Kumi Tanioka - Musical Style and Influences

Musical Style and Influences

Kumi Tanioka's signature style, especially for the Crystal Chronicles games, is that of "world music". She has described the musical style for the soundtrack to Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles as being based on "ancient instruments". The soundtrack has extensive use of many medieval and renaissance musical instruments like the recorder, the crumhorn and the lute, creating a distinctively rustic feel, and also follows the practices and styles of medieval music. She says the idea came to her while looking at illustrations of the game world, which gave her the idea of making "world music", where the tracks would "not limited to a single country or culture". For the soundtrack to Ring of Fates, Tanioka tried to focus on "creating a new landscape containing the same atmosphere". She returned to using instruments in an "ethnic manner" again in composing the soundtrack for Echoes of Time. The piano performances in the Ring of Fates soundtrack were done by Kumi Tanioka. She did the performances herself rather than use an outside performer as most Final Fantasy soundtracks have done primarily because she "likes to play piano", and they were done without any sheet music, as she preferred instead to improvise. She took extensive piano lessons as a child, and lists piano and choral music as the biggest influences on her musical style. She also claims to have been influenced by music from a wide variety of cultures, like Indonesian, Irish and Balinese music.