The Spyro The Dragon soundtrack was composed by Stewart Copeland, the drummer of the Police. He composed

the soundtrack of the first 4 Spyro games during the hiatus of his band The Police.

In 1986 once The Police had gone on hiatus Copeland decided to start composing soundtracks, starting with

soundtracks for films, he soon became famous for his great soundtracks. Before The Police Copeland had already

been writing songs on his own and gained much experience from being in The Police and he incorporated this into

his soundtracks.

In 1998 Insomniac Games started production on their video game Spyro The Dragon, they hired Copeland to

compose the music for the game, and it would be his first time creating music for a video game. What Copeland did

which many composers were not doing at the time was creating

separate pieces of music for very single different world and

level, what a lot of composers would do is assign a certain

piece of music to dark area, and another to more intense areas,

Copeland gave Spyro The Dragon a unique and original feel to

it, it felt like a lot of effort and heart had been put into the

soundtrack.

Copeland’s music for the soundtrack was very experimental,

using exotic instruments many people have not heard and odd

vocal samples as well, this built up character of the game and

really helped develop the feel and themes Spyro would have

for all future games. What’s amazing about Spyro The Dragon

is that the developers fit in so many different themes into the

game, ranging from meadows and fields to grand castles

floating in a surreal purple world, this is where Copeland had

his chance to create experimental music using exotic

instruments.

It’s very hard to put a finger on his style he uses as it’s so original and he was well praised for the aspect, his music

is different and unique and stands out from other artists. The Spyro soundtrack in general was probably when he

was most creative with his music as he had to chance to be creative.

PlayStation underground managed to get a private interview with Copeland in his unmarked studio in Hollywood,

they asked him about his creative process and how he has composed the soundtrack for Spyro The Dragon. He

said he first beats the level so that he can get a feel for the level, once he has

the attitude of the level figured out he then goes on to say he needs a lot of

changes to happen in the music in order to symbolise everything that happens

in the level. Since he was working CD-ROM which is what the PlayStation

accepts, he didn’t have to worry about his music taking up to much bandwidth

and could be as creative as he wants, he goes as far to have a whole orchestra

in some of the soundtracks to really get across the grand feel that the games

graphics also produce.

Copeland creates complex layers

for each track “Things that don’t hit

you the first time but the 16th time, so that it can survive repeated

listening’s”, he achieves this effect by having subtle little sounds that

play quietly under the rest and start to reveal themselves as you get

used to the core components of the soundtrack. The orchestral

sounds he uses in the game he uses to create drama and convey the

very grand feeling of some of the levels.

The way Copeland has composed the music for the Spyro The

Dragon video games has really inspired me in my music since I first

played the game at like 5-6, I’ve learnt to be experimental with my music and also valuable techniques on creating

music, such as creating complex thick layers in my music and to use odd sounds which people may normally just

ignore, but instead of ignoring sounds like that be creative with them.