"Im sorry to put it this way, but you should make it more mediocre."

"Could you add some emo flute to this?"

- "That whistle sound, it's so organic. Those whistles are really cool, how do you call them?"

- "It's a flute."

Lately I wrote music for an iPhone card game, with a space theme. I asked for directions, but they said "just go with what you feel is best for the game". I went and made some lounge music with some spacey effects.

Feedback: "It's too spacey. Can you try something more classic?"

I redid the whole track with a more basic pop approach.

Feedback: "No, it's still not working. You will have to talk to my friend who knows music".

The friend-who-knows-music told me he wanted electro/techno music. So I rewrote the whole track this way.

Feedback: "Still not right".

Fed up, I asked for definitive directions.

Reply: "We've decided to let you compose what you think is best for the game. Good luck!"

Video game producer, formerly working in the music business.

Him: I have perfect pitch.

Me: That's cool.

Him: Yeah. When I was working at XXX, I used to give suggestions on the mix sometimes. My girlfriend and the other guys said my suggestions were good. That's what perfect pitch is right?

I was working for a game publisher that got somewhat notorious for plagiarizing other games. Here's just one of many similar tales of music that happened there.

Working on a hip-hop themed game, the composer assigned to that game was going nuts as they were asking him a complete rewrite of the title music for the eleventh or twelfth time. All attempts were right, the composer was nailing exactly right every time, but the boss just didn't "feel" them.

Finally, fed up with the composer's "inability to perform", the boss asked to write the title music myself, and discharge the composer of the project. I knew the boss's thought process when things were going like this, so I went bold: I took a half-hour to do a note-for-note cover of one of Dr Dre's song. Shamelessly. As he listened to it, the boss screamed: "Aaah finally, there you go! That's perfect!" . Then more calmly: "Now just change a note or two so we don't get sued."

"You're a musician, so I guess you use mostly Maya."

We were working on the mobile version of a franchise video game, for a handset that only supported general MIDI. At the very last moment in the production we were finally handled the source material for the title music, which was to be converted to MIDI... Except the piece was without any element remotely portable to GM. Just a bunch of atonal pads with filter effects and the occasional vocal sample.

As the audio director, I explained to the boss that it was near impossible that anyone would recognize this as the franchise's music once "translated" to general MIDI, and we had to derive from it at least a little (not mentionning the fact that I had to remind him all over again every few weeks, for years, why general MIDI didn't allow us to do this or that, which each tim he pretended to understand, but instantly forgot).

So I advised we let the composer create something new for the title, reminiscent of the franchise but that would work in MIDI, just like he had done for the rest of the game. Which was apparently out of the question. "It's imperative that people can recognize the music from [franchise] right away. We already paid for that music, we have to use it". I rested my case that given the technical limitations of the handset and the source material, there was no solution for achieving that. As a reply, I was given the worst of looks, and this: "What don't you understand? You have a team of 20 people! That's more than enough to find a solution!"

A while ago I scored a small budget independent film. The director was a friend of a friend. He seemed gifted and I liked his idea, so I decided to do it. The budget allocated to music was really small, so I explained him carefully that doing it for this little money was barely covering my costs, and that I was doing it for the love and because, as he promised, he had good chances of landing a bigger project if this one went well. We completed the project easily enough and he was really happy with the music.

Less than a year later, he called me back. He asked how I was and the usual, and said that he landed a much bigger budget for his next film, and that he could tell me all about it while catching up around a coffee. We met at a coffee place later this week. He seemed really excited. I liked the idea for his new movie even more. When we finally reach the subject of music, the conversation went like this:

Director:  Oh, and for the music, you are gonna love this! We got this guy who scored a couple of TV shows already, we're gonna have a live recording and a real choir and everything!

Me: You're joking, right?

Director: What, why? Oh... You gotta understand man, I have a budget now.

"Is that a flute? No? I don't care, it sounds like flute. Everybody hates flute. Get rid of the god damn flute."