《模拟人生4》配乐作曲家 Ilan Eshkeri 在英BBC古典音乐电台（3台）的《游戏之声》节目中一边播放游戏配乐一边谈论《模拟人生4》的乐曲创作历程
本帖最后由 c_major 于 2021-8-9 06:38 编辑以下录音（已附带字幕）来自于BBC Radio 3的Sound of Gaming节目，当地时间6月5日播出，节目标题为Relaxing Escapes。
主持人Louise Blain邀请了Ilan Eshkeri到演播室谈论《模拟人生4》配乐的创作历程，其中有一些很有意思的细节，例如在购物建造模式，切换目录切换建造/购物分类，就可以发现同一个背景配乐会有不同的强度、配器变化。
这里仅截取《模拟人生4》部分，忽略其他段落。若需收听完整节目请前往 BBC Radio 3 - Sound of Gaming, Relaxing Escapes
带字幕的片段：
https://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTE5MTIxODA4NA==.html
若无法观看，请点击《模拟人生4》配乐作曲家 Ilan Eshkeri 谈论《模拟人生4》的乐曲创作历程
以下为节目段落的转录文本（先英文，再中文）
Louise Blain:
Now it’s time for this week’s ‘cutscene’ and I promise not to break into fluence Simlish.
The Sims 4 is the latest game in the interactive doll’s house series that now spans 21 years
Here you create your own custom characters, build their houses, and micromanage every moment of their existence. Since its release, The Sims 4 has had multiple add-ons and expansions that mean there are perfectly created sims can have pets, become famous, go on holiday, and live in even more extravagant houses.
Better known for his soundtrack work on Layer Cake, Stardust, Kick-Ass, and other films, Ilan Eshkeri took on The Sims 4 as his first video game score.
I’ll let him explain.
Ilan Eshkeri:
The Sims was a complete surprise. I’d heard of The Sims but I’d never played it. It wasn’t really on my radar.
The head of music at EA (Electric Arts), Steve Schnur, had heard my work and was a fan of it. And so he had suggested me to the head of sound at Sims. And next thing you know they offered me a job.
Fell into my lap and realize what a huge thing I was getting involved in, or how much fun it would be, or how much I would grow to love it.
They wanted it to be an eclectic combination of a lots of different things. I think we described it a bit like when you walk into a room and there’s really well-chosen pieces of furniture but not necessarily from one period.
Just a beautiful classic bit of furniture from a different time period and lots of different ones and it’s all sits together in a beautiful way, but it works because each piece is beautiful, but by an actual fact they’re all different eclectic.
The way that I wanted to translate that music is to think about combining different kind of music that were very purely that style. So, when I was writing for the band elements, I think of it just as a band on its own; and when I was writing for the brass, I think of it as a brass band on its own; when I was writing the more classical elements, I would work on it separately as an orchestral thing. And then I would combine all those different ideas together, so like those random bits of furniture from different eras that come together just because they’re beautiful. I was doing the same thing with music and there were certain arrangements styles that I used for each thing.
That conceptual foundation I still use 7 ~ 8 years later still using exactly the same approach now.
The Sims is happy, but what’s really important I think is that the people playing it really care about the characters they’ve created. So if you just make happy jokey music all of the time, then somehow you’re undermining the reality of what the characters are feeling, and you don’t want to undermine the characters you want to imbue them with appropriate emotion.
But when you’re creating characters and you’re creating the places they live in, the music I think needs to, it needs to have a lightness and a fun, because that’s the general tone in the game. But it has to have genuine and sincere emotion, so that it helps the audience care about the characters that they’re creating.
And so, finding that balance can be a little challenging. But I always think that it’s good to push that as far as possible. I always try to make the music as emotional as I can.
Rather than using session guitarists when I’m trying to do the pop fun vibe for The Sims, I try to bring in friends of mine who are in bands. And so over the years, the music for The Sims is lettered with secret celebrity performances, most of these people are in record deals so they wouldn’t be allowed to do it which is why it remains a secret. But there are many many many really cool celebrity performances on The Sims soundtrack, they’re not least because so many people grew up playing it and love it, or their kids like playing it, so they’re really excited to be able to be a part of it.
I still really proud of the main theme. I’ve had to rewrite the main theme several times, so if you play the game, you’ll notice that once in a while the theme comes in a new version, and the melody really with stands those different versions and I never get bored of it.
It’s seems like the boring answer to say the main theme is the thing that I’m most proud of. But it is, because it’s really stood the test of time, it hasn’t become annoying, it hasn’t become too repetitive.
I can play with it and do different versions of it, and it really encapsulates the spirit of the whole game.
I actually like to share a secret about the main theme. I think of time has gone by. The theme has a lyric to it and that’s how I wrote it, it’s really simple but they say that with the main theme you should be able to sing the title of the thing that you’re creating the lyrics are The Sims, it’s just goes it’s The Sims, it’s The Sims, it’s The Sims, it’s The Sims.
