 Several weeks ago, Koichi Sugiyama passed away. He was well known as the music composer for the entire Dragon Quest saga, starting all the way from the very first entry in 1986 up until the latest entry, Dragon Quest XI. The three key players in Dragon Quest have always been Yuji Hori, the writer, Akira Toriyama, the artist, and Koichi Sugiyama, the composer, Dragon Quest Dream Team. Dragon Quest is one of the few franchises that has kept the same core team together for so long, so this came as somewhat of a shock to fans of the series who have been listening to his melodies for years, and many are wondering what this means for the future of the franchise. Well, I think that conversation is one that should be had on another day. We'll discuss that later, I promise. I definitely have a lot to say on that particular topic, but for today I have a different topic I want to discuss. Today I want to talk about Sugiyama's work on the Dragon Quest series, analyzing the creative process behind some of the iconic soundtracks of the series and how it has impacted the world of video game music and inspired others. Let's begin. Yuichi Sugiyama was born on April 11th, 1934 in Tokyo, Japan. He was the eldest son of a family raised by music loving parents which guided his career path. Though he already knew he had a profound interest in music, his father used to trade unused clothes to a record store in exchange for classical music albums, including Ludwig von Beethoven's 6th and 7th symphony, which really kickstarted his love for classical music. When Sugiyama went to high school as one of the first students in Japan's then new limb implemented high school system, he started his school's music club. In his junior year of high school, Yuichi Sugiyama reorganized the school orchestra which had been inactive since the war, acting as his conductor and arranger. On the side he played in a fusion jazz band, showing his proficiency in various genres of music. Before graduating, he was approached by the Momokotani Ballet Company to compose a ballet for children entitled The Lost Caterpillar, which was performed many times over the years. Sugiyama eventually went to Tokyo University, graduating in 1958 with full honors. Before moving on to become a full-time composer, he did various jobs in the media, including being a reporter for the Nippon Cultural Broadcasting Incorporate, one of Japan's flagship radio stations. The director of the NCB was a fan of the ballet he composed and offered him a job. He later went to work as a director for Fuji TV afterwards, directing various shows while acting as a music composer on the side. He retired from his position at Fuji TV to focus on his compositions and as the years went by, up until the mid-1980s, Sugiyama became a legend among Japanese composers. His compositions ranged from classical music to variety, with Sugiyama creating some of Japan's most memorable advertising and pop song jingles, working with popular groups at the time such as the Tigers. While he worked on advertisements, anime, films and more, his music became ingrained into the minds of a whole generation when he composed the Ultraman theme song. He even did the music for the space runaway idian movie and Godzilla vs Biolante. The man was a celebrity music artist. Fast forward to the mid-1980s, Yuji Hori and his cobbled together team at Enix were hard at work creating the very first Japanese role-playing game, Dragon Quest. It was a long process and the pieces were neatly fallen together with one key element missing up until the last minute, the music. This is where Sugiyama fit in via a chance encounter. Sugiyama was a gamer. He loved video games. It was one of his biggest passions aside from photography. The dude had a collection of over 2,000 vintage cameras by the way, that's crazy. But yeah, Sugiyama was no stranger to gaming. He loved all sorts of games. When he was young, he played mahjong, backgammon, Dungeon the Dragons and even Monopoly. When the advent of video games arrived, he was quick on the latest trends. He enjoyed playing Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, Load Runner and of course Morita Shogi for the PC-88 by the Enix Corporation. It was like a video chess game. Back in the day, video games came with these little postcard feedback questionnaires that you could fill out and mail to the game studio. Well, Sugiyama mailed in the Shogi card and Yukinobu Chida, the producer of Dragon Quest, who put the whole team together, saw it. He could hardly believe it was the Koichi Sugiyama who was a fan of his company's games and so the perfect opportunity presented itself. Dragon Quest was almost finished with Hori and Nakamura hard at work towards the approaching deadline and there was no music. The game was missing its key feature that would give it life. Shibu organized a meeting with Sugiyama several days later and proposed that he work on the soundtrack for Dragon Quest, which he happily accepted. Here was the hard part. With the deadline so close in sight and Sugiyama being recruited late into the dev cycle, he had only one week to compose the entire soundtrack for Dragon Quest. Sugiyama recalls that it took two whole days for him to convert the sheet music to game audio files. So that really left him with four days to write eight songs for the various scenes and locations in the game. A seemingly impossible task for your average musician. However, Sugiyama was a trained composer with decades of experience and he managed to pull off the impossible while giving us the most iconic video game theme song of all time. The Dragon Quest Overture, the theme song of the series that will play at the beginning of each