Mark Morgan

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Mark Morgan (born October 22, 1961 in Los Angeles , California ) is an American composer for computer games as well as film and television . His work for Fallout , Fallout 2 and Planescape: Torment is particularly well known .

Life

Mark Morgan was born in 1961 to the sculptor Betty and the architect Mel Morgan in Los Angeles and grew up in Orange County, California . At the age of seven he began to play the piano at the suggestion of his mother. After school he attended the Berklee School of Music , but dropped out after a few months and instead pursued a career as a studio and guest musician in the Los Angeles area . He played for Rickie Lee Jones and Chaka Khan , among others . At the end of the 1980s he joined the band Starship (Jefferson Airplane), first as a keyboard player for the tour of the album No Protection , then as a full band member. During this period he moved to San Francisco . For the album Love Among the Canibals , which was created in the Record Plant recording studio in Sausalito , Morgan made the step from teammate to composer and producer. When the band broke up in 1990, he returned to Los Angeles. He ended his career as a touring musician and from then on worked mainly as a sound programmer and designer and finally more and more often as a composer.

In the 1990s, contract work for television was Morgan's main field of activity. His first TV exposure he received for the science fiction series Prey radio station ABC . When agent Bob Rice, a friend of his, heard his composition, he suggested that Morgan start composing for computer games and introduced him to various people in the industry. His first game composition was the soundtrack for Dark Seed 2 , an adventure adventure released in 1995 . Since it was a pure MIDI soundtrack, Morgan described the work as rather agonizing, but the game's visual appearance, based on concept graphics by HR Giger (Alien), immediately impressed him with the visual quality of computer games. This was followed by several commissioned works for Interplay Entertainment , including his most famous commissions for the post-apocalyptic role-playing games Fallout (1997) and Fallout 2 (1998) and Planescape: Torment (1999). However, his contributions to the Giants: Citizen Kabuto , which is still in development, were his last compositions in the games area for ten years. Morgan, who was originally intended as the main composer for Giants , was unable to complete the work due to other commitments and was therefore replaced by Jeremy Soule .

He ended up working again mainly for television until he was asked by former Interplay employee Charles Deenan if he would like to contribute some titles for the racing game Need for Speed: Shift . Shortly thereafter, he was offered the composition for the previously unreleased action game Prey 2 , which he took over together with Jason Graves. In 2010, parts of his Fallout soundtrack were reused for the youngest series offshoot Fallout: New Vegas . In 2012, the former Interplay boss Brian Fargo approached Morgan if he wanted to take over the composition for Wasteland 2 , a continuation of the spiritual predecessor of the Fallout series. Morgan agreed and in 2013, Fargo's company InXile Entertainment also commissioned the intellectual successor to Planescape: Torment , which, like Wasteland 2, was crowdfunded by Torment: Tides of Numenera . He also successfully applied for the composition of a third Kickstarter- financed project with the adventure game Stasis .

Influences and style

Morgan comes from a musical household. His mother played the piano herself and had a musical preference for Erik Satie and Claude Debussy , while his father for Miles Davis , John Coltrane and avant-garde jazz. What they both had in common was a preference for works by Igor Stravinsky such as Sacre du printemps or The Firebird . In addition to his parents' musical habits, Morgan continued to describe Herbie Hancock , Keith Jarrett , Chick Corea and The Beatles as defining his musical tastes.

Morgan's compositions are predominantly electronic, more rarely acoustic or orchestral. This preference came less from the music than from the fascination that the encounter with a modular synthesizer triggered in him. He finally made his first steps in the field of electronic music in the MIDI era with synthesizers from the brands Jupiter , PPG , Moog , Oberheim and Yamaha . Since his experience with the Synclavier , Morgan has also increasingly relied on sequencers .

Morgan described his decision to get into game composition as "that the medium was a great opportunity for him to explore his idea of ​​a score that is minimal, immersive and emotionally engaging the player in the game." While film and television composition depend on exact timing in order to underline the situation and dialogues emotionally, computer games offer the composer much more freedom. Morgan describes the music of Miles Davis , Peter Gabriel , Ryuichi Sakamoto and Trent Reznor and the architectural styles of minimalism and modernity as the most important influences of his compositional work :

“I am moved by the simplicity in modern architecture. With its space and restraint, you can see it all without being detoured or interrupted by things that don't matter. To borrow a quote, 'Subtle enough to not intrude, but bold enough to not become irrelevant.' That's kind of my goal. As this relates to games, I want to effect the player in subliminal ways by keeping them in the moment. "

“I am moved by the simplicity of modern architecture. With their space and restraint, you can see everything without being distracted or interrupted by things that are meaningless. To borrow a quote: 'Subtle enough not to be disturbing, but strong enough not to be irrelevant.' That is my goal. With regard to computer games, I would like to influence the player in a subliminal way by keeping him in the situation. "

In another context, he also named Paul Bley , Massive Attack , Kraftwerk , the film composers Clint Mansell , James Newton Howard and John Powell , as well as the avant-garde musicians Alva Noto , Ryoji Ikeda and Kangding Ray . According to his own presentation, his style for each game is based on a feeling and an individual mix of minimalism, ambience, tribal, ethnic and an atmosphere determined by the sound design. While Planescape: Torment, for example, was based on a continuous, repeatedly varied leitmotif , Fallout was a dark ambient soundtrack. For Giants: Citizen Kabuto he again wrote orchestral pieces with a more sober, minimalist sound.

Computer games (selection)

Television (selection)

Films (selection)

  • Street Children (1992)
  • Prophet's Game (2000)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Mark Morgan ( Memento August 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), on auralnetwork.com
  2. ↑ a b c d e Music Spotlight: Wasteland 2 / Fallout: New Vegas Composer Mark Morgan , on gameinformer.com
  3. ↑ a b c d Interview: Mark Morgan, composer on Wasteland 2, Fallout, and Planescape: Torment , on pcgamer.com
  4. ↑ a b c "... I believe games allow me the most creature latitude ..." ( Memento from December 11, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Full English quote: "After doing a couple of games, I discovered that the medium offered a great opportunity for me to explore my goal of writing a score that was minimal, immersive and put the player emotionally inside the game."
personal data
SURNAME Morgan, Mark
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American composer
DATE OF BIRTH October 22, 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH Los Angeles , California , United States