Nico: In his excellent book on the subject, legendary video game music and audio composer The Fatman once wrote that in order to innovate musically, "you have to do what does not work." You did that with Myth's music. On paper, Gregorian monk chants, tribal drumming, and a rock and roll cello theme for a Sci-fi FPS translates into a musical WTF? of sorts. And yet the Halo theme has become intrinsically connected to the Halo franchise as an indispensable element of its storytelling. Were there specific elements to Halo's story which inspired the overall musical mood? Were you given parameters by Bungie? Or was this more of a "hey Marty, work your magic!"
Marty: By that point I had been working on Halo sound design for months so I knew the mood of the world pretty well. Joseph Staten came to me and described the action and plot for the 3 minute demo that we needed to put together for MacWorld '99. I was intrigued by two main things. One; we were going to have a captive audience, and two; there would be no narration or sound effects. Joe said three important words to describe the mood he hoped we could create; ancient, mysterious, and epic. Somehow for me that translated into monks with tribal drumming and prog-rock orchestra. Another thing I know well comes from my many years writing and producing jingles. If you can get a melody to bury itself into the heads of your audience, you win. My desire to have the monk chant melody become synonymous with Halo was part marketing and part job security.
