Go Shiina

Masaru Shiina (椎名豪, Shiina Masaru), better known as Go Shiina, is a Japanese video game composer employed at Namco Bandai Games. He is best known for creating the scores to Tales of Legendia, the Mr. Driller series, and God Eater.

Biography

Born in Yokohama, Japan, Masaru Shiina was taught how to play the electronic organ from his parents when he was growing up.^[1] Although he was not a dedicated musician before becoming a composer, he was at one time a member of a Megadeth cover band who also played J-pop music. Shiina enrolled at Dokkyo Junior High School. After being rejected by 46 companies, including a jewelry company, a finance company, and a fast food company, he was hired by Namco (now Namco Bandai Games); he had little prior experience with video games.^[2]

Creating music for old arcade releases using Namco's sound trackers felt more like computer programming than composing for Shiina, but he has said that the experience helped him out when he would have to use MIDI sounds in future games. The songs he composed for the first Mr. Driller were deemed unfitting for a puzzle game by some of the staff and they almost didn't make it into the final product.^[2]

Mr. Driller G's score was Go Shiina's first solo project. He was given extensive access to live instruments and an incredible amount of creative freedom; this soundtrack would set the stage for his later work. The scores for future games in the Mr. Driller series would also be composed exclusively by Shiina.

The critically acclaimed soundtrack of Tales of Legendia is perhaps his most well-known work. When he began writing songs for the game he tried to follow in the footsteps of the usual Tales series composer, Motoi Sakuraba, but after realizing that Legendia's imagery and story were different from the rest of the series he was inspired to develop his own style for the music.^[2]

Musical style and influences

Go Shiina's music is characterized by dramatic melodies and unusual arrangements. His soundtracks contain a wide range of musical styles, including jazz,^[3] orchestral, fusion, and rock, and he often mixes different genres and instruments together for unique sounds. Many of Shiina's songs use live string sections, slap bass, audio filter effects and artificial languages.

He has said that he can write music in any genre, as long as he is motivated, and has also stated that "when I write a song, the time it takes me depends on whether I know the singer's natural voice. The genre doesn't matter..." Shiina feels that there are two types of compositions: "some tracks can stand alone as musical pieces, and some only work when you hear them in the game," and he often alters or leaves out certain songs when putting together albums. When composing vocal or instrumental tracks he sings the parts out loud.^[2]

He enjoys listening to the works of Ayumi Hamasaki.^[2]

For the soundtrack to God Eater, Shiina explained that the creative nature of the story pushed him to be creative with the music as well. He looked around for a variety of instruments from many countries, and some of the styles and instruments featured in the score include Japanese traditional music, African rhythms, and the Indian sitar.^[1]

He has also done string arrangements for bands.^[4]

Discography

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Go Shiina.

• Go Shiina on Twitter (Japanese)