Biography

Stone Age

My name is David Ruzicka. I started with music in the age of 12 (or something about that age, it’s kind of blurry now). Back then it was just playing with a toy keyboard. I managed to compose some primitive tunes which my parents seem to like (although something’s telling me now that their appreciation might not be that genuine ). Later I wanted to make more complex music with at least drums, bass line and  lead melody. Of course the toy keyboard I had didn’t have any recorder. I solved the recording problem by using two cassette recorders, recording tracks one by one while simultaneously playing previously recorded tracks.  This process was very exhausting and it took many cassette switchings to complete the song, no need to say that the result was… noisy.

Bronze Age

I made a major step forward when I got my first computer (around 1995. I’m not really sure though). There was an awesome music sequencer called Fasttracker. Composing music suddenly felt like fun, finally. Also the quality of my production rose up steeply (that’s not overconfidence, you just don’t know how bad my music was before that). I’ve become partially active in something called demoscene. I’ve released a number of songs which even in these days I consider listenable. I’ve got some positive feedback regarding my music which motivated me to continue.

Iron Age

In 1998 I’ve submitted two of my compositions to Fiasko demoparty where it placed second in modul competition and first in chiptune competition. This bring an attention of  Pavel Cerny to me. He was just looking for some talented people to form an independent group of musicians called Project X-Ray. I was asked to become one of founding members and I accepted. This is probably the point where I’ve started to take music a little more seriously. Along with other musicians in the group we produced IMHO a great deal of good music. We also organized two quite successful music competitions. It was a good time, but in the end X-Ray broke up and ceased to exists, leaving it’s members to take their own routes.

Medieval period

After the Project X-Ray ended I didn’t compose at all, or at least, not much. I didn’t give up creating music, I was just struggling with not having a proper tools to create music. I kept writing all my music in Fasttracker which was not able to fulfill all my expectations anymore.  Although I did improve the whole production process so that I was able to deliver much higher sound quality than fasttracker was able to provide, it still wasn’t enough. I’ve outgrown Fasttracker but I wasn’t able to find anything better to suite my needs.

Post-medieval period

When I’ve finally found music software ideal for me, I’ve started to compose again with a new strength. I’ve composed tons of music at that time, although very little of it was really finished. Then I’ve been asked by a friend to score his documentary film called “Labe” (Name of the river in Czech Republic). I’ve always wanted to work on a project like this so I didn’t hesitate long. The deadline to compose the whole score was quite tight but it turned out to be a good thing. Although I see many flaws in those compositions now, I’m still quite happy with the result.

Modern Age

It seemed that everyone liked my score to the film which encouraged me to compose more and fortunately that’s not where it ended. I’ve also decided to get myself a proper keyboard (until that moment, I’ve composed everything just using my PC, every note handpicked by mouse) which finally led me (being an adult now) to sign to a piano classes. Learning to play piano inspires me a lot. It also shifted style of my compositions from electronic music more into baroque/classical style. I wrote number of piano cues. The good ones are available to download.

Future

Future is shrouded… as always. Let’s see where it’s going to take me.