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Game Composers Sound Off

by Chris Remo, Oct 10, 2005 11:54am PDT

Music 4 Games has Q&As with four game composers and a producer of game soundtrack albums. The feature gets responses from C64/SID pioneer Rob Hubbard, industry legend George "The Fat Man" Sanger, Hitman and Freedom Fighters composer Jesper Kyd, Thief and Deus Ex composer Alex Brandon, and Halo soundtrack album producer Nile Rodgers. The interviews are standard form questionnaires, but there are some interesting points. One common thread is one I share, that while many Hollywood film scores are successful and worth studying, film music should not be the holy grail of game music.

George Sanger: "It is not hard to find a musician's goal that is noble. It is not hard to find a developer (below the corporate level) whose goal is the greatest good for the player/filmgoer. Yet it is rare to find a musician/client relationship that will support creating music that is all three-- noble and exciting to the musician, elevating to the game/film, and agreeable to all parties. Usually the composer just falls back on copying the style of somebody whose music the client likes."
The interviews are worth reading for those with an interest in game music. Names like Hubbard and Sanger are major figures in the history of game music, and Kyd and Brandon are both current composers who have been generating a lot of attention. Give it a read.


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Comments

23 Threads | 58 Comments
  • #22
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    By: Fred Garvin x
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    It's not just the quality of music, it's how the music is used in the game as well. Games that play music constantly end up making it audio wallpaper. In some cases that's acceptable because of the style of the game like racers, fighters and other sports games. However, games with story need to use music properly. Sometimes the sound design needs to be more out front and no music should play at all. Also, I am a firm believer in the music being as interactive as possible. It should not only come on at appropriate times like say a boss fight, but should also be dyamic and have changes of style and intensity built in. It takes a special kind of composer to make really good interactive music. One that understands both the musical and technical worlds and there aren't that many out there.
    Oct 10, 2005 1:39pm PDT