SHAE

ABOUT THE COMPOSER


DANIEL SHAE

Fashioning Music &

Mix Tapes Since 1993

Shae received a Casio PT-1 as an unprovoked gift from his cousin, Brandi, in 1993. It was his first keyboard. For those of you unfamiliar with the Casio PT-1, just buckle your damned seat belts, ’cause I’m about to freak you out. This little 29-key marvel of the 1980s boasts five volume settings, each coolly indexed with tally marks. It has four of the more prominent instrument sounds: piano, flute, violin, and “fantasy”. It has an internal memory bank for recording, a headphone jack, DC input (in case you don’t have a cache of the otherwise required AA batteries), and it features a built-in drum machine + comprehensive list of rhythm presets, which includes march, waltz, samba, bossa nova, rock1, rock2, and more. You can control the tempo. In short, the Casio PT-1 is Humanity’s perfect musical accomplishment, and it would be the catalyst that pointed Shae toward a life of music.

Shae was a child of the 80s and 90s. In the uterus, he would kick to the beat as his mother blasted Mötley Crüe’s Girls, Girls, Girls album with the headphones resting on her belly. He cut his teeth on Nintendo. Video games were a mainstay of Shae’s childhood, and where he first developed an ear for music. It wasn’t long before Baby Shae was running around whistling themes from his favorite titles.

Shae attended the highly competitive University of North Texas College of Music, graduating in 2012 with a Bachelor’s in Music and a Minor in English. He is classically trained in music theory, composition, and vocal performance. A short time after college, Shae co-founded an independent game studio called SOFT RESET with his long-time friend and colleague, Joshua Gilbreath, releasing their first game, Sparrows of Outrageous Fortune, in 2016. Shae has written and produced music for many projects during his freelance career. He is a co-organizer of the Dallas-based Video Game Open Coffee Club, and an active member/Patreon of Society of Play.

Shae enjoys overcoming new challenges. Often writing in a variety of genres, he’s got a knack for melody and leitmotif. His works have ranged from cinematic orchestral to rock, and included much of the gamut between. His sweet wife can be impressively patient. Shae, like others, is a devout advocate of MIDI. In the time since 1993, he has amassed hundreds more instruments: some analogue, some digital, and a great many virtual.

But the Casio PT-1 is his favorite.

 

Coming Soon: Pics of My Babies

 

Music Philosophy

We'll spare you sitting through a discourse on several hundred years of history. To simplify: Opera, once considered by many to be the "ultimate artform", eventually came to evolve (thanks to innovations in technology) into a new artform called Film, which, as we all know, hit its peak in 1986 with the release of Highlander. Film has in turn given birth what we call Video Games. These are this generation's "ultimate artform", comprising nearly all other artforms (writing, design, music, etc.) with the added component of participation. They are a hugely collaborative effort, often requiring years to craft.

Where does music come into play? Well not to beat a shrieking horse, but again, this all came from Opera. And just as code is meant to instruct circuits, music means to guide and accentuate Human emotion. It helps us to feel a particular way about an environment, character, situation, or idea.

Leitmotifs, or those catchy little recurring melodies:

  1. serve as memory triggers to remind the player of earlier ideas,
  2. intentionally get stuck in the player's head and help to keep them thinking about the game, and
  3. make excellent nostalgia fuel. Eventually.

Cheap, nasty trick? Maybe. But frankly we all love it.