Composing Music For Video Games

Composing Music For Video Games

Like many composers, I often pitch for new projects.

When requests come in from game developers, I carefully read the brief to get a sense of direction for the game music, and after a few days of pondering, a new piece of music finds its way into the world.

This blog is for game developers interested in the writing process of music for games and musicians who have an interest in writing music for video games.

Pitching For New Projects

Composing music for a game pitch is always exciting, although it can also be daunting. And whilst dreaming up a game sound world from scratch is great fun, it’s never a given that what I’m writing will win the day. Colleges in the music world may also be pitching with a radically different approach. So I follow my instincts, listen to my gut and write what I believe is right!

I recently pitched a piece of game music for a Sci-Fi city builder featuring robot workers that harvest plants grown for humans on Mars.

I had a strong intuition that the music should be uplifting and fun. But without becoming overly childish or naive.

Let me show you how I approach that in a musical sense.

Composition Breakdown

The cute design of the video game and its setting got me thinking about the celestial bodies of outer space, and in my mind, that screams Lydian! For non-composers, Lydian is a Major scale mode with an uplifting or otherworldly quality.

Harmony

The harmonic progression came to me first and developed the Lydian idea, starting with a C6#4 chord (C, E, F#, A) before moving to a Dadd2 (D, E, F#, A).

C6#4

Dadd2

You can see the first two chords share three notes (E, F#, A), but by raising the bass note of the second chord from C to D, it’s possible to create a sense of lifting.

Continuing the theme of a rising bass note, I transposed the first chord up a minor 3rd to Eb6#4 (Eb, G, A, C) before resolving back to a D7sus4 (D, G, A, C) which again shares three of its notes with the preceding chord and creates a suitably satisfying symmetry - Ah, alliteration! Try saying that 3 times in a row quickly!

Eb6#4

D7Sus4

Arpeggiating the chords in an ascending direction accentuates the uplifting effect further and creates a rippling, rhythmic effect.

Melody

I think music for games should be striking, and the melody ought to be memorable but malleable enough to support contrasting aspects of gameplay.

With that in mind, and after noodling for a while, I settled on a simple melody of just five notes outlining the underlying harmony.

Transposing the melody up a minor 3rd to match the Eb6#4 sounds good, and rounding off with a little descending line as the harmony moves to the D7sus4 chord completes the phrase nicely.

Development

Music is, in many ways, the art of balance. Too much of one thing and not enough of another makes for poor composition.

For example, repetition creates familiarity. But too much repetition becomes annoying and predictable. The antidote? Development! Introduce new ideas to freshen things up and restore balance!

With this in mind, logic dictates there should be a balancing development after the first phrase. So, I wrote an additional 16-bar melody to extend the opening bars.

The developed melody follows the underlying harmony but introduces a new rhythm and melodic contour.

That’s it for the building blocks of the composition, although many additional elements add to the final effect, including instrumentation, sound effects and subtle changes to the harmony.

Let me show you how all the elements work together.

Clinching The Deal

As I mentioned earlier, when pitching music for games, there are no guarantees of success! For this pitch, I'm happy to say that my music was the development team's favourite.

However, there's more to closing a deal than writing the best music!

Start-up companies are often on a tight budget and sometimes allocate too little money to the music for their game. As with all things in life, there's a balance to be struck - for example, do you spend your money on advertising or invest in building the highest quality game you can afford?

It's a tough decision. Without any advertising budget, the game may be invisible to the potential audience, but if the game is going to make its mark in a crowded market, it needs to stand out - where music can make a big difference!

Sadly, in this case, the development team set aside too little money for the game music, and we were unable to work together this time.

If you’re wondering how much hiring a composer costs or need help budgeting for licensing music, check out these sections of the Music For Games blog Music Composer For Video Games and Music Licensing For Video Games.

Treated properly, the soundtrack for a game can become a valuable revenue stream for game studios and composers alike. But the potential for extra earnings is often missed due to a misunderstanding of music rights, publishing and royalties, which is a topic that deserves a future blog post!

Until then, I hope you enjoyed this blog.

Stay creative!

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