Artist description Instrumental and orchetral game-style music.

Music Style Orchestral/Instrumental/Game Music

Musical Influences Yasunori Mitsuda, Hitoshi Sakimoto, Howard Shore, Iona

Similar Artists Yasunori Mitsuda, Hitoshi Sakimoto

Artist History I've been composing music for almost four years now. Back at the beginning of 1999, after playing RPGs such as Final Fantasy VII, V, and VI, and Chrono Trigger, I decided that I wanted to try my hand at composing music in a similar style. And thus I began. 1999 (Stevie Version 1.0): My earliest works were admittedly nothing much more than a whole lot of instruments mashed together playing random melodies and chords that were more often than not ripped off from other games. Quickly I drew the line between 'being inspired by' and 'copying', and started to compose pieces that, while similar to a lot of game tunes, were never ripped off of them. Back then my tunes were basic; a main melody, and chords supporting it. Sometimes I would have a countermelody or something in the background too. Battle themes were my forté, certainly, whereas my incidental or more emotion-based music wasn't quite up to scratch. I also sucked at percussion. At the end of 1999, I got Chrono Cross, and I got the Corrs unplugged album, and because of these, I got into celtic styles in a big way. And so came my very first Celtic Wannabe tunes. Looking back the only even remotely celtic thing about them is that they have a recorder on them (there is no tin whistle in basic midi!). Nevertheless, these tunes marked a step forward for me, as I embraced this new wannabe-celtic style. Stevie Version 2.0 was born. It's worth pointing out that at this point I had composed all of my music on a Soundblaster 16 without the aid of Wingroove. Now that I have a good soundcard and cool soundfonts, most of these tunes sound hollow and incomplete due to their simplicity and/or sheer differences in the sounds produced by the differing sound hardware/software, and so there will be most likely be no MP3s available of my 1999 tunes. Not that you'd want to hear them anyway :) 2000 (Stevie Version 2.0): I began 2000 composing for a game. While the game fell through, the tunes remained. I made my first ever 'mountain' theme (RPGs tend to have those), and it was clearly my most impressive piece to date in terms of complexity. Also had tinges of Celticness. As things progressed, I made quite a few different kinds of tunes. Battle themes became less frequent and other things became moreso. I also got my hands on Wingroove, which meant I had a much more realistic MIDI output to work with now. But the downside was the harp on it sounded awful, and since I totally dig the harp and use it frequently (especially back then) that was kind of a major bad point on it. Upon acquiring RPGMaker 2000, I decided to make my own game... and my own music with it. A variety of tunes were made, some were knocked out hastily and weren't that good, but some were made with effort and they were pretty good. The highlight of 2000 was undoubtedly the almighty "Poo", my legendary battle theme. Despite the name, this tune is probably my most well known (yeah I think like a whole fifteen people know it), and definately my most well-recieved. I may upload it sometime. At the end of 2000 I got my new PC, with 128mb of RAM and most importantly a SoundBlaster Live soundcard. Awesome. Knowing that I could now get mad cool soundfonts really upped the possibilities. For the time being, I made a few new tunes and experimented with traditional instrumentations. I got into The Corrs again, even more than before this time, which helped a lot. 2001 (Stevie Version 3.0): For the first half of 2001 things kept going much as they had been the previous year. While I gradually got better and learned more and more whilst composing, and even getting a little better on percussion (I thought it'd never happen), the big change came in August. In August 2001 I got my hands on the FFX OST, which, even though I hadn't played the game, totally captivated me with its unique dark-ish atmosphere and the absolutely stunning contributions from Junya Nakano and Masashi Hamauzu. The general overall sound and arrangements of the OST influenced my work greatly, but at the same time I made a breakthrough in the way I was arranging individual notes in my music (admittedly this was pretty much a fluke), and when these two occurences combined I made what was, at the time, my most unique, enjoyable, and professional work to date. The wannabe-celtic sound was dropped, in favour of a more general and widespread RPG-orientated sound. Indeed, this was the birth of Stevie Version 3.0 There is a chance that some MP3s from 2000 and 2001 will be uploaded, but I'm not sure yet. Late 2001 was definately my most consistent period though, where I made several tunes that satisfied me. 2002 (Stevie Version 3.5): This year began with me seeing the Lord of the Rings movie, and falling for its soundtrack in a big way. And in turn, that led to me experimenting with a more orchestral style. I finally got over my fear of using brass and strings in conjunction with each other, and it yielded mixed results. Even though I was now experimenting with a sound I'd never really touched before, I picked up some of the basics immediately. However, there is still a lot more to learn before I make orchestral music that really stands out on its own. Also, 2002 has been a pretty slow year for me. I've generally had composer's block for a long time, as well as being busy with school and reading (my new hobby, also stemming from LotR), and for two months, Final Fantasy X. Though I feel that the few tunes that I have actually completed are easily amongst my best. From here on in, time will only tell where things go for me, but hopefully they'll be good.

Group Members Steven Hand (compositions, arrangements, producing).

Location Newcastle, Tyne & Wear - United Kingdom

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