Site Contributors :: Duncan (aka Juan2Darien)

Biography

Back in the day when Nintendo 64 was the pinnacle of consoles, I began to take notice of game music with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. My introduction to Final Fantasy came with the movie Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. From there, I checked out my first PlayStation game, Final Fantasy IX and thought the music was just adorable, but nothing special. Then the rental place was out of copies of Final Fantasy IX one week, and I settled on Final Fantasy VIII. That's when I started taking notice of the music, with "Liberi Fatali". Since then, I've been expanding my collection from Uematsu to now Sakimoto, Mitsuda, Shimomura, Hamauzu, Nakano, and Shiina Masaru, who is a favourite (and someone I find a bit underrated). Meanwhile, I�ve also been building up my collection of film scores, with my favorite composers being first and foremost Joe Hisaishi, then Elliot Goldenthal, Alexandre Desplat, Danny Elfman, Edward Shearmur, and of course John Williams. I also enjoy Classical music, although my tastes are for more modern composers like Osvaldo Golijov, John Adams, Richard Danielpour, Arvo P�rt, Igor Stravinsky, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Tan Dun, and most recently Jonny Greenwood. A shameful fact about me is that I've never finished a Final Fantasy game, although I've completed Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards and Klonoa 2 several times over.

Apart from a few crippling injuries (a broken leg, gash to the Achilles' tendon, and most recently, dislocation) and skin cancer along the way, my life until college wasn't actually that interesting. My first schooling was at a Catholic school with a principal named Sister Wich Rose. I always found it ironic that the head nun had "witch" in her name, although with a different spelling. No, she didn't hit us with rulers, but she was wicked — a true witch! I attended Catholic school until about third grade when I was moved to a different school, kicking and screaming (what can I say? It may have been an oppressive place, but it was familiar). I've only maintained two (perhaps three) of my original friendships from grade school. At my new grade school, however, in fourth grade, I made three friends that I consider my best friends to this day. High school brought the usual jeers and insults and a few terrifying professors along the way as well as some other great friends. My high school was said to be a "college prep school". I understand that they were certainly avid about making sure every student of theirs went to college directly after high school, but apart from that, my high school did NOTHING to prepare me for college (apart from a Chemistry class with one of those terrifying professors I mentioned earlier. Ironically, though, I respect that man more than many other of my professors... I'd go so far as to say I really liked him).

I've only just completed my freshman year, and the first semester was quite a reality check. I'm currently studying music theory and composition at the University of New Mexico. I would, hopefully, like to become a film composer some day. I'm only going on my Sophomore year at the moment, but I've learned so much in the ways of theory (last summer I knew nothing of music theory, but thanks to "Music Theory for Dummies", I learned more than enough as to not have to take the remedial theory class). I'm one of the rare cases where I knew exactly what I wanted going into college. I shall not be changing my major. One thing that I've realized about music theory that only confirms that I want to do this for the rest of my life is the fact that I can spend up to four or five hours per assignment each day for that class, and I love every minute of it!

I have always enjoyed reading reviews. Sometimes I read reviews to help me decide whether or not to buy something (which is what happened when I read Aevloss' review for Tales of Legendia, which is now one of my most listened to albums), or else I read reviews just to hear others' perspectives on things I already own. I used to go to SquareSound and read the reviews there. Something happened along the way and their list of reviews was considerably depleted. I queried about it via email, and that is what led me to Square Enix Music Online. I used to just read the reviews and vote for MP3s and other things like that here, but I've been trying to branch out a bit, causing me to join the forum and now become a reviewer. I love music, and I love writing. Putting the two together makes one fun time for me!

Contributed Reviews