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Game
music: a canon all its own
Nothing makes battling a space pirate or evil sorcerer more thrilling than an exciting suspenseful soundtrack, and a goofy, absent-minded wizard is best accompanied by a light-hearted melody. Music is an integral part of the gaming experience. The abundance of the genre today just begs for serious study. How has it developed, both due to advances in technology, and the increased importance it is accorded by video game developers? How does the musical soundtrack enhance the gaming experience? What are the cultural contexts of the game music canon, both in terms of the game, and the society at large? What role does it play in the academic canon, and why does it belong in a genre all its own? Tracing the development of video game music, its treatment by the music industry, as well as the game developers themselves, and looking at the cultural ramifications that distinguish the game music experience from other forms of music, I hope to establish that game music does deserve treatment as a musical art, as well as demonstrate its uniqueness, which makes it deserving of its own genre.
Game
music history: An overview
Video game music itself has run the full gamut of western musical history as technology improved to allow a progression from homophony to polyphony, and finally harmony. Early programmers often converted baroque pieces to accompany their games, including Atari Frogger and Nintendo Gameboy Tetris. Later companies hired composers, who faced the challenges of hardware that could only support two or three voices, and who developed arpeggiation techniques to simulate four-part harmonies. Present-day game scores are so rich and of such high quality that soundtracks are sold as independent audio CD albums. How did technology and the seriousness with which video game music came to be regarded by the industry affect the quality of the music over the course of its development?
The earliest gaming systems, like the Atari 2600, released in 1978, could produce two sounds at a time, but memory was limited, so games with higher-end graphics used homophonic tunes. Programmers would often use fast alternating melodies to simulate two-voice counterpart to save space. Many early games also did not hire composers, but produced short scale-variant melodies, or transcribed baroque or classical pieces. Two examples of this are the tracks from Frogger and Pitfall. (listen: 1,2)
The Nintendo Entertainment System
debuted in the
In 1991, Nintendo released the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which could produce eight simultaneous voices, an audible improvement over the earlier model, but still not capable of implementing orchestral scoring. Some of the other important improvements were developed, besides the eight voices. One was the capability for real articulation, through built-in digital delay (Belinkie), which removed the need for complicated mathematical formulas just to apply rhythm. Another advance was the use of sampled tracks (Belinkie), small snippets of music that could be played back at any point in the game to correspond with specific user actions, such as blowing up a bomb, obtaining a special sword, or losing a life. Memory still wasn’t cheap, and graphics required a great deal of space, so music was a bit of a back burner. Composition practice also didn’t change much, requiring writers to work in close conjunction with programmers and designers. The actual voices had to be divided between sound effects and drum tracks, another serious limitation on what the system could produce in terms of pitched tones. The most successful composers wrote simple melodies that gamers could easily identify with specific scenes in a game, such as the overland theme from Legend of Zelda, by Koji Kondo (listen: 15).
1995 saw a musical revolution with the
advent of Sony Playstation, which allocated much more memory for sample storage,
and even stereo playback. As Jim
Aikin wrote in Keyboard magazine, “opportunities have never been greater for
…[composers] who want to write music for computer games” (Aikin, pg 17).
The Playstation console could produce twenty-four simultaneous voices,
allowing composers to approximate orchestral scoring using three different types
of music (Belinkie). The first music
file format was the
In the
Context:
the game
Game music is written for a game. While painfully obvious, it is far too often the case that when analyzing the quality of the music it is divorced from its context. We will discuss the elements of game music that lend itself to the gaming experience. The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, for example, requires that for any interactive game music soundtrack to qualify for a Grammy Award it must be released separately in music outlets. Game music’s value is derived from its role in a game. Beethoven’s 5th Symphony might be really great, but it probably won’t do anything for a skateboarding or car-racing game.
Gamers agree, melody is key. Whether other styles have relevance as a musical form, it is nonetheless the case that for a game to sell, it must be marketable, and so the music must serve the listener’s tastes. “If I never play another game with ambient sounds instead of music in the background, I’ll die happy,” says gamer [Anonymous]. “I always feel like I’ve been ripped off when I get a game with sound effects instead of music.” From her essay on what makes good game music, I gathered that her use of the term “music” refers to melody, rather than the often harmonic progressions of “ambient sounds.” Eastern influence is evident here. Japanese game composers focus on the solo, with harmony as background to appeal to a Western audience. When Uematso was asked to write the music for the first Final Fantasy, he began by composing melodies for each scene, then went back and added Western-style background parts. (Belinkie)
Mood is an essential part of the interactive experience, and it is for this that game music is written (listen: 4, 8, 18). Composer Mark Miller says, “The game-playing experience is essentially an adrenaline rush. So one of the functions of game music is to get you psyched up about blowing things up, about driving 150 miles an hour around the track. The one quality that’s most characteristic about game music is that it captures that feeling of riding on the very, very edge” (Rideout).
Context:
the culture
Game composers hail from those technology-rich countries where games are
played. It’s that simple.
It’s no surprise, then, that the musical influences are Western,
American in particular, and Japanese. While
only a limited number of American game soundtracks are independently marketed,
Japanese game tracks number in the thousands.
Many of the most highly praised video game composers hail from
Due to the limitations of the early game systems, melody was much easier
to establish than full rich harmonies, putting the Japanese in a better position
to compose for the games than their American rivals.
