At Brick’s home studio in Philipse Manor, New York
Wednesday, June 23, 2004—1-2 p.m.
Edited and Transcribed by Molly Sheridan
Videotaped by Randy Nordschow
| Last night I tried my hand at playing a video game for the first time in more than six years. Standing so far outside mainstream culture, I hadn’t fully appreciated the artistry that goes into creating the world these games inhabit—and by extension the long list of required writers, artists, and musicians who make the interactive production come alive. But I couldn’t help but want to take a closer look after talking to Andy Brick, a composers whose name regularly surfaces as one of the premiere American artists working in this field. A combination of factors let me to his studio door for a NewMusicBox chat. I had been reading that the gaming world was increasing in sophistication both artistically and financially, and that the music production was getting a piece of that pie large enough to hire composers and whole symphony orchestras. Gamers seemed unlikely to have conservative music tastes. Was this an untapped audience for the cutting-edge music currently created well under the radar of a mass audience? A compositional goldmine or a straightjacket? And could you actually make a living doing it? Of course, it turned out it was a little of all of that, but not quite in the ways I’d assumed… —MS |
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