Video Game Music Club (VGMC)

The Berklee Video Game Music Club (VGMC) is working on changing Berklee forever by bringing video game music related activities to the college.

By networking with experienced composers and professionals in the game audio

industry, the club seeks to gain knowledge and answer questions regarding business, technology, and the creation of music for video games.

Ultimately, the VGMC looks forward to bringing awareness of this revolutionary

industry as well as the cultural importance of this new genre to Berklee’s curriculum.

Administrative Members: Filippo Beck Peccoz (President-Founder) Faculty Advisor: Jeanine Cowen (Vice President of Curricular Affairs, Berklee College of Music) Web presence: Created: www.vgmcberklee.org Spring Semester of 2008 myspace.com/berkleevgmc Fall Semester of 2007 VGMC on facebook.com Fall Semester of 2007 Achievements and Future Objectives: Through the Founder’s affiliation with the Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G., www.audiogang.org) , the ’08 VGMC Ensemble performed at the 2008 GANG Awards during the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco. The VGMC ensemble also played at Berklee on February 25th 2008 as part of a Video Game Composers Panel which had Tommy Tallarico, (well-known Game composer and co-creator of Video Games Live), Gerard Marino (composer of God of War), and Clint Bajakian (Senior Music Supervisor at Sony SCE) as speakers, as well as in other important Berklee-related events. The official club ensemble is geared towards playing interesting and fresh arrangements of popular game music, performing these well known tunes with

new and different choices of instrumentation and style. It is constantly experimenting to deliver a new video game music experience for the audience. The club’s website (vgmcberklee.org) enables a selected number of students to feature their own music. It is also a professional and effective way of networking with the industry.

VGMC at the G.A.N. G. Awards 2008 Since its creation, the VGMC, has contacted several professionals within the game audio industry, inviting them to Berklee or interviewing them via email. Some of these composers include: Tommy Tallarico (Guest Speaker in Fall 08), Chance Thomas (Guest Speaker Summer 08), Bob Rice (Four Bars Intertainment),Norihiko Hibino (Metal Gear Solid), Mike Reagan (Spiderman 2, God of War), ,Duncan Watt (Guest Speaker Fall 08), Philippe Vachey ( European composer of the original Alone in the Dark and Little Big Adventure). In collaboration with the Berklee Learning Center, the VGMC has created and hosted a variety of groundbreaking events for the college: some of them include “History of Video Game Music” and “Video Game Music Composition Techniques”, Spring and Summer 2008 respectively, as well as a series of 4 Forums all dedicated to Game Audio (including special guests such as composer Duncan Watt) during the Fall 2008 term. The club will continue pioneering events such as these in the months to come. (http://learningcenter.berklee.edu)

Taken during the “Video Game Composition Techs” Forum

During the weekly meetings, the VGMC discusses the various aspects of scoring for games, the technical challenges, and the business part of this industry. The VGMC's faculty advisor, Jeanine Cowen, often gives lectures on these topics, enabling club members to attend an extremely informative and free course in game scoring, nowhere else to be found at the college. In summer ’08, the VGMC started a workgroup on Audiokinetic’s Wwise Middleware solution, once again stressing the importance of such tools in order to become a proficient modern Video Game Composer. During the Spring 2009 term, we are expanding these workshops to include Flash games and the “Source” Engine. The ongoing "Retro Corner" focuses on games that have redefined game audio and the gaming world in general through the years. Many more episodes are planned.

The VGMC hopes that Berklee will consider including a curriculum dedicated to what it believes is one of the most exciting new art forms of our time, an art form which requires exhaustive and specific courses to be fully mastered and respected.

Founder Biography: Filippo Beck-Peccoz is a film-scoring/composition dual major student. In addition to many musical achievements, some of which include composing for TV and Video Games, and having his original game music arrangements performed by various ensembles, he is the founder of the VGMC @ Berklee. Filippo is currently spearheading efforts in bringing video game awareness to the Berklee Community. He strongly believes that video game composing—its aesthetic, technical challenges, and artistic aspects—deserves to be analyzed, discussed, and respected just as any musical genre we study here at Berklee, and is working hard to promote this belief in and around the college. Contact: mail@fbpsound.com