Interview with Viva Piñata Composer, Grant Kirkhope

Viva Piñata™ composer Grant Kirkhope was charged with giving each Piñata their own voice (or honk, or chirp, or howl) and musical theme. Find out how he did it, and why no real-life animals were harmed in the making of this video game.

What piece of music in Viva Piñata are you most proud of?
“Night 3.” It’s one of the pieces that plays at night, it begins with just piano.

There are a lot of animal sounds in the game. Did you record real animals?
No. We used people to make all the animal noises, it’s much funnier for the grunts and groans.

How many instruments can you play?
Guitar and trumpet well, keyboards not so well…ha!

What kind of music do you listen to at home? Who are some of your favorite composers, bands, and singers?
I don’t really listen to music at home, strangely enough! For composers, Edward Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Danny Elfman, Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams. For bands, Van Halen, Queensryche, Boston, Journey. For Singers, Frank Sinatra and Steve Perry.

Do you ever get the Viva Piñata theme song stuck in your head?
Hmmmm…….no! (I didn’t write it.)

How did you get involved with Viva Piñata™?
I was on the Grabbed by the Ghoulies team, and when it finished I went straight on to Viva Piñata. It’s basically the same team from the Banjo-Kazooie days.

What styles of music did you draw on when working on the game?
I was trying to create a relaxing, pastorale-sounding score. I guess 20th Century English composers were my main influence; I also liked the feeling of the music in “Lord of the Rings” when you hear the main “Hobbiton” theme.

Each Piñata has a specific musical theme that plays during their romance dance. How did you decide which musical theme would work best for each Piñata?
The artists would think of a style of music that they thought suited the character and then ask me to create something in that genre. I think I managed most of them…hehe!

Viva Piñata features so many different styles of music, you couldn’t have performed all those pieces by yourself. How many other musicians did you have to work with?
I did do most of them myself actually! The drum tracks are all samples played by me and all the guitars and keyboards. Trumpet was by Robin Beanland, and Dave Clynick mixed and produced them. It was all done in-house.

During some points in the game there’s very little music at all. How do you decide when to include music and when not to?
The music that plays in the garden during day and night is on a timer, I think I said a piece would play somewhere between two and five minutes in the daytime and a piece will play immediately when it becomes night (after dusk) since it’s a shorter period of time. I wanted people to sit and listen to the ambience (all done in Dolby 5:1), like in a real garden, and not be overpowered by music playing all the time.

How do you think the music complements the rest of the game?
I’m very pleased with the music in Viva Piñata. Usually, when I write music for games, I have to write pieces that are right for the game but not necessarily right for me (if you see what I mean!) Viva Piñata was a happy coincidence, inasmuch as this is exactly the kind of music I like to write and it complements the game as well. Also, getting to have it all played by the City Of Prague Philharmonic was truly amazing, it brought a tear to my eye…ha!