Video game music

The term video game music covers all the songs that appear in video games. This can be either by specially composed music for the game or to licensed music pieces.

As with movies are playing video games is a combination of picture and sound. These two media stand in a close relationship and create a multimedia work. Here, the sound has a very strong influence on how the seen is perceived. He can provide a neutral image with meaning, he can understand what is being shown with, or to do a contrast to what is shown. There are countless categorizations that describe this influence and assign functions.

• 3.1 Bioshock

• 8.1 The need for dynamic music
• 8.2 Creation of a dynamic music 8.2.1 variability
• 8.2.2 adaptivity 8.2.2.1 Branching
• 8.2.2.2 layering
• 8.2.2.3 Transitions
• 8.2.2.4 Generative Music
• 8.2.2.5 Parallel Composing

• 8.3.1 Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay

The emotional level

However, the different models agree in the point that the music is used functional to cause some emotional impact. In terms of video games, the music creates an "emotional level, the plot and gameplay supported, strengthened and often specifically directs. " Just like in the movie the video game music, through its emotional component significantly to the atmosphere. Only through the combination of visual and auditory stimuli is an immersion in the game world or in the world of film allows. In one study, it was found that when playing without sound, the mood and the feeling of being in a "real" world, had disappeared: "The mood, the presence and the feeling of a lifelike world disappeared, and the games revealed Themselves as nothing but animated graphics on a screen. "

Compositional techniques

To add the image to an emotional level, various compositional techniques are employed.

Mood technique

The video game so far most widely used technique is the so-called Mood technique. In this technique are music and images to each other in a casual relationship. The music does not rewrite any visible on the image plane of action, but rather creates a mood that is appropriate for the mood of the scene. Josef Kloppenburg summarizes the concept as follows: " In summary, under Mood - Technique, a specific mood, an atmosphere, a mood are to understand by means of coloring an entire music scene. What is meant is that the piece of music simply "corresponds to" a place of action or a mood without referring to details with respect. " The dominance of this technology can be explained by the fact that the possibilities of adaptive music ( music of directly on the behavior player responding) have not been extensively researched and have rarely found in practice application.

Design technique

Furthermore comes with the video game music called the leitmotif technique used. In this after Kloppenburg " persons or events of the action by the composer with striking musical figures provided. " Are a special effect case display the striking musical figures of the title issues. They cause game or movie will receive a recognition value. While the film especially themes from Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean or Harry Potter enjoy a high level of awareness, there are numerous well-known titles and topics in the video game music. Here are some examples that show the use of the Motif Technology:

Monkey Iceland

Since the publication of the first part of the series (1990 ) Monkey Iceland is considered an early and prominent example of design technology in computer games. Recurring particularly striking and in all parts of the series is the theme song of the Ghost Pirate LeChuck ( LeChuck 's Theme ). They were composed by Michael Land.

Max Payne

The theme of Max Payne is the first piece of music that perceives the player in the main menu of the game. In Max Payne 2, it is particularly striking. It is there - at first accompanied only by atmospheric sounds - played by a real cello and instantly creates a melancholy mood, without the player has even started the game. The game is played the cello from Kivilaakso, a member of the group Apocalyptica.

Fahrenheit

The written by Angelo Badalamenti main theme to Fahrenheit occurs at prominent points in the game again and again in a variety of formations and variations. Time it is played by a solo cello, sometimes it is implemented in a warm string section. Through his constant presence there remains the player in mind and gets him to empathize with the emotions of the devastated main character Lucas.

Metal Gear Solid

The heroic theme Metal Gear Solid is characterized by a particular catchiness of the recurrent rhythm ( 2/8, about half -bound, 3/8, quarter, half ), in which the melody is always varied. There are now four Metal Gear Solid parts, the first part of the original composition, it also contains several variations. However, Part 2 and Part 3 contains reinterpretations of the play, where the subject is always maintained. They also contain several variations of the piece. In Part 4, there is only one highly modified form of the piece, in which the subject has been greatly modified and plays a minor role and instead puts a new subject in the foreground. Reason for this is that shortly before appearing in Part 4 was publicly that the main theme was used by another piece without permission. Even the title of the piece was renamed Metal Gear saga.

