Games are now a multi-billion dollar business and the music within them is a huge part of the player experience. So how, if at all, is composing music for video games different from any other form of media?
Designing A Soundtrack
When composing, this can often mean ignoring conventional song formats and deconstructing music to its component layers, which can then be interchanged, overlapped or entwined, depending on the needs of the narrative.
When starting on a project, the composer can be shown anything from an almost fully functioning, playable version of the game, to a few mock-up artwork sketches and a short description of the story. A lot depends on how early a composer is brought in on the development process and also how integral the music will be to the player’s experience.
When you’re watching a film, the story is linear. You watch different shots, edited and placed in a set order, accompanied by pre-defined musical cues. Within a game, however, the player is, to varying degrees, much more in control of how the story plays out. So the music needs to adapt to the player’s choices within the narrative.
The composer talks to the developers about what emotions they want to evoke from the player and also, where possible, they play the latest version of the game.
If You’re Looking For Inspiration for Video Games Music, Check Out These Tracks:
‘Mysteries’ – Richard Lacy, Sarah MacDonald
‘Space Battalions’ – James Brett
‘Suspicion’ – Joe Henson, Alexis Smith
Awards for Video Game Music
In 2012 Journey became the first ever video game to be nominated for a Grammy for its score, proving that game music is now celebrated for its quality and popularity outside of the games industry.
Although approached in a slightly different way from more traditional media, music in games is as important as ever and can no longer be considered an afterthought, but as an integral part of the player experience.
Where Modern Meets Classical
But can video games music actually teach you about classical orchestral music? A poll by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra suggested the answer is yes. The orchestra’s managing director James Williams told the Telegraph that computer games are an important ‘access point’ for young people to experience classical music for the first time:
‘It is encouraging to hear that there are platforms and opportunities for young people to engage with orchestral music, albeit in different mediums. It is about sparking their interest’, Williams said.
‘What we are finding is once we have lit that fire there is a real desire to carry that journey on and explore. If [computer games] are the trigger and the catalyst that can only be a really positive thing.’
Children aged six to 16 were asked about how they experience classical music; around one in six said they listened to it, ‘when it’s part of a computer game I’m playing.’
Video game music now regularly features in Classic FM’s annual countdown of the nation’s favourite classical music, the Classic FM Hall of Fame – and the station teamed up with the RPO to present Playstation in Concert, a night at the Royal Albert Hall dedicated to playing computer game music. Plus, the station has a regular show dedicated to video game music, High Score, hosted by video games composer Eímear Noone – who also happens to be the first woman to conduct at the Oscars (in 2020).
Winifred Phillips, a composer known for her work on games such as Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation, thinks that games music is, ‘essentially a form of contemporary classical music, but it has a connection with a more immediate contemporary culture, so that it’s more identifiable, accessible to a more mainstream audience.’ Her music for Assassin’s Creed, for example, has a definite baroque feel to it.
West Australian Symphony Orchestra ex-principal conductor Paul Daniel believes that the best video game scores, ‘reference great symphonic composers like Wagner, Mahler, Shostakovich, Holst and John Williams’.
Similarly, many of the most celebrated Japanese video games composers have revealed that they’ve been influenced by classical composers in the same way. Pokemon’s Junichi Masuda, who cites Stravinsky and Shostakovich as inspirations, to, ‘the Beethoven of video game music’, Nobuo Uematsu, who based the lyrics for the intro to 'One-Winged Angel' from Final Fantasy VII on the medieval poetry Carl Orff used for Carmina Burana.
Which Games Have Used Classical Music?
Not all games use music that’s been specifically composed for them. Here are some favourites which beg, borrow and steal from the classical canon.
Eternal Sonata
For a true games/classical music mash up, look no further than Eternal Sonata – an RPG inspired by the life and work of 19th Century composer Frederic Chopin (he’s even a playable character). In a fictional retelling of his death, the action unfolds in Chopin’s mind in the final moments before he succumbs to tuberculosis. He joins a band of characters doing battle with evil characters and creatures, with the game’s eight chapters based on various Chopin compositions - the final battle has a remixed version of his Revolutionary etude.
The Evil Within
Made by the creator of the Resident Evil series, this is a haunting journey with sinister apparitions and horrifying monsters. But any time you catch a few bars of Debussy’s Clair de Lune, you can rest assured there’s a ‘safe haven’ nearby. Though hearing it played on what sounds like a very scratchy gramophone keeps the tension subtly ratcheted up.
Resident Evil
Talking of Resident Evil, in the original game, one of two possible characters plays a passage from the first movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14 in the Raccoon Forest mansion.
Bioshock
The first game was released in 2007 and was praised for its storytelling; 2013’s Bioshock Infinite has a brighter and more vivid aesthetic than its predecessors. The player character visits the memorial of Lady Comstock in the Hall of Heroes, where a section from Mozart’s Requiem echoes through the space…
Valiant Hearts: The Great War
This rare video game exploration of the First World War features a beautiful original soundtrack, together with humorous classical music cuts during its car chase sequences. These include Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 5 and Offenbach’s Infernal Galop (better known as the music for the Can-Can).
Kingdom Hearts
The Kingdom Hearts franchise draws on numerous Disney properties – Dream Drop Distance visits the universe of the classical music film Fantasia and features the iconic role of Mickey Mouse as The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, with Paul Dukas’s famous work of the same name. Kingdom Hearts also draws from Fantasia’s final scene for a battle soundtracked by Mussorgsky’s Night on Bad Mountain.
Earthworm Jim 2
Our hero is forced to float through the intestines of an unknown entity as a blind cave salamander. Which, of course, could only be soundtracked by a spectacularly tinny chiptune version of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14. The end of the game brings in Beethoven’s third movement rondo.
Tetris
For a similar old skool frantic 8-bit electronic earworm, look no further than Tetris, who used Tchaikovsky’s 'Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy' from The Nutcracker. Want to feel even more crazed? If you fall behind, the game ramps up the speed of the piece…
Music for Games
From futuristic grooves to 8-bit computer melodies, discover a huge of music for games, perfect for your production right here at Audio Network.
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