Deadlock Part 5 - Remy the Musician

Music has always been my passion. One of my earliest memories is listening to the Jungle Book soundtrack, probably on record. I must have been three or maybe four. My mom used to regale me with stories from my childhood, about how musical I was. I have put my experiences as a singer in a separate section, but really, it could probably fit here also. I had a huge collection of records growing up and would often lock myself in my bedroom to listen to them. This is probably the source of my love of music, and audiobooks, since I recall listening to a lot of those growing up too. All through my life, music has inspired me. Any language, with and without lyrics. Radio, movies, TV shows and especially video game soundtracks. I don’t know why that last one has meant so much to me, but it is by far my favourite type of music, because it is so diverse. Music tells stories, even without knowing anything about their inspirations or accompanying scenes. With all this love of music, how did it take me so long to play it myself?

My mom gifted me my first keyboard at seven years old. It belonged to my cousin, who had upgraded. There was one at my Grandpa’s before then, but this one was mine. I loved it. I spent countless hours plinking away at its 99 sounds – I still remember many of them. Despite the pleasure I gained from playing around, I never really learned to play anything. I didn’t know what a chord was, or a scale, or how to make anything sound good. If lessons were ever offered to me, I don’t remember. Perhaps at that young age I wouldn’t have wanted to, but now, I wish I’d had the opportunity. From probably 12, to 25, I barely so much as touched another keyboard. Surprisingly, it was my church that inspired me to try it out again. They had three or four pianos within easy access in their building, and like when I was a child, I would sit at one of them for hours. While I still couldn’t play much to save my life, I was  older, and had at least a passing understanding about how scales worked. At least the C scale. I owe my friend Patricia for teaching me, all be it briefly one night several years before. It helped. My mother, learning that I’d sort of gotten back into playing, gifted me another keyboard, which I still have put away. Finally I could play around from the comfort of my own home once again. I started learning about chords, scales and harmonies. Slowly, I began being able to play something that could almost pass for music.

Around the time I was getting into audio drama creation, I had an uncomfortable revelation. If I was going to do this for real, I couldn’t keep using people’s copy-written music. One day I was going to get myself in trouble. This was back before YouTube and SoundCloud were striking everyone for copy-written material, but it was still in the back of my mind. So it was that I realized something. While I couldn’t play the piano live, I could probably do so in part with my keyboard, and my Digital Audio Workstation. SO I tried it. I wrote my first song. I did it slowly, note by note sometimes, and instrument by instrument. There was a piano and a flute. The timing was off, and it sounds terrible to my ears now, but it was mine, and I completed it!. I still have it, way down at the very bottom of my YouTube channel where no one will ever find it, to remind myself how far I’ve come. Last year I completely remade it, and the difference between the two is an astronomical leap forward. I owe Patricia for that a little too, because her suggestions made it even better.

For the third audio drama I created, I tried my first score. While I still used mostly other people’s music, one memorable drug overdose scene was all mine. I learned that by playing everything in B Flat Minor, I could play a lot better because there were fewer keys to work with. It’s an odd scale to play in, looking back, but there have been several pieces I’ve done since that have used it. Still using the sounds on my keyboard, I scored this tense scene with basic, clearly fake strings, an electric guitar and even a saxophone. For stock sounds on an electric keyboard, it didn’t sound half bad. It was empowering to hear this tense music and know it came from my own imagination! I began to seriously consider this as a viable option going forward. Until I learned what it would cost.

Here's a secret: most of the music you hear on TV, movies and video games is all made with virtual instruments. Lots of real orchestras and live players are still used, but it’s not nearly as much as you might expect. This revelation was huge for me. What if I could get a hold of some of these instruments? Then I wouldn’t have to use those low quality ones from my keyboard. Looking more into this, I learned about “Musical Instrument Digital Interface” – MIDI, which is a way of playing music from a keyboard into a computer interface. It was introduced in the 1990s and has remained the standard ever since. Back in the day, it sounded terrible. All electronic bleeps and bloops. But these days, MIDI is used to write much of the music we hear in our entertainment. That’s where virtual instruments come in. Virtual instruments are real instruments, played by real musicians, recorded with – usually – high-quality microphones in ideal recording studios. Each note and articulation is sampled into a file, then MIDI data plays that file when you play your keyboard. With these instruments, you can have any instrument you can imagine, find and especially afford at your fingertips.

Realizing the potential of MIDI, I set out to find a way to play it myself. I learned that in fact, the keyboard I already owned supported it. I just needed the instruments. I found two companies immediately, Native Instruments and EastWest. Though there was some overlap, Both offered something different, with Native Instruments catering more to “electronic”, synthetic music, and EastWest focusing more on Orchestral. I was so excited! I’d found a  way! … Then I saw the prices. This stuff was EXPENSIVE. We’re talking hundreds for a simple instrument. I was just a lowly newb with an entry level income  starting out and way over his head. How was I going to do this? There was an answer, but it wasn’t strictly … legal. But, I was just starting out. What could be the harm?

