Is Music in Games as Important and Great as in Films?

Jason Graves Conducting his Score of Until Dawn. Courtesy of Wikipedia

Video game composer tend to be put into an entirely different career type than film and TV composers. They're often paid much less, in many cases understandably, and receive very little credit for what they do. But should any of that actually happen? In my opinion, not at all. I understand that that statement might freak some people out, but I have my reasons why I would say that. These days, video games can tell a story just as well as a movie. Especially big budget games that are given hours of work that results in millions of followers tend to have really great stories, and sometimes really great music.

Difficulty of Game Scores vs Film Scores

It takes a lot of work to create any music, that's for sure. Writing it for film is definitely difficult, but can game scores be equally difficult to compose? My answer: yes and no. Often times, game composers are only writing a small amount of music that will be played for possible hours on end. It takes real skill and effort to make the loop of music flow and maintain the feel of music before it. I've seen games do this the easy way by their music fade out between tracks, but it just doesn't flow; making your music fade between tracks is a bandage, not a solution. Game composers that know what they're doing and want to take the time to do it will make their tracks flow into one another. It's difficult to explain, and even more difficult to do, but it's such a necessity. Making a game score truly flow is what makes game music as difficult as film music.

Are Games Scores Actually Important?

As usual: it depends. Mobile games that you only play for a few minutes without your sound on don't always need music. However, if a composer is good enough for you to want to wear your headphones so that you can listen to the music, that's a huge success, and the composer should keep doing things like that. On the other side of the argument, a game that you play for hours on end that actually has a story absolutely needs it's own music. I recently saw an article that talks about the important nostalgia that video game music provides us. In my opinion, that's a huge reason to have music in games. Anyone that's ever played a classic game like the Legend of Zelda or Super Mario understands just how great you can feel when you hear the game's music. In many cases, you might want to play the game again after you hear the music.

In general, video game music can and often is as important as a film score, and can be just as memorable as well. The day that composers stop writing music for video games is the day that, just like film, %50 of the story will vanish.

Why I Blog

I have, again, been tasked with writing about a certain subject. I won’t go into why I absolutely oppose the topic I will be covering in the next 472 words, but if you’re interested in a post like that, check out this post of a friend. Anywho, getting right into then…

Recently, I was tasked with writing a “reflection on this article.” The article is entitled “Why I Blog”, and I’m supposed to call this post the same thing… Ah. I said I wouldn’t delve into the rage I have for some of these assignments.

The article explains the deep history of the author’s blogging and journalism career and why he blogs (surprise right?). Now I have to write a reflection on this article… Fortunately, I don’t have to explain why I blog, I just have to reflect on the article. I find it rather interesting that the author decides to explain why he blogs, but just not on his blog. If I were trying to read the news on The Atlantic (Not that I would trust that kind of source), I would be a little shocked if the recommended article for me is called “Why I Blog”. I don’t really want to know why you blog, I’m not reading your blog am I?

Wow… about five-hundred words huh? It’s easy to rant about anything else but this is just… Okay. Only 260 words left. Back into it now.

The article is almost… poetic? I don’t know how to explain it, but the author felt that it was important to make blogging sound like a religion. I’m not saying that I hate this entire blogging thing, not at all. I’ve enjoyed expelling my thoughts onto a computer, but it’s not a life changing thing. I’m not any smarter or more successful. And I doubt that this author is as well. Afterall, if blogging was as life changing as the author made it sound, why would they be writing for The Atlantic?

I just read through a paragraph of the article, and I’m kind of shocked. I joked about the author making a blogging a religion, but this is different. The author says “To blog is therefore to let go of your writing in a way, to hold it at arm’s length, open it to scrutiny, allow it to float in the ether for a while, and to let others, as Montaigne did, pivot you toward relative truth.” The whole ‘pivot you toward relative truth’ doesn’t sound like a religion at all… more like a cult in my opinion. Relative truth? Ah. Shivers.

The author also mentions that jazz and blogging have an intimate relationship… I don’t even want to talk about that.

In conclusion, I was bored, confused and terrified all at once by this article. It’s the strangest thing I’ve read in awhile. Maybe this is just the blind rage of a high school student not wanting to engage in anything academic, like reflecting on an article. But there, it’s done, I reflected on the article. And if there’s anything I did wrong, I didn’t see the rubric attached to the assignment, so that’s my defense. And this is 532 words.

Writer's Confusion (Not to be confused with Writer's Block)

Writer's Confusion.

Yes, I just made up a term. But hey, I think it's pretty clever. This is just a quick post talking about my goal of writing a certain amount of music before June... And why it's not coming along very well.