and every game for over 30 years. The iconic theme that would open up the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics. And how long did this epic piece of music take to write? According to Sugiyama, it took five minutes to write the Dragon Quest theme song. Five minutes to create a song that would define a generation of Japanese role-playing games. Though Sugiyama often adds that it took him 54 years and five minutes. Being the culmination of a lifetime of musical experience. He called upon years of experience working with TV and orchestras to come up with town tunes, spooky cave music, epic battle themes, and he even created the little jingles when you level up. The effects that would stick with the series for decades to come. The music of Dragon Quest is one of the most important elements of the experience. You're listening to these songs for hours as you battle your way through Elif Guard, so they had to be good. And boy were they good. Game music was never as meticulously crafted as this. These pieces of music were designed to be played in a concert by an entire orchestra. These songs would define and set Dragon Quest apart. Sugiyama chose to make the music of Dragon Quest classical as opposed to pop for numerous reasons. Even though he was skilled in both areas, classical music won due to the memorability and longevity of classical as well as the ability to listen for hours without getting tired. Classical music has persisted for hundreds of years and has a quality of being memorable and something people do not get tired of. For a game where people would be exploring for hours on end listening to the tracks, this was a perfect fit and it complemented the medieval aesthetic of Dragon Quest. Dragon Quest music was inspired by the great masters Ludwig von Beethoven, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Claude Debussy. Dragon Quest soundtrack was distinctly Baroque in its influence. This choice also complemented the limitations of NES hardware. Sound effects on the Famicom sound chip couldn't linger for too long, so that meant compromising while staying true to the original vision. Instruments using compositions during the Baroque period didn't linger on a single note for too long, so the Baroque style of music fit the Famicom hardware perfectly. The Famicom limited Sugiyama's work such that he had to come up with clever ways to bypass the memory limitations of the Famicom cartridge. Of course the Famicom could only make three sounds at a time, which was severely limiting for our vision of this magnitude. Notably the overture was written on a harmonic progression called horn fifths, which can be clearly heard in the opening notes. Horn fifths are hidden consecutive, in layman's terms it's when two independent parts of a song approach a perfect octave. This can be heard in the opening notes of the overture to this very day. Horn fifths are used when working with the limitations of valueless brass instruments, hence the name. The five sound channels of the Famicom were pushed to their limits to produce songs Sugiyama envisioned, and using nothing but blips and beeps he managed to make distinct sounds of trumpets and percussion instruments when one listens closely. Of course this wouldn't be an issue in the Super Famicom, would release with its expanded and improved sound chip, allowing for synthetic instrument sound effects. Dragon Quest music was also unique in its orchestration. Modern video game music is often biased towards horizontal association straying away from verticality with an emphasis on safe, straightforward melodies. In opposition, Sugiyama's compositions don't adhere strictly towards either. His compositions consist of many different harmonies overlapping with melodies that sometimes break into loud dissonance during intense battle sequences. It's almost like he was in full control of the tempo, flow, and fluidity of the songs. The sounds of Dragon Quest are based on traditional classical music, but it doesn't strictly conform itself to the standards of the time. Sugiyama clearly displays this mastery of music theory and how he brings his clashing approaches together to great songs that convey emotion through various scenes. Dragon Quest I had eight different songs. The Overture, Tentacle Castle, Aleph Guard, The Town Theme, The Battle Theme, The Dungeon Theme, The Final Boss Theme, and finally The Credits. Each of these pieces perfectly captures the mood of the scene they take place in. Overture Castle has this grand feeling that evokes being in the presence of a king. It's made of various phrases popularized in the 18th and 19th centuries, starting with the sentence. And we can see comparisons to pieces such as Beethoven's Sonata No. 2 and F Minor, which has major similarities to the opening of the theme. It's a structure consisting of a basic idea, followed by a higher reputation, followed by a double time. The second part of the song is characteristic of a period, with a question and answer form to this section. It goes to show how complex each piece is when you dive deep into it, with a careful use of traditional form to seamlessly transition between various moods through the execution of these phrases. These basic structures you set in the very first game would be used in later games with a new take, keeping the same basic ideas fresh every time. Aleph Guard's theme, titled Unknown World, has a mysterious feeling to it as if you're discovering an unknown land, which is exactly what players are doing throughout their hours of playtime. This melody is slower and relies on the use of woodwind instruments and soft violin, while the battle theme in comparison is much faster and more