The Big List 2026: Resources for Game Music Composers

Grammy Award-winning video game composer Winifred Phillips, working in her music production studio at Generations Productions LLC.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

Poster for the Capitol Hill event, "The Highest Score: The Composers of the Video Game Industry" - presented by the Electronic Software Association and Electronic Arts. Included in the article by Grammy award-winning game composer Winifred Phillips.Hi!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and this past September I traveled to Washington D.C.  I’d been asked, as the current winner of the Grammy Award for Best Video Game Soundtrack, to speak in the Congressional Auditorium of the Capitol Building, at an event advocating for the importance of video game music.  It was an enormous honor!  Alongside a panel of fellow Grammy Award winners and nominees, we discussed the process of composing for games, sharing stories and memories while doing our best to help lawmakers understand the inherent creativity and expertise involved in crafting a video game musical score.

Participating in panels and discussions like this one has always been very inspiring for me.  I’m grateful to be a part of this amazing professional network of game audio wizards, as they continually innovate and share ideas with boundless enthusiasm and generosity.  Through a lively exchange of ideas over time, the game audio profession has built a deep reservoir of knowledge and experience that enriches the entire community.  With that in mind, I’d like to use this article to share a collection of resources that I’ve gathered from across the internet, providing both educational enrichment and inspiration for game audio folks.  We’ll start with a collection of informative conferences that include rich game audio content.  Then, we’ll move to an assortment of music festivals and symphony concerts dedicated to music from video games.  We’ll include a couple of awesome organizations that are serving the needs of game audio scholars and researchers.  And finally, we’ll lay out all the vibrant online discussion forums and helpful communities ready to assist game audio practitioners.  So let’s get started!

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GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: The Human Soundscape

Photograph of Winifred Phillips (award-winning composer whose latest project is the original music of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord).

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

So happy you’ve joined us! I’m game composer Winifred Phillips, and one of my latest projects is the music of the bestselling game Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord: the 3d remake of the classic 1981 dungeon-crawler! (listen and download the award-winning soundtrack for free). I’d like to welcome you to the sixth and final installment of my article series based on the lecture I gave at the Game Developers Conference 2024!  In my lecture, “Dial Up the Diegetics: Musical Sound Effects,” I explored how the audio assets and techniques of expert sound designers can be applied to our work as game composers.  Considering that not all of us would be able to attend GDC that year, I arranged the content of my 2024 GDC lecture into this six-part article series.  These articles have shared the entire substance of my lecture, along with all the audio and video examples and a large assortment of the images I used during my GDC talk.  In case you haven’t read the previous installments of this series, you can find them here:

  1. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Musical Sound Effects
  2. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Sounds of Nature
  3. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: The Animal Kingdom
  4. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Science and Technology
  5. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Industry and Mechanics

In part five of this series, we examined the sounds of machines and technology, exploring some of the best ways these sound design assets can be put to use within our music.  So now let’s return to the top of our full list of audio assets that we’ve been considering over the course of this article series:

Illustration depicting the bullet list used in the GDC 2024 presentation of video game composer Winifred Phillips.

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GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Industry and Mechanics

Photograph of award-winning video game composer Winifred Phillips in her music production studio, composing the original music of one of her latest projects, Wizardry Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

Hey there! I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and I’m excited to announce that I’ll be presenting a lecture this March at the Game Developers Conference 2025 about my Grammy Award-winning score to Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord!  “A Score for Wizardry: World-Building Through Music” will explore both the historical research and creative process that went into the composition of this Medieval and Renaissance-style score. So excited to share what I learned composing the score for the game Kotaku named one of the Best RPGs of the Year!