As an self taught amateur composer, writing music takes me a long time. However, it's not because I can't think of any notes to play. No, it's quite the opposite actually. As a violinist and high school student, I listen to a lot of music. I listen to the classical pieces that I'm playing, I listen to film scores, and I listen to other music as well. Unfortunately, this creates some problems. For starters, I have dozens, hundreds even, of songs stuck in my head. Because of this, when I sit down to write, I jot down some notes and say to myself "That's really good. I like that," after that, I'll just keep expanding on those notes, and eventually have a decent portion of a song.

Then, maybe a minute later, or an hour later, a day later, or even much longer than that, I'll realise it sounds familiar. From that point forward, I'll try to convince myself it's not from anything, it's just my music. But then, out of the blue, it hits me. It's from this movie... or it's from a T.V. show... or it's from that one song I play in symphony.

One day I wrote two minutes of music in a matter of hours for a full ensemble. Later that day, I was watching a show on Netflix and... what would you know. The music that I wrote.

In a sense, this "writer's confusion" thing must happen to all composers... right? Well, like I said, I listen to a lot of music and honestly, I almost never hear the same music in two movies by the same composer. There are a couple of odd cases here and there, but there's so much music in the world it might be a coincidence. However, film scores aren't the only modern compositions I listen to. I'm subscribed to over two dozen music channels on YouTube, and several of them are composers. Of those composers, I'd say three quarters are really repetitive. Is that a bad thing? Not always. It's good to have your own style, but it's different to have several variations of the same song. In my house, I'm infamous for being able to name almost any film score that I hear. And the ones that I don't, I can't generally identify the composer. If you listen to only music by one famous composer, none of it's the same, but it all has the same style. It takes skill to master your own style, and I congratulate the people who have done it. But again, plagiarism is different than style, no matter how accidental.

Up next... Pixar's "Big Hero 6"

Themes, Motifs, and Leitmotifs

Author's Note: Rather far behind on the weekly or so posts... I'll try to get back on task. I started this post almost a month ago, then came back and finished it long after I should have. I'm working on a few composition projects at the moment, hence a loss in spare time. 

Before I delve into deeply into another score, I think it's imperative that I explain these three terms. Themes, Motifs, and Leitmotifs are essentially the foundation of music, and if used correctly, the combination of the three can tell a story. Leitmotifs are especially important in telling a story; I don't personally think that any full length studio film shouldn't have them.


Themes
Themes are the simplest to explain. Themes are the underlying idea in the entire movie or piece of music. "Superman" by John Williams is a good example when explaining themes. Throughout the entire movie, the same theme plays, sometimes without rhyme or reason. We see a similar idea in Indiana Jones, also by John Williams. The theme isn't a symbol for what's happening at that moment in time, and doesn't have to be. In the case of both Superman and Indiana Jones, the theme is almost a musical definition of the entire movie. But it's not that case for other movies either.

Without the fluff, the theme is a repetitive part of the soundtrack that doesn't always represent something in the movie, but can.

Motifs
Motifs are in my opinion the least important on this list. Motifs tend to be short, and don't represent anything in the story, and never will. Motifs are the building blocks of leitmotifs and themes. The best example that comes to mind is in Jaws, and I hope you're not getting tired of John Williams yet. The first two notes that make up the music that we hear that tells us that the shark is coming is a motif. Those two notes repeat themselves over and over again to create one of the most iconic musical pieces.

Put shortly, motifs are short building blocks of themes and leitmotifs, but they never hold their own meaning.

Leitmotifs
Leitmotifs are the most important (and my favorite) thing on this post. If used right, which many composers do, leitmotifs can change a way a movie is told. Leitmotifs are somewhat of a combination of a theme and motifs. A leitmotif is a theme that always represents something in a movie. The majority of Pixar directors and composers are very good at using leitmotifs. A common example is the piano solo in Up. It plays by itself three times throughout the movie, and symbolizes something we can all relate too. It represents the connection between Carl and Ellie. We first hear it when they meet the first time, again during her funeral, and finally when Carl gives Russel the "Ellie badge". Leitmotifs like this are used in many of the great Pixar movies, and without knowing it, your brain is connecting that music to the story it represents.

I recently watched Pixar's Finding Dory for the first time, and I paid more attention to the music than anything else. Thomas Newman is one of my favorite film composers, and the Finding Nemo score was inspiring. While watching the movie, there was one thing that struck me in the music more than anything has before. As Marlin recounted some of his journeys with Dory and Nemo, the leitmotif from the first movie that represented the relation between Nemo and Marlin played. This incredible recall showed me just how significant a leitmotif can be. In my opinion, it changed the scene entirely. There was more emotion packed into that one scene that most of the rest of the movie, all thanks to an old piece of music that Mr. Newman brought back to life.

