Jun Ishikawa (composer)

Jun Ishikawa (石川 淳, Ishikawa Jun, born 1964) is a Japanese composer who was formerly employed at game company HAL Laboratory. He is best known for composing for the Kirby series along with Hirokazu Ando. As of 2024, he left HAL Laboratory, although he does intend on continuing to work for Kirby games as a freelancer.[3]

Jun Ishikawa
石川 淳
Born1964 (age 59–60)
Alma materNihon University
Occupations
  • Composer
  • musician
Years active1990–present[1]
EmployerHAL Laboratory (formerly)
Musical career
Genres
Instruments
  • Piano
  • synthesizer

Biography

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Ishikawa started taking piano lessons aged 3-4, but felt he could never become good at it despite practice. Later, he discovered artists such as Paul Mauriat, Isao Tomita, Kraftwerk, Yellow Magic Orchestra, and Brian Eno. He also purchased a Roland SH-2, as he wanted fellow students to get into Tomita's music, but the synth was the cheapest he could afford. Later he attended Nihon University's College of Art, studying film music. As a student, he gained experience with recording and mixing for a theater, while occasionally writing what he considered to be poor pieces of music.

Ishikawa worked at two companies prior to joining HAL Laboratory. He eventually found an advertisement for a sound creator job at HAL; although he had not previously heard of this profession before, he decided to apply for it, which led to him joining in 1990. His first work was composing one track and sound effects for Uchuu Keibitai SDF, along with senior composer Hideki Kanazashi who had already written most of the music prior to Ishikawa joining. He was not directly taught how to write music for the Nintendo Entertainment System, so he had to watch Kanazashi doing so. Kanazashi left HAL just two weeks after Ishikawa joined.[1] His experience with composing for the NES led to him scoring the Game Boy game Kirby's Dream Land in 1992, which established the direction the music of later games would take. He intentionally wrote simple melodies and chords, feeling that complex chords did not sound good on the Game Boy's speakers.[4]

The previous year, composer Hirokazu Ando also joined HAL after sending a demo track; Ishikawa was impressed and met with him before joining the company. He felt that Ando's style was not much different from his own.[1] After Ando was given an exercise to write a track using NES tools, he served as the lead composer of Kirby's Adventure in 1993, and went on to compose for several future titles in the franchise, frequently working with Ishikawa and other sound team composers.

Ishikawa also composed for Kirby Super Star in 1996, feeling that the ideas in the tracks he wrote were what he had always imagined would fit in certain settings. For Kirby's Dream Land 3, Ishikawa decided to incorporate influences from genres such as techno and drum'n'bass, wishing to evolve the franchise's sound further. Seniors at the company did not initially understand the soundtrack's shift in musical style, although then-HAL president Satoru Iwata did not object to it, which relieved Ishikawa. Kirby: Canvas Curse also featured a change in sound direction, with the music incorporating elements of glitch. The final stage music originally had nearly inaudible notes and no melody, but because testers believed the distorted music to be a bug, it was tweaked to have a more discernible melody.[4]

In 2010, he contributed additional tracks to Kirby's Epic Yarn along with Ando and Tadashi Ikegami. HAL were only given a month to compose additional tracks for the game. He tried to make the tracks fit with those of lead composer Tomoya Tomita, which had already been completed at the time; however, he composed the final boss theme in his typical style to surprise players.[5]

As well as the Kirby series, Ishikawa and Ando have also composed for the BoxBoy! series, which features chiptune-inspired music.[2] In 2018, he composed for Kirby Star Allies along with Ando and newcomer Yuuta Ogasawara. Creating the sound effects involved trial and error; some of the sound effects he created were also made using nutrition drink bottles and cans.[6]

