Hirokazu Tanaka
| Hirokazu Tanaka | |
|---|---|
| Native name | 田中 宏和 |
| Also known as |
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| Born |
December 13, 1957 Kyoto, Japan |
| Genres | |
| Occupation(s) |
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| Instruments | Keyboards |
| Years active | 1980–present |
| Associated acts |
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| Website | hirokazutanaka |
| Signature | |
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Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka (田中 宏和 Tanaka Hirokazu?, born December 13, 1957), sometimes credited as Chip Tanaka, is a Japanese musician, composer, sound designer, and executive best known for his musical scores in various video games produced by Nintendo, including Metroid, Kid Icarus, Super Mario Land, Tetris, Mother, Dr. Mario, and EarthBound.
Besides writing music, Tanaka is also known for his role in designing and coding the Famicom and Game Boy audio hardware, along with co-designing the NES Zapper, Game Boy Camera and Game Boy Printer.
Born to a schoolteacher mother who had Tanaka undergo piano lessons, Tanaka recounted that he first began paying serious attention to music while in elementary school, and attempted to form a band during that time. His first band was formed in middle school, a Beatles and Elton John cover group which sometimes performed gigs at his school. He has held a longstanding obsession with reggae music. In his teens, he was also in a reggae band, which was known variously by the names the Shampoos or Roots Rockers. For the music event "Reggae Sunsplash" held in Osaka, the Shampoos were an opening act for Sly and Robbie on more than one occasion. Tanaka did meet the duo during those times. On The Shampoos, Tanaka described it as an obscure local band which did gigs in Tokyo about once or twice a year, and that it was "never a formal thing".
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Wikipedia