Max: How does working with a game that has an established style, like Metroid, differ from a game that's brand new intellectual property?
Tommy: I actually like working with both. Last year, for example, I did Jaws, so I got to work with all the John Williams music. So it's already established, all of that... you don't have to come up with a theme, I just have to take this amazing theme that already exists and do it a bunch of different ways. To me that's fun, you know, that's cool. Another game I did last year was Pac-Man World, World Rally or whatever the hell it's called.
Max: (laughs)
Tommy: It was a racing game with Pacman, so I got to take all the Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Dig Dug, I took all those and I did a whole bunch of different styles with them. I did rock, blues, and friggin country, every sort of combination, and I think that's fun. It differs in that the creative onus isn't so on my shoulders, as much. Which is a nice place to be sometimes.
Max: When you do have to choose a theme for the game, is that something you have to really work hard at?
Tommy: Yeah. Yeah, that's the hardest thing about creating music, is coming up with that motif as we call them, that theme. Because everything else can follow that; once you come up with a strong theme you can then use that theme in different ways, come up with a slow version, a medium version, a fast version, an action version, and whatever. But coming up with what that initial theme is the toughest part about composing.
Max: I notice you did that a lot in Advent Rising, where the same motifs are definitely very visible throughout.
Tommy: Yeah, we actually had three motifs in Advent Rising, and all three of them are going to be playing here tonight. I put together a six-minute piece of music, and it's three segments, two minutes each using the three different themes. So, we had one for the humans, which was called the human theme. We had one for the Aurelians, which was the race that defends you and that you befriend, and that was the Aurelian theme; then we had the Seekers, which are the bad guys. So you know, we had our theme, our friend's theme, and the bad guy's theme. And so, whenever those things would occur, you'd hear the different themes. So if you're walking down a hallway and you start to hear the Seeker theme, even though you know there're no Seekers yet, you're like, "ooh shit, there's some Seekers coming up here." It's cool that I'm able to control that emotion of the player, before the graphics do.
Max: Usually if I have to write something sad, I'll listen to sad music to get me in the mood. How do you handle that?
Tommy: Same thing, yeah. If I'm trying to write a sad piece of music I'm listening to like Barber's Adagio for Strings, or some Beethoven's Requiem stuff, or whatever. So absolutely, I learn from the masters. When people say "Oh who'd you study under?" I'm like "Beethoven."
Both: (laughs)
Tommy: John Williams, you know, because that's who I listen to in order to get inspired. And I don't rip them off, I see what they do. I listen to Beethoven's 9th and listen to The Woodlands and how they're counter melody with the flyer, and how the cello's working with the violins, and it's just amazing. And I decipher that, and I figure it out on the keyboard and then I take what I've learned from that and use it in my own music. Not necessarily the same notes, but the style and the way that he uses music, it's unbelievable.
Max: Are there any moods or atmospheres that you find are easier to create than others?
Tommy: You know, creating sad music, because you mentioned sad music, is actually pretty easy. (laughs) Because it's like, slooow...
Max: Just throw in some violins.
Tommy: ...put some high violins in there, some long notes, and you can sit down and write a sad tune pretty easy. But coming up with the big, action-adventure main theme from a game? That might take you weeks.
Max: I've been listening to "Greater Lights", from Advent Rising, a lot recently the past few weeks. Is composing for a vocal track significantly different from composing for a non-vocal track?
Tommy: It is. But you know my background is being in bands, and my cousin is Stephen Tyler from Aerosmith; his real name is Stephen Tallarico. So my whole life I was always in rock bands growing up. I was used to creating songs that had vocals in them. I was very good friends and a big fan of Charlotte Martin, who sang that piece, so we sat down and wrote that song together, using one of the themes, and I loved that. I think it's great. You wouldn't want to have it through the whole game, but one song for the end of the credits, based on this theme you've created, I loved it and I loved working with Charlotte.
Max: Going in another direction now, what sort of tools do you usually use?
Tommy: Whenever you can use live instruments, that's the best, but we do a lot of combination of stuff too. Like in Advent Rising, where 80% of it was live while 20% of it was MIDI laid on top. Some of those big percussion things that were happening weren't live percussion but samples that we were using, so I like to do both. But tools, I'm a PC user, so I use Cakewalk and Sonar a lot for recording my actual MIDI tracks, and I use Vegas a lot, Sony... And Soundforge, to mess with sound design. Things like that.
Max: What are your thoughts on dynamic music, like they had in The Wind Waker?
