Brief Summary
This video discusses the unique challenges and opportunities in composing music for video games, focusing on the concept of "indeterminate music." Unlike film, video game music is aleatory, meaning its performance varies with each player's actions. The video explores different types of indeterminate music, such as chance music and aleatory music, and how these concepts apply to video game soundtracks. It highlights techniques composers use to embrace indeterminacy, like horizontal resequencing and vertical re-orchestration, and emphasizes that the player becomes a performer in experiencing the game's unique musical composition.
- Video game music exists in the realm of indeterminate music due to the player's control over timing and actions.
- Indeterminate music includes chance music (indeterminacy of composition) and aleatory music (indeterminacy of performance).
- Video game composers use techniques like horizontal resequencing and vertical re-orchestration to adapt music to player actions.
- The player becomes a performer, making each playthrough a unique musical experience.
The core issue in composing music for video games is the composer's lack of control over the player's actions, particularly the timing of pressing the start button. This absence of control means composers cannot precisely synchronize music to specific in-game events or create traditional build-ups and climaxes as seen in film. The player's unpredictable interaction with the game transforms the musical experience into something indeterminate.
Video game scores exist within the realm of indeterminate music, where chance plays a role. There are two types of indeterminate music: chance music and aleatory music. Chance music involves indeterminacy during the composition process, exemplified by John Cage's "Music of Changes," which used the I Ching to dictate musical choices. Aleatory music, on the other hand, involves indeterminacy during performance, where the composer provides a score but leaves aspects of the performance to the performers. An example of this is the musical dice game "Musikalisches Würfelspiel," where dice rolls determine the sequence of musical segments.
Terry Riley's "In C" serves as a classic example of aleatory music, featuring 53 segments that performers can repeat or skip, resulting in unique performances depending on the number of players and their choices. Jazz and metal also incorporate aleatory elements through improvisation, where soloists create music on the spot based on chordal guides. Some composers even use graphical techniques to guide aleatory performances, moving beyond traditional musical notation.
Pressing the start button in a video game is an aleatory action, as the composer cannot control when the player will do it. This means that in every video game, the player becomes both the audience and the performer, as no two playthroughs are exactly the same. The player's actions alter the temporal aspects of the composition, making each experience of the game's score unique.
The best video game composers understand the indeterminate nature of video game soundtracks and structure their music accordingly. Techniques like horizontal resequencing (swapping music based on player actions) and vertical re-orchestration (adding or dropping instruments) are used to adapt the music to the player's experience. Altering the tempo can also significantly affect the score and the overall game experience.
Video games have a unique advantage over other forms of synchronized music because they allow players to explore a fleshed-out world of music. It's not enough to have just one looping track; composers must prepare their scores for indeterminacy. Experiencing a game soundtrack within the game's context is different from listening to it on an album, as composers often arrange music unnaturally for album presentation or leave out entire pieces. The only way to fully experience a game soundtrack is by playing the game and performing its composition. As technology develops, video game composers may achieve greater recognition for their contributions to indeterminate music.
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Transcript
Full transcript of “The Double-Edged Nature of Video Game Music”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 so there's this big problem with writing music for video games like a critical fundamental problem with all video games when it comes to the music and that problem is I cannot make you press the start button I'm not kidding around here if you're a composer this is a pretty serious issue see time is the canvas on which we paint music music has this inherent temporal aspect to it so without complete control over all the temporal aspects of the game we cannot completely control the music and appropriately synchronize music to what's going on on the screen so if I wanted to have a specific build up to a specific moment with one giant climax like we see in film all the time I'm kind of Sol because it is literally impossible to do that in a video game so when it comes to the Start menu unless I start the game in absolute silence and then just have one big moment as soon as
0:47 you press the start button like fine that might work for the main menu but I can't sync up that one chord to resolve when you create the boss I can't have the music swell and build up to that one moment where you finally make that hard jump and finish the level I can't smoothly transition from the press Start screen to the main menu theme the way I want because I can't time when you're gonna press the start button hell you might never press the start button then what do I do see unlike film or television video game scores operate in the world of indeterminate music now indeterminate music and indeterminacy means that there is some aspect of the piece of music that's left up to chance and there's this big debate going on about all these terms that I'm about to use so I'm just going to give you my two cents and we'll let the comments-section work this one out there are two different types of indeterminate music chance music and
1:32 aleatory commute ik chance music is the indeterminacy of composition what that means is that during some point of the composition process chance was involved so a good example of chance music is John Cage's music of changes [Music] music of changes was written using Yi Ching which if I remember correctly is this old Chinese book that has a lot of divination tools singing to the future and that kind of thing so in essence John Cage had his fortune read buy this book and then applied a musical system to the results of his fortune wrote it down and that became the piece of music if only turning in all your homework assignments could be that easy so the process of composition was governed by
