Music...

Click on the score to view the more printable copy and the words

What lies above is a song I wrote in 1989-90, in memory of the protestors murdered in Tienanman square in 1989. It was performed by the short lived folk group Clairseach (being at that time Susan Harwood, Reed Oliver, Christopher Alex North-Keys, and me) at the one year memorial of the massacre, held on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin.

One of the things I find utterly compelling about both prose and music, which is almost entirely absent from games of all sorts, is the ability to make people feel. When prose, or theatre, or music, sends a chill down your spine, or brings you to tears, or to fury, that is something that is almost always absent in interactive entertainment.

Perhaps it is a fault of the medium (by and large, the emotive arts are ones in which the audience is a passive participant, not an active one). Perhaps we simply have not had the time to learn how to make it work. But listening to the music of Brian McNeill's brilliant Back o' the North Wind or anything by Dougie MacLean, you can't help but realize that whatever the cause, there is something missing in the games we create.

Back to Top

Dave Weinstein
olorin@sff.net