Composer Billy Martin adds memorable music to movies and games

by Louis Bedigian

Several talented people are responsible for composing the unforgettable music heard in video games.   Billy Martin is one of them.

Video games and music.  They go together like cones and ice cream.  Cookies and hot chocolate.  J-Lo and Ben Affleck.  (Well, scratch that last one.)  You could have one without the other, but why would you want to?

We’ve all found ourselves humming a tune from a classic game.  In some cases, we play the games just for the music.  Parasite Eve was insanely frustrating, but the soundtrack was so good that I just couldn’t stop playing it.  I loved the music so much that I spent $35 to import the soundtrack from Japan (which retails for under twenty bucks over there).

Despite spending more than 50 hours with Final Fantasy X, most of the game is a blur to me.  In fact, the only thing about it that is still vivid in my mind is its music.  I’ll never forget the emotional tunes that played throughout Tidus’s entire journey.

Masterpieces like those don’t compose themselves – they’re composed by talented musicians who spend countless hours writing and fine-tuning their songs until they are as perfect as possible.  The result?  Turn up the volume and find out for yourself.

One of the composers behind all those catchy tunes found in Disney games is Billy Martin.  From A Song For Jade and Cinderella II, to Sailor Moon and the forthcoming sequel to Lilo & Stitch, Billy Martin has composed music for a wide range of audiences.

Hypnotized by the sweet sounds of Billy’s music, we fell into a deep, unrelenting sleep.  While dreaming, we flew through the sky like birds, landing comfortably on a cloud somewhere above Europe.  Billy Martin was sitting on a cloud not too far from us, so we rushed over to ask him a few questions before we awoke.

Question: When did you begin playing music? When did you begin composing?

Billy Martin: I got started pretty early; I started playing the guitar when I was about 4 or 5 years old.  I took a few lessons and learned to read music when I was in 2^nd grade.  I started playing saxophone in the school band, and I was in a rock band in high school that played some of my songs.  I also wrote a piece for my high school orchestra that I conducted at our spring concert.

That is amazing!  When did you first realize that this is what you wanted to do for a living?

BM: By the time I was finishing high school.  I was on the science track—Chemistry, Physics, Calculus—but I applied to colleges as a music major.  I attended Indiana University on an academic scholarship (I was a National Merit Scholar), and graduated with a Bachelor of Music Composition degree.  I was interested in composition at the time, but I was more interested in playing saxophone in the jazz bands. 

How many instruments do you play?

BM: I’ve worked as a session musician on saxophone, flute, guitar, and as a vocalist. I sang the theme song for the TV series “Back to the Future.”  I’ve also worked as an orchestrator, copyist, midi consultant.  I was in a band that had an indie label record deal.  It’s a good problem to have, but I’ve done so many different things musically that it took me a while to hit on writing underscore as my main career focus.

How did you get into composing game music?

BM: A friend of mine, Michael Tavera, was writing for several TV cartoons, and he and I had been writing songs together.  He was approached by a company called 7^th Level about doing some music for a game they were developing called The Great Word Adventure.  We wrote several songs together for that game, and then I did the rest of the underscore for it.  That was my first game.  That led to me getting hired by Disney to do the music for their Hunchback of Notre Dame game.  Since then I’ve written music for close to twenty Disney games, as well as music for other game companies and Film/TV projects.

Are there any significant differences between the music composing process for a game, movie or television show?

BM: At the highest level, the goal is always to write music that will emotionally involve the listener; that will immerse them in the world of the game or film.  There are differences in how you go about doing that for different mediums, but I like to think of those as merely technical problems to be solved.  For example, in a game you might need to write a fairly short piece of music that gets repeated during the game a lot of times.  You can keep that from being irritating by avoiding memorable melodies, concentrating on rhythmic elements, etc. But creatively it still needs to evoke the right response in the listener, and I’ll probably think of this short piece as a variation on some longer theme that I’ve already written.

How long does it usually take for you to compose a soundtrack for a game?

BM: It takes as much time as they give me! (Laughs).  Well, it depends on how much music is in the game, which can vary widely.  Once we’ve established a direction for the music, and I’ve turned in a few cues that everyone is happy with; I can usually produce about two minutes of finished music per day.

Do you get to see/play the game while composing music for it?

BM: That’s ideal, but it doesn’t always happen.  It’s quite typical that there might be a playable demo of one level finished, and for the rest I work from screenshots and sketches.  Those are good, but sometimes it’s important to see how fast or slow things move, or hear the character’s voices.  I’ve worked from as little as a verbal description of a level, but I try to avoid that.

What are your duties as one of the Board of Directors of the Society of Composers and Lyricists?

BM: The board oversees all of the activities of the SCL.  We conduct seminars concerning business and creative aspects of the industry.  We host film screenings for our members where composers and directors come to talk about their work.  I’m chairman of the website committee—so anything that’s wrong with our website, it’s my fault!

What do you think of the SCL mentor program?

BM: It’s a great opportunity for young composers!  It’s a three month program in which the interns can sit in on recording sessions for TV shows or movies, meet working composers, music editors, music supervisors, agents, performing rights society reps, and get an inside look at how the business works.

Who are your favorite composers? Who are you are musical influences?

BM: Well, I’ve been influenced by a lot of different kinds of music, so I’ll pick some favorites from various genres.  Elliot Goldenthal and Howard Shore.  Shostakovich and Aaron Copland.  Phil Woods, David Sanborn, and Michael Brecker.  The Beatles. 

Which type of song do you prefer to compose: sad, happy, creepy, etc.?

BM: I would hate to be confined to just one emotion—I like them all.

What inspires you to create music that magically relates to the on-screen images?

BM: I really don’t know where the music comes from.  I like to think the music already exists and all I have to do is find it.  There is no better motivation than an impending deadline.  When the music is due tomorrow, I find that the ideas flow freely and immediately.

Have you ever composed a song and thought, "Wow, this would have been great in [enter game or movie here]"?

BM: Yes, that used to happen to me.  I found it frustrating to write a song and then think “OK, now what should I do with this?”  Then you can spend years trying to find the right project for the song.  Because of that, it has been a long time since I wrote a song that wasn’t part of an existing project that I was working on.

Are you the type of composer who foregoes food in order to continue writing music?

BM: No.

Have you written any songs in your sleep?

BM: No.

Imagine that you're on a deserted island. A masterpiece of a song just magically pops into your head, but you don't have any instruments with you and are unable to complete it. How would you deal with that? How would you keep the song alive in your head so that you could write it when you returned home?

BM: I generally imagine the music in my head first.  When writing a song, I’ll often just write down the words and hold the musical arrangement in my head for as long as a week or two before I commit it to paper or record it.  So if I was on a desert island, with no other musical distractions, and nothing else to do, just keeping it in my head seems relatively simple to me.

Have you ever played a game, watched a movie or a television show just for its music?

BM: Yeah, it drives my wife nuts.

What are your next projects?

BM: There is one film composer that I still orchestrate for, and we are getting started on Lilo & Stitch II.  There are various game projects in the works that I can’t really talk about until they are announced.  It’s going to be another great year doing what I love—I can’t wait to get out of bed in the morning and get started!

Thanks for your time, Billy.  I look forward to hearing all of your future creations!
 

Read more about Billy Martin in this recent Press Release:

Billy Martin Secures Recognition for Game Music Professionals in Premier US Composers Organization

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