CT: The "so what" answer is that G.A.N.G. helps accelerate advances in game audio – creatively, technically, and financially - which in turn puts a more competitive product in the marketplace. For the high end game audio professional, G.A.N.G. honors their outstanding achievements, offers invaluable networking between software and hardware developers, and encourages initiatives that give back to the industry and to the rising generation. For the lone sound designer working at Small Start-up Inc. in Montana or Alabama, or the college student trying to break in, G.A.N.G. offers education and a sense of community, which really helps those guys feel plugged into the industry as a whole.

CT: May I offer three suggestions? 1) To start with, please keep in mind that great game music is still mostly about great music. All the tech chops in the world won’t do a bit of good if no one likes your stuff. For that matter, neither will yesterday’s resume, fancy awards, college degrees, or whatever. The price of admission is making phenomenal music that leaves people’s jaws hanging open, their hearts pounding, and everyone on the team screaming, "Get me that guy!" So, begin by working on your composing, arranging, engineering and producing chops. 2) Now that you’ve blown everyone away with your music skills, do you know how to build a music design that adapts to game play? Do you know how to get your music into a game? Now you’re going to need those tech chops we put on hold a moment earlier. The best recent resource I’ve seen for this is Brian Schmitz’ article on the top 10 things every game audio aspirant needs to know in the March 2004 issue of Game Developer magazine. He really sums it up succinctly, and industry hopefuls would be well advised to put his recommendations into practice. 3) Go and make friends with people in the business. Join G.A.N.G. Be active on relevant message boards. Be at industry events like GDC. This is an amazing business filled with people of tremendous heart, intelligence, and creativity. And remember that people hire people. Get out and meet them!

CT: Audiogang.org has message boards and forums filled with current and practical discussions on equipment, implementation issues, contracts, etc. Game Developer magazine has a useful monthly column dedicated to game audio. Gamasutra.com hosts an entire section devoted to game audio. There are even college courses and specialized training academies now that offer education in this area. I try to live by the adage, "Get as much education as possible". All of these avenues can offer increased education in our field.

CT: This is a great story, worth telling time and again. Shortly after recording the landmark live orchestral score for Quest for Glory V, I met a very high ranking NARAS executive at a party in San Francisco. I asked him if there was any possibility of competing for a Grammy with game music. He twisted up his face, looked down his nose at me, and said, "You mean like Pac Man, Donkey Kong, and stuff like that?" I said, "No, I mean like live orchestra, layers of voices, classical guitar, stuff like that." So that’s where it all started. And yes, we did meet with some opposition along the way, but we also found powerful forward-thinking allies in Leslie Ann Jones, NARAS’ National Chairperson, and Diane Theriot, Vice President of Awards. With their support, I formed a committee with some of the other top audio guys in gaming at the time, and over the course of two and a half years was ultimately successful in getting game music eligible for a Grammy in three new categories – Best Song, Best Instrumental Composition, and Best Soundtrack.

CT: I’ll bet we’ll pass a half million downloads of my main themes for the Lord of the Rings game series by the end of April. Hey, that’s like a gold record! I think I’ll print up a golden disk and hang it on my wall! In spite of this success, game music in general has only obtained market share in bits and pieces. Certainly being connected to Lord of the Rings didn’t hurt my situation, but that doesn’t explain why game music from other similar high profile titles never finds an audience. For that matter, the excellent work done by Brad Spear, who composed the beautiful, rich score for The Fellowship of the Ring game, never found this kind of audience, nor has the recent award-winning soundtrack from The Hobbit. So it’s more than just an attractive franchise and a cool soundtrack. It’s a formula I’ve been working on since my early days as Senior Music Director at Sierra Online. Let’s call it the game music version of 11 secret herbs and spices.

CT: From everywhere possible. Conversations with designers and programmers, game art plastered all over my walls, researching source material, all the great music I’ve ever studied in my life, visualizing game play, meditation, and even prayer.

CT: My favorite part of the process is where I try out various imagined scores in my mind. Using my imagination and formal musical training, I experiment with various themes, rhythms, and orchestration approaches mentally before I ever sit down at a keyboard or computer to start banging out parts.

CT: Marketing - friend or foe…. Yes, there is something to that, isn’t there? I’ve managed to enjoy symbiotic relationships with the many marketing folks I’ve worked with over the years. But then, I’m kind of a marketing guy myself. I was initially a marketing major in college and didn’t switch to music until later. In fact, my first job in the business was Marketing Director for a recording studio. So you could say that I speak their language, or rather, their ‘market-speak’.

CT: You want to know what’s funny about this? It was one of my game soundtracks that landed me the film gig! And you’re right, being part of The ChubbChubbs Oscar-winning team was like a dream come true. Definitely one for the career highlight reel. There used to be lots of differences between scoring for games and scoring for films, many of which were related to delivery technology and budgets. But at the heart of the matter, and this is still true today, is the difference between a music design for an interactive game and a cue list for a linear film. An effective music design is basically a matrix that organizes how to effectively hand off between various tracks in a way that still makes musical sense and dramatic sense, based on game play decisions that are in the hands of the player. And most importantly, the game composer has to write music in vertical layers which will actually work in such a matrix.

CT: 1) Work hard and smart. 2) Live clean and prayerfully. 3) Marry well.

CT: She won the regional contest by correctly spelling words like ‘silhouette’, ‘diva’, and ‘lacrosse’. Now she’s heading to Washington D.C. to compete in the national finals. We’re all pretty amazed by her accomplishments. She owns an unabridged dictionary, for crying out loud. She likes to test (torment) her father. She’ll say, "OK Dad, spell ‘churrigueresque’." When I sit there with a blank stare, she’ll follow with something like, "Well if you can’t spell that one, how about something easy like ‘zeitgeist"?" My personal spelling prowess basically begins and ends in SpellCheck.

Thank you for the interview. I really enjoy your column and appreciate the thought that went into these questions.

Editor's Note: To listen to some of Chance's music visit www.HUGEsound.com