Music

Growing up as a child, I listened to some of the greats: Abba, Amy Winehouse, The Beatles, Duffy, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Paolo Nutini, Paul Weller and Van Morrison.

Listening to these artist’s work on CD in the car during the 2000’s was always one of the best parts of spending time with my family. I got to know what songs resonated with my parents and grew my passion in music through them. As a child, I would primarily focus on the instrumentation of a song rather than the lyrics. That’s part of why ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ by Abba is one of my favourite childhood memories. I didn’t understand the story its lyrics were conveying until a few years ago.

This love of instrumentation would fundamentally influence my taste in music. In 2002, when I was five, I was utterly awestruck by Danny Elfman’s Soundtrack to Spider-Man. Danny’s beautiful orchestration would fill me both with emotion and excitement!

My interest in soundtracks grew further with Murray Gold’s Soundtrack to Doctor Who from 2005-2010. Murray’s soundtrack was the definition of hype to me! I felt excitement every Saturday because the soundtracks were just so beautiful and fun!

I firmly believe that these two soundtracks were the catalyst that led me to becoming a Sound Operator in Theatre.

How did this happen?

During the school plays from 2008-2010, I took notice of the beautiful classical music that played during the scene transitions. I used to do acting in school and was told that for the 2011 play, we had to do accents. I didn’t feel comfortable doing this and instead pursued an opportunity to operate the sound for the play.

This curiosity changed my entire life.

I loved the feeling that I took part in progressing the play through music and that I could both control the volume and time my cues with buttons. The head of drama had an infectious passion for classical music and it was a privilege to bring them to life in the school plays.

In 2011, I would also fall in love with video game soundtracks such as Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception by Greg Edmonson and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim by Jeremy Soule. I would buy a lot of video game soundtracks on iTunes over the years and play them during Art and Drama Sessions at School.

Video game soundtracks however would eventually have a negative impact on my mental health.

I used to be a video game addict for over 20 years and it got difficult to manage after I first played the post apocalyptic survival horror game, The Last of Us, in 2014. Along with playing that game almost every day for years, I would listen to Gustavo Santaolalla’s soundtrack for this game every day as well.

I lived in the virtual world no matter where I was and it would soon become the only world I preferred living in.

Gustavo Santaolalla’s body of work is intoxicating, emotional and beautiful and it all provided a gateway to the world of The Last of Us anytime I didn’t play the game.

Living in that world through its music 24/7 lead to me neglecting my relationships and, eventually, my mind.

I had Schizophrenia in 2019 and over these last four years, I’ve come to accept that both gaming and video game soundtracks had to leave my life. It was very difficult because the only type of music I listened to for a decade were video game soundtracks. I had to develop the discipline to listen to other kinds of music.

What helped with this discipline was subscribing to Apple Music. It has helped me massively in both navigating the different worlds of music and make listening to video game soundtracks less appealing.

I did have a stumble earlier this year when The Last of Us HBO TV Series Soundtrack by Gustavo Santaolalla and David Fleming came out. I listened to this soundtrack and something felt very wrong. Listening to it transported me back into the world of The Last of Us but it also made me remember all the moments of violence in the games. It made me very uncomfortable and, looking back, making this stumble was a blessing in disguise.

This blessing was that I was so sick of remembering any moment of violence in fiction. Listening to this soundtrack showed me the true value of other kinds of music that have no memories of violence.

I can happily say that Lo-Fi music has given me this. Lo-Fi has no lyrics and isn’t linked to anything fictional. It is it’s own unique form of expression and has helped me be present and focus on the here and now.

If there are certain kinds of music that make you uncomfortable, try exploring other kinds of music that feel more positive to you or are related to something positive. Doing this has helped me have a healthy relationship with music and I will gladly say that leaving video game soundtracks behind has done wonders for my mental health.