Tag Archives: A Composer’s Guide to Game Music

The Game Show Interview: Game Music & Game Design

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Photo of composer Meena Shamaly, host of the Game Show on ABC Classic, pictured here video game music composer Winifred Phillips (Game Show interviewee).

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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’s Game 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.

Official logo of the ABC Classic radio show - the Game Show. (This image supports a discussion in an article by video game composer Winifred Phillips).

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.

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The Game Show Interview: Starting a Career as a Game Composer

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Photo of host Meena Shamaly of the Game Show on ABC Classic, pictured here with his interview subject Winifred Phillips (video game music composer).

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

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!

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The Big Index 2024: Articles for Game Music Composers

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Video game music composer Winifred Phillips, pictured here in her music studio at Generations Productions LLC. This photo is used to illustrate the Big Index, containing an organized repository of articles exploring topics of interest to game composers and game audio practitioners.

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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.

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Narrative in trailers, cutscenes and cinematics (for the game music composer)

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This photo includes the logo of the Spore Hero video game, and the game's composer Winifred Phillips. Phillips is the author of the book A Composer's Guide to Game Music, published by The MIT Press.

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Hey, everybody!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and I’m happy to welcome you back to the last installment of our four-part discussion of “scoring-to-picture” techniques within video games.  In these articles we’ve considered how cutscenes, trailers, and cinematics can benefit from specific musical strategies.  As game composers, our jobs involve lots of complex music systems requiring expert knowledge of dynamic composition techniques.  However, we can still benefit from an examination of the goals that music can achieve during linear presentations within a game.  Such goals may include:

  1. Characterization
  2. Information
  3. Identity
  4. Narrative

Earlier in this series of articles, we’ve discussed the ways in which music can support believable and moving characterization.  We considered the ability of a musical score to emphasize details and enhance comprehension of information.  We’ve also considered how a game’s intrinsic identity can be reinforced using thoughtful choices of musical style, particularly in the case of custom music for game trailers.  So now let’s move on to the last item on our list, and the one most closely associated with linear music composition:

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Identity in trailers, cutscenes and cinematics (for the game music composer)

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Image of video game composer Winifred Phillips in her music production studio, regarding images from the DC Dual Force project.

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Hello there!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and I’m glad you could join us for the continuation of our four-part discussion of traditional “scoring-to-picture” techniques within a video game project.  We’ve been examining the music needs of cinematics, cutscenes, and trailers, with an eye towards pinpointing specific goals that music can achieve. Those goals include:

  1. Characterization
  2. Information
  3. Identity
  4. Narrative

In our previous articles we thought about how music can accentuate the believability and importance of characters, and how music can help players absorb and digest information.  So let’s move on to the third item on our list of goals:

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Information in trailers, cutscenes and cinematics (for the game music composer)

Posted by Winifred Phillips on

Winifred Phillips is a BAFTA-nominated video game composer, and the author of the book A Composer's Guide to Game Music. This photo depicts Phillips at work in her music production studio.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

Hey, everyone!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and I’d like to welcome you back to our four-part discussion of traditional “scoring-to-picture” techniques within a video game project, and how these play into our work as game composers.  We’ve been looking at examples of cinematics, cutscenes and trailers to see how this kind of linear composition style accomplishes specific goals.  That list of goals includes:

  1. Characterization
  2. Information
  3. Identity
  4. Narrative

In our previous article, we took a look at how music can best emphasize and support characters during cutscenes and cinematics. By using linear music for the purposes of characterization, we can accentuate the distinct traits of important characters, or provide insight into their state of mind.

Now, let’s consider when our music composition goals are less emotional, and more utilitarian.  In this article, we’ll be moving on from characterization to take a look at how information is conveyed in linear cinematics and cutscenes.  When the primary goal of a cinematic is to provide players with important details, we can assist by composing music to support the way information is disseminated.  This can help players to better absorb all the facts presented.

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Characterization in trailers, cutscenes and cinematics (for the game music composer)

Posted by Winifred Phillips on

Photo of BAFTA-nominated composer Winifred Phillips at work in her music production studio. Phillips' projects include titles in six of gamings biggest franchises: God of War, Assassin's Creed, Total War, LittleBigPlanet, Lineage, and The Sims.

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Glad you’re here!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips–  thanks for joining us!  As we all know, dynamic music has become a central focus of our craft as game composers. In our past articles here, we tend to focus on the awesome power of dynamic implementation to increase the utility of game music across lengthy gameplay sequences.  In-game music serves many purposes, so it must morph and change in order to best accommodate shifting circumstances.  However, no matter how interactive our in-game tracks may be, we inevitably run into situations in which dynamic music systems fall short.

