Music of The Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Series - Creation and Influence

Creation and Influence

Kumi Tanioka has described the musical style for the soundtrack to Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles as being based on "ancient instruments". She says that 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". She also credits Hidenori Iwasaki, the synthesizer operator for the game, with doing "fantastic technical work" that brought her vision to life. For the soundtrack to Ring of Fates, Tanioka purposefully did not focus on "world music", instead focusing on "creating a new landscape containing the same atmosphere". 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 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, such as Indonesian, Irish and Balinese music. She will not be composing the soundtrack for The Crystal Bearers; this role will be performed by Hidenori Iwasaki.

Tanioka has said that in composing the soundtrack for Echoes of Time she tried to "paint the world in a ethnic manner once again". She has said that she tried throughout the soundtracks of the first four Crystal Chronicles games to "maintain a common atmosphere between each installment, always introduce a new concept". With Echoes of Time Tanioka wanted to go back to the "tribal" concept of the original Crystal Chronicles. She has said in regards to the soundtrack that "instead of the traditional sound endemic to the specific areas, I wanted to use them as one flavor and blend many colors just like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles" and that many of the tracks she created would be "actually impossible to perform" in real life.