Louise Blain:
Music from The Sims 4 by Ilan Eshkeri, my guest here on Sound of Gaming. Welcome to Sound of Gaming Ilan.
Ilan Eshkeri:
Thanks for having me
Louise Blain:
So I think the first thing I really want to talk about is to find that this episode is all about relaxing escapes and especially over lockdown a lot of people have played The Sims, a lot of people have escaped into Animal Crossing, and various games. And I know when I go into a game like The Sims, I feel like I’m in there for the long haul, I’m in for the night, I could end up for four hours in the creating sims in. When you’re composing, is that something you think about is how long people are going to be a part of the game and surrounded by the music?
Ilan Eshkeri:
That is very significant factor. You stand the risk of the music becoming very repetitive and very annoying if you’re going around it over and over again in the game. So the music has to have enough depth and interest, it doesn’t feel repetitive. And I think that the way that I achieved that is I tried to have a main theme but underneath it there’ll be counter melodies that’ll be interesting parts, interesting things moving about with it. Every bar of The Sims is rich, and then also of course the other thing that happens is depending on what you’re doing on the screen, you get different intensities in the music, you can be hearing something that quite paired down and simple, or you can be hearing something that that’s quite full that dimension adds a lot.
Louise Blain:
Is that something from your end of things or is that a dynamic sort of set up within the game for when it changes?
Ilan Eshkeri:
That’s dynamic within the game and I think it’s across all game aiming really. The music doesn’t just change in a linear sense, you know, across time it can also change an intensity depending on what you’re doing on the screen that makes for a much more immersive emotionally complex experience. On the Halloween expansion pack, I pushed that in the quite a strong direction like, you know, if you liking it to cooking, it was a very strong flavour and it was a bit of a departure from stuff that I done before at The Sims. There was a bit of a raised eyebrow, but we decided you know what, that we’re not gonna water this down, let’s just put it out there and see how it goes and the fans absolutely loved it.
Louise Blain:
Ilan Eshkeri, you’ve probably just convinced me and everyone listening to go back into the Realm of Magic pack in The Sims. We’ll change to your other game soundtrack now, Ghost of Tsushima.
中文翻译如下：
Louise Blain:
现在是时候聊一聊本周的“过场动画”，我保证不会乱用具有影响力的模拟语。
《模拟人生4》是互动型过家家房屋系列中的最新版游戏，目前已经跨越21年了。
