Welcome back! I’m game composer Winifred Phillips – my most recent game release is the original music of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord: the smash-hit 3D remake of the classic 1981 dungeon-crawler (listen and download my award-winning soundtrack for free). This is part four of my series of articles based on the content of the lecture I gave at the Game Developers Conference 2024! My lecture, entitled “Dial Up the Diegetics: Musical Sound Effects,” explored how we game composers can adopt the audio assets and production techniques of sound design when we’re composing music for games. To allow everyone to access this discussion (including those of us who couldn’t attend GDC 2024), I’m happy to share the substance of my GDC lectures in an article series that incorporates the entire discussion, along with the videos and illustrations that were included in my GDC lecture!
In case you haven’t read the previous installments of this series, you can find them here:
In part three of this series, we further explored how we can use animal vocalizations in eccentric ways, infusing our game music with lots of quirky character. So now that we’ve considered what the animal kingdom can do for our music, let’s tackle the next item on our list – The Diegetics of Science!
Hi there! I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips – my most recent game release is the music of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord: the smash-hit 3D remake of the classic 1981 dungeon-crawler (listen and download my award-winning soundtrack for free). Welcome to part three of my article series presenting the content of my talk from the Game Developers Conference 2024! My presentation, “Dial Up the Diegetics: Musical Sound Effects,” discussed the ways in which game composers can repurpose the tools and assets normally within the province of sound design experts. In order to best make my GDC discussions as widely accessible as possible, I’m now sharing the content of my GDC lectures every year in an article series that includes the full lectures, supplemented by most of the videos and many illustrations from my GDC talks.
In case you haven’t read the previous installments of this series, you can find them here:
In part two of my GDC 2024 article series, I discussed how using appropriate animal vocalizations can provide game composers with awesome sonic tools for adding evocative character to game music.
As an example, we discussed how adding seagulls to the music of an ocean-themed gameplay level can help the environment blend more seamlessly with the music supporting it. So let’s now check out another example of an animal sound that’s used less literally than seagulls at the ocean – and more in a figurative way.
Last March I was pleased to give a lecture at the Game Developers Conference 2024 — it’s a top industry event where experts in various game development disciplines share tips and techniques related to their fields. My presentation was called “Dial Up the Diegetics: Musical Sound Effects.” Every year, after I give my lecture at GDC, I include most of the lecture content in an article series (for the benefit of those who couldn’t attend the conference). So with this article, I’m kicking off a six-part series based on my 2024 GDC presentation! In these articles you’ll find all of the discussion from my GDC lecture, supported by many of the videos and illustrations that I used to support the ideas explored in my talk. So let’s get started!
Hey everybody! I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips. Welcome to part two of my three-part article series based on my interview with Meena Shamaly, host of the popular Game Show program on ABC Classic (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation). Meena is a prolific performance artist, composer and producer, in addition to his role as the host of the Game Show, and I was delighted to be interviewed for his awesome series! An audio recording of the uncut interview is hosted right now on the ABC Classic web site. These articles include the full written transcript of that interview, along with some great supporting links and media files that help to expand on the topics discussed. In part one of this series, Meena and I reflected on the journey a new composer takes to break into the video game industry, along with the “always say yes” philosophy that can help new composers as they pursue their first break. In part two, we’ll talk about composing in unorthodox ways to help us stay at the top of our game as composers, and we’ll also discuss the unique role that music plays in video games. Here is part two of my interview with Meena Shamaly of ABC Classic’sGame Show, beginning with a discussion of how two very different projects from my early career shaped everything that came later… Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and God of War.
Winifred: So now my career has two very divergent paths. People who know me from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and things like that – they approach me for projects like Shrek the Third, or The LittleBigPlanet games, or SimAnimals, Spore Hero, things like that. And on the other side, people who know me from God of War are coming to me for things like the Assassin’s Creed Liberation game, or Homefront, or Jurassic World Primal Ops, or The Da Vinci Code. And that has allowed me to swing back and forth and do very divergent things. It’s made my career very fulfilling for me, because I get to stretch and change. I don’t ever feel like I’m in a box, because I get to express myself in such different ways. It’s rare! It’s a rare thing to be able to do that, so I’m quite grateful that my career started that way.
Hello there! I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and last November I was delighted to be featured on the popular Game Show program broadcast on ABC Classic (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). The show that was broadcast on ABC Classic featured lots of my music from my video game repertoire, along with clips from a longer interview we recorded shortly before the broadcast. Game Show is hosted by Meena Shamaly, who is an accomplished performance poet, composer, and producer of arts workshops and poetry slams. With this in-depth background in music and the arts, he brings a unique sensitivity and insight to the conversation, posing fascinating questions right from the top of the interview, and responding deftly to help the conversation evolve in revealing ways. While the broadcast from ABC Classic is no longer available, an audio recording of our full, uncut interview is hosted right now on the ABC Classic web site. I thought that readers of this blog might appreciate the transcript of the full interview, so I’m including that transcript here. In addition to the transcript, I’ve also included music examples to illustrate topics discussed during the interview, and links that expand on various topics that are touched upon in the transcript. This interview for The Game Show web site was quite long, so I’ll be dividing it into three articles. In addition to this transcript, you can also visit The Game Show web site, or visit the official ABC Classic site (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). So now, without further ado, here is part one of my interview with Meena Shamaly of ABC Classic’s Game Show!
