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Attila Heger is a hungarian composer/musician. He publishes
his music under the names Laren d'Or and Al Norder.
MEMI introduced the music of Attila already in the 11th issue
of our MEMI Station
on mp3.com with the title Fith Dream.
In our Email-interview from October 2000, Attila talks about
his music, his job as composer for game soundtracks and why
he publishes his music on mp3.com and besonic.com.
Attila, for someone who doesn't know your
music: How would you describe your music?
First of all I would like to greet your readers and thank you and
MEMI for the opportunity.
The style of my own music, published under the name Laren
d'Or and Al Norder is
instrumental and has a wide range from progressive rock to
symphonic orchestra pieces.
If you listen my first double album, the War
of Angels – the subtitles of the two albums say everything:
Synthphonia (a typical classical-orchestral
symphonic electronica) and Progressive
(a little bit unlike, progressive electronica) – so nomen
est omen… :-)
You can find these albums here: http://www.mp3.com/larendor
As for my second album, the Real Nord,
which I have released also at mp3.com under the name of Al
Norder, still can be categorised in the instrumental,
progressive electronica genre but it is much heavier than
the War of Angels. It can be heard
at http://www.mp3.com/alnorder
The style of the my video game soundtracks is determined by the
type of game I write it for, however I always strive to achieve
to create music that can be seen as an individual production
as well.
Do you have any musical education? How did
you get in contact with electronic music? What are your musical
influences?
As everyone in my family learned to play instruments, it was also
a must for me. As a six-year-old I always wanted to learn to play
drums, but my parents insisted on the piano. Right now I think they
made the right decision.
I have learned playing piano in music-school until my 13th
age. I can remember the first time when I played the music of a
TV series by listening to it, that’s when I got touched by music
and the power of instrumental knowledge. Meaning that there won’t
be a melody, which couldn’t belong to me, I would be able to play
and personally experience just everything. In the years after music
school I’ve learned to play everything I liked on my piano at home,
but after a while I felt this wasn’t challenging enough. I started
composing, some easy songs in the beginning.
I’ve never learned composing, everything I do in my music
I do instinctively, driven by my feelings. I paint the music,
release my emotions into it. In a given composition I know
exactly whether it needs to have some string sound in here,
some tambourine there, or piano. I build up music from small
elements, and enjoy how the main track breaks it’s way through
all the different sounds and appears to be standing above
the whole composition. Than after a few hours I lay back and
a new track is born.
My first significant experience has to be "Spiral", by
Vangelis and "Oxygen", by Jarre. This was followed by
a lot of Mike Oldfield and Pink Floyd records, later Tangerine Dream,
Klaus Schulze, Yes, Genesis, and the Hungarian Solaris.
My favourites in classical music are Bach, Vivaldi, Liszt,
Berlioz and Wagner. And obviously there is the fact that for
eight years I’ve built up my piano knowledge by playing solely
classics. Of soundtrack composers, there would be John Williams,
Maurice Jarre and Randy Edelman to be mentioned as influences.
When composing a new song, how do you start?
To be honest I’ve never been in a situation where I had no
idea at all with anything in the back of my mind. The world
of music is a set of unlimited variations, and if there was
a time constraint, because I had to write a path song or movie
song in 2-3 hours, somehow I’ve always got to find one. If
you have the right harmony and the feeling then the music
will actually write itself. I have often musical ideas in
my mind, sometimes I hear well prepared composition in my
head, but most of the time I forget them as soon as I arrive
to make them sound with an instrument. That’s why I carry
a small recording tape, to whistle my ideas onto it and to
work them out later.
Writing own music is like a valve for me to release pressure,
to input own personality without musical compromises. Fortunately
my own style is represented on the soundtracks I write as
well, I couldn’t deny them. I insist on all of my music, they’re
like parts of me.
Writing game-soundtrack is to find the right balance between
the one who orders, the opportunities of the hardware, the
style of the game and my individual ideas. It happened that
people got involved in music that I’ve found good, they’ve
made me rewriting parts and all these changes were most often
unnecessary and damaging to the music. When this happens one
takes a deep breath and tries to find the best possible way
to make music for the needs of the non-musician customer by
taking into consideration the rules of composing.
Were the soundtracks for computer games
the beginning of your musical carrer? How did you get the
job.
About eight years ago I’ve found an advertisement in a newspaper,
where the musical leader of Novotrade (former name of the
company), András Magyari was looking for a composer.
I have applied for this position, for a test they made me
write some music for the track part of their game Bloodliners.