Ishikawa prefers to keep a low profile and runs for cover when asked in interviews to pose for photos. He has stated that this attitude is a result of his discipline from being at school while studying film music. His first public appearance was in an Iwata Asks interview for Kirby's Epic Yarn in 2010. In 2017 he did a speech at the Kirby 25th Anniversary Orchestra Concert, along with fellow HAL composers.[4] In 2022, arrangements of the team's music were performed at Kirby 30th Anniversary Music Festival, which was streamed on YouTube. The composers also performed a medley of King Dedede's theme songs under the name HAL Laboratory Dream Band, with Ishikawa on keyboards, Ando on bass, Ogasawara on drums, Ikegami on saxophone, Megumi Ohara on keyboards and flute, and Shogo Sakai on guitar. The composers commented their thoughts about the festival on the promotional video posted prior to it, with Ishikawa feeling that his tracks were usually not written with the intention to be performed live.[7]

As of 2024, Ishikawa has left HAL Laboratory.[3] The final game that he composed music for while working at HAL was Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe, although he does intend to continue composing music for the Kirby series as a freelancer.

Musical style

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Ishikawa's music often features electronic elements,[8] as well as an emphasis on melodies and fast tempos.[4] His music sometimes incorporates unusual time signatures, although Ishikawa has stated that this may result from experimenting with a sequencer, rather than intending to be eccentric.[1] While he is fond of modular synths, he does not use them in his game music due to regarding them as inconvenient for creating music.[9] As his tracks are written for the purposes of entertaining players, he never thinks about how they would sound performed live, and has also admitted that he would not be able to perform most of his own compositions live.[7]

He has cited Paul Mauriat, Isao Tomita, Kraftwerk, Yellow Magic Orchestra, and Brian Eno as being among his musical influences.[1]

Legacy

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Fellow Kirby composer Hirokazu Ando has named Ishikawa as being a huge influence on his own compositions for the franchise.[10] Max Coburn has also listed both Ishikawa and Ando as being among his favorite video game composers.[11]

In 2022, a cover of Ishikawa's composition, "Meta Knight's Revenge" from Kirby Super Star, performed by The 8-Bit Big Band featuring Button Masher, won a Grammy Award for Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella. The arrangers, Charlie Rosen and Jake Silverman thanked Ishikawa for his music during the acceptance speech.[12][13]

Works

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Video games

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Year Title Notes
1990 Space Defense Force Sound effects
New Ghostbusters II Music
1991 HAL's Hole in One Golf Music
HyperZone Music
1992 Arcana Music with Hirokazu Ando
Kirby's Dream Land Music
1993 Alcahest Music
1996 Kirby Super Star Music
1997 Kirby's Dream Land 3 Music
1998 Kirby's Super Star Stacker Music with Hirokazu Ando
2000 Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards Music with Hirokazu Ando
2002 Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land Music with Hirokazu Ando, Tadashi Ikegami, and Shogo Sakai
2003 Kirby Air Ride Music with Hirokazu Ando, Tadashi Ikegami, and Shogo Sakai
2005 Kirby: Canvas Curse Music with Tadashi Ikegami
2006 Common Sense Training Music with Hirokazu Ando and Tadashi Ikegami
Kirby: Squeak Squad Music with Hirokazu Ando, Tadashi Ikegami, and Shogo Sakai
2008 Kirby Super Star Ultra Music with Hirokazu Ando
2009 Picross 3D Music with Yasumasa Yamada and Hirokazu Ando
2010 Kirby's Epic Yarn Music with Tomoya Tomita, Hirokazu Ando, and Tadashi Ikegami
2011 Kirby's Return to Dream Land Music with Hirokazu Ando
2012 Kirby's Dream Collection Music with Hirokazu Ando and Shogo Sakai
2014 Kirby: Triple Deluxe Music with Hirokazu Ando
2015 BoxBoy! Music with Hirokazu Ando
2016 BoxBoxBoy! Music with Hirokazu Ando
Kirby: Planet Robobot Music with Hirokazu Ando
2017 Bye-Bye BoxBoy! Music with Hirokazu Ando
Team Kirby Clash Deluxe Music with Hirokazu Ando
Kirby's Blowout Blast Music with Hirokazu Ando
2018 Kirby Star Allies Music with Hirokazu Ando and Yuuta Ogasawara
2019 BoxBoy! + BoxGirl! Music with Hirokazu Ando and Yuuta Ogasawara
Super Kirby Clash Music with Kiyoshi Hazemoto, Hirokazu Ando and Tadashi Ikegami
2020 Kirby Fighters 2 Music with Kiyoshi Hazemoto, Hirokazu Ando and Yuki Shimooka
2022 Kirby and the Forgotten Land Music with various others[a]
Kirby's Dream Buffet Music with various others[b]
2023 Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe Music with various others[c]

