Music Composition DUMmIES

Composing for Video Games ......................................................................

Composing music for video games is another exciting way to go as a composer.

The music from the Legend of Zelda series may be some of the most recogniz-

able instrumental music of the decade. Currently music composition for video

games relies heavily on MIDI. There have been a few notable exceptions, but

in general video game developers put music fairly low on the list of things to

allocate game memory for. Gaming is about the game play. On the other hand,

the wrong music can really hurt a game’s popularity, so game developers do

care about it. The music gives the game an important part of its character.

Whether you are or aren’t a gamer, you should study the way music is used in

games if you want to be successful at this field of composition. Usually, there

are at least four or five pieces of music that are connected with certain areas

of game play. There might be music for wandering around, for doing battle,

for equipping your character, for being first in a race, and so on.

Sometimes a gamer will hear the same piece of music over and over again for

quite long periods of time. The music has to either be good enough to stand

the test of extended game play, or be invisible enough to provide a mood

without demanding too much of the gamer’s attention.

Music for video games can be composed from old, unfinished compositions

you may have lying around, or you can come up with brand new music. You

can live anywhere once you have a game or two under your belt, but it is hard

to get a start in this field. We suggest you do some surfing on the Internet to

find out who the game developers in your area are, if any, and contact them.

Put together a demo reel of short examples of your musical compositions.

Just give them ten or twelve seconds worth of eight or nine contrasting musi-

cal ideas. Try to edit them together so that the whole collection has a flow to

it and doesn’t sound too disjointed.

Along with MIDI, there are other technical considerations when composing

for video games, so you will have to be technically inclined, but at first you

should concentrate on the musical side. If you are technically inclined, the

rest will come in time.

Composing for TV and Radio......................................................................

Composing music for television shows is kind of a cross between composing

for film and composing for video games. You will usually need to come up

with several themes that get used frequently, but you have to continue to

write custom music for certain types of TV shows. Sometimes the theme

Chapter 17: Composing Commercial Music and Songs 213