After weeks and weeks of researching, reading, recording, filming and editing, my new show launches today.  The original “Into the Score” ran from 2004 to 2007; it was a time where I was a very different person, or at least I thought I was.

If anyone who’s reading this knows me personally, you’ll probably know that I’ve been interested in video game music for the majority of my life.  If we’ve ever spoken more deeply, you might know that I’m particularly interested in studying it and seeing how it works musically, in culture, and in the game.

The big difference between launching the original show in my early twenties and this one in my mid-thirties isn’t just that it’s video this time.  To be honest, I am becoming one of those adults who gets more scared to take risks as I’m getting older.  I remember a stand-up comic saying that in a bit I saw: “Make sure you do things when you’re young because you’ll get too scared as you get older.”

I’m not scared of the work or the know-how, it’s something that our kids struggle with in our classrooms: The willingness to show people who you really are and to show them what you really care about.

As a now-steadily-working professional musician, I was really worried that my show would sabotage my composing career.  It might still wreck it, but I’m not worried about that anymore… because it might not.  I needed to take the advice that I give to kids all the time: “People will be more interested if you’re real and genuine with them.” Also this gem: “Everyone is too busy doubting themselves to doubt you.”  Or maybe this one: “People are interested in people who have cool and unique interests.” Seriously, I’ve got a hundred of’em.

It’s risky to go out and spread words that we believe in, but if we don’t say them, then who will? It’s okay to disagree, it’s okay to be judged, but we might be creating the very content that someone has been looking for their whole lives.  That might sound unreasonable, but that was often the response that I got for the first “Into the Score” thirteen years ago.

The early 2000s was the infancy of podcasting.  It’s true, there were podcasts before “Serial” and it was an amazing time to be creating content.  There were many shows about video game music, but they were all jukebox-style without a lot of meat to them.  I wanted something that really dug into the music, the game, the culture around it, and it’s place in the canon of gaming.  I found nonsuch podcast, so I made one and “Into the Score” had a devoted cult following.

(I’m serious, I got an email last week about it and it ended ten years ago.)

The new “Into the Score” is an unabashed, heart-on-your-sleeve, x-to-the-power-of-nerd show about studying video game music and I’d love if you would check it out.  Share it wildly with your friends, family, co-workers, students, etc.

And, if you’re so inclined, please become a patron and support the show financially (and get some cool rewards!) : https://www.patreon.com/intothescore

Thanks for all of your support, everyone.  Say what you mean, mean what you say, and let’s make the world a better place.

-K