Allen Vizzutti has played trumpet in 35 countries and has 13 books and nine CDs in publication, but he has a dark secret: Some of his best stuff shows up on video game soundtracks. The problem is that Vizzutti seems to have a love/hate relationship with gaming. He personally doesn't play games and he's constantly telling his kids to stop playing on their Xbox. His story offers some interesting insight into the world of crafting music for games, mostly because it comes from a man who doesn't seem to respect them.

I instantly had thoughts of our expertly executed phrases obliterated by synthesized sound effects, of trumpet solos buried deep in silicon dungeons guarded by aliens, of laser blasters and smart bombs blasting our hard work to bits, of gamers hitting the skip button to avoid the credits and theme music. Advance into battle as soon as possible! I felt disappointed. I felt I had reached a new musical low point.

That date was my first involvement in a computer game sound track recording. I got over it. Games I have performed on since include the Medal of Honor, Matrix and Age of Empires III games. The interesting thing that eventually hit me is the irony of it all. I treat these recordings the same way I treat all of my work. I do my best. While I still consider movies the more interesting, and while I still believe movie sound tracks are musically more important than game tracks, I approach the recording work seriously in both instances. As a result, I find myself performing my best to produce music for the very games I am constantly nagging my own children to stop playing!

Short Attention Span [Trumpet Guild]