IV: Leftovers

Here’s some stuff that I either left out in the last section, or couldn’t find a proper place in which to put it.

From Alexander Dobrinevski:

A good program to use is Microsoft's Direct Music Producer. It is free (Well, comes with the 128MB DirectX7 SDK, so you will have to pay the phone bill for downloading :-)), but has really a lot of great functionality. It can be used to write MIDI or WAV files - very good sound quality - using notation, you can use styles and patterns freely - just excellent. It also can write sound parts - that patterns, motifs and styles - in a format easy to read from you DirectX app.

From me:

I really reccomend learning how to play the piano if you want to get into this hobby. If you want to use a different instrument to play your music it's fine, but I'd say that the piano will give you the most experience you need to start composing.

Everybody please visit my friend's site, www.hktechno.com, it's got MP3s, rave pics, lots of stuff.

Oh yeah, and I've been working on a small game (not by myself, I've just been the producer and business guy for this one) called Galaxy Pirates (I'm not sure if that name's taken already, but oh well.) and it's probably going to be distributed by XTreme Games, buy it please, I'll repay you with a hug! (All you have to do is fly all the way over here to Hawaii and if you do find me, I'll give it.)

V: Conclusion

And there it is! The finale of my three part series! I’m really thinking about writing a part IV and V, where I can talk about advanced music notation, maybe even professional-level music notation. Also, I could talk about more styles of music and how to use them. (so if you want to learn how to write sad songs or fast songs, you’ll definetely know how. There’s a lot of stuff like that I wanted to fit in this article, but didn’t have enough room.) And maybe I could talk about how to program music into your game using DirectMusic and DirectSound. And still yet, I'm also thinking about writing about how to get started as a musician in the game industry. After all, I did say that I was going to make this the most complete guide any future game music composer could want! Just tell me you want to see it, and I just might do it, I'm crazy!!

Wow, it was fun writing this series. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, and I hope everybody, professionals and beginners alike, learned something from this series. I also enjoyed all the email you guys sent, the comments keep me going like a coffee!

I’ve taught you how to write music in my style. If you keep on writing music and spending long hours at the piano or at whatever instrument you use, then soon you will gradually develop your own style, and your music will have that unique touch that only you would be able to recreate. Email me just to say hi, or just to let me listen to one of your masterpieces, or to ask any questions. I’ll do my best to reply to every single one that I get. If I don’t respond, then I apologize in advance, but like I said, I’ll try my best to!

John Licato is the CEO of Pitech Games and can be reached at Pitech@hawaii.rr.com.