Video Game Music

Last semester, one of my friends asked me to take a video game music class with him. I was hesitant at first, but I soon decided adding a two-credit course couldn’t hurt. Now I’m no musical savant. For although I may listen to music, ranging from pop music to classical, I’m unable to, in a learned fashion, explain why my musical choices are excellent or worthy of your praise.

Interestingly, before this class, I would occasionally listen to film scores but never before had I considered music from video games. Of course I knew the legends of musical scores like the Mario theme, but what of the effect of music on games? What about how themes are constructed? Leitmotifs? What are those? All these questions!

Through the semester, all was made clear. We learned about how the original sounds were created on limited hardware, how video game scores handled the problems that came with looping, and we spoke with current video game composers like Austin Wintory (flOw and Journey). Speaking with industry professionals was an absolute treat. Although I’m not an aspiring composer, I sat there, thinking, “I wish this happened in other classes.” There was something rather candid about talking to a giant head projected onto a screen in the basement lecture hall at the art museum. It was a conversation, not some form of high profile celebrity interview. We learned about the normalcy these composers came from. How they were just musicians who managed to get involved in a growing market.

“A friend told me I should try video game music.”

“I was composing music for commercials at the time when I discovered I could make video game music.”

The video game is probably the most immersive medium available to us today. As technology advances, it would seem immersion is the one thing that is continuously amplified. Another immersive medium, movies, incorporated music, photography, and writing in a way that was new. Then video games included another dimension, the active participation of the audience while also including new technologies. Amidst all this, it becomes harder to focus on one particular element amidst the clustered form. But perhaps it is necessary, in such a complicated form, to focus on one thing and build from that point. Wintory told us that Journey was developed based on his composed music. The levels and the animation, the lighting and the gameplay mechanics, all of these things revolved around what Wintory was composing for the game. Oddly enough, by leading with one element, everything else forms in a cohesive manner. All it takes is one recommendation, and you enter into a complicated world that just clicks.

Another aspect of the course I enjoyed, although I didn’t partake in the exercise, was the chance to compose music for an EECS class that had developed their own video games that semester. Now I understand that organizing interdisciplinary opportunities is a logistical nightmare for professors. However, when it happens, it’s priceless.

I cannot say that I’ve started playing more games because of the class. But I’ve started to revisit nostalgic video game scores. More importantly, what I learned about the processes of composing video game music has affected my approach to writing as well.

No medium seems to be alone nowadays.