Games and Music

Music is one of those things that everyone can relate to. It lives a parallel existence to art in the sense that both strive to transmit an abstraction of an individual's thoughts, feelings, and ideas, through a visual medium in the case of art, and through an auditory medium in the case of music. However, this isn't, of-course, always strictly true; art can draw-in elements of a non-visual persona just as music can draw-in elements of a non-auditory persona. This blur in definition begs the question of whether or not art and music are one and the same — but such a debate is beyond the scope of this post.

Newton split the visible spectrum into
colours based upon the ratios of the
Dorian mode.

An artist arranges and manipulates sequences of frequiencies from the visible spectrum (colour) so as to capture a visual beauty just as a muscian arranges and manipulates sequences of frequencies from molecular vibrations in the air (notes) to capture an audiotry beauty. We name one art and the other music but they are ultimately very similar. Newton even went so far as to create a colour wheel that showed the linear relationship between colour frequencies and notes, as seen to the right.

Regardless of whether or not they do share the same identity, there definitely exists the fact that they form a very elegant marriage when combined together effectively. If we stray temporarily from the plastic arts into the realm of performing arts, one can see how music has accompanied other forms of expressive media for centuries so as to eccentuate, compliment and add to it.

So where would games be without music? This is a question whose answer can be discovered simply by muting one's speaker set-up. In the past when I've had to do this (so as to not annoy others in my immediate environment), what I have thereafter encountered is an incredibly diluted gaming experience.

Music plays a big role in games with game musicians being given the responsibility of enhancing the visual experience presented to a player. In the real-world, people are aware of their own feelings and impressions through the generation of a continuous thought-stream. This is natural and intuitive as it is part of what constitutes being conscious. I like to think of music in films and games as being an audiological abstraction of the human thought-stream; it is what suggests to a player how their character is feeling.

Zelda's Lullaby is more prominent in my mind than any other piece of music from my earlier years on this planet. I mention The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time far too often but I feel that this mention is justified by just how deeply embedded within my memories this sequence of notes really is! It is a song that reminds me of the magic of childhood innocence, of lunchtime breaks spent discussing the vast land of Hyrule with school friends, and of sharing a mutual enthusiasm with my sister; it is a game that, thirteen years later, we still play together from time-to-time.

Zelda's Lullaby is a tender song and is first heard at a tender moment during the game. To me, it is a very beautiful song. Embedded above and to the right, is the song reorachastrated by the Hyrule Symphony.

More recent installations in The Legend of Zelda franchise do not disappoint the standard set by Ocarina of Time. Twilight Princess, for example, has some absolutely fantastic scores.

An infant fulfilling an adult role
— how bizarre!

All of the above songs are very different from one another and have it in their intention to capture a different mood. The last song, for instance, entitled Malo Mart, does a fantastic job of capturing the ironic absurdity with which the player is confronted when they first step into a particular shop in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess; an infant sits behind the shop's counter with a solemn, condescending frown upon its face. The song adds to the situation's irony by reducing the infant's air of dignified professionalism to juvenility with a camp, eccentric melody.

As seems to be the way with everything these days, publishers are quick to squeeze some extra revenue out of a game release by publishing an official soundtrack to accompany it. This is great in a way as it brings more attention to a musician's contributions to a game's development and allows gamers to explore their memories of a game through an auditory experience. When I listen to a game's soundtrack, it triggers a serial recall of my character's actions when last hearing each song, thus creating visual projections to accompany the audiological input; it is a very interesting experience.

8-bit and 16-bit music (known collectively as chiptune) has received a surge in popularity as of recent. After dying-out when the polyphonic MIDI format became available to game music developers, 8-bit and 16-bit music has encountered a revival in certain underground music movements. Musicians in these genres will typically use the chip-set of a dated game system to synthesise the majority of their musical scores. Vocals (either clean or distorted) are often then recorded on top of the song. Sometimes real instrument recordings are integrated into chiptune songs, with the use of distorted guitars being a popular choice. Some sub-genres of rock, metal and industrial also find ways of integrating dated game synthesis techniques — it is needless to say that the games industry affects other industries just as much as other industries affect it!

Embedded above and to the right, is the work of a muscian going under the alias of Dubmood, who is among my favorite chiptune artists. In the past, he has used Amiga, PC, Atari ST and Game Boy chip-sets to create his music.

The Metroid Prime franchise is another series whose soundtracks remain fantastic throughout each installation. Below, are the title screen theme songs for each game in the trilogy. They bear a somewhat cheesy edge but I would like to think that there is a lot more to them than just that.


Being a sci-fi franchise centred around a bounty hunter's attempts to foil the plans of space pirates, the games' soundtracks project an air of technological superiority, featuring a heavy mix of synthesised melodies with the odd sampling of a distorted real instrument thrown in for good measure here and there. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption's title screen music is by far my favorite. The song is less electronic than the others and includes an absolutely amazing integration of opera-esque vocals that really adds to it!

The Metal Gear Solid franchise is a very philosophically deep franchise with a strong moral backbone behind its motive. Its implicit commentary addresses such issues as Friedrich Nietzsche's will-to-power and God is dead, existential nihilism, and politcal issues on the morality of war profiteering. I'd like to think that at-least some of the songs scattered across the franchise's vast depths reflect this.

The Best is Yet to Come is played during Metal Gear Solid's ending credits. It is sung in Irish Gaelic, and features a very beautiful melody with very beautiful lyrics.

So there we have it: a glimpse into games and music. It is a big topic to explore, with this post only managing to examine but a mere atom inside the wondrous, expansive universe of game music.