Sound Byte: Meet the Composer Behind BioShock - Garry Schyman

Like many other composers in the video game industry, Garry Schyman has an impressive background in television and film, but he had been working in the video game industry long before projects like BioShock and Dante's Inferno came along. Find out more in the interview below, and sample some of the tracks from the BioShock soundtrack for yourself! If you're in the Los Angeles area next Monday, May 9, there will be a concert performed at California State University Northridge that will feature Garry's works from BioShock, BioShock 2, and Dante's Inferno. Tickets are free, but they will run out quickly! For one lucky Sound Byte reader, we are reserving a couple of tickets for you, so follow gs_soundbyte for the full details.

Meet composer Garry Schyman.

GameSpot: Could you start off with telling us a bit about yourself and your musical background?

Garry Schyman: Born in Chicago, I grew up in Southern California. I graduated from University of Southern California with a degree in music composition. After graduating, I immediately sought work scoring films and television. One of my first assignments was scoring a religious television series for Lutheran TV. It was a half-hour melodrama and was a blast for me because I got to hire a live band (with the budget usually not more than 15 players) and hear my music performed. But truly I was thrilled to get paid to write music and receive royalties.

GS: What was the first instrument you picked up?

Garry Schyman: I started playing the drums when I was in elementary school but eventually lost interest when my mom rented a piano for my brother and I took it over. I loved the instrument, demanded lessons, and began practicing three hours a day!

GS: Is there an instrument you wish you knew how to play?

Garry Schyman: Well I love the string instruments, and I wish I could coax some beauty out of a violin or cello. But at least I get to write for great players and hear them perform my music. I am working with an amazing violist now--Andrew Duckles--who is working on my viola concerto "Zingaro." I love meeting with him and listening to him play the music while discussing my intentions.

GS: What is your fondest memory when it comes to music?

Garry Schyman: Well, it has happened many times, and it's that moment when I come up with something that I really love musically. So it's the part of my compositional process when the idea emerges and I really love what I have discovered. That is a very heady and exciting moment for me. Sometimes I have to get up out of my chair and dance a jig.

GS: How did you get into making music for video games?

Garry Schyman: Funny thing is, I was not seeking it. The opportunities just sort of presented themselves. The first opportunity was in the mid 1990s when a friend of mine was an exec at Philips Interactive. I ended up scoring a few games for him. Because they used their proprietary CDI technology (now defunct), it permitted me to deliver stereo files; therefore I produced one of the first orchestral scores ever for a video game--"Voyeur" in 1994.

Once Philips Interactive went out of business, I left the industry for a number of years as I was busy scoring films and television (a lot of movies for television in that period). Then in 2004 my agent at the time faxed my resume to THQ, and an executive there just happened to see it sitting on the fax machine--she was my girlfriend's roommate in college. It was a lucky fluke that ended up with me scoring Destroy All Humans, which led to all of my current work.

GS: How is it different than composing for film or TV? What do you like/dislike about composing for video games?

Garry Schyman: There are similarities and differences. The most important thing that they share is that music has an emotional impact upon the viewer. Some mystical magical thing happens when you combine visual images and music, and it has a powerful effect on people--essentially that's why composers like me are hired, to bring emotion and mood and magic to their production.

They differ in several respects--implementation being the most obvious. Basically, implementation of music with film was set about 80 years ago and has essentially not changed. The music is composed to locked picture (well not always locked, unfortunately) and is then mixed with the other sound elements and is never changed after that, whereas music for games has many implementation strategies, and new ones are constantly being invented. New technology is permitting the music to become more and more interactive. This affects, to some extent anyways, how the music is composed. Because the player's actions will differ from person to person, we try to make the music as interactive as possible to have the best effect on the player.

With film and television, you compose to picture, and this is quite challenging in its own way. But it also makes it easy on the composer as you have constant feedback as to whether your music is working or not. You also have the form for the music given to you by the action onscreen. With games, you do have in-game films to score, but 90 percent of your work is not done to locked picture of any kind. So depending on how far the developer has gotten on the project, you may or may not have much to go by when you compose other than a verbal or written description of what is happening when the music is playing. Also, you may be asked to write in layers so that different layers can be brought in when something the player does triggers a change in the game (perhaps combat has started etc.). In the best case, the developer will capture gameplay and send you a movie of the gameplay that is occurring when the particular cue you are writing is playing. But this is only a guide, as you are not catching anything with the music because the gameplay will rarely be precisely the same for any two players.