Paperback edition will be released September 5, 2023!

 

Japanese musician and composer Nobuo Uematsu has built his career and reputation on his soundtracks to the enduring Final Fantasy video game series, which are notable for their remarkable cinematic feel. Today Uematsu is one of Japan’s most beloved living composers, credited with inspiring a new generation of classical music fans. This volume, the first book-length study of the music of Uematsu, takes a variety of different analytical approaches to his body of work. It offers readers interested in ludomusicology—the study of and research into video game music—a variety of ways with which to understand Uematsu’s compositional process and the role that video game music has in the overall gaming experience.

With contributions from scholars located in the USA and UK, this volume is the first collection dedicated to a single video game composer, examining the music of Nobuo Uematsu from a wide array of methodologies.

Table of Contents

  1. Foreword: Dear Friends (William Gibbons)

  2. Introduction (Richard Anatone)

  3. Dancing Mad: Music and the Apotheosis of Villainy in Final Fantasy (Jessica Kizzire)

  4. The Devil in the Detail: Analyzing Nobuo Uematsu’s “One-Winged Angel” from Final Fantasy VII (James S. Tate)

  5. Changing Times: The Diatonic Rhythms of Nobuo Uematsu’s Final Fantasy Battle Music (Ross Mitchell)

  6. Thus Spake Uematsu: Satirical Parody in the Opening Sequence to Final Fantasy VI (Richard Anatone)

  7. ‘That Tune Really Holds the Game Together’: Thematic Families in Final Fantasy IX (Sean Atkinson)

  8. A Link Between Worlds: The Construction of Nostalgia in Game Music and Final Fantasy IX (James L. Tate)

  9. Penultimate Fantasies: Compositional Precedents in Uematsu’s Early Work (Alan Elkins)

  10. Music and Narrative Experience in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (Stephen Tatlow)

  11. Music, Mediation, Memory: Theatrhythm Final Fantasy (Julianne Grasso)

  12. Feminine Themings: The Construction of Musical Gendering in the Final Fantasy Franchise (Thomas B. Yee)

  13. Uematsu’s Postgame: The Music of Final Fantasy in the Concert Hall (and Beyond) (Stefan Greenfield-Casas)

  14. Historical Narratology and the “Hymn of Fayth” in Final Fantasy X (Andrew S. Powell and Sam Dudley)