Originally published in print November 2020
When writing to Nintendo for permission to use their music in the film Scott Pilgrim Versus the World (2010), director Edgar Wright described the music as “the nursery rhymes of a generation”. For many of us, that’s exactly what they were. But more than that, as video games have become more sophisticated and development has become more democratised, so too has video game music. Video game music is unlike any other genre or style of music. Here, I want to try (as much as word count will allow) to explore how and why that is.
One of the key goals of almost every game is immersion. We want to be taken out of our world and put into the world of the game. In Music, Sound, and Multimedia, Rod Munday points out that this immersion can be divided into two categories: cognitive immersion and mythic immersion. Cognitive immersion is best exemplified through Tetris (1989). Cognitive immersion is essentially what cuts you off from the world. The music in the game, in this instance, is a simple tool to occupy the space in your brain devoted to nonlinguistic sound interpretation, thus preventing outside stimuli from creating an impact on your experience. This is also the general rule that underpins all “Lofi Hip Hop Radio-Beats to Relax/Study to”. This is often one of the key factors necessary when trying to achieve a flow state – a state of total concentration where the player feels completely immersed in the gameplay and is key for competitive gaming.
The most iconic song from Tetris is called “Korobeiniki” and is a Russian folk song from the 19th century. It works in Tetris the same reason it works as a folk song. It’s written in A minor, built on a three chord progression (i-V-iv) and the melody either moves in step or to notes of the chord. These are all things that are easy to listen to and could easily be boring, without a few small adjustments to add variety. Firstly, the piece is split into a very clear A Section and B Section which it constantly alternates between as such: AABB. Secondly, the melody starts on an E with an E major chord behind it. This primes you for a piece in E major before it suddenly switches out to A minor. Finally, and most importantly, there is a constant, pulsing, syncopated backbeat (not in the original folk song) which keeps the piece always moving forward, never letting the listener fully rest. This combination of very simple music with a few more complicated tricks works to keep the listener engaged without being distracted, the key to cognitive immersion.
The second type of immersion is mythic immersion: being transported into the world and story of the game. This type of immersion is linked with the abstract nature of music, how it can move and impact us in ways that are difficult to explain. This has been used to tell stories as long as music has had stories to tell, but in this instance, I want to focus specifically on the concept of the leitmotif. A leitmotif, in simple terms, is a musical phrase that represents something (a character, place, theme etc) in an artistic work. Leitmotifs shift and change throughout an artwork to reflect how the story changes. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011) makes use of both the abstract storytelling of music and leitmotif in its main theme, composed by Jeremy Soule, “Dragonborn”. It’s a theme that plays at certain pivotal moments of the game such as specific dragon encounters. The title relates to the fact that the player character is known as the Dragonborn because of a prophecy. The majority of the piece is a new theme for Skyrim; it is loud, half-shouted by a men’s choir backed by brass and aggressive drums, and “heroic” in a very typical high fantasy sense. However, it also includes the main leitmotif from “Nerevar Rising” the main theme from Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, where the player character is called the Nerevarine because of a prophecy. The recurrence of this leitmotif in this way connects the two games, two characters, two prophecies, and presents us with a fleshed out world. For new players, the piece is loud and powerful, telling the story of the Dragonborn. For returning players, it is a reminder that this story is a part of a larger continuum in the Elder Scrolls universe. It does both of these things in a much richer, more emotive way than mere words ever could.
I touched on something there which is at the heart of what makes video game music utterly unique from all other forms of musical expression. To quote Professor Karen Collins “the music [in video games] is dynamic; that is, responsive to game events and player actions. This can mean, for instance, that various parameters of the music (such as tempo, key, and instrumentation), or sequences or sections of music, are altered based in real time on what is happening in the game.” So, for example, when you start fighting certain dragons in Skyrim, “Dragonborn” starts playing. This has been an aspect of video game music that has been baked in since its origins. Most notably it was in the arcade game, Dig Dug (1982). Yuriko Keino was tasked with creating a sound effect for steps when Dig Dug walks, but unable to do so on the limited hardware available at the time, she composed a 10 second melody that would play when the player took a step and stop when the player stopped. The music, the rests in between, would change depending on your playstyle. This type of reactive music could be programmed onto soundchips relatively easily for much of early gaming, however with the introduction of the CD-ROM, music began to be pre-recorded with live instruments and this type of dynamic audio fell out of favour due to technical difficulties. Yes, the music would switch when you encountered an enemy or entered a new room, but the pieces of music themselves were largely the same regardless of player input.
The tides on this, however, are starting to change. Journey (2012) is a beautiful, wordless puzzle platformer, where as you play you can encounter other players playing online. The music, written by Austin Wintory, surrounds a main theme with different instruments representing the various characters: the cello represents the player, the bass flute represents the elders, the harp and viola represent other online players, the orchestra playing altogether represents the end goal of your journey. As Wintory explained “The score is like this accordion that can stretch and expand and change shape depending on how you play the game [and who you encounter].” Ape Out (2019) is a game where you play as a gorilla trying to escape through a maze, grabbing and throwing the people who try to stop you. The game is split into four sections (called albums), each modeled after a different style of jazz percussion. The entire soundtrack is procedurally generated jazz drumming which draws from a selection of thousands of drum samples (mostly recorded by composer, Matt Boch), changing depending how the player moves through the level. The gameplay itself is tight and thrilling, but the dynamic music is what makes it so astounding and exciting.
This is barely the tip of the iceberg. I don’t have time to talk about the work of Koji Kondo, possibly the most influential game composer ever. Or how and why games like Bioshock: Infinite (2013) and The Last of Us Part II (2020) use licensed music. Or the entire genre of rhythm games. Or even the “DK Rap” from Donkey Kong 64 (1999) (though that one probably deserves its own article). Describing video game music as a genre is too limited. It brings in everything from Russian folk songs to jazz percussion, from tinny electronica to sweeping orchestras. It works to create a world and responds to the ways you create in that world. It is an artform and one more complex, skillful, and thoughtful than it has been given credit for so far.
