Music in Games

Soule feels the same way. ‘I think it’s very much the same function in that music, really, ultimately, can lift an overall picture or game. Good music can take films, and just lift them. Spielberg is often misquoted on this, but the gist of what he said was that, for Jaws, John Williams’ music was half of that film. I’d actually argue it was more than half. Music is a really fantastic way to get a message across. I’ve done some pretty tall orders, like in Oblivion, which is a game with over 100 hours of gameplay. That’s an awful long time for people to sit down and spend time with music. People say they might not really be spending time with the music, because they’re focused on playing the game, but I say, how often do people put on a pop record, sit down in the living room, and just pay attention to the music? Usually, they’re mowing the lawn, or driving in their car, and it’s probably just as distracted. There’s no excuse – people are going to spend time with your music in games, and if you do it well, you can really add to the experience. Look at Star Wars – if you took out John Williams’ score, that film would have been a disaster.’

Fundamentally, Soule sees his role as that of a communicator; he passes on to players ideas and atmospheres that developers want expressed through his music, and as such, spends a lot of time perusing concept art, design documents, and actual game prototypes, to work out what needs to be done. ‘As a composer,’ he says, ‘you have to identify all the different psychological avenues of music, and how music should be applied to the game. To use a simple example, there was a teacher at USC film school, I believe – David Rackson, who was a legendary composer, who worked on many, many films. I think it was he who said: “In a scene where a cowboy is galloping away on a horse, the composer should not score the gallop, but rather, the fear of the rider.” I think a lot of people tend to underestimate just what music’s function is, and how important it is to, you know, really pull people into an experience. Music isn’t a literal language, but it’s the universal language, and it’s actually very specific – more so than people realise.’

Judging from their responses, Soule, Land, and Tobin all feel music is a means of communicating certain feelings and ideas to players. What they also have in common, though, is that the majority of their music is composed with computers. Although Soule is famous for his grand orchestral numbers, most of the music is actually synthesised. In fact, Soule often prefers the virtuosity of the electronic medium to real-life musicians. ‘I think it’s actually a challenge to get an acoustic orchestra to sound as big as an electronic one,’ he chuckles. ‘The funny thing is, if I need more cellos, I can just dial it up. The electronic medium is quite powerful now, and on any given project I’m involved in, I’ll use anywhere between 22 and 53 high-end PCs working together in, shall we say, a “musical render farm”.

‘We have a lot of shared tasks, and we’re working with some pretty sophisticated parallel networking. But some of the protocol and the MIDI transmissions are actually coded in-house by our programmers, so we write our own technology and push the limits. I actually use my lungs to control computers – I use what’s called a breath controller, which is basically a headset with a form of microphone that measures breath pressure, and converts it into digital information, and that then controls the computers."

It’s clear the technology going into games music is becoming as complex as that behind the games themselves. This is a good omen – it shows that composers, sound designers, and the developers, are beginning to realise the true potential of videogame scoring; how it can lift experiences and move players in ways pretty visuals will never achieve. Sure, it won’t help you get a ringside seat at Kratos’ Ancient Greek love-sandwich, but if you really care about it that much, it may be time to go out and shoot some hoops.