Star Citizen Live: Behind the Music

In my mind, speaking about ArcCorp, I think the Goliath is the planet and David is each one of the people in there that's living their own lives. It's like the feeling you have when you see it from above, you can feel the whole thing. But when you get down there and then you see, Jesus, it's so impressive, the scale. And it really sells how little you are. I mean, it also relates to what we feel when we live our lives over here. But in there, it's even bigger. Of course, it's fantasy.

Let me tell you something. For example, when I started out composing a long time ago, basically everyone told me that if you are in Portugal, you'll never be able to do anything meaningful because that's how things go. But I kept just doing my thing and working hard. And eventually, I think I was able to show people that actually you can live in a small country and also do something meaningful, just as well as if you're in a big country. It doesn't matter about the country itself, but it's a bit like even you as a player feel that, as a player, and more importantly as a backer, you feel that you're not too important, but it's not true, everyone is important as well. And ArcCorp is like, I mean, when I first heard that ArcCorp would be a planet fully constructed, I felt like that would be impossible, that would never look good. I really thought that, and when I saw it, it just blew my mind, to be honest, it's impressive. The music is also about all the developers and everyone that worked on this, on the sound and the audio and the 3D and the creative design, I mean there are so many artists working here, and they worked really hard to make this a reality and we are able to experience it. So I had to do something more meaningful than usual. So that's why I also sang in it, as I think it was the least I could do. That's what I thought.

You were just talking a little bit about it with the old Commodore Amiga games.

Oh, in that regard. Well, for games, I was really, really into... I started with the Spectrum, then I changed to Commodore 64, which I liked a lot. But then when I was on the Amiga, I think that was the most influence, that really influenced me. One of the things I really enjoyed about the Commodore Amiga is the fact that at some point I got a cover disc from a magazine which was called Amiga Format and it came with OctaMED Pro, which was a tracker, and that's when I started writing music with that. I remember I enjoyed a lot doing music in that. My father heard my first track only because he passed away a bit after; he had cancer. But he heard my first track on OctaMED Pro and he enjoyed it. He loved video games, by the way. Sometimes I imagine how he would react if he saw what I'm doing now. Also, one of the games he enjoyed was Wing Commander from Chris Roberts.

He was always a very caring father, had his things, but with me, with kids, he was very protective and he really loved everyone. But it's curious because he loved music, he loved classical music, so there's no doubt that being exposed to very well selected music that he used to play was important. I think it was very important to me. Of course, after that, I didn't come up and say, hey, I want to be a video game composer, or just a film composer or something like that. It's great, but I wanted to learn music. So I went to classical. So I think everyone should, at least for a bit, try to learn and write music by hand. For example, before the show I was searching, I don't know if you can see this, but this is one of the exercises for Bach chorales. It's a very great exercise to exercise harmony and it's important because far too often, with today's technology, it's far too easy to make something sound cool, but sounding cool doesn't mean it sounds meaningful. And I think it's great when you make it also sound meaningful and also have a nice and correct harmony that makes everything just sound polished. I think that's important, so it's something I try to do in everything I write. And I think learning properly, at least for a bit, can make a difference, especially if you enjoy writing for orchestra. Of course, there are other routes that can be used, and they are all very good, but I feel it doesn't hurt if you can nowadays.

No, actually, that's completely true. Again, my father, he really enjoyed a lot of movies, Hollywood movies, 80s movies, I don't know, Back to the Future, Gremlins, Star Trek, not too much, but Star Wars, of course, he loves Star Wars, and I as well. The Last Starfighter. I'm taking a little time to say, because I was used to the titles in Portuguese, and I was kind of, okay, what's the name in English. Nowadays I always see the titles in English first, but back then, I mean, Home Alone, movies that I loved. Oh, I don't know the translation in Portuguese, but Splash, the mermaid.

Oh yeah, I'm hearing a lot of Alan Silvestri and John Williams here.

Also another thing from VHS. One of the coolest things about VHS is that we didn't have a lot of stuff. Nowadays we can see everything and we never see anything properly. Back then we had these VHS tapes and we saw the movies over and over and over, I did at least, and you really become attached to every single detail and every single moment, how the music comes in, how it comes out. And each experience is different because with time, the tape starts to fade away, the quality.

So first, the track was supposed to be a Fly Me to the Moon kind of thing, but then we couldn't. So what I did, I had to recreate something that sounded like a bossa nova, naturally like a standard. But the lyrics were done by Mike Inchela. And it was really fun. But it was a not very easy process. Another thing is the music not only had to sound like a natural bossa nova song, it also had to sync with the visuals. So that was hard because when there was an explosion, the music had to make a break and the lyrics had to go with it. And when it comes to the moment with the open shot through the city, the music had to go down and feel relaxed. It still sounds like a song that was pre-made, but it was made after, for the picture, so very challenging. Not easy at all.

I will narrow it down. I really like Palestrina. Palestrina is from Italy, a composer from the Renaissance. So before harmony was invented, we have to keep in mind that harmony was invented or created or stabilized by Bach. And of course Bach stabilized harmony. So it's important when you go to school to understand that people want to be able to teach harmony. It's like an interpretation that Bach did of the Renaissance that is so good, it works so well that it became like a rule. So I think I would pick Palestrina first and then Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach. I think that was pretty genius what he did. More recently I would pick Stravinsky, for sure. Also, I really love Wagner, he's great as well. I mean, there are plenty. Each one has their own personality and their tastes. But I would say it's also very good if you go to the sources. There are some people there that are really amazing: Ligeti is incredible, Penderecki as well. Of course, in modern times and the film era, I would say John Williams is probably one of my favorites, together with Hans Zimmer. I mean, they're side by side to me.

Really?

Of course, yeah. I think they completely changed the film industry in their own time. I think those are the best influences. Anyway, that's what I feel.