Underscoring

A compositional technique, which is rather to be found in the film, is the method of underscoring. The aim here is that the music that responding to excursions directly represented on the image plane. This can go so far that almost every movement is represented musically, as is the case with early Walt Disney cartoons. In this particular degree of underscoring one also speaks of Mickey Mousing. Underscoring is also used to represent feelings of the characters or to trigger emotions in the audience. This technique is rather in films referred to as the images appear here after a predetermined order. Consequently, the composer can be based on this definition and adapt his music to the dramatic picture. In video games, the production requirements for the music are designed differently. Here, the player decides how he interacts with his game world. Then the music must respond. One of the players reacting music can be found up to now only in a few games. One possibility, however, frequently used, which fits into the category of underscoring, occurs in so-called script sequences revealed. These are predetermined events that take place when the player enters a certain part of a level. A script sequence may be designed so that a player goes through a door, and thereafter, a monster breaking through the walls. These scripted events are often accompanied by music.

Assimilation of all directions of electronic music of the 20th century

Video game music has assimilated all directions of classical music in itself. This is because the film music for video games is a great role model. The soundtrack in turn has developed in parallel with the concert music in the 20th century. In the cinema the audience was made ​​unknowingly familiar with the developments of e- music of the 20th century. These developments are still significant and influence on film music, the video game music.

Bioshock

The critically acclaimed action game Bioshock takes place in an underwater city called Rapture. The city was constructed by a group of wealthy scientist with the intention to build a new society that lives far from ethical restrictions. Therefore, some genetic experiments are conducted on Rapture. However, some of them go wrong and ensure that erupts in Rapture chaos. The player crashes with an airplane and runs into this underwater city in which he has to fight for its survival. The soundtrack of Bioshock, which was composed by Garry Schyman, is built in large part avant-garde: it consists of sound collages that were created along the lines of musique concrète, aleatoric passages or 12-tone -like melodies. Here, then, different compositional principles are used that have arisen in the classical music of the 20th century. With the atonal elements of horror film music is typically described which prevails in Rapture. They also create their own aesthetic effect.

Since the design of the game is inspired by the style of the American 1950's, there are also some songs that match the music of the time. These hears the player gramophones, which favors an immersion of the player into the world of the 1950s and 1960s.

An interesting title of the soundtrack is a piece for piano, which is modeled after the style of Rachmaninoff after the composer Garry Schyman. This title is integrated into the plot, as it represents him as if he had been composed by a game character. This Schyman have followed the intention to incorporate the typical sound of classical music of the early 20th century in the game. Consequently, the soundtrack of Bioshock shows some compositional styles of the 20th century.

Influences from the film music

Since it was technically possible, an approximation of the video game music on the soundtrack has occurred. This can be explained by the fact that the video game medium and the medium of film are similar in terms of combination of picture and sound. A development towards Hollywood Sound is also promoted by the fact that more and more film composers write music for video games. These now include renowned Hollywood composers. This shows the following list:

Influences on the film music

Video game music also has an influence on the film music, not just vice versa: In 2006, the popular video game series " Silent Hill " was given to a film adaptation. Here, the music composed by Akira Yamaoka music was taken from the video game. It was arranged by Jeff Danna for the film. By retaining the original music was made possible that the unique feel to the music has made a great atmospheric contribution, could be transferred to the canvas.

Increase in production expenses

While recourse to the beginning of the video game history for technical reasons purely synthetic sounds, the video game soundtracks are now often included with real orchestras. The soundtrack to the published 1999 sci-fi game Outcast was one of the first purely orchestral video game soundtracks. It was composed by Lennie Moore and performed by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, together with the choir. It's like the soundtrack as usual to perform so-called hybrid productions. This digitally generated sounds are associated with analog instruments. When mixing a virtual orchestra played with some real recordings, so the recording sounds authentic and loses a degree of its often criticized synthetic character. Hybrid productions are also an inexpensive alternative, as it decreases only a few analog instruments and the composer dedicated to program the remaining sounds themselves.

