Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
LEVEL 6
Compose Yourself!
The Art of Composing for Games
Music Creation for Media •
A New Breed of Composer •
Modern Day •
Speaking of Music •
Game Music Form and Structure •
Music Gets Dynamic •
Elements of Game Music •
The Music Team •
Learning Outcomes:
Identify dif erences between linear and non-linear music composition •
Examine the use of loops, branching, and transitions •
Recognize the factors involved in non-linear scoring •
Understand vertical and horizontal musical concepts •
Music Creation for Media
Writing music for any kind of media is a form-follows-function situation.
When left alone with nothing to look at and no deadlines to meet, a
composer will, in most cases, write very dif erent music from the music
that same composer would write for theater, i lm or television. The
challenges in writing for these mediums include understanding the
aesthetic principles of the medium and working with the production
team to produce a satisfying user experience. As you well know by now,
the main dif erence in game music is that the experience is open-ended
and thus possesses a very dif erent set of challenges for the composer.
With a game score, you have no idea how long a player will remain in a
certain location in the game. You also don't know what path that player
