[steuard.livejournal.com]

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/activision_reports_sluggish_sales

[steuard.livejournal.com]

Cool: Those are great pieces (well, I can't say much about "Foster's Medley"), and it's encouraging to know that they've been successful in a video game before. And 12 minutes would be plenty for a lot of good stuff; full movements of symphonies, certainly.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

They are totally excellent, though I admit to not having finished them all. _Composer_ isn't part of his children's series, but that's good too, what I've read of it.

I like the uncanny valley of instruments idea. Hee :). Now I have a vision of a piano staring at me, with eyes just a little too shiny.

New cufflinks! A *blacker* dress! Ha. Awesome. (Although concertmasters and soloists can wear some actually interesting clothes...)

[pearmeson.livejournal.com]

Awesome! :)

[cabarney.livejournal.com]

I've always thought a full keyboard guitar-hero-like game would be very fun and quite educational - and the skills developed there would transfer incredibly well to the real instrument. Might be a fun way to get kids to learn piano.

No discussion of potential future or upcoming Guitar Hero / Rock Band title would be complete without this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlqLLZQLNiA

[steuard.livejournal.com]

Hi! I didn't realize you had an account here, but now that I do, welcome to the privileged fellowship of Those Who Can Read My Private Entries. :) (They're not that interesting, really.)

I think you're right that the gameplay and reward system of Rock Band/Guitar Hero could add an extra form of motivation for kids learning piano (or adults, for that matter). I'd worry that a full-size controller would cost as much as a complete electric piano, though... but that leads to another thought: maybe someone could write a "Piano Virtuoso" game that used the output of any standard electric piano as the input for the game. That way, you could buy a real instrument (since the point was to really learn to play). The note display on screen could actually be sheet music (maybe with color coding for different keys to help guide the eye just like in Rock Band, and possibly even with a visual representation of note lengths in addition to the usual notation). You could even do the usual sorts of difficulty level gradations (with the full song playing as the output audio even when you're just playing a simplified version on only one hand).

Get on it!

[steuard.livejournal.com]

Oh, and as for that video, it's okay, but I think it needs a bit more of, well, something. Not sure what, just more... something. Much more something.

[kirin]

A friend and I down here have been holding out for either Prog Rock Hero (basically like the current Rock Band setup, but comes with a full keyboard (or maybe two) and Rick Wakeman sequined cape), or Accordion Hero, ideally with a full set-list of They Might Be Giants.

One of the reasons I haven't picked up any Rock band version yet (aside from the cost) is that I recognize a pretty sad fraction of the default songs, really. In theory downloadable content helps ameliorate that, but I haven't seen a critical mass of things I'd really want come through yet.

Meanwhile, I actually own an orchestra-themed rhythm game. It's called Mad Maestro, was on PS2 (I think), and you play the conductor, tapping out rhythms in square and triangle shaped to simulate using the wand. It also uses the pressure-sensitive buttons for dynamics. As rhythm games go it's merely serviceable, but I do remember it having some fun songs including Ride of the Valkyries, Toreador Song, Baba Yaga's Hut, Hall of the Mountain King, and the first movement of Beethoven's 5th.

[jon-leonard.livejournal.com]

If you're prototyping (or doing a game for a very limited audience), then connecting up actual MIDI controllers is a reasonable choice.

Then deal with the many-players display problem by using multiple screens (possibly on multiple computers), and it winds up networkable.

That's pretty much just a different way to practice music together. Does that ruin the fun?

[steuard.livejournal.com]

Apparently, you've now got me reading Basic Instructions. Thanks! (I think.) :)

[steuard.livejournal.com]

I guess using MIDI would limit the audience, but I don't know how to improve on that. I'm not convinced that any sort of "simplified" piano would feel reasonable in a game. So either "Piano Virtuoso" isn't feasible, or it needs to be done with a full keyboard. And once you're to that point, why not just let people use any keyboard they'd like? (I assume there are some pretty cheap basic keyboards out there; you could even offer a game-branded version.)

The one advantage this might have over just practicing music would be that you could decouple the audio output from the actual keys being pressed. That way, you could still hear the full glory of Brahms' Piano Concerto #2 even though your fingers are just plucking out the basic melody on one hand. (And if you miss a simple note, the full piano music falters until you get back on track.) I know it's a lot more fun playing drums in Rock Band when I get to hear the full drum part as part of the music than if I had to listen to the simplified rhythms I'm actually producing. And it's pretty neat to realize that every step up I go in difficulty brings me closer to doing the real thing myself.