Zod95 said:
It's like my comments about MIDI. It's not easy to get consensus.
On what basis would you call it "extremely complex"? I'll leave it up to you to decide how to assess and rank complexity in music
Sure it's not a fact, it's a hint ("it only suggests..."). And you're right when you say music is made for games but games aren't made for music (except Guitar Hero and alikes) and that vocal music may just not fit into a specific game. I see that happening essentially on movies / games with heavy environments like Schindler's List and Getaway. But Mario and Sonic are totally different. If Sonic could evolve into an environment of vocal music, I'm not seeing any reason for Mario to have not done the same. |
How music has evolved or changed throughout the ages isn't as simple as "it began with instrumental and evolved into vocal".
- It's really hard to tell if the history of music started with humans using their voices or using basic instruments. As far as I know no evidence exists that proves that one predates the other. If you're going to use your theory that instrumental music evolved into vocal music you'll have to provide proof to ack it up. Also, there's the possibility that some groups of people started with instruments while others used their voices first, making the whole argument rather pointless.
- Regardless of which one came first, humans began using both in the prehistoric era and since then music has evolved a lot. The evolution of music did not stop once both instrumental and vocal music had been "invented". New instruments were created paving the way for new genres and new ways to create music. Music were used for recreational and religious purposes but was also used in dance, warfare, in storytelling, to calm children etc. Eventually a system was created so that musicians could write down the music on paper. Humans used music in theatre, they created musicals, symphonies, operas etc. I could go on but the picture should be clear by now. Music has evolved a lot since the days of the prehistoric man.
I'm opposed to the idea that "more evolved" music requires more effort and is more complex by default. Therefore I'm opposed to the idea that you can rank different types of music and thus I won't do that. Rock evolved from Blues, Jazz and a few other genres, and rock eventually evolved into metal music. Does that mean that Metal is more complex and requires more effort than Rock? Does Rock require more effort and is it more complex than Blues? Are all of them more complex and do they all require more effort than classical music? No, it doesn't work that way. Now, they could require more effort but it could also be the other way around. It all depends on the composition. You can make very complex music using only a piano. You can also make very basic music on a piano. Likewise you can make complex or basic music using a singer, a drummer and a guitarist. But there's no rule saying that one is more complex than the other by nature, and if such a rule exists I'd like someone to present it to me.
With this in mind I fail to see how one could claim that the music in Mario would be less evolved than the music used Sonic due to the use of vocals in Sonic's soundtrack. You could provide evidence showing that instrumental music is older (something you have failed to do) but even if you did it wouldn't have much meaning when you take the history of music in consideration. Likewise I also fail to see how one could claim that one or the other required more effort merely because of the inclusion of vocal music in Sonic's soundtrack. For that you'd have to find out how much money and time was spent on creating the music, and even then you'd have to ignore than some musicians can create more with less effort, and you'd also have to ignore the possibility that the use of instrumental-only or a mix between instrumental and vocal music simply was a design choice. In fact, that possibility makes the whole argument rather pointless in my honest opinion.
