Classic video game themes such as the soundtrack to the original “Super Mario Bros.” can be catchy, but few would call that beeping, robotic sound party music. However, George Brower, fourth-year Design | Media Arts student, has used those same types of tones to create mixes that are not only danceable, but have downright attitude.
Brower works with longtime friend Jonathan Baken to create songs out of a slew of different samples and effects. The duo, who go by George & Jonathan, began by compiling mixed CDs of their friends’ favorite songs for car trips, but the project quickly escalated into something more technologically oriented.
“People of our generation have grown up with more of the low-tech sounds that we incorporate into our music, and it’s almost becoming the folk art of our generation,” Brower said. “Electronic sounds are becoming really pervasive, if you think about auto-tune and what’s going on with party rap right now … a lot of that is being incorporated and appropriated.”
Brower and Baken aren’t the first to turn video game themes into something more musical. Groups such as Video Games Live arrange theme songs for symphony performances. George & Jonathan, however, don’t specifically transcribe melodies from specific games; they create their own.
To write their songs, Brower and Baken start out by creating chord progressions on either guitar or piano. They transfer that progression to the program they use to mix the songs, and then add in other voices.
“It’s very labor intensive,” Brower said. “For any arpeggio or any detailed sound, you have to draw every little note that goes up and down ““ there’s really no automation in it whatsoever. So it’s kind of like a handicraft almost.”
With all the complicated runs of notes in their songs, it ends up being the directness of the tones used that gives the music the old-school video game vibe.
“We like to work with simple WAV forms, really simple samples that are just a triangle or a saw-tooth. Something that sounds minimal … to the point where it’s a lot of minimalism,” Brower said referring to an audio file format. “It’s maximal minimalism.”
To give their songs attitude, Brower and Baken give each of their samples a name, and with that name, a specific persona. The duo even writes for a sort of imaginary band, whose characters push their messages along.
“There’s this sassy cutie behind all our music. She’s always there, wagging her finger and telling you you’re not doing it right, that you’re not good enough,” Baken said. “That’s just the attitude of this fake band we created. She’s the frontwoman, wagging her finger.”
The finger-wagging reprimand was embodied at Brower’s first live performance as openers for the undergraduate design gallery on Jan. 14.
For the show, Brower used his laptop and acted as a video jockey while two dancers performed as character representations for each song.
“The other dancer and I, right away when we heard the songs, we knew what to do,” said Libbey Genaro, one of the show’s dancers. “We had one song called “˜Here Comes the Babies,’ where we were just spoiled brat girls, and then we had “˜Witches Brew’ where we were just kind of evil creatures. We just really went for it with playing all the characters. … By listening to them, it was so easy to improvise and throw your attitude in.”
Though George & Jonathan hadn’t really expected to do live shows, they are hoping to do more in the future along with their album release, which is scheduled to take place within the month. They expect their sound to hit the party scene.
“The synthetic sounds are really great for people who … have been drinking,” Baken said. “It’s very stimulating. It goes in one ear, and you can’t get it out the other one. It’s stuck there.”