Music for Games, Films, and other Visuals

Last week the Berklee Learning Center hosted it’s annual networking event for the Boston/New England film community. This is an evening session that is held to bring together filmmakers and those people that do audio and music for film. It continues to grow each year! (and I see a few friends in the crowd here!)

Built as both a networking event and an expo, the participants meet each other and also learn what they each do. Filmmakers speak about making films and composers and engineers discuss creating sound for those films.

If you’d like to find out more and see additional pictures go to the official website!

learn network inspire

Those are the three words on the GDC pamphlets. Very simple words, but with so much meaning…

It is a lovely day in San Francisco today! Not because it is warm and sunny (it isn’t) but rather…. it is the first day of the Game Developers Conference! I had the chance to sit in on some great conversations about education and games offered as part of the 2 day summit on game education by the IGDA.

The morning sessions started with an impassioned plea to do it right. Our job as educators is not to train our students for a specific job when they leave our school, but rather to build a student’s knowledge base and their critical/independent thinking. In the music world you might think of it as teaching a musician how to approach sight reading as opposed to trying to teach the musician every single piece of music they might ever be called upon to play.

I love the GDC slogan. Learn, Network, Inspire. It is perfect in this day and age. We all can bear to learn more, of course, that means we have to look at exactly where we spend our time. None of us has the ability to learn everything about everything we are interested in. Susan Rogers, from McGill University, compares it to science. Back when Leonardo DaVinci was learning about science there was a small set of known truths. He really was able to master most of what was known at that time. Now things are different. Not only in science where researchers can spend a lifetime on the smallest of details, but also in music. I can’t, as someone who studies drums for instance, be a master of all styles. I can not master the playing styles of Vic Firth on timpani, Evelyn Glennie on percussion AND John Bonham on set. I must choose where to spend my time and energy.

Network. Some might think this is a hard sell for students, but in reality it might be the one thing that separates a great student from a great job. In every industry, networking is a part of the process. You can be the most talented “fill in your own blank here” but if no one knows about you it doesn’t matter. Networking is a part of the modern life. There are so many opportunities that come up through a network of professionals. Being a part of that network will help to put you in the right place at the right time.

Inspire. Great art has to come from somewhere. Great artists are inspired. The videogame industry is one of the few remaining places where great artists are rewarded when they are inspired. It is also a place where creative people inspire other creative people. Teamwork and collaboration are the foundation of great games. That very same teamwork and collaboration helps one artist inspire another.

A wonderful set of three words, meant for the modern world.

learn network inspire

We’re very fortunate at Berklee to have many successful industry professionals visit the campus. Today was one of those days when I was able to attend a wonderful presentation, this time by Grammy award winning producer Michael Powell and his current engineer Quentin Dennard.

Mr. Powell has had an incredibly diverse career, he started producing music in 1979, he has worked with (and continues to work with) great artists such as Aretha Franklin, Anita Baker, R. Kelly and more. The thing that was amazing about today’s presentation was that the conversation kept coming back to the music. Sitting in the studio, with a gaggle of music technology students asking questions, it could have very easily turned into a Pro Tools master class, but that didn’t happen! The conversation began and ended with the music. There was a lot of talk about production techniques, musical structure, and working with performers in the studio. These concepts haven’t changed that much from the days of analog consoles and today.

There are times that we get caught up in the next best piece of gear, or an anticipated upgrade to our favorite application, but in the end, none of it matters but the music. Something Mr. Powell said, early on, set up the rest of the conversation this morning. He talked about the fact that the music we are all creating today, if it is good, will still be listened to in 100 years. In 100 years our toolsets will be very different but the goal will still be the same, to create, capture and distribute great music!

As someone who teaches music technology and audio engineering I was heartened by Mr. Powell’s frankness and experience and also by Mr. Dennard’s many statements about using the tools you have to make a great record. When asked about a favorite mic for vocals he said he would use the best mic available and that it is his job to make it sound great. Now, that isn’t to say either of them were technophobes, quite contrary! Rather, they use the tools they have to fulfill their unique musical vision.

That is exactly what I try to convey to my students both on campus and online. Your goal should be to train yourself, be the best musician you can be, start listening, really listening, and learn your tools so well that they fall away. You don’t want to struggle inserting plugins and routing to busses, you want to intelligently and musically assess what your music needs and know how to get the sound you are looking for. You’ll be amazed what a freeing experience it is to be in a studio and just know how to accomplish a creative vision. It’s kind of like the first time you realize you actually can play that scale or sight-read a chart, because afterall, it IS all about the music!