Techniques and Styles of Video Game Music

MarkN writes "Video game music has come to represent much more than just the beeps and boops of early video games that often got muted out of annoyance. It's a genre that stands on its own, stylistically and musically. It necessarily differs from typical soundtrack fare in a few important ways — it's written to accompany an activity rather than meant to be listened to passively, it is often required to loop and extend indefinitely, and it has the potential to be adaptive and respond to player feedback. In this article, I talk about some of the techniques used to make game music effective within its constraints and with all of its potential, and discuss how different styles and musical techniques can relate to the gameplay."

Comments

Different kinds of game music?

[elynnia]

I thought this was a reasonably sound article, but it neglected something that I always found interesting about game soundtracks: namely, the correlation between the musical styles used and the game's country of origin.

For instance, Final Fantasy and Myst both feature orchestral soundtracks but the composing techniques used do vary, leading to different effects being created. The tendency seems to be that Japanese games feature melodic tunes for every scene/stage/level whereas Western games tend to use more ambient compositions.

Would someone with more knowledge in the area care to elaborate?
Aly.

Re:Different kinds of game music?

[Panseh]

For an exploration type game such as Myst, or free-roaming American RPGs, there is no real set plot or characters aside from your own. These games feature ambient music (minimalistic) that set the mood and tension for cities and dungeons, but they also do not stand out enough to distract gamers from their immersion in exploration.

In addition to exploration aspects, Japanese RPGs feature wide casts of recurring, developed characters important to a fairly linear plot. Having recognizable themes (melodies) for notable characters give them life and enhance the story telling aspect of these games.

Having said that, comparing Final Fantasy with Myst composition based on cultural influences is difficult. And alas, I'm not a hardcore gamer, so I can't name two games useful to compare for your inquiry.

Re:Overrated: same as all other music

[Cocoa Radix]

I don't mean to be so brusque, but that's a really stupid statement. I've studied music seriously for some time now, and I truly believe that the music that's been composed for films and games comprises the deepest, most complex, and most intellectual music that's been written since the last remaining important "Classical" (really late-Romantic or Contemporary) composers died roughly sixty years ago.

That's not to say that all game and film music is brilliant -- far from it. Ambient music is often dull or lacks individuality, and techno music is really just mindlessly repetitive (most techno songs are one measure of music repeated hundreds of times with new sounds added in at fairly regular intervals).

The challenge that composers for games and films face is that their music must be memorable and enjoyable without being overly intrusive. I've heard it said that the best film/game music is that which you don't really actively pay attention to while watching/playing, but find yourself humming later on. I agree with this.

I'd urge you to listen to some of the great soundtracks out there. For film, anything by John Williams (Star Wars, Schindler's List, Harry Potter I-III) or Howard Shore (Lord of the Rings) should show you what extremely high-quality film music sounds like. As far as games go, Koji Kondo is obviously an extremely popular name, but some of the lesser-known composers, in my opinion, offer a deeper musical experience. Koichi Sugiyama (Dragon Quest) uses a lot of very unique harmonies and harmonic progressions, which gives his music an extremely individual sound; Ko Otani (Shadow of the Colossus) can use an orchestra to create any number of believable atmospheres without being "ambient" in the slightest.

All of this music works perfectly both in-game/in-film and out. And that's what makes it more than mere "entertainment accompaniment."

Re:Overrated: same as all other music

[Cocoa Radix]

I'm very interested in the difference between house, trance, techno, and all of those (sub?)genres that someone like myself would group together as "techno." Could you give me the names of a couple of artists who clearly display the idiosyncrasies of each genre? I'd like to hear them all to be able to make the distinction via listening, rather than via Wikipedia.