Tommy: Interactive scores and dynamics in general are great. Getting something big, and then taking it away and getting soft, and big again... Again, mentioning Advent Rising, I do that a lot in that music, where it gets big and then it gets small and then big again, and you know it's really a tool that a lot of people I think forget about. But as far as interactive dynamically changing music goes, I think it's awesome. Koji Kondo, the writer of Mario and Zelda is one of the best at it. He's just amazing.
Max: Have you ever used that sort of technique?
Tommy: Oh yeah sure. The Unreal stuff, I did a lot in Unreal Tournament, Unreal 2. Advent Rising was like that as well, where we recorded the orchestra in a number of different ways; depending on how many enemies were on screen we would cross-fade into different elements of the music. Spiderman was like that. Spiderman was more like rock and techno-electronica style, so we would record the band, and then we would just have the drums, and just have the bass, and then just have the guitar, and we would bleed on different lines so depending on the intensity of the action, sometimes you'd only be hearing the drums and the bass and then we'd bring the guitar in, and then take it out during some songs.
Max: I'm actually really interested in the sound work that you do, not many people seem to talk about it. How do you go about creating the sound effects?
Tommy: Yeah, when we did Tony Hawk Pro Skater, that was me sitting on the skateboard and just recording it. In Metroid Prime I got an interesting story about sound design. Miyamoto actually came to me and he said... well, normally when we create a sound effect they'll do the art for a weapon, and then they say "Make a sound to this," to match it. But what Miyamoto did was come to me and say "Look, we want you to create a really cool sound effect, a really cool weapon sound, and then we'll make the art to whatever you create." That's just a little peek into the mind of the genius that is Miyamoto.
Max: Alright, I have one more question I would love for you to answer. There are tons of schools offering formal video game design and art education, but noticeably absent is formal video game music...
Tommy: Oh no, not true!
Max: Oh, really?
Tommy: Fullsail has a whole curriculum that we helped to create, and also Expressions New Media, in San Francisco. There is the non-profit organization that I started six years ago, called the Game Audio Network Guild, the website is audiogang.org. You go to audiogang.org, there're over twelve hundred professional video game composers and sound designers representing over twenty-five countries. And we have scholarship funds for students , over $20,000 in game audio scholarships that we give away. And yeah, we actually work with those people in order to create a curriculum to teach game audio.
Max: I guess you learn something every day. I had no idea.
Tommy: Well now you do!
Max: Well, thanks a lot, it was tons of fun interviewing you.
Tommy: Cool man. I can't wait for you to see the show tonight.
Tommy: I actually like working with both. Last year, for example, I did Jaws, so I got to work with all the John Williams music. So it's already established, all of that... you don't have to come up with a theme, I just have to take this amazing theme that already exists and do it a bunch of different ways. To me that's fun, you know, that's cool. Another game I did last year was Pac-Man World, World Rally or whatever the hell it's called.
Max: (laughs)
Tommy: It was a racing game with Pacman, so I got to take all the Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Dig Dug, I took all those and I did a whole bunch of different styles with them. I did rock, blues, and friggin country, every sort of combination, and I think that's fun. It differs in that the creative onus isn't so on my shoulders, as much. Which is a nice place to be sometimes.
Max: When you do have to choose a theme for the game, is that something you have to really work hard at?
Tommy: Yeah. Yeah, that's the hardest thing about creating music, is coming up with that motif as we call them, that theme. Because everything else can follow that; once you come up with a strong theme you can then use that theme in different ways, come up with a slow version, a medium version, a fast version, an action version, and whatever. But coming up with what that initial theme is the toughest part about composing.
Max: I notice you did that a lot in Advent Rising, where the same motifs are definitely very visible throughout.
Tommy: Yeah, we actually had three motifs in Advent Rising, and all three of them are going to be playing here tonight. I put together a six-minute piece of music, and it's three segments, two minutes each using the three different themes. So, we had one for the humans, which was called the human theme. We had one for the Aurelians, which was the race that defends you and that you befriend, and that was the Aurelian theme; then we had the Seekers, which are the bad guys. So you know, we had our theme, our friend's theme, and the bad guy's theme. And so, whenever those things would occur, you'd hear the different themes. So if you're walking down a hallway and you start to hear the Seeker theme, even though you know there're no Seekers yet, you're like, "ooh shit, there's some Seekers coming up here." It's cool that I'm able to control that emotion of the player, before the graphics do.
Max: Usually if I have to write something sad, I'll listen to sad music to get me in the mood. How do you handle that?
Tommy: Same thing, yeah. If I'm trying to write a sad piece of music I'm listening to like Barber's Adagio for Strings, or some Beethoven's Requiem stuff, or whatever. So absolutely, I learn from the masters. When people say "Oh who'd you study under?" I'm like "Beethoven."
