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Techniques and Styles of Video Game Music

Posted by Soulskill on from the badap-bop-boodop-beep!-boop! dept.

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."

4 of 68 comments (clear)

  1. Rez? by Lorigo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm surprised nothing from Tetsuya Mizuguchi is mentioned in the article. He produced/concepted Rez, Lumines and Every Extend Extra among others. These games heavily intertwine gameplay into sound and music. Often times the player not only affects the music being played, but 'creates' some of it. When you lock-on to targets in Rez, sometimes it syncs up with the beat, which creates majestic results.

    1. Re:Rez? by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 3, Interesting

      a little thought reminds me that adaptive music goes back at least as far as Ballblazer in 1984-85

      "Pitfall II" (1984) also used adaptive music; the soundtrack started off energetic, would switch to a gloomier minor-key version when you got hit and were sent back to a savepoint, and would return to heroic after picking up a prize. The original Atari 2600 version also may have been the first game cartridge to include its own custom audio chip; music was so important to that title that the extra hardware costs were justified, even as the market crash was beginning.

  2. Video Games Live brings it to a whole new level by Iced_Eagle · · Score: 1, Interesting

    For anyone who is at least a fan of video game music, I highly suggest attending a Video Games Live concert. I'm going to one in January and it should be awesome. I'm not the biggest fan of video game music, but mostly I'm going for the experience that the VGL guys create with the videos in the background and such.

  3. Re:Overrated: same as all other music by darknb · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't mean to be so brusque, but that's a really stupid statement.

    You shouldn't toss rocks in glass houses, you've made several uninformed statement yourself.

    Ambient music is often dull or lacks individuality, and techno music is really just mindlessly repetitive (most techno songs are onemeasure of music repeated hundreds of times with new sounds added in at fairly regular intervals).

    You've generalized two very deep and very excellent genres of pop music by focusing on their shittiest output. Techno at its best is about subtle variation, as the track cycles through each repetition it alters itself and the enjoyment comes from the focus on the clever details.

    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.../p>

    Ko Otani (Shadow of the Colossus) can use an orchestra to create any number of belvable atmospheres without being "ambient" in the slightest.

    This is where your Classical* bias shines most clearly, because you have stated that the best quality of film/game soundtracks is the balance between enjoyability and unintrusiveness. This is the exact definition of the Pop genre of Ambient Music. I will quote now from the wikipedia article on Brian Eno, because this it can easily be verified as true.

    Brian Eno is generally credited with coining the term "ambient music" in the mid-1970s to refer to music that, as he stated, can be either "actively listened to with attention or as easily ignored, depending on the choice of the listener", and that exists on the "cusp between melody and texture."

    I highly recommend you pick up "Music for Airports" and enjoy the gorgeous ambient music you've been missing out on.

    As for Video game soundtracks I would love to play a classic shooter ,in the style of R-type or Ikaruga, which employed a Techno soundtrack to alert you when ships or bullets were entering the screen. Rez and Audiosurfer are a good start, but the music is too much the main focus. What would be better would be to have the focus be on the game(play) whilst the music provides an ambient backdrop. This way you might find yourself falling into a groove as you play, without the game explicitly forcing you to play a 'rythm-based game'. A great example is "45:33" by LCD Soundsystem. Essentially its is a long (guess how long), ever changing Techno track designed to be listened to as you run. This way it regulates your periods of rest/effort by helping you develop a physical groove.