A Short Biography

Nobuo Uematsu--How can you even begin to describe him? He is a video game music genius--Period. Nobuo Uematsu is the most respected name in video game music. His musical talent is like no other and second to none. Final Fantasy is just one of the many games he has written music for. He has also worked with other great video game music composers like Yasunori Mitsuda to write music for games like Chrono Trigger and Gun Hazard.

Nobuo Uematsu was born in Kouchi City, Japan on March 21, 1959. He started to play music at the age of 12. He started playing the piano first. A little after high school, NU played the keyboard in amateur bands. In 1985 a friend of NU was working at Square part time and asked him if he wanted to write music for a video game that was being made. He accepted and in 1986 he started his career with Square and began writing and composing the music we have grown to love.

Nobuo Uematsu currently lives in Japan and enjoys collecting musical instruments and listening to and playing Irish music.



 
A Musical Genius

Nobuo Uematsu has come a long way since he first started composing music for Final Fantasy. His skill has evolved with each soundtrack he produces. Through his career with FF, Uematsu has experimented with a variety of musical styles from around the world. From Celtic to Spanish, from hip-hop to jazz. Final Fantasy has not only been a job to him, but a learning experience as well. Having a taste of so much of the world's different types of music refreshes the mind and enables you to be able to create any type of music.

Nobuo has also had the pleasure of working with incredible vocalists like Risa Ohki and Faye Wong. His most recent work, FFX, has opened up new boundaries by introducing new musical thoughts from two new composers. All of this just adds to Uematsu's experience and empowers him to create incredibly moving music, that at times can be funny, sad, serious, tense, or joyful. Not many composers have the genius that Uematsu has inside of him. Most composers marry themselves to one specific type of music or one general area. What really impresses me the most is that Uematsu was able to ascend to such a high stature with relative ease. He is a self-taught musician. That in itself is remarkable.

Its not easy to sit down and just create music. For Nobuo it is. He just keeps getting better. His musical creativity has no limits.  

Creating music is the work of a composer. Creating music and being able to do it so well is the work of a musical genius.