2:19 chance but every performance of music of changes is fundamentally the same because they all use the same score once he wrote down the results of his fortune and committed it to just one score that was the end of the indeterminacy in that specific piece of music but if instead of handing out the same score to everybody he decided to give everyone a copy of Yi Ching and instructions on how you can translate your own fortune into musical notation then he would have created something Elliott ORAC aleatory is the indeterminacy of performance although the composer will write a score they'll leave some aspect of the performance up to the performers a great example of this is an old dice game called music Alicia's verse spiel which is German for musical dice game and the idea is that you would roll the dice and depending on what you'd roll you play a small piece of music so say you roll three you have to play the piece of music mark number three so in the end
3:05 after a few dice rolls you'd have a complete piece of music which also meant that every performance of this composition would pretty much be different which is interesting because aleatory or aleatory comes from a Lia which is Latin for dice supposedly Mozart had a version of this game composed with his works but I haven't been able to find any examples of it I also heard a story about him writing a piece of music on the back of playing cards so that every time he shuffled the deck the piece would rearrange which again would be a Lea torque but I haven't been able to find any evidence that that existed either I'm a really classic example of a Lea torque music that you'll hear about is Terry Reilly's in C now this is the score - in C it's made up of 53 small segments and you're instructed to play them mostly in order but you can repeat any section as many times as you like and I think you're even allowed to skip one if you feel like it which doesn't seem all that impressive at first until you realize
3:52 that this piece is designed for an indefinite number of performers so if you're in a group of however many performers every single one of you can be at a different point in the P which is by design and that ends up giving us something that sounds like this it's a real knee-slapper I know but that means that every performance of this piece regardless of how many people are playing sounds completely different indeterminacy in music is a really fascinating topic like when you think about it jazz and metal are kind of fundamentally Aelia torque in their design because they both feature soloists that play made-up music on the spot that follows a chordal guide originally intended by the composer technically speaking no two solos will ever be the same but I guess that's not always the case and if you want to go even further with this you can look into the composers who started feeling limited by musical notation and starting
4:38 using other graphical techniques in order to convey an a leotard direction that they wanted their score to take hey I'm not gonna tell you what not to play tell me what you think this box looks like which like I get it when Ligety and Pender etske do it it's genius but when I do it it's considered lazy and amateurish and doesn't meet the grading criteria what's important to take away from this is that pressing that start button is a fundamentally aleatory action the composer cannot control when you'll press Start the same way the composer can't control when and how you're going to experience all the little pieces of music that they put in their game what that means is that with every video game ever made the composer is the composer but the player is both the audience and the performer because no two video game playthroughs are exactly the same meaning that every experience of a video game score is
5:25 different and unique you've finished the first level of Mario at a different speed than I did and that fundamentally altered the duration and all subsequent temporal aspects of the composition and that doesn't even begin to take into consideration all of the sound design elements and how they tie into the complete experience of a video game soundtrack the best video game composers understand that there is a fundamentally indeterminate nature to video game soundtracks and they purposefully structure their music to better work within that context techniques like horizontal resequencing where depending what the player does a certain piece of music will be swapped out with another like when you hear a different piece of music when you enter a new level or like when the music switches to the battle music when you hit a random encounter or maybe composers will add or drop instruments from the mix depending on what the players doing which is commonly known as a vertical ray or castration like how they always add a percussion track whenever Mario hops onto a Yoshi even something as simple as altering the
6:11 tempo can have a significant effect on both the score the overall experience of the game but without failed the absolute best video game soundtracks and video game composers will mix these techniques along with all other kinds of tips and tricks to create a fleshed-out world of music that the player can explore this is the unique advantage that video games have over all other forms of synchronized music it's not just enough to have one looping track anymore and you're never going to be able to accurately predict when a player is going to do something in your game if you want that kind of control over your score then you have to go to the world of film and television one of my favorite experiences when playing a video game is exploring how a composer prepared their score for indeterminacy like as much as I like listening to a game soundtrack from the album it just isn't the same as listening to the music in the context of the game in many instances composers are forced to
6:57 arrange their music in an unnatural way in order to have it make sense on the album in some cases they have to leave entire pieces of music out of the printed soundtrack altogether the only way you can completely experience a game soundtrack is by actually sitting down and playing the game or I guess another way to put it is that you have to sit down and perform the game's composition hopefully as technology develops and composers become more and more familiar with the world of video games will finally be able to see the next step of musical innovation maybe one day a video game composer could win a Pulitzer for their contributions to the world of indeterminate music instead of competing with films for a Grammy so when it comes to the world of video game music it might be frustrating to not really be able to hear a complete video game soundtrack without actually playing the game and the reputation of endlessly looping music might make it difficult for some people to take it seriously but
7:43 the truth is when you think about it you aren't really gonna hear anything like this anywhere else thank you for watching I'd like to thank my patrons for making these videos possible with a very special thank you to may offend Matt and Anna birch if you liked what you saw here be sure to subscribe and check out my other videos follow me on Twitter and twitch to have your musical questions answered live and if you really like what I'm doing consider supporting the channel on patreon but that's gonna be it for me for now thanks for watching [Music]