Both: (laughs)
Tommy: John Williams, you know, because that's who I listen to in order to get inspired. And I don't rip them off, I see what they do. I listen to Beethoven's 9th and listen to The Woodlands and how they're counter melody with the flyer, and how the cello's working with the violins, and it's just amazing. And I decipher that, and I figure it out on the keyboard and then I take what I've learned from that and use it in my own music. Not necessarily the same notes, but the style and the way that he uses music, it's unbelievable.
Max: Are there any moods or atmospheres that you find are easier to create than others?
Tommy: You know, creating sad music, because you mentioned sad music, is actually pretty easy. (laughs) Because it's like, slooow...
Max: Just throw in some violins.
Tommy: ...put some high violins in there, some long notes, and you can sit down and write a sad tune pretty easy. But coming up with the big, action-adventure main theme from a game? That might take you weeks.
Max: I've been listening to "Greater Lights", from Advent Rising, a lot recently the past few weeks. Is composing for a vocal track significantly different from composing for a non-vocal track?
Tommy: It is. But you know my background is being in bands, and my cousin is Stephen Tyler from Aerosmith; his real name is Stephen Tallarico. So my whole life I was always in rock bands growing up. I was used to creating songs that had vocals in them. I was very good friends and a big fan of Charlotte Martin, who sang that piece, so we sat down and wrote that song together, using one of the themes, and I loved that. I think it's great. You wouldn't want to have it through the whole game, but one song for the end of the credits, based on this theme you've created, I loved it and I loved working with Charlotte.
Max: Going in another direction now, what sort of tools do you usually use?
Tommy: Whenever you can use live instruments, that's the best, but we do a lot of combination of stuff too. Like in Advent Rising, where 80% of it was live while 20% of it was MIDI laid on top. Some of those big percussion things that were happening weren't live percussion but samples that we were using, so I like to do both. But tools, I'm a PC user, so I use Cakewalk and Sonar a lot for recording my actual MIDI tracks, and I use Vegas a lot, Sony... And Soundforge, to mess with sound design. Things like that.
Max: What are your thoughts on dynamic music, like they had in The Wind Waker?
Tommy: Interactive scores and dynamics in general are great. Getting something big, and then taking it away and getting soft, and big again... Again, mentioning Advent Rising, I do that a lot in that music, where it gets big and then it gets small and then big again, and you know it's really a tool that a lot of people I think forget about. But as far as interactive dynamically changing music goes, I think it's awesome. Koji Kondo, the writer of Mario and Zelda is one of the best at it. He's just amazing.
Max: Have you ever used that sort of technique?
Tommy: Oh yeah sure. The Unreal stuff, I did a lot in Unreal Tournament, Unreal 2. Advent Rising was like that as well, where we recorded the orchestra in a number of different ways; depending on how many enemies were on screen we would cross-fade into different elements of the music. Spiderman was like that. Spiderman was more like rock and techno-electronica style, so we would record the band, and then we would just have the drums, and just have the bass, and then just have the guitar, and we would bleed on different lines so depending on the intensity of the action, sometimes you'd only be hearing the drums and the bass and then we'd bring the guitar in, and then take it out during some songs.
Max: I'm actually really interested in the sound work that you do, not many people seem to talk about it. How do you go about creating the sound effects?
Tommy: Yeah, when we did Tony Hawk Pro Skater, that was me sitting on the skateboard and just recording it. In Metroid Prime I got an interesting story about sound design. Miyamoto actually came to me and he said... well, normally when we create a sound effect they'll do the art for a weapon, and then they say "Make a sound to this," to match it. But what Miyamoto did was come to me and say "Look, we want you to create a really cool sound effect, a really cool weapon sound, and then we'll make the art to whatever you create." That's just a little peek into the mind of the genius that is Miyamoto.
Max: Alright, I have one more question I would love for you to answer. There are tons of schools offering formal video game design and art education, but noticeably absent is formal video game music...
Tommy: Oh no, not true!
Max: Oh, really?
Tommy: Fullsail has a whole curriculum that we helped to create, and also Expressions New Media, in San Francisco. There is the non-profit organization that I started six years ago, called the Game Audio Network Guild, the website is audiogang.org. You go to audiogang.org, there're over twelve hundred professional video game composers and sound designers representing over twenty-five countries. And we have scholarship funds for students , over $20,000 in game audio scholarships that we give away. And yeah, we actually work with those people in order to create a curriculum to teach game audio.
Max: I guess you learn something every day. I had no idea.
Tommy: Well now you do!
Max: Well, thanks a lot, it was tons of fun interviewing you.
Tommy: Cool man. I can't wait for you to see the show tonight.