Music alumnus Gordy Haab (BM ’00) has built a career composing for films, television shows and video games. Haab is particularly known for his sweeping symphonic works—deeply influenced by his musical hero John Williams—that provide a soundscape for players as they navigate worlds from Star Wars to The Walking Dead.
Here, he talks about getting his start, how his analog process works in a digital world, and what it’s like to hear his work come to life.
Did you always plan to compose for video games? Or was that a natural evolution from working in film and television?
While I was in grad school at the University of Southern California, I met a friend who went on to become the head of music at LucasArts, which was Lucasfilm’s video game division. Around the same time, I had scored this Star Wars fan film called Ryan vs. Dorkman. We recorded it with an orchestra and it kind of blew up on YouTube back before blowing up on YouTube was a thing. Somebody at Lucasfilm saw it and reached out to my friend to say, “You should check this guy out.” He said, “Actually, we went to school together. I know this guy.” He called me up and I got hired to do this Indiana Jones video game, which was my first game.
It sort of snowballed from there. That led to scoring Star Wars: The Old Republic, which was my first big Star Wars title. From there, I became the go-to guy for Lucas and doing Star Wars-type music for their game projects.
How is composing for video games different from composing for film?
When you’re scoring for a film, you’re dealing with a fixed timeline. You write a cut for this scene, and the music leads up to the moment when they kiss, and then the music leads to the next cut to a new scene—and that timeline never really changes. With video games, it can be different every time the player plays the game. It’s the musical version of choose your own adventure books. I’ll write a one-minute piece of music for a battle sequence, and at the end of that minute, based on what the player’s doing, triggers within the game will tell the audio engine, the player is about to lose or about to win, or there are more enemies attacking or fewer enemies. At the next logical downbeat in the music, it might translate to a completely different version of that same piece of music that sounds more like you’re winning, or like you’re about to lose, with an impending doom kind of feel. Or it may dial back the intensity of the music and it becomes more of a dialogue-type of scene.
John Williams is a big inspiration for you, beginning with the ET soundtrack. What’s it like to follow in his footsteps, building on what he’s established while also creating your own sound?
It’s really cool to step into the shoes of what I consider to be a musical hero. That’s always been exciting, but also a bit daunting. But beyond that, a property like Star Wars has a large fan base already in place—and I’m a big fan as well. Getting to write the kind of music that inspired me to do this in the first place, and knowing that I’m writing for a fanbase that I’m a part of—it’s a bit of a dream come true.
What is that like when you hear that first recording, or that performance, and things start to come to life?
The first time I recorded in London with the London Symphony was for a project called Kinect Star Wars. It was a video game for the Xbox. Up to that point, games didn’t really have budget for a 105-piece orchestra and Abbey Road [recording studio]. But being Star Wars, they did.
I went over there, and I expected it to be good. But I remember sitting in the studio and I thought that they were actually listening to the music of John Williams on the speakers in the studio, just to test the speaker system or something like that. Then I glanced up and realized, “Oh wow, they’re actually playing. And oh wow, that’s my music.” I basically lost it, emotionally. It was overwhelming because it sounded so amazing, like everything I ever imagined. In this one moment, I heard everything that I’d been working on come to life in the best possible way.
You have an analog process, with paper and pencil. Why does that work when you’re composing for a digital medium?
I’m most comfortable when I’m sitting at a piano with a piece of paper and a pencil. I feel my best music comes out when I’m writing that way. And I would honestly say that a big part of that is from my training at VCU. My mentor there, Doug Richards, was also a pencil-to-paper composer and a huge advocate for learning to write that way.
With the computer, it’s trial and error. You can play it, listen to it, change a couple of things, listen to it again. Writing with a pencil and paper forces you to hear it in your mind’s ear first, before you put it down. I feel like that’s greatly responsible for the complexity of the music I write, which tends to fit this form well.
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