Thoughts on video game music
 | This section may be too long and excessively detailed.(October 2023) |
Follin's methodology of music was that music is "basically an unconscious experience" that does not and should not "engage your intellect". [7] Rather, Follin believed game music was "more of a sort of atmospheric thing" [9] and had "always written music to be part of something else", intending for the video game (or other media the music is composed for) to provide the image or scene of context. [7]
Within his personal experience, Follin always found the hardest part of creating music to be the concept phase, saying "I probably tear my hair out more over arrangement than over anything else." The easiest part was the execution of the solidified concepts. [2]
Follin felt the idea of computer music was "a silly one to begin with", as soundchips from the earliest platforms (e.g. ZX Spectrum) were only meant to produce sound effects. [17] As early as 1994, Follin expressed his desire to move away from scoring video games and transition to films, stating that he preferred never to work with chip-generated music again along with his hopes that the games industry would not move backwards from the emerging standard of CD audio. [17] Whether dealing with the audio limitations of older consoles or a game's narrow style guidelines when composing for modern soundtracks, Follin regarded the challenge of creating music within constraints to be an interesting part of working in video game music. [18]
During his game music career, Follin never had the mood or interest to join any demoscene groups. [1] Though Follin knew few fellow video game composers, he highly respected Richard Jacques for the amount of work put into his music. [19]
Influences
Follin cited progressive rock [2] [6] as well as many musicians (including Quincy Jones, Jethro Tull, [7] Led Zeppelin, and John Martyn [3] ) as having had some casual or subconscious influence on his music, and has also enjoyed music by Deep Purple and Guns N' Roses. [1] However, he did not feel that any specific artist or style had been a primary inspiration during his career. [3] Follin acknowledged that in one instance he went for a more contemporary style when scoring the award-winning soundtrack [2] to Bionic Commando, actively choosing to mimic other people's music for fear of potentially losing his job. [3]
The soundtrack to Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future may have been influenced by the works of American minimalist composer John Adams, whom Follin explicitly acknowledged as a current influence during the time he was completing the soundtrack, citing Adams' work as "the only minimalist stuff I've heard which struck a chord with me." [2]
Follin did not have much time to listen to the work of his musical contemporaries while in the video games industry, a situation he implied as having been a benefit to his career. Follin speculated that in actively listening to those works, he likely ran the risk of encountering ideas he had not thought of and subsequently becoming discouraged and/or prone to copycatting. [2]
Personal view of work
Particularly in the earlier days of his career, Follin often composed game soundtracks while the games themselves were still in the writing stages, meaning that there was usually no frame of reference or genre objective in mind. Follin himself humorously felt these situations created many instances where the soundtrack was unsuited to the game, though at the time neither he nor any game developers had any issues. Given another chance, Follin said he would have given more effort toward making his earlier soundtracks better suited to the games, feeling that his failure to do so (despite the compositional quality) likely cost him future work. Back then, Follin instead focused on exploring the various consoles' audio limitations. [18] [6] The technical limitations of the most primitive video game system soundchips made Follin's primary goals to create original sounds as well as not allow the resulting music to sound poor. [17]
Follin also never had the interest to join a demoscene group, though, near the end of his time working with Commodore platforms, he claimed he enjoyed himself when he made music. [1] Outside of Ghouls'n Ghosts however, Follin later described his Commodore 64 work as nonsense that he was not particularly happy with. [3]
Follin noted Ghouls'n Ghosts on the Commodore 64 as his favourite work, [2] [6] though the game was a known entity, unlike many of Follin's early projects. Software Creations programmer Steve Ruddy, who created the music driver for the game (with design input from Follin) [20] [21] recalled Follin describing a wide array of imagery for the title theme. [20] For the Ghouls'n Ghosts soundtrack, Follin retained parts of Tamayo Kawamoto's original arcade soundtrack within most tracks, only to transition into his own ideas for other portions of those tracks. [6] Similar circumstances resulted in Follin's soundtrack for Bionic Commando. [1]
Follin has found it difficult to listen to works he created, feeling them outdated by the time they were completed. [21] Follin disliked working with the Atari ST [3] and the ZX Spectrum's AY chip, feeling the NES had more character. While not feeling very successful composing music for the Amiga, Follin enjoyed working on soundtracks for the SNES and Commodore 64. He described writing for the C64's SID chip as "playing an instrument in its own right", [7] appreciating the analogue sound it produced, despite having only three channels to work with. [2] [3] Follin also recalled the SNES's Spider-Man/X-Men: Arcade's Revenge being fun due to the inclusion of cheesy '70s guitar synths and brass synths. [6]
Despite not considering himself adept at any live instruments, and composing several soundtracks beyond the fifth generation of video game consoles using samples, Follin disliked sampled music. Instead, Follin strove to make his music sound as close to live instrumentation as possible. [7] His most notable work using sampled instruments was the soundtrack to Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future , an experience he enjoyed, but also felt frustrated with on account of "a lack of equipment and resources – such as a string orchestra and choir!" [10] Follin finds orchestral music inherently more human-sounding and listenable. [19]
Fandom
Several contemporaries of Follin's have cited him as an inspiration or top composer including Richard Jacques, [22] Jesper Kyd, [23] David Wise, [24] Frédéric Motte, [25] Markus Schneider, [26] Matt "Gasman" Westcott, [18] Ramiro "Extremer" Vaca, [27] graphic artist Haydn Dalton, [28] and programmer Dean Belfield. [29] Frequent Software Creations collaborator Steve Ruddy, who programmed music drivers used by Follin with Follin's design input, marvelled "I had no idea how he made it do what it did," and described his music as "astonishing". [30]
Regarding fan communities dedicated to arranging video game music, including his own, Follin remarked, "It's really good. A lot of the stuff, you just think 'Well, that's much better than what I would have done... could do now.'" [6] Follin is consistently mentioned as a favourite composer among European musicians within the Commodore arrangement scene.
Alongside the music of fellow video game music composer Rob Hubbard, Follin's musical work in games was spotlighted in listening stations of the worldwide Game On exhibition, organised by the Barbican Art Gallery. [31]
