an interview with soundtrack designer Dizzy Banjo

Tonight Dizzy Banjo will be playing at 1.00pm SLT on Orange Island Main Stage. Dizzy will speak briefly about his experience of soundtracking for machinima.
Then he will bring us into his relaxing music athmosphere with his guitar solo set. It will be our pleasure to listen to the Passage to Zhong Fu’s soundtrack.

Who is Dizzy Banjo?
Dizzy Banjo is actually the name of my music company. I named it after the avatar, but Dizzy seems to have a persona of his own now, so much so that people seem to prefer to not know my real name!

How would you define your musical style?
I work in a wide variety of styles depending on what the project requires. I do write for orchestra or larger ensembles quite a lot and when working in a contemporary production style my arrangements often have quite a lot of instruments and sounds in them.

Where is your music available to listen ?
Much of my music is only availably to listen to in its application. For instance the music for Ruta Maya is only listenable by coming to the Ruta Maya sims in SL. In a similar way other music for adverts is only available in that form. However there are links to a series of pieces on my SL Wikia page.
I also run a blog dedicated to soundtracking the metaverse here.
Parsec also has its own blog here.

What has SL made possible for your artistic expression?
SL and virtual worlds open up some incredible possibilities for exploring what multi user experiences of music are. I think this is much wider thing than live shows. I’m very interested in the possibilities of soundtracking the metaverse and how this can create a different level of immersion. I’m also very interested in finding ways of expressing persona and presence in the virtual realm through sound.

Which are your favorite music-related destinations in SL?
I really like the live music scene, but some of my favourite musical places in SL are actually installation based. Adam Ramona’s island Ramonia is wonderful, I really like the installations of Angrybeth Shortbread too. Also Chouchou’s self named region is a great place with a really magical mystique. I’d have to include Parsec ( by Eshi Otawara, Chase Marellan and myself ) in this list too, especially when groups of people begin to sing along with it ). In terms of live musicians I really like the way Grace McDunnough uses the medium of SL to tell stories, Komuso Tokugawa’s ability to groove a gig, and ColeMarie Soleil for her brilliant attitude and voice. Of course I really like Torley’s musical explorations – I wish he could do some gigs in SL sometime between all those tutorials!

What initiative would you like to see in SL that hasn’t been done yet concerning video with music, video-clip or whatever we call it?
I think it would be really good to expand the scale of gigs somehow – perhaps using video mirroring across many sims, much in the same way as SLCN have done with some of their shows.
Chouchou’s work in the field of pop video/machinima production has been outstanding. I think machinima is an incredible tool for artist development and connection to both the community within SL and communities outside of SL. The cost of production is so low it enables bands to develop audiovisual media which can really help develop their identity in a way may bands couldnt do previously without industry backing.
I think soundtracks for machinima are also a really wonderful thing to explore. Whilst I want to concentrate in world soundtracks, I have been and will be continuing to explore this area. Passage to Zhong Fu, where I really developed a close connection with the director, Verdi Millionsofus was an unexpected joy to work on. I’d love to explore a machinima with complex characters like that perhaps with a larger scope and length.

Are there any SL artists you admire or who’ve had an influence on your work?
I think the work of Adam Ramona, Robbie Dingo, Angrybeth Shortbread and Keystone Bouchard definitely informed the process of developing a project like Parsec, although the result had some fundamental differences to all their work. I think this would be natural for any artist working in the field of responsive / reflexive installations in SL. In purely musical terms I really like the work of Chouchou. Aside from that I’m generally most influenced by contemporary composers such as Steve Reich, Michael Torke and John Adams as well as many film score composers, in particular John Barry and Jerry Goldsmith. I also listen to way too many historic composers to mention!

May 6, 2008 at 9:16 am | Uncategorized | No comment

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