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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The Big Index 2024: Articles for Game Music Composers

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.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

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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Resources for Video Game Music Composers: The Big List

Video game music composer Winifred Phillips creating music in her video game music production studio.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

Hey everybody!  I’m videogame composer Winifred Phillips.  Every year, between working in my studio creating music for some awesome games, I like to take a little time to gather together some of the top online resources and guidance available for newbies in the field of video game music.  What follows in this article is an updated and expanded collection of links on a variety of topics pertinent to our profession.  We begin with the concert tours and events where we can get inspired by seeing game music performed live.  Then we’ll move on to a discussion of online communities that can help us out when we’re trying to solve a problem.  Next, we’ll see a collection of software tools that are commonplace in our field.  Finally, we’ll check out some conferences and academic organizations where we can absorb new ideas and skills.

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