Part IV: It drove to LA

Music for Videogames: How Top Composers Find Work and Create Great Video Game Scores...

A few of the folks on the panel got their start (ex.Laura Karpman, laurakarpman.com) by getting experience as staff composers for places like Sony Online. Others apparently just sent off their work and became independently wealthy...ok, kidding, but it's like pulling teeth trying to find out how they got their sweet jobs!


This was by far my favorite panel discussion. Each of the panelists/moderator had impressive video game credits (if you want specifics, just google their names and start clicking), and offered up essential videogame primer information.

Here are a few fun facts:

Videogames are so money right now, and while already earning more than Hollywood, are set to eclipse the music industry (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3160654).

When you take the Videogame industry's swollen coffers and add in pro-gaming consoles such as Sony's Playstation and Microsoft's XBox 360 with their powerful audio engines, you have amazing potential for music scores. Most game development companies are now looking for sweeping orchestral scores or major label bands.

Gone are the days of blips and bleeps.

Writing music for games is different than writing music for movies, tv, and video. While orchestration and melodic involvement remain relatively unchanged, game composers have had to figure out diffeent ways to keep their music timely and relevant to the gameplay happening on screen.

Several terms and musical cues have been created to describe these techniques...

Stingers: A Stinger is a very short piece of music that begins and ends within a matter of a few seconds.
They are not like a music-loop which is made for looping around and a round to create a never ending piece of music. A "Stinger" has a beginning, a middle-part, and an end. It's not made for looping.
Stingers can be used for many purposes (splash screens, logos, highlights, underlining a point), but the most common use of Stingers is in the transition between scenes. Look at an episode of "Friends". Every time the story moves from one location to another, we see a little shot of the new location, and the music plays a "Stinger".
Incidentals: Incidental music is often "background" music, and adds atmosphere to the action. It may also include pieces which will provide the main interest for the audience, for example overtures, or music played during scene changes.
Accidentals: When Zelda gets hurt.

All of the gaming platforms offer different audio engines and programs that enable composers to write in a linear and non-linear fashion. Now you can have a melodic idea happen randomly, depending upon the main character's interaction with it's environment. This call happen while other music, possibly a loop or through-composed piece, is playing.

A typical videogame might offer 40 hours of continuous (not including your cheetos break) gameplay and require 60 minutes of new music.


End of fun facts:

The important element that all the composer panelists continued to stress was that the gaming industry has turned the corner on the quality of it's musical scores. Gone are the blips. Say goodbye to cutesy midi strings and drums. Throw out your DX-7. It's time to load up the Vienna Symphony, Garritan Personal Orchestra, Gigastudio, Kontakt, and Big Band Brass and get working.
Almost 50% of all game scores are sampled. The other half?

Realsies.

Maybe you outta hire an orchestrator, buddy.