Summary

Video game music and film music are the closest relatives to each other, since both media present an image - sound relationship and they do the same with the functions and modes of composition basically. The only difference is you could a different distribution of the focal points define (Video Game Music: Mood - Technique; film music: Underscoring so ). This relationship can reinforce the fact that many video games define it as clear goal of eliciting film-like experience. An example can be the video game Fahrenheit, which a lot of techniques from movies applies was written (for example, split-screen ) and its soundtrack by Angelo Badalamenti film composers. The goal, film-like experience causes evoke that film music is a clear model for video game music. Consequently, all musical styles that have found their way into the film music, also to be found in the current video game music. The realm of film music is also encouraged that more and more film composers are hired for video games. Also, the production costs for video game music of the film music approximated and now includes elaborate orchestral productions.

Despite many parallels comes with video games in the crosslinking of picture and sound Another quality: While films run linearly, the player usually has in video games, the control of different areas of the game world. He decides how he wants to reach the goal. In this decision the possibility games give different amounts of space. However, the general way to make decisions, given in all games. This is the music in video games before an important requirement. While it is added to the composition at the music for already fixed images and their dramaturgical construction is established, it must be at play to be able to respond flexibly and dynamically to the player's actions. To compose " adaptive music ", there are various methods (for example, composing in parallel, see below).

Dynamic music

The need for dynamic music

While a movie on average captures 90 minutes, games are designed so that they provide fun for a longer period. The actual number of hours is extremely variable. For example, while an action game that is constructed rather linear, about 8 hours of play elicits create some role playing their open game world, players to fascinate up to about 100 hours. Especially online role playing games like World of Warcraft have a very long season. This fact provides the video game composers with a special compositional order: he must compose music that provides listening pleasure as long as the player is concerned with the game. To achieve this there are several ways: the composer must consider may be his music as pushy. A catchy musical theme that occurs in the study of a period in an infinite loop, would be for a role playing game that delivers over 100 hours of play time, certainly problematic. A slightly more restrained atmospheric track that can occur the main topic now and then, is discrete and is able to captivate the ear more. It is clear that on the question of how intrusive music may be, the aesthetic ideas go far apart. These are also historical. While previous video game soundtracks put on very catchy melodies (see Super Mario ), current soundtracks are reluctant composed and pushing yourself hard in the foreground.

In addition to the consideration of the Aufdringlichkeitsgrades must also be considered, as you can program the music caused by certain techniques so that it looks new again and again on the player. There are various approaches.

Creating dynamic music

There are two major factors that make the music dynamically appear in video games, so for a long time listening pleasure is on offer: variability and adaptivity.

Variability

Various musical segments are assembled randomly and form that belonged piece of music. The music technologist Jesper Kaae compares this aspect of the work " Piano Piece XI ", which was written by Stockhausen. This consists of a large sheet of music on the 19 separate segments were noted. The player decides spontaneously, which are played these segments. Transferred to the factor of variability in video game music, this means that the computer relies on random prefabricated musical segments. However, the combination of prefabricated segments represents only one of many ways to make music appear in video games variable. It occurs mostly when working with audio files. This variability, however, can be more complex. So you can let each note (eg, velocity, volume, duration, etc. ) from the computer vary the programmed limits when working with MIDI data each parameter. Jesper Kaae sees in the method of the variability of the advantage that it does not require much memory and allows the music always "new" sounds. The latter is advantageous because - as mentioned - most video games are designed to entertain them for several hours. Without variability, the music gets repetitive quickly a character and interferes with the player.