Other

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Year Title Notes
2002 Kirby: Right Back at Ya! (season 2) Music with various others[d]
2016 The Sound of Kirby Café Music with Hirokazu Ando, Megumi Ohara, and Shogo Sakai
2019 The Sound of Kirby Café 2 Music with various others[e]

Footnotes

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Notes

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  1. ^ Hirokazu Ando, Yuuta Ogasawara, Yuki Shimooka, and Tadashi Ikegami
  2. ^ Shogo Sakai, Hirokazu Ando, Megumi Ohara, and Yuki Shimooka
  3. ^ Hirokazu Ando, Yuki Shimooka, Kiyoshi Hazemoto, and Yuki Kato
  4. ^ Akira Miyagawa, Hayata Akashi, Hirokazu Ando, Shogo Sakai, and Tadashi Ikegami
  5. ^ Hirokazu Ando, Yuuta Ogasawara, Megumi Ohara, Shogo Sakai, and Yuki Shimooka

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e "Keyboard Magazine 2017 SUMMER". Ritto Music. 2017. pp. 55, 56, 59.
  2. ^ a b Greening, Chris (February 7, 2017). "BoxBoy album features chiptunes from Kirby composers". Video Game Music Online. Archived from the original on April 2, 2023. Retrieved April 2, 2023.
  3. ^ a b Kirby and the Forgotten Land: The Complete Soundtrack (in Japanese). Nintendo. 2024.
  4. ^ a b c d Kirby 25th Anniversary Orchestra Concert (in Japanese). Nintendo. 2017.
  5. ^ Iwata, Satoru (2010). "5. Surprising and Humorous Sound". Nintendo. Archived from the original on 2023-07-25. Retrieved 2023-04-02.
  6. ^ "『星のカービィ スターアライズ オリジナルサウンドトラック』特設サイト". HAL Laboratory. 2019. Archived from the original on 2023-03-30. Retrieved 2023-04-02.
  7. ^ a b "イベント直前PV『星のカービィ 30周年記念ミュージックフェス / Kirby 30th Anniversary Music Fest.』". YouTube. August 11, 2022. Archived from the original on March 31, 2023. Retrieved April 4, 2023.
  8. ^ "カービィ30thフェス レポート後編". Nintendo Dream WEB (in Japanese). December 12, 2022. Archived from the original on April 2, 2023. Retrieved April 2, 2023.
  9. ^ "『星のカービィ』シリーズを手がけた石川淳&安藤浩和(HAL研究所)に話を聞く!|キーボード・マガジン 2017年7月号 SUMMERより". Rittor Music (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 2023-04-02. Retrieved 2023-04-02.
  10. ^ King, Darryn (June 20, 2018). "The Music Of Kirby: Still Tickling Gamers Pink". Forbes. Archived from the original on April 2, 2023. Retrieved April 2, 2023.
  11. ^ "Interview with everyone's favorite: Maxo". Alt Citizen. July 2014. Archived from the original on 2023-04-02. Retrieved 2023-04-02.
  12. ^ Robinson, Andy (April 4, 2022). "An orchestra's Kirby cover song just won a Grammy". Video Games Chronicle. Archived from the original on April 2, 2023. Retrieved April 2, 2023.
  13. ^ Moyse, Chris (April 5, 2022). "Kirby has become Nintendo's first Grammy Award winner". Destructoid. Archived from the original on April 2, 2023. Retrieved April 2, 2023.