Michiru Yamane facts for kids

Michiru Yamane (山根ミチル, born September 23, 1963) is a Japanese video game composer and pianist. She is famous for creating music for video games. Her music mixes different styles like baroque, classical, and rock. She gets ideas from composers like Johann Sebastian Bach and the band Yellow Magic Orchestra.

Michiru Yamane is best known for working at the gaming company Konami for 20 years. Her music for the Castlevania game series is some of her most popular work. She became interested in music when she was young. She learned to play the electric organ and piano. After studying music in college, she started working at Konami in 1988. She was part of the Konami Kukeiha Club, a team of musicians. Her amazing work on Castlevania games like Bloodlines (1994) and Symphony of the Night (1997) made her well-known.

Michiru Yamane's Early Life and Learning

Michiru Yamane was born in Kagawa Prefecture, Japan, on September 23, 1963. She started learning the electric organ when she was about four years old. She played on her family's Yamaha Electone. Soon after, she also began learning the piano.

Yamane enjoyed playing popular rock music on the organ. But she became very interested in classical music through her piano lessons. She started writing her own music around age eight. By her teenage years, she knew she wanted to write songs for movies or commercials. She also thought about becoming a jazz pianist.

She went to a music high school that focused on advanced piano. There, she studied things like how music moves and how different parts of music fit together. She also learned music theory. Around this time, she started playing video games at arcades. She decided not to become a concert pianist. Instead, she went to the Aichi Prefectural University of the Arts. She focused on their composition courses, where she learned to write music for big orchestras. Her main project in college was about the German composer Johann Sebastian Bach. She also kept playing games on a friend's Famicom.

Michiru Yamane's Career in Music

Working at Konami

Michiru Yamane started working for Konami in 1988. This was just before her fourth year of college. She had a teaching license and was teaching part-time. However, she felt that job wasn't right for her. She found an opening at Konami through her college and was hired. She had never planned to be a game composer, but she loved both games and music.

At Konami, Yamane joined the Konami Kukeiha Club. This was the company's sound team. She was worried she would have to do difficult computer programming for music. But at first, she was only a composer. Later, she learned how to use computer programs to create music.

Yamane's first projects at Konami were the main songs for King's Valley II and Risa no Yōsei Densetsu (1988). She also worked on the Track and Field games. For these, she composed short victory jingles. After that, she worked on many games for Game Boy, Famicom, MSX, and arcades. Many of her first projects were shoot 'em up games. These included the Nemesis series and Detana!! TwinBee. She said the way sound worked in shooter games was like Disney animated films. Yamane felt these games helped her learn the "Konami sound" and build her skills.

At first, she found it hard to work with only three sound channels on the Famicom. This was because she was used to writing for orchestras. But she learned to enjoy the challenge. She found inspiration in Bach's "Inventions and Sinfonias". These pieces also used only two or three notes at a time.

Yamane's first job as the main composer was for Ganbare Goemon 2 (1989). With this game, she learned how to change sounds from older sound programmers. She is listed as a composer for Contra: Hard Corps. However, she doesn't remember writing music for it. She thinks she might have helped with a few pieces. This is because the sound team was very busy with many projects. She also worked on Rocket Knight Adventures (1993) and its two sequels. She wrote music for Sparkster and made sound effects for Sparkster: Rocket Knight Adventures 2. Akira Yamaoka joined Konami around this time and worked with Yamane on the latter game.

Working on Castlevania Games

Yamane is most famous for her work on the Castlevania game series. After moving to Konami's Tokyo office, her boss thought she would be a good fit for the next Castlevania game. This game was Castlevania: Bloodlines (1994). The series was already popular and known for great music. So, she felt pressure to do well. She was asked to write music based on themes from earlier games. Yamane felt there was a connection between the game's vampire themes and the classical music she loved. She worked to mix her classical style with the rock themes already in the series. For Mega Drive games, Yamane had to program the music into the game herself. GamesRadar+ called Bloodlines her first "breakthrough" game soundtrack.