Adaptivity

When the music reacts in video games on the player's actions, one speaks of adaptivity. The sound designer Tim van Geelen reported him his essay " Realizing groundbreaking adaptive music" among others five techniques how to generate adaptive Music:

Branching

When branching a piece of music is divided into different layers. The idea behind this division is that one or more of these layers silent designed, or may be exchanged for other layers once changed the gameplay. So you can create a piece of music, for example, two percussion lines, each expressing different moods. Depending on the gameplay situation, these are then exchanged. Similarly, one can with other layers (bass line, harmonies, melodies ) method. This technique has several drawbacks: it must be expended much time to compose, as you must always create different versions of the layers. Furthermore, you have to constantly check if the different versions match. Moreover, this technique consumes a lot of computing power, as not only one track, but several tracks are synchronized.

Layering

The layering technique works much like the branching method. For explanation mentioned van Geelen the game Tomb Raider Legend. Here's a guitar part on the ambient track of the level will often put into action sequences. Van Geelen doubted whether this effect causes a greater immersion in the game world, because the effect seems very predictable.

Transitions

In this method, a composer writes different pieces of music composed and in addition there are transition pieces ( transition pieces ) for each possible jump of a piece of music to another. The advantage of this method is to be able to jump smoothly from one song to another, from one emotion to another. However, writing transition pieces is again time consuming since for each track new " Transitions " must be composed.

Generative Music

The field of generative music is very complex. One possibility is to show the computer how to create variations of various themes according to the random principle. In this case, there is the disadvantage that for each note individual samples need to be used. This in turn requires a higher stress of computing power.

Composing parallel

The method that prefers van Geelen, he referred to as "parallel Composing ". Here, a linear piece of music is written. In parallel, the composer writes additionally one or two pieces of music with the main piece of music in the most important parameters ( tempo, key ) match. Each track brings a different emotional expression. These tracks are played back in parallel and can be changed in the track with each other at certain points. The advantage of this method is that the pieces are written in parallel. So you can see continuously whether the swap between tracks is working smoothly. Furthermore, the memory is not overloaded. In addition, you can use tools that are also used in composing linear music. This method is also characterized by a good adaptability. You must use no fades or transition pieces ( Transitions). You can also take complex musical elements such as rhythmic modulations or changing play, since they are used in each track.

The disadvantage of this method is that you have to write a lot of music and have to constantly make sure at the same time that the song at any chosen moment to another track can jump.

Examples of dynamic music

In practice, there are different degrees of dynamic music in video games. Currently, the options are even more dynamic music explored and discussed academically. One option that is often used is to compose several songs for various game states. Often can be, for example, states " exploration " and face "battle". This is an illustrative theoretical example show: The player is in a dark cellar. His task is to find a missing girl again. The last notes have led him here. The somber mood of the level is accompanied by deep sun ​​tones in the strings. The player goes into the basement. Suddenly crashing a door off its hinges. High string tremolos increase the shock effect. The girl's kidnapper is directly in front of the player and comes with a raised ax to him. The following fight is accompanied by action-packed drum rhythms. In this simplified example, three musical elements occur: The music playing in the exploration of the basement, creating a mood. She does not pursue any right of the player single action. Once the player enters a certain area, a programmed script is used: The kidnapper enters the door. This action is enhanced by a short but effective use of music. This allows the music to appear dynamically, as it is directly linked to actions on the image plane. A new piece of music is started: The fight music. Driving rhythms to support the more movement on the visual level.

Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay

A video game that is conspicuous by its dynamic music " The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay". In this game, each piece of music is divided into two tracks. Each of these carry the designation " sneak track" and "action track". At this name you can already see that the music responds dynamically to the player's behavior. Analogous to the juxtaposition of " exploration " and "fight" you can use the terms " Crawl " and "action " here. In Riddick the player has the opportunity to achieve the game objective by stealth. Meanwhile runs the sneak version of a song. Once the player is discovered by guards, the music changes and it will fade into the action version.

On the track " Critters " it is clear that both versions of the song include the main theme. Thus, the two versions of the title are not as two independent pieces of music suddenly next to each other. Through thematic connections are connected to each other and let the change from surreptitious atmosphere for Action mood appear liquid.