There is also the fact that all major video game systems are manufactured
in
Composing for games today requires much less technical know-how, and the genre is appealing for its immediate paycheck, instead of writing a song, and hoping it’s a hit. Composer Mike Pummell works in a state-of-the-art recording studio, but he needs to rely on creativity to produce the sounds he wants. While creating the soundtrack for Loony Toons Space Travel, Pummell brought in some 60-year-old trumpet players to create the old Warner Bros. sound that the synthesizers just couldn’t duplicate (Belinkie). Most Game composers today do not work for one game company, but for a specific game music company, or just compose music for a variety of jobs. American composer Darryl Duncan left the mainstream music industry, where he wrote songs for artists such as Michael Jackson, Anita Baker, and Jeffrey Osborne, as well as motion picture soundtracks for Police Academy 4, and Revenge of the Nerds. He founded GameBeat, an independent music production company (Belinkie). Acknowledging the changes in the game music industry, some game publishers put together a soundtrack out of contributions from demographically desirable artists, and increasingly, game music is regarded as the property of the composer. Big Fat, Inc. helps composer win back the audio CD rights to their work (Lindsay).
Popular music groups and composers are seeing video games as an unexplored market. Game producer Hunter Smith says, “These bands struggle for people to hear their music. If they get in a game like ours, suddenly millions of kids are listening to their songs over and over.” (Kushner)
Game composers consider themselves cutting edge, yet also artistic musicians. Composer McConnel says, “Bach was utterly aware of the latest developments in technology. He was intimately acquainted with the latest organs and tunings for them” (Lindsay). Most will agree that it’s a pretty cool job: “you can meet and talk to famous people, like quarterback Joe Montana, astronaut Buzz Aldrin, or actor Omar Sharif… [and] you’ll see your nieces and nephews play the games that you programmed the music and sound effects for… those are benefits that I really like” (Deenen).
Game music runs the full range of
musical styles. Some composers
employ full orchestral scoring techniques, such as Peter McConnell, Nubuo
Uematsu, and George Sanger. Other
games draw from the popular music spectrum with artists like David Bowie,
Garbage, or Dandy Warhols. Games
like Tony Hawk Pro Skater, Quake, and racing game Gran Turismo make exclusive
use of popular music titles. The modern composers hail from locations around the
globe. Adam Page, a top reviewer
from Soundtrack Central states, “I enjoy game music because it typically
represents a wide diversity of musical voices; not just those of
Canon:
within and without academia
The
musical canon studied at university music departments in the
In 1999 the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (NARAS) announced that interactive game music could compete for Grammys, lending credibility to a previously underrated genre. Three new categories were for best soundtrack album, best song and best instrumental composition for motion picture, TV and other visual media (Saltzman). Only those game soundtracks released separately in music outlets qualify. Game music must also compete in the same categories with movie soundtracks, which are held in much higher esteem.
Americans generally tend to scoff at game music as serious art.
Duncan recounts, “I once played the entire ending theme from Final
Fantasy VI on the piano in class, and [the other students] thought it was
amazing…until I told them it was for a video game, at which point they started
ridiculing it” (Belinkie). There
have been some attempts to release game music soundtracks as audio CDs in the
To what genre does game music belong? My answer is “none of the above.” Game music certainly does not fall into the realm of Western music, nor does it fit the “World” music category, having its source in such a portable venue. With composers from varied cultural backgrounds, it is nearly impossible to relate game music to a specific contextual environment. The closest fit would be popular music, but that is usually conceived as lyrical songs we hear on the radio. Although the NARAS groups it with movie and other media soundtracks, I find that too tight a pigeonhole in which to squeeze the interactive experience that game music complements. As James Lendino points out, “The ‘game music composer’ faces a slew of challenges unheard of in established venues such as film scoring” (Lendino, pg 447). So, what is game music? Well, it’s just game music.
Western academia lacks the tools to properly address the subject of game music. Biography, musical notation, tonal analysis…can these tools be applied to game music? Certainly. I can tell you right now, however, that these approaches are not enough. These methods of investigation will not yield appreciation for the true genius required to create a four-voice score that will enhance hours of game play without driving the listener to distraction. Can these tools demonstrate the thrill of danger a player feels when a familiar theme heralds the approach of a truly horrendous bad guy, or how a simple increase in tempo makes your heart start pounding in your chest? In order to truly understand the musical talents of game composers, the ethnomusicologist’s study of context is essential.
Conclusion
Game music is a genre all its own. The cultural background is global, and as technology advances, has become even more so. It encompasses musical styles of all kinds, and its interactive quality cannot be ignored when judging its value. The musical abilities required to compose for the game medium are not small, due to the technical limitations imposed on the artists. While game music is sometimes admired as an element of pop culture, it is not appreciated at large for the musical art that it is.
References:
Aikin, Jim. “Jamming at the Computer Game Developers Conference”
Keyboard August 1994, 17.
[This article discusses the author’s experience at a game developer’s conference, and the concerns composers and designers face in writing music for games.]
Aikin, Jim. “Music in the Myst: How a minimal synth/sequencer setup turned the trick on this year’s hi-tech CD-ROM hit”
Keyboard September 1994, 13.
[Jim Aikin praises the achievement of composer Robyn Miller, for his composition for the hit PC game Myst, using limited technology, and much creativity.]
Belinkie,
Matthew. “Video Game Music, Not Just
Kid Stuff”
Video Game Music Archive: http://www.vgmusic.com/vgpaper.shtml