Have you ever wondered how the soundtrack in your computer game was created?
Hagai Davidoff, a lecturer in the "Game Audio" course at BPM College, explains what it all means, and why it is important for every musician to know how to work with technology.
"The Technology Composer".
Hagai Davidoff
Photography:
Lior Alon
Fate wanted it and Hagai Davidoff, a musician with classical training, found himself among the well-known names in the country as a music creator for computer games.
Davidoff, 44, studied classical piano at the Jerusalem Academy of Music, switched to guitar and even experimented with metal.
Then he discovered through a friend the world of gaming and his need for soundtrack makers.
"Until then I thought of gaming as something I play, not as something I could also create content for," he says.
"It made me a switch and I discovered Schwala. I can also produce for this media that I love. It made me go into very serious research to see what tools are used, what is acceptable in the market and how to get my first jobs. What particularly fascinates me in this area is the combination of "Music for technology. Musicality should also be rich and varied, as well as software control and the technical understanding of the way things fit into a game. I am just as interested in technology as the music itself. 'The technological composer,' that's how I define myself."
From here he began to make his way in a world completely new to him.
"The first game I worked on was 'The Pixels', an educational game for learning math," he says.
"Now, in the Corona era, all the kids in the world sit and play on it. It's very popular and it's a great game. I came to the field with a lot of background in music, mastered software and did homework. I'm also a very neat person, and that's a very important part of the work, Thousands of files.I felt like a fish in water.
"Another cool project I did is called 'United Legends', a mobile game. It's a different kind of work, it spans two years because the demands for more music are constantly growing. You are constantly sent pieces of the game and asked to 'compose it for me'. You are asked to compose Arabic music pieces "Turkish, Korean and basically any genre, because it's a trans-Atlantic game that is played online from all over the world. It's the biggest and most interesting project I've done musically."
"The Pixels"
You also compose music for apps. What is the difference actually and how does it work?
"When we talk about an app, the intention is not necessarily for the game. I used to make sound effects for a stock market metrics app. There was also an app that educates a generation of cybercriminals, a kind of learning environment for hackers. In the car and it connects to the car's speakers in Bluetooth. Then you can choose the type of car you want. After you select, you drive your car and it makes you through the speakers Porsche sounds, say, and it really responds to deceleration and acceleration. Your car can sound like a truck, "Motorcycle or Maserati. Really delusional, people invent cool things."
His success in the field and the demand for more players in the genre, led him to create the Facebook "Game Audio Israel" community, which he runs and in which he answers questions for those who want to gain knowledge and learn the field.
In addition, about four years ago, he began lecturing and lecturing on the subject at BPM College (after years of teaching college use of Cubase software and virtual orchestration).
In the relatively new course, "Game Audio", he teaches a new generation of musicians to adapt to the world of computer games and applications, and learn to use tools and software, to find work and integration in one of the most sought after fields in Israel today for musicians in the technology world.
"Our course takes students from a state of zero understanding of the genre, musical jargon and other concepts," Davidoff explains, "and explains to them how to take their music and compose it in a way that is more appropriate for games. What sets music music apart is that it changes according to game decisions. If, for example, you enter the game of the hero's enemies, then you have to put more threatening music in the piece. This is adaptive music, it is not in film music. Here it varies from game to game depending on the player's decisions or the game's artificial intelligence. A HISTORICAL PERIOD. "
"United Legends"
Do you think it is important that every musician today knows how to work with technology as well?
"In a rough division - there are two types of musicians. There are those who dedicate themselves to musical instruments and control it terribly well. So-called instrumentalists. And there are musicians of a different kind, whose instrument is the computer and is more diverse than any of the acoustic instruments, because it requires more abilities "In a technological world, where the demands from a musician to produce high-end music are only rising and rising, it is impossible to miss the computer. Few people make a living just from their instruments, because on the computer you could provide a wider basket of services and find work more easily."
Do you see an increase in demand for your course in recent years?
"Certainly, it has a lot more students, because suddenly people realize that it has become a profession in itself and there is a job. Nowadays you see music concerts for games and huge conferences, everything has become more accessible, and our course also focuses on building a portfolio. It is important that you have a business card. "
A somewhat obvious question: Are you a gamer at all?
"There were always games in the background. I could not sit and play from morning to night, but in all my early years the computer was always there and so were the games. Then I left it for a few years, I started a family, children, my interests changed. I went back to it by moving "Working with this media and it's just fun. At least once a week I play with the kids, I think it's a wonderful thing - in the sane and right dose. Gamer is a bit of a big word for me."
