Halo: A Reach Into The 8-Bit World of Music
Sitting in the dark with my face plastered inches from a TV, I popped open the lid to the Nintendo Entertainment System for the first time, and blew with the greatest delicacy into the dusty cartridge. Flipping the power I sat back with anticipation as that soon-to-be familiar Nintendo logo floated before me. However, the one aspect I remember most was the obnoxiously pixilated noise that arose from the speakers. The cheesy drum tracks and saxophone playing from Donkey Kong Country was my first glimpse into the world of video game music. It took me years after to finally appreciate the details and intricacies that go into video game music, and it was one particular song from the Halo franchise that sucked me into the 8-bit world.

“Never Forget” by Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori greeted me every time I played Halo3. It is so simple, yet so powerful; the combination of strings, piano, and vocals literally gives me goose bumps, and no other song has ever made me feel this before. But how? -after all, it was just a “stupid video game” as my mom so often reminded me, and “all it does is rot my brain.” There was no way something so wonderful could come from this game. Then I started listening, to every movie, every video game, and everything I never noticed before. Through this process I concluded that music is the most crucial part of all media projects. Imagine Titanic without “My Heart Will Go On”, Indiana Jones without the “Indiana Jones Theme”, or Star Wars without the “Darth Vader Theme.” Almost every movie would lose emotional control over its audience if the music was removed. Video games are no different.

In my sophomore year of high school I began creating my own video games. I loved it; after years of playing, I finally had the opportunity to make my own. I finished several games only to realize they were boring to play. But why? –I followed all the basic structural patterns for creating engaging games, but they still lacked something. When I discovered the problem was a lack of music it didn’t take me long to realize that music wasn’t difficult for me to create. After years of playing in Orchestra I found that I had a unique talent, and I began writing songs. They were small songs at first, most of which I trashed, but I eventually came up with songs that I could use in my games. Never before had I experienced such pride and joy from something I created. These were tunes I would stay up until the early hours of the morning working on, and I became so immersed that for periods of time nothing else mattered. Now, after about a year of writing music, I have discovered that I want to know how to create every aspect of a video game: textures, coding, and most of all music. And it’s all thanks to a song that I will Never Forget.