By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow
This March, the GDC held their first-ever Showcase event. This online gathering provided the game development community a chance to get together and share expert knowledge in the time window usually occupied by the full-fledged Game Developer Conference in San Francisco. Completely free of charge, this event featured talks from
While the videos remain a part of the GDC Vault, those chat discussions from GDC Showcase are no longer available in any form. I found the chat conversation during my lecture session to be lively, intelligent and tremendously worthwhile, so I preserved the text of the discussion and I’d like to share portions of it here. As we all know, these sorts of text-chat discussions don’t really allow for lengthy answers, and often the questions fly by so fast that there’s little time to elaborate on ideas. With that in mind, I thought I’d expand on some of the topics brought up during my GDC Showcase session. You’ll see that I’ve organized this article under topic headings, quoting the original chat excerpts and then adding a few additional thoughts to flesh things out.
Before we begin, I’d like to express gratitude to the chat participants whose thoughtful and stimulating questions are included here. Many thanks to Marcelo Manga, Mark Peterson, Mikel Dale, Michael Heller, Misha Samorodin, Navid Lancaster, Joseph Tate, Tremaine Williams, Yigit Koc, and Nicole Lazzaro!
Now, on to the chat discussion!
Composition
Marcelo Manga: How much time do you spend on planning the music for a game?
Winifred Phillips: Hey Marcelo! The more time, the better, but we’re not often given loads of time to prepare. A lot of the time, we’re just asked to hit the ground running. But I like to have time to research and think about what I’m going to do.
Every project is different, as is every development team. As game composers, we don’t often get the chance to join the team during the early phase of game development. When we do, it’s a rare treat. We’re able to contribute in a meaningful way while a 
More often than not, we’re brought in late in development, and there may not be much time for us to get our bearings and start 
Whether we have the luxury of time or not, research and preparation are crucial at the beginning of a project, and we have to make at least a modicum of time for those efforts before we plunge into the full music composition/production schedule. If you’d like to read more about the process of preparing to begin a project as a game music composer, you’ll find much more about this in my book, A Composer’s Guide to Game Music (Chapter 7: Preparation and Workflow).
Mark Peterson: Curious about how important a classical music composition background is in this field?
Winifred Phillips: I think this sort of background is important if that’s the kind of music you’re going to be creating. But a lot of game composers come from the world of pop music, EDM, etc. These require a very different background and education.
Mikel Dale: Hey Winifred, how do you make a track as interesting as possible within the confines of interactive music? Keeping the same key/harmony/tempo indefinitely?
Winifred Phillips: I understand what you mean, but I try to resist staying in the same key too long. Game music already has issues with feeling repetitive, so we don’t want to introduce any additional elements that feel repetitive.
Michael Heller: On the flip side of foreshadowing combat to come, I often feel the tension is lifted unnaturally when the music changes to a calmer, lighter tone before I would otherwise have realized that the immediate threats are neutralized. What are your thoughts on this? Any tips for avoiding it?
Winifred Phillips: Interesting point. I think that the combat and ambient music needs to be married well in terms of overall tone and mood. It shouldn’t feel drastically “happy” and “angry” or the changes will feel artificial.
These two questions are interesting when considered together, because they bring up an important point: when do we aim for a unified musical tone in our game music? And when do we opt for lots of dynamic contrast? These are obviously competing objectives. As game composers, we want to inject lots of drama and variety into our music, if only to combat the repetitive nature of musical scores for video games. Let’s consider an example. Say we’re asked to compose a two minute combat track that 
But on the other hand, should this diverse combat track also be sharply differentiated from its associated ambient track? Let’s say that this two minute combat track is interrupted when the player completes the fight, and the music immediately returns to its low-keyed exploration ambience. This is inevitably going to introduce a sharp change in mood. We can address this problem in three ways. First, we can make sure that the action and ambient music share some common stylistic elements, such as motifs, instrumentation, and other qualities inherent in the overall genre. Second, we can keep the mood of the ambient music relatively neutral, so that it doesn’t feel emotionally jarring when contrasted with the combat track. Finally, we can compose a transition element that will help one track lead smoothly into the other. A short combat stinger might be used at the beginning of an action sequence, allowing the inclusion of a musical build to bridge the ambient music with the combat track. Also, a short combat outro segment might trigger at the completion of the action sequence, with a falling action that diminishes the energy and allows the score to return to understated ambience once more.
With that in mind, here’s a question that falls into related territory:
Misha Samorodin: With suspense, is it better to lead the player into an uneasy situation with an escalation or a more sudden burst? Say a player is approaching enemy territory?
Winifred Phillips: I think both these techniques are important, because one doesn’t work without the other. One is the setup, and the other is the payoff.
Let’s think about this issue from the vantage-point of a mystery author. The surprising twist in a mystery story is never truly a complete surprise. There are always hints 
These principles apply to our work as game composers as well. If players are exploring a dangerous area where monsters may suddenly attack, the music should telegraph a sense of lurking dread. Like a clue in a mystery story, this unsettling musical atmosphere escalates the tension until the monster lurches out of the shadows and strikes. Then, the music can execute a sudden burst to heighten that moment of revelation when the enemy shows itself.
