Musings: Four thoughts

On this game music project: The best thing about this blog is that I'm engaging with others in conversation about game music.  This project gives me a reason to talk with other great musicians about game music and their experience with it.  Otherwise, we don't necessarily discuss it because gaming isn't always a topic that comes up among friends.  Also, this has really taught me a lot about the gaming industry.  Learning all of these game music facts has reinforced for me similarities in the classical world that I know and see regularly in work-- what's the same and what's different across the field of music: pop music, academia, opera, musical theater, and classical music.  The ideas, topics, issues, etc are many of the same things, but the genre and music involved changes.  Lastly, this project has almost unexpectedly exposed me to a lot of music I didn't know before.  I'm learning about all different kinds of music: popular music, historical musical references, classical music, scientific information about sounds and sound waves, the workings of modern composers, the business of music, the interaction of music with technology and psychology, the interactive abilities of game music.  What an interesting project this is!  I can imagine game music as a way to organize study in a music school that would touch effectively in many marketable, current, relevant areas of music study.  Creating audio for a game is the perfect way to organize students across various disciplines with a common goal.  It's the kind of cross curriculum work everyone wants to create-- well, now's the time to do it!

On my next entry: I thought I'd have finished the Collins early PC history section of Chapter 2 by tonight, but now that I'm in the midst of listening/watching the games, there's more there than I thought.  Music texts should be presented as interactive reading with listening links available at touch.  Good quality audio and performances/recordings, too!  Visual aspects-- especially with game music texts, should be expected as well.  Making these Collins listening link lists is a cool project, reminding me of the best interactions between music, technology, and printed texts.  How often do music students actually listen to the examples listed in a text and get to know them?  Is music, ever more at the touch of our fingers, in danger of becoming merely words on a page?  In the words of Virginia Woolf, "perhaps, melodramatic."

What else I'm up to game audiowise: I've been watching some of the GAT tutorial videos.  Internet out here in the Berkshires is slow and spotty.  Not my favorite situation by any means.  With these videos downloaded, there's always something I can watch, even when the internet is down.  Seeing the way that audio and games are manipulated now is very powerful.  I've got an inherent fear of having to program and understand game mechanics because I only am aware of the early era where integration was very complicated and at the mercy of the programmer.  I'm learning now that middleware and the usability of software are making integrating audio into a game just another step to learn, not a mystic programming activity.  (My mother, who has more programming experience than I would say that programming isn't mystic-- but it seems so to me!)  Watching these tutorial videos is like seeing behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz... it makes me more hungry to explore the GAT program/text and integrate some audio in the fall.  Once I get my new UM computer with a Windows split, I'll be able to check that text out in more detail, although it seems it'll take quite a while to work through.  If I can finish it in a years time I'll be pleased.  My current reading is the new Collins book, which I'm enjoying thoroughly and looking forward to blogging about soon.

Just for fun: For the longest time, I've been wanting to make my cell ring be the Final Fantasy victory track.  I suppose it's an Advent Children nostalgia that was the beginning of it, but I'm finally working tonight on making a ringtone.  I think it's an important thing for me to experience.  Plus, although I hate phone sound effects and I always keep my phone on silent, the one exception is when Vince is out of town-- like now-- and then I keep it on in case he calls.  It's the perfect reminder for me to change the ring up to be more special, since it's generally him calling!  I think I'm going with the FF 6 victory.  I think out of the different end game sounds, it's the best for a ring tone.  I also like the original, 3, 4, and 9, but 9 ends too softly, 1 doesn't have enough variety, and 4 is too repetitive for me.  I want the looping section to sound more lively since it's the extension of the ring.  6 also has the opera scene.  Give them all a listen.  It's a repurposing, yes, but what game audio do you think would make the best ringtone?