A few weeks back we chanced across this awesome medley of classic Street Fighter themes put together by George Shaw and given an orchestral twist.

I was a huge fan of Street Fighter 2 as a kid. Not so much in the arcade, as I couldn’t pull off any moves on a joystick, but on Super Nintendo where I took the time to master all the moves, and could pull off a shoryuken in my sleep. I became so good that I didn’t have much of a challenge, as I could defeat all my friends pretty easily. Today would be a much different story, as getting on Xbox Live results in getting my butt kicked by kids half my age, on Street Fighter 4, but I still have warm, fuzzy memories of countless hours playing the original SF2 (Along with Champion, Turbo, and Super editions).

Fast forward about 20 years since I first started playing Street Fighter, I am now a professional composer, writing music for film, TV, and video games. After stumbling across a 20th anniversary documentary about Street fighter  I was inspired to take themes from my favorite characters, and orchestrate them, giving a fresh, new, and timeless update that could just as easily be heard in the concert hall.

I decided to do the main opening theme from the title screen, along with themes for my favorite characters: Guile, Chun Li, Ryu, and Ken. And interestingly after finishing this, I realized my favorite characters are Chinese, Japanese, and American, matching my own identity as a Taiwanese-Chinese-Japanese-American. Though during childhood, I just liked them for their moves. Even now, I primarily play with Ryu and Ken, I’m a fireball/dragon punch kind of fighter, perhaps because I’m too lazy to learn new moves.

Musically, for Guile, I decided to give him a very heroic and brassy feel with militaristic snare drum to match his military background. As someone of Taiwanese and Chinese descent, I was always bothered by the stereotypical sounds used in Chun Li’s theme. By slowing it down, reharmonizing, and introducing Chinese string instruments (guzheng and yanqin, thankfully I’ve spent time studying Chinese music and instrumets), I tried to show the grace and beauty of the character, while also reflecting an authentic sound to her Chinese background. With Ryu, I wanted to reflect his Japanese origins with taiko drums and other ethnic percussion. His counterpart Ken, is a brash, flashy, and arrogant character, so I went with an all out brass fanfare for his tune.

With the video portion, I recorded and shot video of myself playing clarinet (the rest of the “orchestra” was programmed digitally by me). Though watching me play clarinet would be a boring video, so I reached out to a friend of mine known as Gakattack on YouTube. He does incredible fight and stunt videos, so I knew this was right up his alley. As luck would have it, he was editing a new video called SUPER MOVES that had a lot of cool moves reminiscent of Street Fighter, and I was lucky to get his footage along with his SUREYOUCAN and STREET FIGHTER VS. MORTAL KOMBAT fan fight video to cut together a fun and exciting video.

Two other Capcom titles that were significant to me in my childhood, were Megaman and Ducktales, so subscribe and look forward to orchestrated medleys of those in the near future on my YouTube Channel: youtube.com/georgeshawmusic

Hear more of my original music at: georgeshawmusic.com