Koji Kondo was born in Osaka, Japan.
He has loved music ever since he was a child, he would always hum tunes and compose short, yet powerful melodies which really got stuck in one's mind!
When he turned 17 he decided that it was time to give music a go as a professional career, naturally since it was his biggest passion!
So he studied music mostly in his own spare time, while taking a part-time job. Then one day he saw an ad in a newspaper that a company called Nintendo was seeking music composers to create music for their games.
Koji Kondo gave it some thought, and decided to give it a try.
Hitherto, composing music to video games wasn't exactly what he had in mind, but soon enough he became very attached to it.
Although the only problem he really had was that when he started to compose music for famicom 8-bit games.
The sound card technology limited him to three instrumentals (melody, harmony, and percussion). Although Nintendo technicians managed to exploit the fourth channel which was primarily reserved for sound FX.
But as the years passed, Koji Kondo stayed with Nintendo.
The sound technology improved vastly and now standard cd-quality sound are the basic fundamentals.
Kondo is at heart a classical music composer with influential elements of Jazz and whatnot. His greatest Idol as a child was the music composer for "the Pink Panther". The thing that makes Kondo one of our times greatest composers, is that he is one of the very few composers in this world who manages to make simple yet powerful melodies that one can always listen to and remember as it gets stuck in ones mind.
he following titles are games he has composed the music for:
Super Mario Bros (1985)
Soccer (1985)
Kung Fu (1985)
Family BASIC (1985)
The Legend of Zelda (1986)
Nazo no Murasamejoh (1986)
Ice Hockey (1988)
The Legend of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1988)
Super Mario USA (Super Mario Bros. 2) (1988)
Super Mario Bros 3 (1988)
Super Mario World (1990)
PilotWings (1990)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1991)
Super Mario Kart (with Soyo Oka and Taro Bando) (1992)
Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (1993)
StarFox (with Hajime Wakai) (1993)
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (1995)
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (with Nobuo Uematsu and Yoko Shimomura) (1996)
Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble (1996)
Super Mario 64 (1996)
Mario Kart 64 (1996)
StarFox 64 (Lylat Wars) (with Hajime Wakai) (1997)
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)
Super Smash Bros (with several others) (1999)
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (2000)
Mario Tennis (2000)
Wave Race: Bluestorm (2001)
Star Fox Adventures (2002)
Super Mario Sunshine (2002)
Super Smash Bros. Melee (with several others) (2002)
Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (2003)
He has loved music ever since he was a child, he would always hum tunes and compose short, yet powerful melodies which really got stuck in one's mind!
When he turned 17 he decided that it was time to give music a go as a professional career, naturally since it was his biggest passion!
So he studied music mostly in his own spare time, while taking a part-time job. Then one day he saw an ad in a newspaper that a company called Nintendo was seeking music composers to create music for their games.
Koji Kondo gave it some thought, and decided to give it a try.
Hitherto, composing music to video games wasn't exactly what he had in mind, but soon enough he became very attached to it.
Although the only problem he really had was that when he started to compose music for famicom 8-bit games.
The sound card technology limited him to three instrumentals (melody, harmony, and percussion). Although Nintendo technicians managed to exploit the fourth channel which was primarily reserved for sound FX.
But as the years passed, Koji Kondo stayed with Nintendo.
The sound technology improved vastly and now standard cd-quality sound are the basic fundamentals.
Kondo is at heart a classical music composer with influential elements of Jazz and whatnot. His greatest Idol as a child was the music composer for "the Pink Panther". The thing that makes Kondo one of our times greatest composers, is that he is one of the very few composers in this world who manages to make simple yet powerful melodies that one can always listen to and remember as it gets stuck in ones mind.
he following titles are games he has composed the music for:
Super Mario Bros (1985)
Soccer (1985)
Kung Fu (1985)
Family BASIC (1985)
The Legend of Zelda (1986)
Nazo no Murasamejoh (1986)
Ice Hockey (1988)
The Legend of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1988)
Super Mario USA (Super Mario Bros. 2) (1988)
Super Mario Bros 3 (1988)
Super Mario World (1990)
PilotWings (1990)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1991)
Super Mario Kart (with Soyo Oka and Taro Bando) (1992)
Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (1993)
StarFox (with Hajime Wakai) (1993)
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (1995)
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (with Nobuo Uematsu and Yoko Shimomura) (1996)
Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble (1996)
Super Mario 64 (1996)
Mario Kart 64 (1996)
StarFox 64 (Lylat Wars) (with Hajime Wakai) (1997)
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)
Super Smash Bros (with several others) (1999)
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (2000)
Mario Tennis (2000)
Wave Race: Bluestorm (2001)
Star Fox Adventures (2002)
Super Mario Sunshine (2002)
Super Smash Bros. Melee (with several others) (2002)
Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (2003)