Nobuo Uematsu

Nobuo Uematsu (うえまつのぶお), born on March 21, 1959 in Kochi City, Kochi Prefecture, Japan, is a game music composer. He is a representative of DOGEARRECORDS, and SMILEPLEASE. He participated in the production of most of the tracks in the "Final Fantasy" series and is its core music producer.

Chinese name: Nobuo Uematsu

Foreign name: Nobuo Uematsu

Alias: Nobuo, Nobuo Master

Nationality: Japanese

Birthplace: Kochi City, Kochi Prefecture

Date of Birth: March 21, 1959

Occupation: Composer, arranger, music producer

Graduation institution: Kanagawa University, Department of Foreign Languages

Main achievements: Core music producer of the "Final Fantasy" series

Representative works: "FINALFANTASY", "EyesOnMe", "MelodiesofLife" 》

Instrumental responsibilities: DTM, keyboard, piano, synthesizer

Blood type: Type O

Gender: Male

Character experience

Born in a family of music lovers in Kochi City, Aichi Prefecture, he was already able to play the piano very skillfully at the age of 12. After being admitted to the Department of Physics at Kanagawa University, he devoted all his energy to music courses. After graduation, he specialized in Engaged in advertising music composition and other work, he joined SQURAE in the spring of Showa 61 at the invitation of Hironobu Sakaguchi. Since the birth of a game named "Final Fantasy" in 1987, this series has become the best-selling video game on all platforms in the history of the interactive entertainment industry (more than 100 million units sold worldwide) in the past 10 years. The ensuing popularity of game music has led this veteran musician to be named one of the 100 most influential music changers by Time Magazine's "Time100: The NextWave-Music" feature.

The friendship between Uematsu and Sakaguchi is legendary. In the early 1980s, a foreign musician moved across from Hironobu Sakaguchi's apartment. Ever since this young man with a mustache came, he would continue to make tinkling sounds of musical instruments every day. Fortunately, this person's performance Not wanting to lose his interest, Sakaguchi Hironobu and other senior officials left him alone. Through conversation, they learned that this Kansai man named Uematsu Nobuo made a living by composing music for some radio and television commercials. In the spring of 1986, Hironobu Sakaguchi was worrying about the music production of the multi-platform RPG game "Kingdom Knights" that he was carefully planning. In the budding era of electronic games, due to hardware limitations, only some simple sound effects could be displayed, so the early soundtrack work They are often replaced by developers who have some knowledge of music theory. Masters such as Shigeru Miyamoto and Yu Suzuki all performed outstandingly in this area in their early years. Sakaguchi Hironobu very much hoped that a professional music producer would compose the music for the big production "Knights of the Kingdom". Just when he was worried, waves of mellow keyboard music came from outside the window. An idea struck Sakaguchi and he came to Uematsu to talk to Uematsu about his worries. I hope he can try the challenge. Uematsu himself is also new to game music composition, so he immediately committed to it. In just a few days, Uematsu came to visit with a tape containing 16 audio tracks. Sakaguchi's initial impression felt that it was far from his expectations. After listening to the feedback, Uematsu left without saying a word. Early in the morning, Uematsu came excitedly again with the re-recorded music. This time Sakaguchi was 100% satisfied with his work. When he learned that his work was recognized, Uematsu smiled mischievously and told Sakaguchi: "Actually, I'm just It’s just a re-arrangement of the playing order of all the music.” Under Sakaguchi Hironobu’s invitation, Uematsu joined SQUARE that year and became a full-time game music producer. Later, he, Sakaguchi Hironobu and Amano Yoshitaka were known as the three creators of the “FF series”. Giant.

In 1998, SONYMUSIC was responsible for the publication and distribution of the single album "EYESONME", the theme song of "FFVIII", which sold more than 400,000 copies. At the same time, it won the Golden Disc Award issued by the 14th Japan Music Organization that year.

In February 2002, Uematsu released "The Black Mages", a rock remake of Final Fantasy battle music. Uematsu formed a band named The Black Mages and performed as a keyboardist himself. In April, a 2-day concert was held in Tokyo, Japan.

Uematsu's talents are not limited to video games. He once composed the theme song for the movie version of the anime "Ah! MyGodess". In 2004, Uematsu quit Square-Enix and founded SmilePlease Club. Singers who have collaborated with include Emiko Shiratori, NAKANORikki, Faye Wong, Angela Aki, etc.

Main Works

Movies

"Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" 2001

"FINALFANTASY7-ADVENTCHILDREN"

" FINALFANTASY7-ADVENTCHILDRENCOMPLETE》

Animation

"My Goddess - Theatrical Version" 2000 (theme song~TryToWish～キミにNecessaryなもの～lyrics by Ren Takayanagi and music by Nobuo Uematsu)

"Legend of the Leopard King" 2009 (the first animation music production)

Character evaluation

Although Uematsu did not come from a professional school, his innate musical talent It is admirable that the game music produced by him has become one of the important elements in the global recognition of this super masterpiece series of FF. He definitely lives up to his reputation as a master of game music. Magnificent scene music, wonderful themes, and character themes are the three major characteristics of Uematsu's music. Uematsu's music styles are varied, and every piece he composes is both unforgettable and quite complex. He is often compared to film composer John Williams. The music they write can simultaneously convey a grand epic feeling and an extremely personal experience. More than 24 CDs of Nobuo Uematsu's music are available for purchase in Japan. The famous composer even released an album of compositions composed entirely by himself. When many players think of Final Fantasy, the first thing that comes to mind is Nobuo Uematsu's fantasy-filled music.

I have fallen in love with music since elementary school and started composing music.

After graduating from Kanagawa University, he left home and opened a small shop in Hiyoshi to help people write songs, and also helped people write advertising songs.

Hironobu Sakaguchi was his neighbor at the time, and Sakaguchi was worrying about the music for FF1. One day, Sakaguchi joked to Nobuo Uematsu in the store, "Let's try it." Nobuo Uematsu made 6 songs in one go, but Sakaguchi said, "It's not possible at all." However, Nobuo Uematsu soon brought a new tape. Sakaguchi felt that he was very motivated and felt good after listening to it, so he introduced him to SQUARE. {Nobuo Uematsu later said that he just changed the order of the six songs. .

Nobuo Uematsu became the chief music producer of SQUARE. In order to produce better music, he often traveled to many countries and learned about various customs and customs to obtain creative inspiration. For example, he stayed in Hawaii when making FF9 In 2016, I went to Europe again

Since FF9, he has rarely participated in game music production. He began to work as a supervisor and was only responsible for theme songs and a few BGMs.

He believes that his best songs are FF6 and 7, because he was at the peak of his creation at that time and had constant inspiration.

My favorite musical instruments are guitar, piano and flute.