在这里，你创建自己的自定义人物，为它们建房，然后微操管理它们存在的每时每刻。自从《模拟人生4》发布以来，该游戏已经有多种扩展和资料片，这意味着创建出来的完美的模拟人可以拥有宠物、变成名人、出去度假、住在更奢侈的房子中。
作曲家Ilan Eshkeri因他的电影配乐作品而为人所知，像《夹心蛋糕》《星尘》《海扁王》及其它电影的配乐。而《模拟人生4》则是他游戏配乐领域中的第一款游戏。
我让他来解说一下。
Ilan Eshkeri:
《模拟人生》完全是我的意料之外。当时我听说过《模拟人生》，但从未玩过。真的从未关注过这款游戏。
EA（艺电）的音乐主管Steve Schnur（史蒂夫·施努尔）听过我的作品，并且还是我作品的粉丝。于是他把我推荐给了《模拟人生》的声音主管。接下来就是你知道的，他们给了我一份工作。
就这样我顺理成章地接手了，然后意识到我所触及的是多么大的一件事啊，或者说这会有多有趣，又或者说我会怎样地越来越喜欢它。
他们希望这是个由许多不同事物所组成的兼收并蓄的组合。我想我们可以这样描述，这就有点像是，你走进一个房间时，里面有精心挑选的家具，但不一定来自于同一个时期。
就像是一些漂亮的经典家具，来自于不同的时间时期，各种不同的都有一些，然后以漂亮的方式摆放在一起。但这样做是可行的，因为每一个部分都是那么的漂亮，却又实实在在的风格各异。
我想翻译成音乐的方式是考虑结合不同类型的风格纯粹的音乐，所以当我为乐队元素作曲时，我就只考虑乐队；当我为铜管乐队作曲时，我就只考虑铜管乐队；当我为古典音乐化的部分作曲时，我就把它分开来单独地以管弦乐团的方式去处理。然后我会把所有这些不同的想法结合在一起，就像那些随机的来自不同时代的家具组合到一块的做法，只因它们都那么的漂亮。我也在音乐里做着同样的做法，对于每一个场景，不同的风格都会有确定的不同安排。
这个概念基础，在7、8年后的现在，我仍在一模一样地使用着。
《模拟人生》是快乐的，但我认为真正重要的是，玩这款游戏的玩家真的很关心他们创造的人物。所以，如果你总是只做快乐的、搞笑的音乐，那就会不经意地破坏游戏人物的实际感觉，你也不想把灌注了合适情感的角色给破坏掉吧。
但是，当你创建了人物然后给它们创造了生活居所，这个音乐我认为应当轻松有趣，因为这是游戏的普遍基调。但这音乐必须有真实和真诚的情感，以便帮助聆听者关心他们正在创造的人物。
因此，寻找平衡点可能会有一些挑战性。但我一直觉得，越是尽可能地推进就越好。我总是尽我所能地尝试使音乐尽可能情绪化。
我并不使用临时吉他乐手，每当我尝试给《模拟人生》创作流行乐的有趣氛围时，我反而会试下联系我那些乐队成员朋友。所以这么多年来《模拟人生》的音乐总是写有秘密名人演出的字样，这里大多数人都有唱片录音交易，因此他们不被允许做这样的事，这就是为什么音乐录音仍然是一个秘密。但《模拟人生》配乐演出确实有很多很多真的很酷的名人演出，不仅仅是因为这么多的人在长大成人的过程中玩着这款游戏、爱着这款游戏，又或者他们的孩子喜欢玩，所以对于能够成为游戏中的一部分，他们真的很兴奋。
我仍然为这个主题曲感到骄傲。我曾经不得不重写主题好几次，所以如果你玩游戏的话就会发现，有时候主题曲偶然会出现一个新版本，旋律听起来就有那么一点不同，我从来不会觉得无聊。
说主题曲是我最引以为豪的事情，似乎是个无聊的答案。但也确实是这样，因为它真的经受了时间的考验，主题曲并没有变得让人烦，也没有变得重复过头。
我可以演奏主题曲，然后写出不同的版本，它确实包含了整个游戏的精髓。
实际上我很乐意分享有关主题曲的一个秘密。毕竟，我想都已经过了那么久了。我是怎么写主题曲的呢，其实主题曲有一个歌词。歌词非常简单，但他们（制作组的人）说，对于主题曲，你正在创作的、能够唱出来的歌词，应当就是“模拟人生”这个标题，唱起来就像it's The Sims, it's The Sims, it's The Sims, it's The Sims.
【译者注：建议听一听录音，他直接唱了出来】
Louise Blain:
《模拟人生4》的配乐作曲家Ilan Eshkeri，我的嘉宾，今天来到《游戏之声》做客。欢迎来到《游戏之声》。
Ilan Eshkeri:
感谢款待
Louise Blain:
我想我最想聊的第一件事是，这一集讲的是都是放松、逃离，尤其是在封城期间，有很多人玩《模拟人生》，有很多人逃避现实进入《动物森友会系列》以及各种游戏。
我知道当我打开一个游戏，如《模拟人生》，我觉得我会在那里玩很长一段时间，我在里面过夜，我可以在创建模拟市民当中花上足足4个小时。
你在作曲时，你会不会想到，人们会在游戏中沉浸多久，会被音乐环绕多久？
Ilan Eshkeri:
这是非常显著的因素。要是在游戏中受到一次又一次重复的相同的音乐所包围，那么你这音乐就会有变得过度重复和非常烦人的风险。
因此，音乐必须有足够的深度和足够有趣，让人觉得音乐不会过分重复。
我认为，我的这个方式做到了，那就是我会试着弄一个主题曲，但在它之下会有反调旋律，这个反调旋律会有有趣的部分、有趣的东西随着主题曲前进。
《模拟人生》的每个小节段落都是丰富的，然后呢，当然了，其它的音乐变化会取决于你在屏幕上的操作，你会得到不同的音乐强度，你可以听到一些相当安静的、简单的组合，又或者你可以听到相当丰富的东西，乐器多了许多。
Louise Blain:
这是不是你预先设定好的，又或者是游戏里的设置好的动态设定以便在变化出现时使用？
Ilan Eshkeri:
这在游戏里是动态的，我认为对于整个游戏来说都是这样。音乐不只是在线性场景中变化，你也知道，随着时间的推移，它也可以改变强度，这取决于你在屏幕上做着的、更加身临其境的、情感复杂的体验的操作。
在万圣节扩展包当中，我推动了较为强烈的导向，如你所知，如果你喜欢让它做饭，那么它就有个非常强烈的味道，这跟我以前在《模拟人生》里面做的事情相比，是个有点背离的东西。
还有一些扬起的眉毛，但你知道吗，我们决定了不会把这淡化掉，我们就那样把它放在那里，然后看看事情会怎样发展，粉丝们绝对会喜欢的。
【译者注：如果仔细聆听的话就可以发现，例如打开购物建造模式，切换不同的目录、还有从建筑模式切换成购物模式，就可以发现同一个背景配乐会有不同的强度、配器变化】
Louise Blain:
Ilan Eshkeri，你刚刚基本上说服了我和各位听众，听着音乐回到《模拟人生：魔法世界》。
现在我们把话题转向你的其它游戏专辑，《对马岛之魂》。
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