Guitar Music for Video Games
Video games are an ever increasing musical presence that are even capturing the attention of some of the top film composers these days. There is a long history of memorable video game music so it makes sense that as they become more sophisticated the music will have to match. One of the great things a video game composer can do is use the guitar as an instrument in their scores. For a lot of reasons, the guitar is a perfect instrument for video game music, and in general, all composers should be familiar with techniques and theories of guitar composition.
Where as film music has a long embedded history of piano and orchestral music, video games are starting from the present time pretty much. This means they will be more open to original ideas and more modern styles of music. They do not have the decades of tradition to go against. Add to this the fact that many video games tend to be action oriented and you have the perfect situation for the electric guitar.
Video games should be seen as a promising new area for composers to explore music in new ways. Not only are the nature of games different than movies, in that they can change based on the controllers actions, but they also make use of more unexpected sound effects. This creates a different environment for composers to work in, and it should produce interesting results.
The guitar is a modern instrument capable of a lot of sounds that should go well with many different types of video games. This is one of the reasons that all composers should learn some basic guitar skills, and not just focus on piano. Piano has no doubt the best overall composing ability but the guitar can let you view music in a different way, and more importantly, the guitar is an in demand sound that cannot be accurately replicated by keyboards. String instruments in general are hard to get very realistic on software instruments, so it benefits the composer to actually be able to write and play music on the guitar.
In the modern age, composers need to be able to produce all types of sounds on their own. Video game companies usually hire freelance composers who should be able to produce all the music themselves. Rarely do companies want to pay high recording costs that come with studio musicians, so you must achieve the best quality you can on your own.
December 24 2009 12:20 pm | Guitar Composition