Austin Haynes Music

GAME MUSIC AND THE GAME OF LIFE

ENCOUNTERING THE GIFT.

Austin Haynes was born in Los Angeles, September 29, 1983.

There is a saying that every person is given a gift at birth , a unique talent or ability, and the life well-lived is to find that gift and use it to bless the world.

Austin's gift is composing. In Austin's case it is as obvious a spiritual gift and calling as that of preaching, teaching or healing. It was startlingly obvious to observers when at age 16 Austin sat down at a grand piano and began playing beautiful accomplished melodies. To say someone is "self-taught" falls short to observers. One could only see a young man encountering a gift...his gift. And sense a special calling.

Prior to his destined encounter with the keyboard, Austin played ferocious drums to Classic Rock with friend and guitarist, Jake Manus. Without a bass player or the makings of a real band, Austin looked beyond the drums. Once he discovered his natural ability at the keyboards, his love for melody grew and the music came. Six, eight, ten hours a day he played with joy and passion. All original music. He couldn't read a note!

AWAKENING THE DREAM.

Wondering what to do to help Austin, his parents thought maybe piano lessons would help, but every teacher they contacted had a routine starting at the beginning with scales, the traditional approach for traditional students. Austin was not ready for "chopsticks." Then came a momentous encounter. Austin played for Howard Richman, a master piano teacher and author. Richman told Austin he could only help him understand what he already knew how to do and build upon it. So Austin began a series of sessions with Howard especially designed for him.

Where composing and playing piano had just been fun, now it became more involved, more intellectual, and occasionally frustrating. It was even a bit frightening to experience the pressure of playing for a consummate professional . The discomfort became self-doubt and Austin began to question whether he should stay in music, then...

after playing some of his deeply melodic compositions, Howard

stopped the session and said: "I feel deeply impressed to say something to you. Austin, you are a genius. You must consider yourself a professional, even though you're only a teenager. You have a gift. You're directly plugged in to the Source."

This was the moment that forever set the course for Austin's future. This validation defined the dream. Music would be his life.

FOCUSING THE PASSION.

Austin was not a happy student in conventional schools so his parents discovered an online school where he flourished. The computer became a total tool for learning and expression and Austin mastered it. Among his computer skills was a real flair at gaming. He even had a brief stint as a game tester at THQ.

As Super Nintendo developed, then Final Fantasy in the early '90s, the music of Nobuo Uematsu inspired him on a path to explore not only game music but other media for composing.

At 17, Austin began using his computer skills in music, working first with Cubase and a midi keyboard. After figuring out how it all worked and being around other people with DAW's , including hanging out at W.G. "Snuffy" Walden's studio, he added more and better equipment , virtual instruments and developed expertise in full orchestral scoring. He began communicating with composers, suppliers and gamers all over the world working in almost every genre of music.

Online, Austin was contacted by a game development team at Digipen, a video game school founded by Nintendo, where he began his experience composing game music.

The first project was called "Fight Zone" which is a futuristic first person shooting game. His passion was coming into being and being part of a creative team effort was an exciting, fun experience! The Digipen team thought his music worked perfectly. It was also good to have deadlines which Austin realized would never be a problem after always coming up with something that worked and always on time.

A second project with Digipen was "Kisses", a social simulation game. This was a totally different type of game with a different style of music needed. Kisses was nominated as one of the top 10 "2005 IGF -Independent Games Festival Competition Finalists. Out of 250 entries from 11 countries. This was quite an achievement for a young composer.

EXPRESSING THE SPIRIT.

Austin's most recent game music is an adventure game for Phoenix Online Studios (Vivendi-Universal) originally called King's Quest IX, based on the classic series , now called "The Silver Lining". This project has 45 team members all over the world. It is a trilogy with an average of 120 minutes of music for each title. Austin is the lead composer for this fully orchestrated ride. He was interviewed about the TSL project on the insert DVD in the March 2006 issue of Computer Gaming World.

You can check out the games progress at www.tsl-game.com. He has explored film by working on a project called, "An Inconvenient Penguin" which receieved great accaim for it's score.

Austin is an ASCAP member now writing, not only game scores, but songs for vocalists and other instrumental works, including an album exploring different musical landscapes, peace, and inner harmony.