Effective Music for Games and Multimedia
Gamasutra
November 14, 1997
Vol. 1: Issue 17
In one study, the appropriate music played in a department store raised the likelihood by 17% that buyers would make a purchase.
Certain mavericks of advertising claim that using music in a TV or radio spot can increase its effectiveness by 30%.
I’ve heard of experiments where researchers played different types of music over a sound system installed in the building at a dairy farm where the milking cows were kept. For long periods of time they would play music that was extremely dissonant and harsh. From this the cows eventually stopped producing milk until that music was played no longer. Weird.
…then there’s that well-aged story about the pied piper and all those mice following him around like swooning idolizing teenagers.
A quiet, intelligent composer by the name of Igor Stravinsky composed The Rite of Spring for orchestra. Its first performance in 1917 in Paris churned out a riot.
Music. Subtle but powerful stuff.
Rarely do people pay attention to music in film or advertising. But there it is. And it is everywhere. Tens of millions upon many tens of millions of dollars are spent by the advertising and film industries every year to push the right buttons inside of you. It’s puzzling how something so subtle and unnoticeable can twist, pull, and stab our emotions. Something that can actually change us.
Not that it constantly attempts to transform us into something that we don’t want to become. When seeing a film, an audience wants to be changed by the experience. They want to be immersed in its story and walk away sad, joyful, scared out of their shirts, uplifted, thrilled or whatever the film is offering. They demand it because that is part of the entertainment value. If it doesn’t move them in some way, they feel that they’ve been cheated out of the money that they spent on the film.
Over 95% of film uses music as part of the soundtrack. Why such a high percentage? Makers of film know that music is a powerful force in mood setting. Without the music many great films would not be great films. The musical soundtrack is an essential component of those films.
While the medium of interactive entertainment is much different than film, the function of music is the same. And that function is to help paint a landscape that the user (audience) falls into. The difference here is that while the music in a film or advertisement can’t react to the user, the music in interactive entertainment can. In essence, you as a game creator want to pull the user into the world that you have created. A product’s success can be measured by the depth that it can draw the player in.
Out of all of the elements of a game, music is the most subliminal but also one of the most powerful in mood setting. Music can be a great ally in bettering the experience that a game should offer.
But in order to do this you have to create quality, be able to perceive it and make it effective. In the following paragraphs are starting points to help you to get on your way to effective music for your game:
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This is an interactive medium. Your music
must be interactive to be truly effective. Some companies in the industry
have developed their own solutions to cope with the interactive concept.
Some third party tools can be bought to at least get you part way there.
Interactive audio is still a fuzzy field and will depend on the changing
technologies of software and hardware.
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Your music is only as interactive as your
programmers are able to make it. If your programmers have not created
or don’t have access to tools and techniques to make the music flow
in your game, then your music will not be interactive in your
product.
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Educate yourself and your team. Pay attention
to the music of films, TV and radio commercials. The key here is to become
aware of its presence and the mood that it sets. Renting movies is a great
way to check out the music because you can rewind it or watch it again to
concentrate on certain sections of the film. Also, listen to other styles
of music. Don't limit yourself to what your personal tastes allow you. Always
try to listen to something you have never listened to before. Classical,
ethnic such as Chinese, Japanese, Indian or African, new age, rap, etc. Keep
an open mind. Drop your preconceptions on music that you never really liked
before and try to get inside of the music to listen. There is a great chance
you will pick up something new. It is amazing to me the number of musicians
who don’t take the time to listen to other types of music. That's like
knowing how to speak only 200 words in the English language and accepting
that standard.
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Think of music from the first step. In
the last phase of construction of a building, an architect does not decide
to come up with a solution for the electrical system of a building when the
structure is 90% complete. He or she works through all of the details before
the earth is even broken. Music should not be looked upon as an afterthought.
It is one of the essential components of a game and should be treated that
way.
- Chase quality until you catch it. (This not only applies to music. Quality is a concern of the whole product.) Your game will compete with other games on the retail shelves to be bought. Having your game already on the market and not being bought is a cruel way to learn that you should have promoted more quality in your product. As an initial step, it would be a good idea to compare the music in other products to yours. Does your competition use music to enhance their product better than you? If so, figure out why. As a second step (this is a much harder step), don’t be lazy and allow quality to escape you. If your music is not contributing to the game’s canvas 100%, then it is not good enough. 99% effectiveness won’t due. If you don’t obtain quality then 2 things will happen: A. Your competitors will do it better than you and will win over the once-loyal buyers of your product (Ouch!). B. You’ll have nothing to be proud of because you have just wasted the last 18 months of your life producing a second-rate title (double Ouch!).
Michael Bross has produced audio and composed music for over 35 games and multimedia products that have been nationally and internationally distributed, working with some of the biggest names around, including MicroProse, Take 2 Interactive, Byron Preiss Multimedia, I-Magic, National Geographic and numerous others. Products include: Ripper (starring Christopher Walken and Burgess Meredith) WAR Inc., Bill Cosby's Picture Pages, and Black Dahlia (starring Dennis Hopper and Terri Garr). He can be reached at soundplanet@earthlink.net