Symphony Orchestras and Video Games

robi2106 writes "The BBC is running an article regarding the cooperation between video game composers and top symphony orchestras, like the recent Los Angeles Philharmonic concert entitled Video Games Live. The VGL event contained orchestral productions of video game music, a live video game match between audience members on jumbo screens behind the orchestra, and pre-recorded game footage accompanied by the orchestra. Such productions are becoming more and more popular." From the BBC article: "With the emergence of machines like the PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube, anything became possible musically, and sound became a fundamental part of gaming experiences. When Mr Wall composed the score for Myst III, he used a full symphony orchestra and choir. "

Comments

Not quite anything

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

anything became possible musically, and sound became a fundamental part of gaming experiences

There's still one thing music can't yet do in video games: change styles in synchronization with the player's actions. Sure, music comes at important points, but it starts or stops then. You still can't have a dynamic score.

For example, Halo famous musical score is only present in the single-player game, when the game knows that certain events will happen sooner or later. The multiplayer game is devoid of any music, because the important events - a bomb being planted, a flag being stolen, a large battle in one spot, whatever - are impossible to schedule and cue ahead of time. The point is that recording high-quality orchestral scores is well and good, but the next crucial step is for the music to be generated on the fly (possibly from prerecorded snippets).