Building Relationships: The Process of Creating Game Music
Guy Michelmore · Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2021
Even more than writing music for film, composing for video games is founded on the principle of interactive relationships. Of course, interactivity is particularly obvious when games use dynamic music systems to allow music to respond to the players. But it is also reflected more generally in the collaborative nature of game music production and the way that composers produce music to involve players as active participants, rather than simply as passive audience members. This chapter will outline the process of creating video game music from the perspective of the composer. The aim is not to provide a definitive model of game music production that applies for all possible situations. Instead, this chapter will characterize the processes and phases of production that a game composer will likely encounter while working on a project, and highlight some of the factors in play at each stage.