Video Game Music Composition

MUSIC COMPOSER

Sam Sennett, 2024

For almost two decades, I've known that I wanted to get into the business of making music for video games. Even though there was a brief moment in time where I wanted to be an animator, video game composition, and video game music were always things that I held very near and dear to my identity today. Playing Super Mario Galaxy as a 6 year old at the time was so eye opening for me. It was the first game that I played that had an orchestrated soundtrack. There was something so grand about it that even as a kid back then, transformed my idea of what music in video games could mean. It could tell stories entirely on its own. It doesn't have to be simply catchy beeps and boops that I feel is what is associated with video game music by most of the general populous. Music composer I feel is one of the most overlooked jobs in the video game industry, and I would love nothing more than to be the guy that makes a soundtrack that impacts somebody in the same way that Super Mario Galaxy's OST impacted me.

The job of a music composer on a video game is to compose music for any and all scenarios in a video game that need to be enhanced by something more than audio design, or art can accomplish. The role music can play in the making of a video game can differ wildly depending on the type of game in question. Being a video game composer requires the knowledge to be able to discern these differences and the ability to use that knowledge to deliver a final product that enhances what's on the screen.

For example, Animal Crossing has a very specific type of atmosphere and feel than something like Call of Duty. If you were playing Animal Crossing, and high octane action, Hollywood style music is what you heard while doing your daily chores, I would bet you wouldn't feel entirely immersed, since the tone of the music doesn't fit with what you are playing. Most people think of Animal Crossing as a very "cozy" game, so naturally you would want more mellow, laid back tunes to accompany that, which is exactly the type of music present in those games.

Other knowledge that could potentially aid a composer, but can be done without in a pinch is knowledge of music theory. I see a lot of people my age take music theory classes and express confusion over why knowledge of music theory is necessary. I myself was guilty of this, since I just thought that it was a process of refining my music until I liked how it sounded. While this has worked in the past for me, and while it can be done that way, knowledge of music theory can be beneficial in numerous different ways.

Knowing different types of techniques that composers have used in the past, and that have been proven to work could potentially help streamline the process of making a piece of music. Knowing all these different techniques across a whole array of different eras might also potentially inspire you to merge different techniques together to create combinations that you would never have though of yourself. Finally, knowing the conventional rules of music theory means that it could be easier to potentially break them, or utilize them to tie into the themes of the piece you will create. I can say from experience that knowledge of music theory can help enhance a piece and touch people in ways that I could never have even expected. I've done exactly this with some of my pieces I created during my time at Eastern Illinois University, and can be checked out here:

https://youtube.com/@samsennett7050?si=i1o6HkEBpdJkEdBE

When composing music for a game, you also need to take into consideration how exactly you will compose it, be it through sheet music to hand to actual live performers for recording, through a DAW using synthesized instruments and sounds, or a mixture of the two. Both styles of composition have their advantages, and their drawbacks. 

In my experience, composing using real pen to paper, or using a notation software can be kind of misleading. Particularly with using notation software, its very easy to get an idea of what your piece sounds like because of MIDI sounds these programs use to represent these instruments. Its easy to forget that it will most definitely sound very different if and when you eventually get real people to play your music, and its also very easy to forget what exactly is considered possible, or at least hard on certain instruments. However, once rehearsed, and once it sounds coherent together, the experience you as a composer, and everyone in the audience gets is undeniably something that can't be replicated when just listening to a computer file. Its the same logic behind why people go to concerts. Something about seeing real people perform a piece that you have spent however long making is so incredibly satisfying.

Using a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) is a lot of fun, and my preferred way to make music if I had to choose one of the two. The types of customization when it comes to the sounds you create is unparalleled when compared to using real instruments. One of my personal favorite upsides to using a DAW is that you can refine a piece to sound exactly as you want it to up until the point when you need to submit your final work. Its not reliant on performers, just your ability to compose music. The level of immersion you can reach with DAW-created music by using aspects of sound design in your music also makes this my preferred way to compose.

Some notable composers in video games would include Koji Kondo, who is responsible for some of Nintendo's most famous musical motifs, such as the Mario Overworld Theme, or the Legend of Zelda Main Theme. Nobuo Uematsu is famous for his work on almost every Final Fantasy game from the 1987 NES original, to Final Fantasy X on PS2. Yoko Shimomura is another famous Square Enix composer, staking her claim in series such as Kingdom Hearts, Super Mario RPG, and the Mario & Luigi games. Shoji Meguro is one of the most famous composers from Atlus, working on series such as Shin Megami Tensei, and Persona. To bring it full circle, Mahito Yokota is the man who inspired me to be a game composer with his work on the 3D Mario games, including Super Mario Galaxy.