intense with the heavy use of brass, which breaks the ease players feel to raise the tension of a fight. The battle themes also had to be designed to not get old after potentially thousands of battles, so they often begin with a few dramatic notes of a cymbal or drum to announce a threat, while the songs get more hopeful and upbeat as they progress. Similarly, the final boss theme has an even more urgent and desperate feel to it. The songs or Dragon Quest have a clear purpose and are made with the game's scenario in mind. Sugiyama has said that Akira Toriyama's art largely inspires the direction he goes with his music. In the case of character themes like in Dragon Quest 4, he would have the character's picture in hand while composing the theme, and he would ask horrid questions about the character to better understand them. Listen to Tornako Talun's theme for example. The use of double bass is prominent and it really gives you this feeling like you're falling around a lovable rotund merchant on a big adventure. Themes such as this one would then come to him suddenly out of the blue like a flash of inspiration. He's mentioned that he would look at Toriyama's drawings and the music would just come to him in his mind. Sugiyama said that once an idea hit him right when he was about to go to sleep, leading him to jump out of his bed and right down. He said that his work on the series is primarily influenced by the DQ Slime. While enemies in Western games are usually scary, the Slime in Dragon Quest is cute and friendly looking, so the music Sugiyama composed is typically upbeat, even the battle themes. The cuteness of Dragon Quest is a major contributing factor in Sugiyama's music direction. Over the years, Dragon Quest's music has evolved and taken advantage of newer hardware with more modern entries, including harp, piano and brass, giving rise to more epic themes. And his work would define a generation. Sugiyama was the first of his kind, a prestigious composer who dedicated the remainder of his career to video game music. He made video game music seem legitimate. He was the first video game composer to hold a public concert of his songs. A tradition he would continue to the end of his days. Dragon Quest's symphonic suite was being sold on vinyl, cassette and CD. His music was a huge sensation, and he did not rise alone. Sugiyama used his platform to elevate other video game composers as well. Sugiyama started the orchestral game concert in 1991, a yearly event where different game conductors would present their works. These performances included many people who are now well known in the world of game music, such as Koji Kondo, Keiichi Suzuki, Nobuo Urimatsu and Yoko Kano. These concerts featured many iconic games. Sugiyama used his platform to spread the love of video game music far and wide. Countless video game composers throughout the industry, including many I have just mentioned, have cited Sugiyama as a major influence on them entering the industry and even a teacher to some. Keiichi Sugiyama was an icon, a mentor, and an inspiration to many. He was an extremely important figure in the world of video game music, often referred to as the father of game music. His decades of experience with hundreds of albums and concerts led to widespread respect in the gaming industry. In the aftermath of his passing, many of his fellow colleagues from across the gaming industry displayed their sadness for this loss. His two partners, Akira Toriyama and Yuji Hori, are among the frontrunners of those who released their heart-wrenching statements. To close this tribute out, I'd like to share with you some of these statements. Dragon Quest series creator Yuji Hori wrote, I'm really sorry to hear of Sugiyama Sensei's sudden passing. For 35 years after making the first Dragon Quest, Sugiyama Sensei has brought the spirit of his music to the world. As a master composer, he wrote a lot of really great songs. Dragon Quest will continue to be played with his music. Such a master should continue to live in the hearts of all players. Sugiyama Sensei, thank you very much for being here for such a long time. Dragon Quest character artist Akira Toriyama wrote, I was surprised to hear about the death of Sugiyama Sensei. From the impression I had when I met him just a few years ago, I thought of him as a sorcerer with eternal life, in a good way. The overall image of Dragon Quest was determined by a number of wonderful impressive masterpieces by Sugiyama Sensei, who has loved games since way back then. It is no exaggeration to call him that. It was a great honor to work with you for a long time. I pray for your soul from the bottom of my heart. Sugiyama has passed on. However, his contributions to the world of music will always remain and his work will be experienced by Dragon Quest fans for generations to come. He knew this day would one day come and being the oldest out of the trio, he would likely be the first to leave this world. His motivation that kept him going for so many years was his love for the Dragon Quest series and his desire to leave behind something that he could be proud of, music that would be used in future entries to come. As long as the iconic overture plays at the beginning of each game, Sugiyama's legacy will be everlasting. I hope this video helped you learn a little bit about the life of Sugiyama and the inspiration behind his music. I've wanted to talk about the music of Dragon Quest for a long time and I felt that the right time was now. We'll be talking more about the future of Dragon Quest soon, so until then, I'll leave you with comments from Sugiyama's many friends and colleagues followed by an excellent quote from him.