Hey everybody! I’m video game music composer Winifred Phillips, author of the book A Composer’s Guide to Game Music. Since the publication of my book by the MIT Press, I’ve maintained a monthly series of articles designed to expand upon the content of that book and enable further exploration of related topics. Inspired by my more recent video game projects in popular franchises such as Jurassic World, Lineage, and Sackboy, these articles have delved into subjects ranging from interactivity, to music theory, to business and networking.
The sheer number of articles has necessitated the inclusion of a navigation tool, so I now include an annual “Big Index” that can assist us in finding our way through the content that’s accumulated over the years. What follows is that index, organized by general subject matter. New to the index are articles from the past year that have engaged in more detailed and technical discussions of music theory-related topics, with deep dives into non-diatonic construction that included atonal and polytonal composition. I’ve also included the transcripts of my interviews with National Public Radio and the BBC that took place in 2023.
Hello there! I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips. In March of 2023, I gave a lecture entitled “Chaos Theory: The Music of Jurassic World Primal Ops” during the Game Developers Conference 2023. This lecture was named one of the most popular presentations at GDC 2023, and is currently nominated for a Game Audio Network Guild Award for Best Game Audio Presentation. Every year, after I present at this popular yearly conference, I release the complete content of my lecture in a series of free articles. This is the sixth and final article in the series based on my GDC 2023 presentation. As before, I’m including all the substance from my GDC presentation in this article series, along with all of the videos and sound files, and many of the illustrations that I used during my GDC talk.
During these articles I’ve been sharing my process composing the musical score for Jurassic World Primal Ops – it’s the video game from Universal Games and Behaviour Interactive. Jurassic World Primal Ops came out in the summer of 2022, right alongside the theatrical run of the latest film in this famous franchise: Jurassic World Dominion.
Hello there! I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips. Welcome to the fourth article in my series based on my GDC 2023 lecture, “Chaos Theory: The Music of Jurassic World Primal Ops.” Before we continue with the article series, I’d like to share some related news – the Academy of Interactive & Visual Arts just awarded my music for Jurassic World Primal Ops with a 2023 Gold in the W3 Awards! This is the 18th year that the AIVA has recognized “heroes of digital creativity,” and I’m thrilled that my music for this project was recognized by the AIVA!
So happy to be discussing my Jurassic World Primal Ops music in this ongoing article series! In these articles, I’ve included the substance of my GDC lecture, augmented with the videos, audio files, and some of the illustrations from the visual presentation that accompanied my lecture.
During the first three articles, we considered the world-famous Jurassic Park / Jurassic World franchise, and the release of the Jurassic World Primal Ops video game in concert with the theatrical run of the latest movie, Jurassic World Dominion. I shared what it was like composing new music for a game in this famous and immensely popular franchise. By creating a musical score that emphasized unpredictability and chaos, I was able to enhance the tension and anxiety of playing an action-driven game featuring bloodthirsty dinosaurs on the loose in the modern world.
You’ll find all these ideas discussed in detail in these three articles:
We’d just finished discussing the fantastic utility of both the Octatonic and Whole Tone scales, which are particularly useful when we’re pushing our music away from a classic harmonic structure and towards atonality. But now let’s take a moment to step away from atonality altogether, and consider its close cousin – polytonality.
Hey everyone! I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and this is the third article in my series based on my Game Developers Conference 2023 lecture, “Chaos Theory: The Music of Jurassic World Primal Ops.” In my GDC presentation, I examined the challenges of composing unpredictable and chaotic music for a high-intensity action game. This series of articles shares the substance of that GDC 2023 presentation, along with the illustrations, videos, and audio examples I included in my presentation at the conference last March.
In the first two articles of this series, we discussed the worldwide success of the popular Jurassic Park / Jurassic World franchise. We reviewed the gameplay structure of Jurassic World Primal Ops: the top-down action game released in concert with the blockbuster theatrical run of the Jurassic World Dominion movie. I shared my experience as the composer of this Jurassic World game, and what it was like composing music for such an awesome franchise.
During our discussion in the previous two articles, we took a look at some of the best music composition techniques that can introduce tension and uncertainty into our musical structure, enhancing the experience of combat in an action-heavy game. These ideas are discussed in detail in these previous two articles:
In the preceding two articles, we considered how subverting traditional cadences with surprising tonic pivots can introduce unpredictability into our musical structure, and how both quartal chords and chromatics can create ambiguity in regards to key signature and tonic center. But there are other ways for us to obscure that tonic and make our music feel more tumultuous.
As we all know, anyone who casually listens to music is well aware of the Ionian and the Aeolian modes:
The traditional major:
The traditional minor:
These modes are everywhere, with all those famous and well-worn intervals, chords, and progressions, so we’ve come to expect them. That’s why avoiding these modes is a great way to subvert expectations and create disconcerting music.
