We hear music in our cars, while watching our favorite television shows, and even while standing in the elevator. Have you ever stopped to think what it would be like to play a video game without music? Playing a video game without music would be like watching a movie without a soundtrack. Hence, music composers are a very integral part of the video gaming process. One might wonder what inspires the work of a video game music composer. Well, wonder no more—I recently had the opportunity to interview a world renowned video game music composer, Eduardo Iglesia of Madrid, Spain.
Eduardo discovered his passion for video game music at the age of 16 when first playing Commodore Amiga. Eventually, he found himself using a tape recorder to record the music of theCommodore Amiga´s games. He began teaching himself music by listening to the music of various artists and trying to imitate composers such as John Williams with his “midi-files”. At the age of 18, he began attending music school with aspirations of someday being a great musician and composer, but he found that much of what he was seeking to learn couldn’t be obtained from “studying” music. When asked about the role music school played in his career, Eduardo explained, “my teachers were musicians….not teachers, and they didn´t know how to teach me the things I wanted to know. So, it was too hard for me to learn music. All the things I know about composition and orchestratión, I learned by myself”. Eduardo allowed his video games to inspire the creativity of his compositions, which he professes is something that simply cannot be taught.
A few years later, Eduardo became employed by Pyro studios, the very studio that created the game that introduced him to his passion for video game music composition at the age of 16—only, now, he would be composing music for the Commandos 2 and Commandos 3 series. He began in the production and Sound FX department, and then moved to the Arvirago Gamecraft company as Lead composer. He was also the Lead Sound Designer for video games The lord of the creatures, Gaelco (PcFútbol 2007), and SGA (The Shadow of Aten).
Eduardo now owns his own gaming company, Future World Games, and is developing his first game for iphone called The long Silence. He has a great team, including founding partner, Diego Gonzalez, to help ensure that his games are as hot as his music composition. Check out Eduardo’s fascinating music and upcoming projects at www.eduardodelaiglesia.com
For all the video-gamers out there, does the music accompaniment to your video games enhance your gaming experience? After polling all of my male co-workers, interestingly, none of them had ever stopped to give the music to their video games any thought…until now; they found it hard to imagine playing their favorite video games without the accompanying music.