Interview with our composer

Hi golfers and music lovers,

As you read in my last post, we have a long soundtrack for an indie golf game. 70 minutes of relaxing music, which incidentally is 70 minutes more music than we ever intended or imagined having in the game when we set out on this journey.

One of our earlier videos showing off the game, when it was just golf and no journey, caught the attention of composer Haakon Davidsen who gave us the opportunity of writing music for the game. Initially he was only going to make a couple of tracks, but with each new piece we wanted to give the game the soundtrack it deserved, which means you'll now get to enjoy 22 tracks covering a wide range of styles. The final result is one of the most soothing game soundtracks you'll ever hear that doesn't require you fighting dragons.

I recently had the chance to ask Haakon a few questions to get into his mindset.

1. What drew you to want to work on A Little Golf Journey in the first place? Actually, the first thing that amazed me about the game was the grass. It had a really playful character to it - kinda looks like someone picked grass from their garden and put it into a toy world. The levels had so many unique details to look at, it feels like an interactive painting. I could just sit and watch the scenery, it is so beautiful! One of my first thoughts was “There are so many golf games, but I have never experienced golf like this before"

2. Does anything surprise you about A Little Golf Journey? The variety of areas really surprised me. There are these areas you would normally find in a golf game, but there are also so many more other places to explore. I have never before played golf during the winter, or at the moon. Especially not in cyberspace!

3. What inspired you when composing the music? I drew a inspiration from a lot of things for sure, but I think the nature was my biggest inspiration source. With each track, I always imagined where it could be played. I could go like «This chord makes me think of the beach», and then I imagined myself playing it at the beach. I tried to make each song tell a story, and that was easier to to once I could place them in a setting.

4. Did Norway factor in to your inspiration and if so, how? Norway is famous for its nature and forests. I actually live next to a forest, and would often look out the window to see if I could draw inspiration from it.

5. The music is often very emotional at times. Did anything help bring that emotional weight? Yes, indeed. Emotions are something I often like to explore in music. With each track, I tried to imagine in what places I would either play or listen to each track. That helped me visualise how the music should sound like. And when you start thinking about that, it is easy to remember something that has happened in your life and connect the music to the emotions.

6. Along similar lines, was there something you were trying to convey from this music? I had three main overall ideas for the soundtrack, that helped me shape everything. The first, was that I wanted the music to be something that the listener easily could connect with. I wanted it to be something you could learn to play yourself. Not too