Keiji Yamagishi
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Keiji Yamagishi is a Japanese composer, sound designer, and sound programmer. His love for music started around high school when he wrote something on the guitar. Because he was shy about sharing his work, nobody really got the chance to listen to his music. While he was attending college, he bought a four track multitrack recorder, which led him into creating demo tapes. Unfortunately, he didn't really have friends to share his work with and never ended up sending his work to record companies or entering them in contests since he originally intended to be a pilot. Yoshihito Kakihara, the founder of Tecmo found out about Keiji when he attended an informational session for the company. After he found out Keiji played in a band, he asked Keiji to compose music for his company's games and Keiji took the job. Keiji finds it funny since Yoshihito didn't even ask for a sample of his work and just hired him on the spot, since nowadays, game developers require skilled musicians. Keiji's first project was the NES version of Star Force, in which he had to arrange the music from the arcade game. The first game in which he actually composed his own music was Tsuppari Ozumo for the Famicom. He liked that his music would finally be listened to by others. While working for Tecmo, it was tough for Keiji to create music on the NES since he could not use MIDI files and instead had to program the music in 6502 assembly. He also programmed the sound driver at Tecmo. His most prominent work was for the first Ninja Gaiden game, in which he went by the name 'More Yamasan'. According to Keiji, this was a name he used while attending college. Around the development of Ninja Gaiden and Captain Tsubasa, he was requested to create digitized drum samples for the NES. Keiji started his work at Tecmo in 1987 and ended it in 1993 when he went to work for Koei.
Keiji no longer composes music for games, but he does still enjoy creating chiptunes and creates ringtones for mobile phones. He uses Logic to create his music and uses an EXS 24 for the instruments.
Music Composition
NES
Yamagishi designed his own audio driver which can be seen in the credits of the Japanese release of Tecmo World Wrestling (NES), which credits as an audio driver スーパー サウンド マシーン ２ごう (Super Sound Machine No. 2). This driver was written by Yamagishi and used for most of his NES games while he worked at Tecmo. Though, for Tsuppari Oozumou (FC), Yamagishi used a sound driver by Yoshiaki Inose.
According to Yamagishi, he programmed the driver at the behest of his boss.
Aliases
As per usual with game developers around that time, whenever a game Keiji worked on had credits, he was forced to use an alias. One of the aliases he used was K.Y. Jet. K.Y. are obviously his initials, and Keiji explained that the word Jet referred to the New York Jets football team, which he was a fan of. He was also credited as More Yamasan. It is unknown if More is supposed to be spoken in Japanese or English, but Yamasan is a shortening of his surname.
Gameography
| Released | Title | Sample | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1985-06-25 | Star Force (NES) (スターフォース) | Arrangement and sound effects | |
| 1986-04-02 | Tag Team Wrestling (NES) (タッグチームプロレスリング) | Composer? | |
| 1987-09-18 | Tsuppari Oozumou (FC) (つっぱり大相撲) | ||
| 1988-04-28 | Tecmo Cup: Soccer Game (NES) (キャプテン翼) | With Masatoshi Arai. | |
| 1988-12-09 | Ninja Gaiden (NES) (忍者龍剣伝) | ||
| 1989-01-?? | Tecmo Baseball (NES) | ||
| 1989-02-?? | Tecmo Bowl (NES) | |
|
| 1989-09-01 | Tecmo World Wrestling (NES) (激闘プロレス!! 闘魂伝説) | ||
| 1989-12-15 | Bad News Baseball (NES) (激闘！！スタジアム) | ||
| 1990-04-06 | Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos (NES) | Special Thanks / Sound Driver | |
| 1990-07-20 | Captain Tsubasa II: Super Striker (FC) (キャプテン翼Ⅱ スーパーストライカー) | ||
| 1991-06-21 | Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom (NES) (忍者龍剣伝Ⅲ 〜黄泉の方船〜) | Sound Driver | |
| 1991-07-19 | Kyatto Ninden Teyandee (FC) (キャッ党忍伝てやんでえ) | Sound Driver | |
| 1991-09-27 | Tecmo Bowl (GB) (テクモボウル) | ||
| 1991-11-15 | Radia Senki: Reimeihen (FC) (ラディア戦記 黎明篇) | ||
| 1991-12-13 | Tecmo Super Bowl (NES) (テクモスーパーボウル) | ||
| 1992-??-?? | Final Star Force (ARC) (ファイナルスターフォース) | ||
| 1992-07-17 | Captain Tsubasa III: Challenge of the Emperor (SFC) (キャプテン翼Ⅲ ―皇帝の挑戦―) | ||
| 1993-01-01 | Tecmo Super Bowl (GEN) (テクモスーパーボウル) | ||
| 1993-03-26 | Bumping Sumo: Successful Edition (SFC) (つっぱり大相撲 立身出世編) | ||
| 1993-11-26 | Tecmo Super Bowl (SNES) (テクモスーパーボウル) | ||
| 1998-09-23 | Destrega (PS1) | Sound Director | |
| 1999-03-12 | Monster * Race 2 (GBC) (もんすたあ★レース2) | ||
| 1999-09-23 | WinBack: Covert Operations (N64) | ||
| 2000-12-21 | WinBack: Covert Operations (PS2) | ||
| 2001-04-05 | Gitaroo Man (PS2) (ギタルマン) | Movie Soundtrack | |
| 2003-07-05 | Onimusha Tactics (GBA) (鬼武者タクティクス) | ||
| 2007-11-08 | Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles (PSP) (悪魔城ドラキュラ Xクロニクル) |
Picture Gallery
Keiji's Facebook.
March 8th, 2014 in Kyoto, Japan. Unknown source.
Twitter profile picture.
Links
- facebook.com/keiji.yamagishi.31 - Facebook.
- twitter.com/MoreYamasan - Twitter.
- koopa.tv/a-conversation-with-keiji-yamagishi - Interview.
- w.atwiki.jp/gamemusicbest100/pages/3160.html - Atwiki.jp (Japanese).
-
tecmobowlers.com/2016/02/09/a-chat-with-keiji-yamagishi-tecmos-music-man-pt-1 - Interview (offline).
