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Renowned for his unique and sometimes complex original scores for the multi-award-winning video games BioShock, BioShock 2, BioShock Infinite; the dramatic orchestral score for EA Games’ adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s epic poem, Dante’s Inferno; and his BAFTA-nominated scores for Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor and Middle-Earth: Shadow Of War, Garry Schyman has emerged as one of the industry’s foremost composers, receiving top honors for Best Original Score from the British Academy Of Film & Television and the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.
He was kind enough to chat with me for Composer Code, and he brought some serious value. We talked about mastering the orchestra, breaking into the video game music industry, and he imparted valuable lessons about the difference between film and game composition.
In our chat, we talked about:
- How he got started in games
- Channeling Bernard Hermann in Destroy All Humans
- Differences between film and games composition
- His composing process
- His tools; DAW of choice
- How his composition process includes him finding a “sonic environment” rather than necessarily starting with a distinct part
- Specific aleatoric techniques he used to achieve that unsettling feeling of dread in Bioshock games
- Why you should learn to handwrite music, a lesson from Picasso, and the value of knowing tradition first
- His influences and recent obsession with Gustav Mahler
- The power of deadlines to “inspire”
- An argument for self-care and getting a good night’s sleep
- Where to start if you want to learn the orchestra
- The advantages of composing old music with new tools
- What his son thinks of his dad’s video game career
- Advice to his younger self
- What Garry’s looking forward to
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