The harm, it turned out was an annoying, though thankfully not fatal virus from China. It took me a long time to get rid of all that. But I did get my hands on some virtual instruments from Native Instruments, and the next piece of music I wrote – a medley of different ideas, turned out far better than anything I’d written before. Suddenly I could actually sound good! Nobody need ever know I can’t play live. Unlike with Voice acting, this isn’t a big deal. Sure I’m still slow, even now almost ten years later, but the end result is the only thing anyone will ever hear.

At the same time I landed the voice acting role of the evil wizard, I also submitted a piece of music for the same game. It was the most ambitious orchestral piece I’d written, and I’m still really proud of it. It was excepted as one of the boss themes. A real honor. While someone else with a bit more skill did reorchestrate it before release, I’m happy to say even my original submission is still pretty decent.

I’ve spent the past ten years getting better and better. Part of this is due to developing my musical knowledge, learning how instruments go together and compliment one another. Basically learning orchestration. I’ve taken several courses, and was given some free piano lessons a few years ago which really helped me learn. I’ve also gained a huge library of virtual instruments. Some of these have been via EastWest’s Composer Cloud, a very reasonably priced subscription services which has given me access to their entire library of instruments. That didn’t exist when I first started. The rest, I have purchased myself, usually when they are on sale. And here’s where the controversy starts. Back in 2018, I went a little nuts with these sales. Around Black Friday, there were so many sales, and I was feeling so good about my music that I spent much more money than I should have. I never lied about it, but I also never told Chelsea either. We weren’t hurting for money at the time, so I justified it by thinking of it as an investment. Easily the lowest part of my marriage, and something I seriously regret. Still, in 2025, the only thing I’m limited by is my own creativity. Of all the pursuits I’ve undertaken, composing music is easily my most professional sounding and most successful. I’ve scored several audio dramas, written and gotten slightly compensated for a number of songs  - for a friend’s podcast and even have several pieces featured in Room Zero along side my voice acting. Music is clearly something I’m pretty good at.

So what’s holding me back? Why not use this is my main pursuit? Near as I can tell, there are a few reasons, though it mostly comes down to opportunity.

1.       This is an incredibly competitive industry. I’m good at what I do. Especially when you consider how little formal musical training I have. I can’t play other people’s music like most musicians can, but I’m pretty decent at making up my own. And most of the time, that’s what you want to be able to do. But there are lots of people out there with the knowledge, training and resources to be far better than me. So if I’m ever going to “make it” as a composer, it’s going to have to come from networking. There are just too many people with more time and resources than I have aspiring to be composers.

2.       Composing takes a LOT of time. Depending on the complexity, number of instruments, quality required and length of the piece, a single piece of music can take a week or more. I simply don’t have hours and hours to dedicate to composing. Not with a full time job and a family. When I compose, I often lose track of time and disappear into my own head. I hyper-fixate with music composing more than any other pursuit. It’s kind of scary, and I just don’t know if it’s sustainable now that I’m a full time employee, husband and father. Were it to be a full time job itself, I might be able to manage it, but you have to start somewhere to get somewhere, and right now, despite some clear innate talent, I am nowhere.

3.       It’s super expensive! I’ve already talked about this, and now that I’ve amassed a decent number of virtual instruments, I probably don’t really need anything more for a while. But there are always new, better sounding and easier ways to do things. So there will always be that fear of missing out. Luckily I haven’t had a repeat performance of 2018. I learned my lesson.

4.       I’ve never scored music to an image. I don’t know if this is something I’d have trouble with or not, but even when I scored those scenes for Room 0, I was not shown the scene ahead of time. I don’t know if I have enough vision to score a visual scene. I’ve never really tried. I think with the advent of AI being able to describe video, this might be a non-issue, but it does concern me a tiny bit.

5.       I feel like, no matter how good I’ve become, I’m still just pretending to be a musician. I feel this way any time I show my music to someone who actually understands music. I don’t understand a lot of music theory, and I’m not coordinated enough to play really well. This is just my imposter syndrome talking, but the struggle is real. I feel like a fraud, similar to how I feel with voice acting. I do everything piece by piece until it sounds good. And often there’s a ton of trial and error. Given the aforementioned competitiveness of the industry, I just don’t know if I’m setting myself up for a fall when people who have trained in music their whole lives are also trying to succeed.

In the end, music will always be a passion of mine. I think I’d have a hard time giving it up completely. There’s also that subconscious guilt ever eating at me now. I’ve spent so much money on building my virtual instruments library and skills that I feel like I have to make it work to justify the investment. While I don’t think I’m up to being a true film or big budget game composer, independent productions might be worth pursuing. As long as they are lucrative enough to warrant the time sync. It’s not all about money. Not at all. But I feel like at this point, I’m worth more than just being a volunteer. I’ve done a lot of that in the beginning with both voice acting and music, and I’m kind of over it now.