After three-month trial period I was employed permanently
and I still work at the Appaloosa Corporation on the multimedia
section as a game soundtrack composer. Until now I have participated
in approximately 25 games.
Most proudly I look at my cinematics soundtracks for "Ecco
the Dolphin: Defender of the Future" where challenge
met joy. I prefer game movies much better, where the music
has to go with the action, and there have to be some strong
themes taking into consideration the actors characteristics
of the film. There are certain types that I adore particularly,
like dramatic multi-instrumental pieces.
You can listen my video game music excerpts from projects: Ecco
the Dolphin: Defender of the Future, Wacky Races, Contra '96 &
'97, Tiny Tank and Three Dirty Dwarves at http://www.besonic.com/draco.
You publish your music as "Laren d'Or" and
"Al Norder". Al Norder is an anagram of Laren d'Or. But who
is Laren d'Or? Why did you choose this name?
Still a teenager, I promised myself that should I ever decide
to present my music to an audience bigger than the circle
of my closest friends, I will take on the name of Laren
d'Or, the lonely bard, my favourite fantasy hero.
Al Norder is an anagram of this
name indeed – as the title of the Real
Nord album as well.
As there is the kind of "evil" in all of us artists,
I also wanted to rage out in a heavier direction. These might
differ from the other tracks that my listeners got used to
from "Laren d’Or", it
is a pretty heavy crossover of instrumental rock into a progressive
electronica.
For the musicians of our readers: Which
equipment do you use?
As for video game music: my opportunities are very much restricted
on this area. If I could I would work in a good equipped studio,
with many professional instruments and live choirs. Unfortunately
my company doesn’t ensure the necessary background, so my technical
conditions are minimal. My instruments are a Korg Trinity Plus,
a Roland JV-1080 orchestra and vocal extension and a JV 1010. To
record I use a Lexicon hard-disk recorder. As I don’t have anything
else I do all my musical work with this set.
As for my own albums, the War of Angels
and the Real Nord were played on
a Korg Trinity as well - but not too long ago I bought a Roland
XV 3080 and an Alesis QSR. My next dream is a Korg Triton…:-)
You publish nearly
all your songs on mp3-sites like mp3.com or besonic.com. Aren't
you afraid that this keeps people off from buying your CDs?
First of all, I appeared on the Hungarian market under the
name of Laren d’Or with my own
music on a traditional way, at a non-virtual record company.
However as there was no sponsorship, the publishing company
couldn’t afford to have any basic advertising. However my
album, War of Angels had some serious
success abroad, and even today I receive a lot of excellent
and marvellous critic reviews. You can read all of them on
the main & press section of my homepage at http://www.larendor.homestead.com.
The Hungarian release of War of Angels
seemed to me like a road to nowhere, that’s why now I have
released the updated double album version with additional
tracks and the new Real Nord album
at the MP3.COM, and they can only be found on and ordered
from the Internet. This way the people who are curious about
my music can reach very easily both of my albums.
One year ago I have completed an another album again. It
is entitled Books, and it
is about to be released. I have preliminary contract for it
at one of the majors so probably it will be released at a
record company. Now all we have to do is to find a sponsor
to cover the advertising and video costs. The works of three
great science-fiction writers, as the title shows, inspired
this album. The novels and heroes of Orson
Scott Card (Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide),
Ian Watson (Inquisitor) and Harrison
Fawcett (The Legend of the Cathedral) have given me
a wonderful, inspiring experience. This album pays respect
to their talents.
What are your experiences with those
platforms? What are the advantages for you as musician?
To publish music or albums via the internet brings the artist
into a strange split personality.
On one hand it narrows the amount of the possible listeners/fans/purchasers
– mainly in our country where the home internet opportunities and
habits are not as widespread and natural as in Western Europe or
in the States.
On the other hand it widens or abolishes the borders – the artist
can be represented all over the world at a very low cost.
So there are advantages and disadvantages as well from these platforms
– everyone has to find the right balance.
Personally I have only good experiences since I have appeared on
the internet – I receive day-by-day a huge amount e-mails,
comments, critics from everywhere, from the professional music
industry and from fans as well.
What are your plans for the future?
As for my own music, finally I would like to release the
Books album at a record company
since I have been already working on the next one :-)
Of course I have another plan as well. I have started to
compose music in a totally new genre, traditional swings (like
Glenn Miller). Probably they will appear under a third pseudonym,
who knows?
Questions: Frank Korf
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