Misha Samorodin: I suppose most of the music is composed directly with the game footage, or is there ever any improvisation?
Winifred Phillips: I like to pay attention to gameplay when I’m composing. Games have their own momentum, and I want to make sure I’m composing music that compliments the visual kinetics.
Mikel Dale: Do you often write sound effects? I can imagine you closely collaborate with sound designers for games this big! As you said, a lot of this crosses into sound design so was curious.
Winifred Phillips: I sometimes use sound effects in my music (such as the Doppler effects in Speed Racer). It can help my music marry better with the sound design.
Both of these questions relate to the concept of aural kinetics, so I thought I’d address them together. Music is very good at provoking a physical reaction in listeners. As I mentioned during my lecture at the GDC Showcase, music is proven to provoke some of the physiological reactions we associate with adrenaline rushes. Because of this, music can help players physically internalize the kinetics of the action they are seeing onscreen. The rousing qualities inherent in music produce a state of emotional suggestibility, and the game can then insert itself into that suggestible state and tell the 
Team Dynamics
Navid Lancaster: How do you translate the Director’s vision to your music?
Winifred Phillips: Lots of meetings and communication is key. If we understand each other, then I have a good chance of meeting the director’s vision.
Joseph Tate: As a composer, what do you find are the best notes/directions a developer/director/etc can give you when creating game music?
Winifred Phillips: When we’re communicating with the director, we want to make sure we understand music in the same way. Exchanging reference music and discussing musical style in that context can be really helpful.
These two questions approached a similar topic, so let’s look at the issue in a little more depth. Whenever we’re hired to compose music for a game, we’ll inevitably be communicating with a specific liaison chosen to relay our assignments and answer our questions about the project. This might be a dedicated audio team member like an audio director or sound designer. On the other hand, it might be a producer, game designer, creative lead, or other non-audio team member. It’s vitally important that we 
Tremaine Williams: Since everyone is working remotely these days. What kind of information would be best to send to a composer in order to properly display the direction of the product?
Winifred Phillips: For the question about working remotely — communication again is key. Often we’re working remotely as independent contractors anyway. These are really important skills to have.
One of the unusual aspects of being freelance composers in the video game industry is our ability to work remotely with teams around the world. This has been true for a long time. Game developers aren’t shy about employing tech into their day-to-day work lives. While Hollywood may still cling to the idea of composers living in LA and working with production companies in person, game developers are perfectly happy with long-distance relationships. I’ve worked with teams that are less than an hour’s drive away, 
Sound and Suspense
Yigit Koc: Does sounds’ texture especially on lower frequencies with high elements affect suspense? Did you ever experience some effect like this?
Winifred Phillips: Absolutely. I find that big contrast creates big drama. Moving from the eerie upper frequencies into the low ominous drones can create a very dramatic atmosphere, while also coming across as subtle and atmospheric.
Misha Samorodin: Drones are different from ambient sustained sound?
Winifred Phillips: Drones are different from a sustained atmospheric sound in the pitch, the frequency. They’re very low, bordering on infrasound.
Nicole Lazzaro: How do low drones of dread and infrasound relate to haptics?
Winifred Phillips: Nice question. Low drones that rumble in the infrasound range can come across as an almost imperceptible vibration that can cause physiological distress.
These questions pertained to a portion of my GDC Showcase talk that explored the physical and emotional effects of low continuous sounds. These low rumbling tones, which we named Drones of Dread, can have significant physiological effects including a sensation of distress. Otherwise known as infrasounds, these aural elements can also initiate the body’s fight-or-flight response. When used in suspenseful music, low drones can keep players feeling off-balance and uneasy.
In the chat Q&A, several questions were posed about how these elements interrelate, and I’d like to explore that a little further. These Drones of Dread and Ominous Ambiences are powerful elements in our musical scores. We can compare them to potent spices in the cooking arsenal of a skillful chef. For instance, while it is possible to combine balsamic vinegar and peppermint together, the result would be unfortunate. While they certainly can contrast each other when experienced in sequence, they shouldn’t be in the same dish at the same time. As an example, we might have a delicious balsamic chicken dish followed by a decadent chocolate-peppermint ice cream sundae, and the two flavors would serve as a potent and enjoyable contrast.
Likewise, when we’re experimenting with low drones and ominous tones, it’s better to alternate these elements than to layer them on top of one another. If we fill up the sonic spectrum with continuous sounds, the individual elements will lose their potency, and we’ll be left with a cluttered and unaffecting result.
Conclusion
The experience of participating in the chat discussion during GDC Showcase was really rewarding and fun! Thanks again to the many awesome chat participants who watched my lecture and contributed so many cool questions – you guys are the greatest! I found the GDC Showcase event to be tremendously worthwhile, and I hope it returns in 2022!
