‘In October 1958, Physicist William Higinbotham created what is thought to be the first video game.’ this game was called ‘Tennis for Two’. (APS NEWS 2008)
Since then video games have rapidly advanced and like films, games need music too.
Although ‘Tennis for Two’ had no sound, it wasn’t long before someone invented a game with sound. In 1972 the video game ‘Pong’ was created, and that was the first video game with sound but in today’s modern era we now have access to video games that are as good as films and with that comes the epic, orchestral score of a blockbuster film.
In Michael Sweet’s eBook Writing Interactive Music for Video Games, Sweet reinstates the fact that ‘Writing music for games relies on many techniques inherited from dramatic film scoring’ (Sweet, 2015, p.g. 38) this shows the connection between both Film and Game music and why it’s easy to be so passionate about both.
During my undergraduate degree at the University of Hertfordshire I had a lot of practice with scoring music for games. For example in my 3rd year at University, myself and my coursemates were given the task of composing a ‘Vertical Slice’, this was to teach us how to prepare tracks for a games company, ready for them to implement our music in their game. It was an advanced task that helped showcase our technical and creative game audio skills.
Below are the links to 2 of the tracks I composed for the Vertical Slice assignment:
https://soundcloud.com/user-741010136/themes
https://soundcloud.com/user-741010136/exploration
I learnt many interesting skills and techniques whilst completing this assignment. My lecture at the time suggested using a software called ‘Elias’, ‘The Elias Studio is game composer’s tool for intuitively arranging adaptive music scores with unrivaled ease of use. You arrange your pre-recorded music files and decide how the music will transition in the game. With this tool, the composer can have complete control of the game soundtrack, and make everything ready for the game developer.’
With tools available such as ‘Elias’, becoming a game composer is much more possible than it was years ago, especially since games are such a dominent feature in today’s society.
Another example of me scoring for a game was my Final Major Project in my 3rd year at University. I was hugely inspired by the game ‘Horizon Zero Dawn’ (2017) the music was such a massive part of this game, composer ‘Joris De Man’ was the genius behind the soundtrack, he managed to captivate the players by marrying his picture to the music. The use of a hybrid orchestra was used to reflect the machines patrolling on the natural environment in the game and this is something I reflected in my own compositions for my FMP.
Below is a screen shot of my FMP website, I’ve also attached a link to my website so please feel free to check it out: https://amberdurant.wixsite.com/durantmusic/fmp
For my FMP I had to create around 15 minutes worth of music, I decided to explore the different environments of the game, I screen recorded my PS4 gameplay sessions so I could compose new music on top of the footage, these 5 video clips were:
-A scene containing a wintery landscape that overlooks a volcano – FROZEN WILDS
– A scene thats contains combat and is set during the night time – AURORAS
-A scene based in the desert leading up to a royal city – CITY OF MERIDIAN
-Another night time based scene but a lot more ambient than the other night time scene. – WILDERNESS
-Finally I gathered lots of footage from the game and composed a new main theme to accompany the footage. -HORIZON
My FMP was a great way for me to showcase my skills, each video I created and composed the music to, required so many different techniques and it reflected how I could compose for different genres and environments.
My ‘Frozen Wilds’ track taught me how to compose to picture and how to convey emotion by injected music into the scene at the right time.
My ‘Auroras’ track taught me how to create tense music and it reflected what music would be like in a real game, for example when a character gets into combat with an enemy, the music adapts to fit the gameplay and thats exactly what I was trying to convey in my ‘Auroras’ track.
‘City of Meridian’ was a completely different musical experience for me, when composing the track I needed middle eastern sounding instruments, because I didn’t have access to those instruments, I overcame this hurdle by purchasing a Virtual Instrument called ‘Desert Winds’.
Desert Winds allowed me to access an entire range of ethnic instruments, pads and drones. This along with the use of string instruments helped me create a very ethnic and regal sound to accompany the video. ‘City of Meridian’ taught me how to write music in an ethnical style.
‘Wilderness’ was a much more ‘laid back’ kind of composition, it was less about the music and more of the technical side to games. For example in the video attached below, just after 0:34 you will see how I dipped the music using automation when the main character ‘Aloy’ is focusing on a target this technique occurs throughout the video, it reflects what would occur in an actual game. The music in this video was composed to be ‘background’ music because the player needs to concentrate and not get either distracted or bored of the music.
My final and most challenging track was ‘Horizon’ this was a main theme that lasts approximately 3 minutes and 45 seconds, this was difficult to write for because a main theme needs to be consistent and it should establish a motif throughout. I tried to incorporate the style of Joris De Man’s main theme for ‘Horizon Zero Dawn‘ by using live vocals and a hybrid orchestra. I believe I achieved that goal of incorporating his style in my track and I am overall very proud of my FMP.
Sources: MICHAEL SWEET Writing Interactive Music for Video Games (2015) {accessed online} Indiana, RR Donnelley https://virtualworldofmusic.weebly.com/uploads/4/2/5/0/42509489/writing_interactive_music_for_video_games.pdf (accessed 20th November 2019)
ALAN CHODOS ed. APS NEWS, {online} USA, (October 2008) https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200810/physicshistory.cfm (accessed 20th November 2019)
ELIAS {ONLINE} (accessed 28th November 2019} https://www.eliassoftware.com/products/
AMBER DURANT Wilderness (2019) {online video} accessed (28th November 2019) https://amberdurant.wixsite.com/durantmusic/wilderness
AMBER DURANT Themes (2018) accessible by link: https://soundcloud.com/user-741010136/themes (accessed 28th November )
AMBER DURANT Exploration (2018) accessible by link: https://soundcloud.com/user-741010136/exploration (accessed 28th November 2019)
Film and Game Music by Amber Durant 