In the score for Jurassic World Primal Ops, when I wasn’t pushing atonality into my compositions, I was leaning heavily into the Octatonic and Whole Tone scales. So let’s take a look at how that worked, starting with the Octatonic.
The Octatonic, or diminished scale, is an eight-tone scale that alternates whole and half tones:
It has the advantage of working really well with diminished triads:
Diminished triads are nicely unsteady and menacing in the right context. The Octatonic became one of my go-to tools for the Jurassic World Primal Ops score. Here’s one of the most straightforward examples from a combat track: notice how the bass line runs through the entire Octatonic scale in order:
Now here’s a more complex example of the Octatonic scale in an action track. While I never ran through the scale in order, you’ll notice that the bass line is overtly Octatonic in nature, with diminished chords in the brass section – and I’ve arranged the strings in a conventional minor-mode, so this makes the whole thing feel more unstable and perilous:
While I used the Octatonic pretty frequently in this project, I also alternated it with the Whole Tone scale. This scale consists entirely of whole steps:
This means it naturally feels disconnected to a key signature – because it’s just hard to determine where the tonic is.
First, let’s check out a combat example:
As you can see, if we’re looking for an unbalanced scale with no tonal center, the Whole Tone scale is just what we need. Also, it features augmented triads:
Augmented triads are also harmonically ambiguous. All this is great for creating uneasy-sounding music.
So let’s check out another example – this is music I composed for one of the tense ‘tracking’ sequences in which the player (as an expert dinosaur hunter) is attempting to locate these huge prehistoric beasts in the wild. Notice how apprehensive this Whole Tone structure feels:
Octatonic and Whole Tone scales are fantastic for when we’re pushing our music away from a classic harmonic structure and towards atonality.
In the next article of this series, we’ll be stepping away from atonality altogether and considering its close cousin, polytonality. In the meantime, you can read more about game music composition in my book, A Composer’s Guide to Game Music. Thanks for reading!
Winifred Phillips is a BAFTA-nominated video game composer. The music she composed for her latest video game project Jurassic World Primal Ops won both the Global Music Award and the NYX Award, and was nominated for a Society of Composers & Lyricists Award for Outstanding Score for Interactive Media, and a Game Audio Network Guild Award in the category of Music of the Year. Other recent releases include the hit PlayStation 5 launch title Sackboy: A Big Adventure (soundtrack album now available). Popular music from Phillips’ award-winning Assassin’s Creed Liberation score was featured in the performance repertoire of the Assassin’s Creed Symphony World Tour, which made its Paris debut with an 80-piece orchestra and choir. As an accomplished video game composer, Phillips is best known for composing music for games in many of the most famous and popular franchises in gaming: the list includes Assassin’s Creed, God of War, Total War, The Sims, and Sackboy / LittleBigPlanet. Phillips’ has received numerous awards, including an Interactive Achievement Award / D.I.C.E. Award from the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, six Game Audio Network Guild Awards (including Music of the Year), and four Hollywood Music in Media Awards. She is the author of the award-winning bestseller A COMPOSER’S GUIDE TO GAME MUSIC, published by the MIT Press. As one of the foremost authorities on music for interactive entertainment, Winifred Phillips has given lectures at the Library of Congress in Washington DC, the Society of Composers and Lyricists, the Game Developers Conference, the Audio Engineering Society, and many more. Phillips’ enthusiastic fans showered her with questions during a Reddit Ask-Me-Anything session that went viral, hit the Reddit front page, received 14.9 thousand upvotes, and became one of the most popular gaming AMAs ever hosted on Reddit. An interview with her has been published as a part of the Routledge text, Women’s Music for the Screen: Diverse Narratives in Sound, which collects the viewpoints of the most esteemed female composers in film, television, and games. Follow her on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
Glad you’re here! I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and this is the second article in my series based on my Game Developers Conference 2023 presentation, “Chaos Theory: The Music of Jurassic World Primal Ops.” In the lecture I gave last March at GDC, I shared my creative process composing music for a project in the famous Jurassic Park / Jurassic World franchise. During this article series, I’ll be sharing the substance of that GDC 2023 presentation, supplemented by the audio and video examples I used, along with some of the best illustrations I included during my conference lecture.
In the first article of this series, we took a look at the Jurassic World Primal Ops video game, in which players capture and train awesome dinosaurs to fight alongside them against evil poachers and mercenaries. Jurassic World Primal Ops was released in concert with the theatrical run of Jurassic World Dominion, the latest movie in the popular Jurassic franchise. As a top-down action game featuring an assortment of history’s most famous and dangerous dinosaur predators, Jurassic World Primal Ops needed a musical score that would emphasize the power and danger of these enormous prehistoric lizards.
Turning to an examination of music theory as it relates to such an intense and chaotic musical score, we discussed how traditional cadences could be subverted into unpredictable progressions that we dubbed Tonic Pivot. You’ll find all these ideas discussed in detail in part one of this article series.
Continuing our discussion of harmonic devices, let’s move to the second chaotic technique on our list.
