Production Values: Games People Play

Jan 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Larry the O

           
 

Game composer Tommy Tallarico tells all.

Photo: Jason Vaughn

In the world of video games, Tommy Tallarico might be the most visible of all music composers. Born and raised in Massachusetts, he started playing piano at age three but never had formal music training and does not read music. He grew up being inspired by the exploits of his cousin Steven Tallarico, better known as Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. When Tommy turned 21, he moved to California with nothing to his name and, within days, landed a job as a tester at Virgin Games. This opportunity quickly led to his scoring his first game, the early monster hit Prince of Persia (see the sidebar “Tommy Tallarico: Selected Credits” for a list of his major scoring activities).

In 1994 Tallarico left Virgin to found Tommy Tallarico Studios, and today he cohosts two TV shows on games: the Telly Award-winning Electric Playground and Reviews on the Run, both currently on G4techTV Canada. He also hosts the Video Games Live concerts he initiated with fellow game composer Jack Wall (see the sidebar “VGL: Coming Soon to an Entertainment Megaplex Near You”), oversees the Game Audio Network Guild (see Web Clip 1), and, oh yes, creates music and sound design for games. Tallarico has scored music and/or sound effects for hundreds of games, including Earthworm Jim, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, and Metroid Prime (on which he worked with Nintendo's iconic video-game designer Shigeru Miyamoto). In 2005 Tallarico produced a critically acclaimed orchestral and choral score for Advent Rising.

Tallarico is a flamboyant figure (he drives a yellow Ferrari), and he isn't shy about promoting his work and accomplishments. This has occasionally drawn fire from detractors who find him boastful. But his track record and actions reveal someone who is devoted to advancing the technology and status of game audio and the game-audio community as a whole, as well as his own fortunes within it. In addition to overseeing G.A.N.G., Tallarico is a governor of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and has worked with NARAS (along with many others in the game industry, including this author) to establish a Grammy Award for video-game music. He is an advisory board member of the Game Developers Conference and a nominating peer leader for the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences.

How does composing for interactive media differ from writing for linear media?

The thing that makes video-game composers and sound designers so different from film and television composers is that for the most part, film and TV music is called “underscore” because story and dialog is what drives film and television. Whereas with video games, action is what drives the whole experience, and it's up to the composer not to write background music for the dialog but to drive that action. We're in control more than composers in any other form of media.

Another difference from working with linear media is this: When John Williams sits down with George Lucas [to score a Star Wars movie], Lucas says, “At 45 seconds, Darth Vader is going to walk through the door, so the music has to do this when that happens. At 55 seconds, the Death Star blows up and the music has to do this.” Well, he now is confined by that linear medium. In contrast, a game designer will sit down with me and say, “Okay, here's the situation: There's a hundred guys on horseback, and they all have swords and are coming to kick your ass. Write me a 3-minute piece of music.” There are no barriers or limitations on me at that point. My mind can go crazy and think of writing an amazing piece of music for that emotion and that scenario.

Now, I'm writing that piece of music depending on how many guys are starting to come after me [in the game]. Let's say we're in a battle with 100 guys, then it's down to 50, then down to 10, then 2, then I clear them all out. As I'm writing that 3-minute, 100-guys battle music, I'm also thinking of it in terms of what it would sound like if there were only 10 guys left. So I'll take this exact same piece of music and maybe make it a lot lighter, or make the percussion less. Instead of doing 16th notes, maybe the violins are playing eighths and not playing as staccato. Maybe it's not a whole choir at that point, but one solo voice. I might come up with two or three different versions of this exact same piece of music, and we'll record each with a live orchestra and a live choir playing to a click track. I might record the same song four different ways.

Then I sit down with the programmer and say, “Look, start all of the same pieces playing at the same time. When there are only 10 guys, let's crossfade into the 10-guys version of that song.” And the game engine never misses a beat, because it's always in perfect time and knows exactly to the bit where each of those songs is playing. So when you crossfade, the music kind of comes down and the player doesn't even realize it, but it's different. And it's seamless. So that's what I've been doing a lot of lately: writing different music for different scenarios, but it's all the same piece of music written and recorded in different ways.

[In game engines, an audio file can play with zero volume, so that multiple files might be “playing” simultaneously, with the nonzero files being audible. Tallarico's scenario describes multiple files having identical structure and tempo playing simultaneously, so that all remain in sync. However, volume is under program control and can be changed dynamically by the game engine to allow different versions to be heard.]