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Composer Winifred Phillips answers Reddit’s questions in viral Ask-Me-Anything about video game music

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Photo of popular video game composer Winifred Phillips, taken as 'proof photo' for her recent viral Reddit Ask-Me-Anything that hit the Reddit front page, receiving 14.8 thousand upvotes and garnering Reddit's gold and platinum awards.

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Glad you’re here!  I’m video game music composer Winifred Phillips, and I’m the author of the book A Composer’s Guide to Game Music.  Recently my publisher The MIT Press requested that I host a question and answer session on Reddit’s famous Ask Me Anything forum, to share my knowledge about game music and spread the word about my book on that topic.  I’d be answering questions from a community consisting of thousands of gamers, developers and aspiring composers.  It sounded like fun, so last Thursday and Friday I logged onto Reddit and answered as many questions as I possibly could.  It was an awesome experience!  Over the course of those two days, my Reddit AMA went viral.  It ascended to the Reddit front page, receiving 14.8 thousand upvotes and garnering Reddit’s gold and platinum awards.  My AMA has now become one of the most engaged and popular Reddit gaming AMAs ever hosted on the Ask-Me-Anything subreddit.  I’m so grateful to the Reddit community for their amazing support and enthusiasm!!  During the course of those two days, the community posed some wonderful questions, and I thought it would be great to gather together some of those questions and answers that might interest us here.  Below you’ll find a discussion focused on the art and craft of game music composition.  The discussion covered the gamut of subjects, from elementary to expert, and I’ve arranged the discussion below under topic headings for the sake of convenience.  I hope you enjoy this excerpted Q&A from my Reddit Ask-Me-Anything!  If you’d like to read the entire AMA (which also includes lots of discussion of my past video game music projects), you’ll find the whole Reddit AMA here.

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From the video game music of EA’s Spore Hero to Avengers Endgame: Composing the Hero Theme

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Photo of composer Winifred Phillips working on the video game music of Spore Hero from Electronic Arts.

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The famous Avengers Endgame logo, from the article by video game composer Winifred Phillips.Hi!  I’m video game music composer Winifred Phillips, and sometimes my game music shows up in places I never would have expected.  A little over a week ago, while I was eagerly watching an awesome trailer for the just-released blockbuster Avengers Endgame, I was suddenly stunned to hear my own music in it!  (I’ve embedded the Avengers Endgame trailer that features my music at the end of this article.)  What made this moment even more jaw-dropping for me was that I had originally composed this music for the video game Spore Hero (a game from Electronic Arts’ popular Spore franchise).  Just as a reference, here’s what the characters look like in Spore Hero:

Detail from cover image of popular video game Spore Hero (from the article by Winifred Phillips, video game composer).

The style of Spore Hero couldn’t be further away from that famous Avengers style, as expertly displayed in the Avengers Endgame trailer.  Yet the same music was used for both projects.

The famous faces of Avengers Endgame depicted in the official poster (an illustration from the article by video game composer Winifred Phillips)

The Spore Hero music I was hearing in the Avengers Endgame trailer was my “Hero Theme,” which functions essentially as a leitmotif within the Spore Hero score – it’s the central recurring melody in the game.  By virtue of the theme-and-variation technique, the melody undergoes a gradual transformation from invitingly cute to heroically epic.

The Avengers Endgame trailer featured the most dramatic iteration of this theme.  When I recovered from the initial surprise, it occurred to me that a mini-postmortem of this particular melodic theme might be the best way to explore an interesting topic: how does a single theme transform itself from an amiable melody to an avenging one?

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Video game music composer: Getting your big break

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In this article for video game composers, popular game composer Winifred Phillips is depicted in this photo working in her music production studio.

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So happy you’ve joined us!  I’m videogame composer Winifred Phillips (pictured above working on my career breakthrough project, God of War). Today I’ll be discussing a hot topic that we’ve previously explored, but that definitely deserves to be revisited periodically.  This is one of the most popular subjects that I’ve addressed in my previous articles here: How does a newcomer get hired as a game composer?

I’m asked this question frequently, and while I offered quite a lot of advice on this topic in my book A Composer’s Guide to Game Music, I’m keenly aware of how urgent the need is for updated guidance on this issue for aspiring video game composers.  Game music newcomers often feel adrift and alone in the game industry, and some good advice can be a welcome lifeline.  In my book, I described the career path that led me into the game industry and allowed me to land my first gigs, but I’m well aware that my experience was pretty unique.  With that in mind, I’ve collated some recent research and insights from some top game industry professionals in this article, in the hopes that some of these expert observations might prove helpful.  There are lots of original and provocative viewpoints presented here, so we should feel free to pick and choose the strategies and tips that will work best for us.

Also, later in the article you’ll find my presentation for the Society of Composers and Lyricists seminar, in which I answered the question about how I personally got my start in the games industry (for those who might be curious).  Finally, at the end of the article I have included a full list of links for further reading and reference.

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