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184 views8 pages

9780133563559

Uploaded by

ismailbrooks666124
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Praise for Writing Interactive

Music for Video Games

“Behind every great game experience is an interactive score that defines the emotional
through-line of a game. Writing Interactive Music for Video Games will show you how to create
such a score, from basic concepts to sophisticated techniques. It is filled with advice from some
of the greatest video game composers working today, and written with the clarity and insight
that comes from experience.”

—Tracy Fullerton, Director, USC Game Innovation Lab

“Michael Sweet’s book provides a much-needed text that walks a composer through all of
the critical considerations when first starting to work in the video game industry. Not simply
a ‘how-to’ but a ‘why-to’ that dives deep into the aesthetics and best practices of writing an
interactive score. Through his years of work in the industry and years of teaching, he is able to
bring together a comprehensive discussion on composing interactive scores. Professor Sweet
brings together the nuts and bolts, the business, and pertinent historical moments—all while
setting composers’ expectations for working in the industry. There is no better book to be
found if you are a composer looking to understand writing for games.”

—Jeanine Cowen, Vice President for Curriculum and Program Innovation, Academic Affairs,
Berklee College of Music

“Michael Sweet demonstrates a formidable depth and breadth of knowledge related to


adaptive music. He adroitly covers both the creative and technical components critical to being
successful in this field. This book is a must-read for newcomers and experienced composers
wanting to learn more about the art of video game composition.”

—Chuck Doud, Director of Music, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios

“Clear, complete, concise, and filled with vital information. This is a must-read for any composer
serious about scoring for games. If you want to know what makes game music unique, look no
further; this book will take you to the next level!”

—Steve Horowitz, Composer


EXERCISES 121

Exercises
1. How might the techniques used in an interactive nondigital music composition from
the twentieth century apply to a modern game? Pick an experimental composition
that hasn’t been discussed in this chapter and outline how its interactive techniques
might be applied today.
2. Compose a piece of music using the experimental composition techniques introduced
in this chapter.
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PA R T I I

FUNDAMENTAL
SCORING FOR GAMES
VIDEO
GAME SCORING
TECHNIQUES

■■ Chapter 7: Composing and Editing Music


Loops
■■ Chapter 8: Horizontal Resequencing
■■ Chapter 9: Vertical Remixing
■■ Chapter 10: Writing Transitions and Stingers
■■ Chapter 11: Using Sound Design Techniques
in Music
■■ Chapter 12: Music as a Gameplay Element
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CHAPTER 7

COMPOSING AND
EDITING MUSIC LOOPS

Music loops are integral to extending music in a


scene. Given that each gameplay experience is
different for the player, composers must be able
to write clean loops of music to let players extend
their experiences through a level. Composing music
loops is an essential skill that all interactive music
composers need to know. This chapter describes
best practices to create seamless loops from a
compositional and technological perspective,
including audio editing and musical considerations.
126 CHAPTER 7 COMPOSING AND EDITING MUSIC LOOPS

The Art of Looping Music


Many video games have variable-length scenes, which add constraints to how we compose
music for those scenes. The first building block of creating music for games is creation of a
seamless loop. Video game composers use musical loops to lengthen pieces of music to match
and adapt to the pace of the player. There are many tricks and techniques to creating perfect
seamless loops. In this chapter you’ll explore the various ways to build them.

Creating seamless musical loops for video games is a fairly new art in which composers need
to know not only how to write the actual music but also how to edit it on a computer to make
a seamless loopable file. Many experienced video game composers learned the art of looping
by a lot of trial and error. In fact, they probably can’t even verbalize how they learned how to do
this because it’s rarely a skill that is taught in music composition courses. Unfortunately, there
are not a lot of available texts on the subject. This chapter will help you along the sometimes
bumpy road of creating these loops.

Music loop creation for games is a multidisciplinary skill combining both musical artistry and
technical expertise within an audio editor. To build a clean loop, you need both of these skills.
This chapter assumes that you are already proficient at sequencing within a DAW and that
you’ve done some audio editing in the past.

Creating loops is not unique to video games. In written music, you’ve probably seen the various
ways to notate repeats, bringing the performer back to an earlier point in the music to repeat
either a phrase or a measure (Figure 7.1). Also, when creating software instruments, you may
have used various tools to create a single note loop on a sampled instrument such as an arco
violin. Knowledge of these techniques will help you better understand the process of creating
musical loops for games.

Figure 7.1 Examples of the various repeat symbols in written musical notation

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