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Michael Z. Land (born 1961) is an Americanvideo game composer and musician best known for his scores for various games produced byLucasArts.

Michael Land was born in theNorth Shore area north ofBoston,Massachusetts. His parents enrolled him in classical piano lessons when he was five, and he continued in these until he chose to stop out of frustration at age twelve. He started to play the electric bass guitar a couple of years later.^[1] He focused more onimprovisation, and he played with several bands throughout high school.

In 1979, Land enrolled in the music program atHarvard University, where he concentrated onelectronic music. He also rekindled his interest inclassical music, particularly that ofLudwig van Beethoven. After graduation, he enteredMills College inOakland, California to further study electronic music. He broadened his study toRenaissancepolyphony, and he also studiedcomputer programming.

When Land graduated from Mills in 1987, he took a job as a digital technician at an audio signal processor manufacturer calledLexicon. Land worked for the company for three years, a period he spent honing his programming skills and writingoperating system software for the company'sMIDI remote controllers.

By 1990, the home video game market was beginning to blossom, particularly for personal computers. In April of that year, Land obtained a job at the fledgeling Lucasfilm Games (today known as LucasArts), a software company owned byStar Wars creatorGeorge Lucas. Land became the first in-house audio programmer and musician at the company, which had mostly outsourced its sound production duties to third-party developerRealtime Associates in the previous few years. Land's first project with LucasArts wasThe Secret of Monkey Island. The soundtrack of the game gave the composer a chance to show his flexibility, as it is almost entirely made up ofCaribbean-flavored themes, something different from anything Land had composed before. His music fromMonkey Island has been performed live by a full orchestra at theSymphonic Game Music Concert in 2004. The event took place in Leipzig, Germany.

The sound engine used inMonkey Island bothered Land, however. He found it nearly impossible to synchronize music with action in the game. Land began work on LucasArts'iMUSE interactive music system to solve this problem.^[1] The project was more daunting than Land had anticipated, so he brought in his friend,Peter McConnell, to help. The two designed the iMUSE system as an advanced MIDIsequencer, but over the years, it has come to be, as Land describes it, "a methodology" that allows game producers greater control over in-game music, transitions, etc. Land also headed the company sound department, and since he was preoccupied with iMUSE, he hired another friend to the company,Clint Bajakian, to take over some composing projects.

With iMUSE completed, Land returned to work as composer. He worked on several titles, including moreMonkey Island games and various projects based onLucasfilm properties.

Land continues to widen his repertoire, and he is currently studying classical cello and violin. He plans to release an album of music he has written outside of LucasArts sometime in the future.^{[citation needed]}

Michael Land also worked on the Telltale installment of theMonkey Island series,Tales of Monkey Island, and reprises his role in the newReturn to Monkey Island withClint Bajakian andPeter McConnell.

During his teen-age years, Land consciously studied and emulated the styles of performers such asYes, theGrateful Dead, andJimi Hendrix. To this day, he cites Hendrix's mellow style as a great influence on his own music, and he claims that the Dead's style is deeply rooted in his own work.

In his adult years, he also studied classical composers, particularly Beethoven, a composer whose accomplishments he describes as "a mountain in the distance … no matter how much ground you cover, it's always just as far away." He also developed an interest in Renaissance polyphony^{[citation needed]}.^[2]

Land's work shows great variation, a common trait for video game composers. He begins each project by reading over production notes for the game and then deciding on a musical style with the game's producers. Once this is decided, Land listens to different examples of that style. His soundtracks are as varied as the games they accompany. The music of theMonkey Island series is Caribbean in style, tunes performed on light woodwinds andmarimbas. On the other hand, his soundtrack forThe Dig is cinematic, with dark, brooding themes played out slowly. Land himself citesThe Dig score as the work that comes closest to his own personal style. Another trait Land has in common with other video game composers is his ability to compose music that remains listenable when played on a continuousloop.

Land's music also tends to be moreambient in style. This allows him to compose fairly complex pieces but to keep them from being obtrusive to gameplay or spoken dialogue. Each project tends to feature at least a few louder, more melodic pieces, however, usually in the title theme and end credits.

Land's work onThe Curse of Monkey Island soundtrack simultaneously marks a compositional coming-of-age, and the advent of digital audio compression meaning that MIDI audio of the past could be replaced with hi-fidelity live audio and live voice recording. This allowed for Land to record the soundtrack with real instruments or high quality patches, which added a warmth and emotion to the music not present in earlier MIDI music.^{[citation needed]}

Land's skills as a composer and arranger are no more evident than in his choice of timbre; bringing together European folk and classical instruments with Caribbean and Central American instruments, weaving a texture that combines steel-pans, accordions, and afro-Cuban percussion amongst others. On one hand, heavily influenced by European nationalist music and nautical shanties and horn pipes, and on the other incorporating Caribbean and Brazilian styles.

• Michael Land atMobyGames
• Michael Land atIMDb
• Interview at The International House of Mojo
• Interview at The Dig Museum
• Video interview with Michael Land

• 1961 births
• Living people
• Harvard University alumni
• Mills College alumni
• American male composers
• Lucasfilm people
• American video game composers

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