It just amuses me: composers with a recognizable style.

GuyInWhite

Most of my favorite video game composers have instantly recognizable styles. Jun Senoue likes strong, melodic guitar riffs. Grant Kirkhope has sort of a "bouncy" feel to most of his tracks. Koji Kondo has a lighthearted approach with very recognizable melodies. Yasunori Mitsuda has a rather strong tendency towards bells and chimes. Tim and Geoff Follin have a rather schizophrenic approach to melody, but have a strong tendency to push the sound chip to its limit in terms of sound quality.

Anyone else kind of notice these?

DYRE

I can honestly say I've never been able to recognize a video game composer from their music, and I can't imagine that I ever will be able to.  Or that I'll particularly want to.

SotiCoto

I've only ever bothered to know ONE game-music composer in my life..... and the guy known as CoLD SToRAGE is a pretty neat fella.

MillerCross

I can recognize guitar players by their sound. That's the closest I ever got. 

Wicked223

I think I can recognize certain hip-hop producers by their style, but they have to be rather distinct.

glennmagusharvey

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's pieces often have a distinctive trill at the end of major sections and movements.

Fryderyk Chopin's work often has semi-distinctive figuration and textural patterns.

Mitsumune Shinkichi's soundtracks have an emphasis on simple, charming melodies played in simple textures, such as piano solo or piano with flute.

MillerCross

I think I can recognize certain hip-hop producers by their style, but they have to be rather distinct.

Pretty much the same with guitar players. Except that guitar players also tend to have a preferred equipment as well. 

glennmagusharvey

Ritsuko Okazaki's songs tend to feature chromatically descending bass lines and/or circle-of-fifths progressions, in both her own independent work and her work in Melocure.

Koji Kondo enjoys simpler textures and melodies.  On contrast, Nobuo Uematsu enjoys simple melodies with complex textures, but usually features classical tonal harmony, and has a few melodic quirks.  On the other hand, Yasunori Mitsuda is less about melody and more about texture.  Michiru Yamane likes to feature complex but rhythmic figuration/accompaniment and mixing contemporary tonal harmony with classical tonal harmony.

Franz Liszt frequently has really great-sounding melodic ideas, but doesn't develop them smoothly--they just end up being rolled into the texture, or end up leading somewhere else.

SotiCoto

I can recognise metal bands by hearing a few seconds of a song I never knew they made..... but I thought this was about game music composers.

RedEyedAbyss

@glennmagusharvey: What do you think of Debussy and Ravel?

DonZabu

^^ That's downright supernatural.

MillerCross

Not really, no.

All Nines

"I can recognise metal bands by hearing a few seconds of a song I never knew they made..... but I thought this was about game music composers."

Me too. Well, it depends on the band. Bands like Mastodon, or Hunab Ku, or the Berzerker, or Protest the Hero, are easy to tell by commonalities that I can't quite phrase in theoretical terms, or equipment, or vocal style, etc., but most deathcore and brutal death metal is hard for me to tell apart.

@DonZabu: Oh, u.

DonZabu

On a different note: mods that add new music to Morrowind and Oblivion never measure up to the original soundtracks.

glennmagusharvey

@Abyss_Worm:

Debussy likes rich harmonies--7ths, 9ths, 11ths, 13ths, and even adding 4ths and 6ths.  But in doing this he tends to stay diatonic and mostly tonal.  He also likes the whole-tone scale.

Ravel is kinda like Debussy but more chromatic and less tonal.