In September 2016, Absolute Classics began its first Games Music Composition project, bringing Luci Holland (Games Music Composer) and Stephen Chapman (Games Developer) into Annan Academy once a month to mentor Advanced Highers Music students in composition. We delivered sessions that covered a range of topics focused on theory and practice of music composition, and in particular having control of the building blocks of compositional techniques to create emotion and atmosphere that match the visual stimulus of a video game. There was significant interest and dedication generated for the project, which was demonstrated by the fact that the students willingly attended sessions out of school hours.

“I’ve been hugely enjoying working with the students and Absolute Classics so far. Even after only three sessions, I feel like the enthusiasm, interest and energy for the project has been fantastic and the students are responding really well, especially to the hands on creative sound making. We’ve been exploring different avenues of composition and game music at each session so far to experiment and react to what seems to be engaging everyone the most – at some points I’ve felt the sessions have been a bit “info heavy” however I’ve been impressed at what the students are remembering month to month which seems to display their interest. Keeping the course extremely youth led in how they want to present their final pieces has influenced how the course has evolved to support the range of experiences and interests in the group.”
Luci Holland – Games Music Composer