Michiru Yamane worked closely with Koji Igarashi, who produced many Castlevania games.

The next game in the series was Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (1997). It was made for the PlayStation. The art director, Osamu Kasai, asked Yamane to join the team. This system used CD-ROMs, which meant much better music and sound quality. Yamane felt more creative freedom. She was no longer limited to older sound chips and could use real sounds. For Symphony of the Night, she got a lot of ideas from the concept art by Ayami Kojima. She used special equipment like an Akai sampler and computer programs like Logic Pro and Pro Tools to record music. This soundtrack was the first time she tried putting rock music in a game. It is still one of her most popular soundtracks. Besides the music, she also made all the sound effects because there weren't enough staff members.

Yamane stayed very involved with Koji Igarashi and the Castlevania team after Symphony of the Night. She reviewed artwork and story ideas for future games. She worked on Lament of Innocence (2003) and Curse of Darkness (2005). These games had challenging music to compose. She also wrote music for the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS games. These handheld systems had sound limits like older consoles. She listened to more types of music to get new ideas. This helped keep her music fresh and not repetitive. On Portrait of Ruin (2006), she worked with Yuzo Koshiro. The last Castlevania music she wrote was for Order of Ecclesia (2008). She worked on this game with Yasuhiro Ichihashi. She says her favorite scores were for Aria of Sorrow (2003), Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia.

While working on Castlevania, Yamane also composed for other games. She helped with Suikoden III (2002) and Suikoden IV (2004). She followed the work of Miki Higashino from the first two games. After Sota Fujimori joined Konami in 1998, Yamane worked with him. They made music for Gungage (1999) and Elder Gate (2000). She mixed her classical style with his modern electronic music. She also worked on the Winning Eleven series and The Sword of Etheria (2005).

Becoming a Freelance Composer

After writing music for over 40 games at Konami, Yamane left the company in 2008. She decided to become a freelance composer. This means she works for herself. She made this choice after getting a pet cat. She wanted to slow down her career and work from home. She also wanted more freedom to choose her projects and manage her own time.

Since becoming freelance, Yamane has continued to compose for video games. She also writes music for films, commercials, television, and anime. She has thought about making her own music album. Games she has composed for include Otomedius Excellent (2011) and Skullgirls (2012). Even though she doesn't work directly for Konami anymore, she still helps with Castlevania music. She has also composed for Koji Igarashi's game, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.

Yamane sometimes performs in live concerts. Her first live performance was a song from Symphony of the Night. This was at the Symphonic Game Music Concert in Leipzig in 2006. She wrote music for a Castlevania music collection. She also played live at Castlevania: The Concert in Stockholm in 2010. In 2015, she played with other Japanese composers at the Game Sound Maniax concert in China.

Michiru Yamane's Musical Style and Influences

Game Developer magazine described Yamane's music as "old, gothic, Victorian style." Yamane feels she became interested in dark classical music from studying Bach in college. She has also been inspired by other famous composers. These include Mozart, Beethoven, Ravel, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, and Chopin.

In high school, Yamane listened to bands like Kraftwerk, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). YMO is a big influence for many Japanese game composers. She also gets ideas from and enjoys listening to Dream Theater. She has said she finds inspiration in many types of music. These include techno pop, progressive rock, film scores, folk, jazz, rock, bossa nova, and contemporary classical music. She enjoys film scores by composers like Jerry Goldsmith. When she was younger, she liked American pop artists such as Barry Manilow, Burt Bacharach, Eric Carmen, The Doobie Brothers, and The Eagles.

Yamane has also said she enjoys music from other game composers. She especially likes Nobuo Uematsu, Hitoshi Sakimoto, Yoko Kanno, and Motoi Sakuraba. She also explained that the games Tomb Raider and its sequel changed how she thought about sound design.

Michiru Yamane's Works

Yamane created music for over 40 games while at Konami. As a member of the Konami Kukeiha Club, she often worked with other composers, music arrangers, and sound programmers.

See also

In Spanish: Michiru Yamane para niños