In the meantime, let’s now turn our attention to my continuing series of articles presenting the lecture I delivered at last year’s Game Developer’s Conference.  In my 2024 GDC presentation,“Dial Up the Diegetics: Musical Sound Effects,” I discussed how game composers can adopt the tools and strategies of expert sound designers when composing evocative music for games.  Since not all of us would be able to travel to San Francisco to attend the Game Developers Conference, I’ve gone ahead now and included the entire content of my GDC presentation in this article series.  This article series also includes all of the videos, audio files and images that I used during my talk. In case you haven’t read the previous installments of this series, you can find them here:

  1. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Musical Sound Effects
  2. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Sounds of Nature
  3. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: The Animal Kingdom
  4. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Science and Technology

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GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Science and Technology

Photo of award-winning video game composer Winifred Phillips working on her original musical score to the video game Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

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:

  1. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Musical Sound Effects
  2. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Sounds of Nature
  3. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: The Animal Kingdom

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!

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GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: The Animal Kingdom

Photo of Bafta-nominated video game composer Winifred Phillips, working in her music production studio on her original musical score for the video game Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

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:

  1. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Musical Sound Effects
  2. GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Sounds of Nature

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.

An illustration that includes one of the bullet lists used in the GDC 2024 presentation given by award-winning video game composer Winifred Phillips.

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.

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GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Sounds of Nature

Photo of video game composer Winifred Phillips, whose latest project is the award-winning original music of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

Welcome back! I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips – my latest game project is the award-winning music for the smash-hit 3D remake of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord! (Listen and download the award-winning soundtrack, and vote for the Wizardry soundtrack in the public voting of the World Soundtrack Awards.)

This is part two of my article series that presents the content of my lecture from the Game Developers Conference 2024.  This year, my presentation, “Dial Up the Diegetics: Musical Sound Effects,” explored how composers can employ sound design assets and techniques in their game music.  Since not all of us can attend GDC, I make sure to post the content of my GDC lectures every year in a series of articles that present the full discussions, along with many of the videos and illustrations that were a part of my lecture.  Last month I posted part one of this article series, in which we considered a list of categories wherein sound design assets may be sorted:

Illustration depicting a bullet list as used during the GDC 2024 presentation of video game composer Winifred Phillips.

We began with a discussion of environmental diegetics, first exploring how short environmental sound design assets supports diegesis, and the ways in which we can make these sound design assets work in our musical compositions.  So now, let’s explore that idea further.

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GDC 2024 Dial Up the Diegetics: Musical Sound Effects

Photo of award-winning video game music composer Winifred Phillips, working on her original music score for the game Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

Hello everyone!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips – my latest is the music for the bestselling remake of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord! (Listen and download the award-winning soundtrack for free, and vote for the Wizardry soundtrack in the public voting of the World Soundtrack Awards)

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!

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Dial up the Diegetics: Musical Sound Effects for the Video Game Composer (GDC 2024)

Award-winning video game music composer Winifred Phillips works in her music studio at Generations Productions on music for the project LittleBigPlanet 2: Cross Controller.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

Hello everyone!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and I’m delighted to share that I’ll be delivering a lecture this March in San Francisco during the Game Developers Conference — one of the top industry conferences of the year.  My lecture is entitled “Dial Up the Diegetics: Musical Sound Effects,” and I was honored that GDC included it as a featured audio selection in the GDC 2024 Session Guide, and highlighted my participation as a GDC speaker this year by including me in the GDC 2024 Speaker Spotlight.  My lecture takes place on Thursday, March 21st in Room 3002 West Hall at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, and I’m really looking forward to this one!  We’ll be taking a detailed look at various ways that music and sound-design can cross fertilize each other.  Specifically, my presentation will focus on how environmental and incidental sound effects can be directed towards musical applications.  These audio assets, typically used by sound design experts, can serve to introduce quirky novelty into a game’s musical score.  They can also deepen player immersion in the environment of the game.

Official logo and scheduling info for the Game Developers Conference 2024. This image is included in the article by award-winning game music composer Winifred Phillips.

While I don’t want to spoil the content of my presentation, I thought I’d take this opportunity to break down an example of this technique from one of my projects.  This particular example was regrettably cut from my presentation due to time constraints, which affords me the opportunity to share it here instead!  While my lecture will have a much wider scope on the topic of musical diegetics, this article will drill down on one specific case-study.  So let’s start with some basic definitions.

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