Musikaliska uttryck och funktioner i interaktiva v rldar - C64.com

TC: Yeah.
BD: Yeah, right. OK, games you can look at and you can say 'This is very bad graphics, this
is very good graphics, the gameplay is very slow' - you can't really take any piece of music,
no matter how bad it is - even Barry Leitch's - and say this is A bad piece of music.
RH: A lot of things are to do with games as well though. I mean, you can make some
educated guesses as to how things have been done and you realise some things are tecnhically
very difficult to do. Some things that you do go over people's heads. What do you do? Do
you do a game which is going to appeal to the bog standard kid who goes with his bloody
mother into Smiths and buys a game once a month, or should you try and stretch out and do
something more creative and risk going miles over peoples' heads. I've done somethin' I
thought was really bloody good, musically, y'know, and you haaven't [sic] liked it, and other
people haven't liked it.
GP: And then you do a piece that you're not too keen on and we like it.
BD: Yeah. If you do something that sounds the same as everything else, something nice and
funky and trendy, and everybody likes it.
GP: It's a subjective thing.
RH: I get a bit pissed off, 'cos the new ZZAP! always comes out miles before it does in
bloody Newcastle, the back of beyond. And I get all these f'kin' kids ringing us up: 'Do you
know what ZZAP! have just said about you?' - 'No?' (laughter)
RH: I'm used to it now. It doesn't bother us if ZZAP! havae [sic] just said 'Oh aye'. People
stilll get in touch with me and say 'Have you heard the bloody Demon demos? Have you
heard what David Whittaker's doin'?', and I say 'I think its great'. 'Have you heard the WE
MUSIC stuff?' y'know, and I'll say 'I think it's great'. As far as I'm concerned, as long as
there are some other people doing some decent music it's better for the punters - it's better for
everybody. 'One thing that is really frustrating for us music programmers, is like, you spend
maybe two or three weeks doin' somethin' which is really involved for a game, and the actual
shelf life of a game in the shop is like, two months. After that it's more or less forgotten.
BD: But that's the industry.
GL: How do you program your music then?
RH: Ev'rybody thinks I get a DX7 and plug it in the back and I play on a DX7 and then it's in
there and that's it. I don't use any utilities at all.
TC (sardonically): Do you use a 64? (laughter)
RH: Oh aye, I do use a 64. I use an assembler and a disk drive and that's it. I've got a
keyboard which I work out musical ideas on, and I sort of, like, bung it in and fiddle around
for two hours, and then see what it's like. ¨
GP: Kenny, er, Benjamin - BENN...?
BD: Exactly the same way. I've just got this little Technic's keyboard which I just sort of, you
know - right, this chord sequence sounds nice, right, OK, so I'll stick this bass line in and play
the bass line on the computer while I'm going 'dubaduba dum, dubaduba dum, dum dum, dum
dum, dubaguba dum dum dum...' - right, that sounds OK, stick that one in. Right, what do
you do with the middle voice - right, just play it a fifth and a third below the first voice. No
fancy equipment.
DW: Well this is it...
BD: I mean, the classic thing they always say when they're trying to teach you composing in a
music college, and all this, is 'Oh, no, you shouldn't compose on a piano, you should hear it in
your head'. I mean it is right, you CAN work out ideas on a keyboard - it's easier to hear. But
it all comes down to whether you can hear it and whether you know in advance that it's going
to sound alright. Obviously you are going to play around with it a hell of a lot once you've
got it in there, but you've got to know it first.
DW: Well I take the radical view. I use an assembler and a disk drive. (laughter)
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