In case you zoned out somewhere in there, I'll put it simply. Leitmotifs always represent something in the movie, and generally play more than once.

My Goals

I have been tasked with writing a goal, and this was back before I completely changed my subject, so at first I really struggled with it. At the time, I was still sticking with my conspiracy theory blog idea, but I realized that I couldn't find a real goal to blog about. At first I chose to set a goal of blogging 20 times throughout the year, but that wasn't allowed.

Then I thought of this idea, and totally redid my blog as a whole. I even came up with a goal completely unrelated to the blog or to school, and it sounds like that was what we were supposed to do. Any who, I might as well get into the goal. In the mean time while I collect my thoughts, here's a picture of a penguin that just reached a goal (I think).

A very happy penguin. He must have completed a goal. Courtesy of a2ua

I've decided to blog about 30-40 times (25 or so movies which = 1 every week or so; 5-15 blogs about other stuff), which is ambitious, but should be fun. However, I then realized that it wouldn't be counted as an actual goal.

I then came to my final decision. By June, I want to have gained enough knowledge of film scores and composing from watching movies to be able to have written a total of four different pieces of music. That will include both absolute music and film scores. I won't be including other projects that I've already started and/or finished before publishing this, which is two in the past three months and four in total.

I've decided to set this goal because I want to choose something that could actually have an impact on my life. In this case, I'll be able to gain experience to expand my hobby/career. I also want to get to a point where I can write a good ten minutes of music within the span of a week, and right now it takes me an average of five hours per minute, so there's a lot of improvement to be made.

I just read an article that lists fifteen reasons why you should blog. Out of all the fifteen, I suppose I'm blogging because of the second reason, "You'll become a better thinker". In a sense, I'm not really becoming a better thinker about life in general, just about music. I've already seen that I'm paying more attention and seeing (or hearing) more things in music than before. And by the time I've hit as many posts as I'd like to, I'll probably be a five times better music listener and composer than before.

Film Score Review #1 - The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

Fair warning, I've always been a huge fan of this movie and the books, so I might sound a little bit biased while talking about it.

I've been doing a close listening of the score from first Narnia movie, and it's actually much more in depth than I thought it was.

For a quick synopsis of the movie, it's based on a book written by C.S. Lewis, and it's surprisingly accurate for the most part. It follows the story of four siblings during World War 2 as they stumble through a wardrobe into "Narnia". They soon discover that they're supposed to fulfill some sort of prophecy (saving the world and whatnot... pretty cool stuff). And of course, because it's a movie, there's a big fight scene, then somehow everyone is happy again.

The original score was composed by Harry Gregson-Williams, apprentice and close friend of legendary composer Hans Zimmer. Aside from the Narnia series, he's done all of the Shrek movies and on a more recent note: The Martian. He's so far gone without an academy awards or nominations, but he was nominated for a Golden Globe for his work on this movie.

Harry Gregson-Williams Conducting the Score. Courtesy of IMDB

My general thoughts are fairly positive towards this score as a whole. G.W. did a great job writing the score, and it's my favorite piece that he's ever done. The hardest job of a composer is creating a theme that sticks in someone's mind. G.W. did a great job with that. He was able to create a triumphant and majestic theme that would play throughout the movie. Another important part of a composer is to refer back to the theme as much as possible. This allows the emotion in the movie to have roots somewhere in the movie. In this case, it's the connection between the kids and pretty much all of Narnia. 

It seems like a very broad emotional connection, but it totally works. We first hear the theme (sorry if you don't know it, blogging certainly does have it's limitations) when Lucy opens the wardrobe for the second time during the night. However, it's very different from the full ensemble playing the complete theme. In this case, it's just a flute playing the melody. The flute is also used with Lucy more than any character, so it fits a lot. 

The first time we hear the theme in it's full glory is when the kids and the beavers are attempting to cross the melting river to get closer to Aslan and his army. We have a moment of quiet silence when we see that they've sunken underwater. Suddenly, we see Peter's sword and hear the entire ensemble playing the theme. It's triumphant, bold, majestic, and certainly fits the movie. Throughout the rest of the movie, the theme is used and referenced often, and it's hard to explain how important this is. 

Sadly, I don't have enough time of patience to go into more detail about this score. But in general, I would rate it an A-. It's done well, it's full of emotion, it's a great movie, but I can't think of the theme without Pirates of the Caribbean getting stuck in my head as well. This might just be me, but it's tragically annoying. 

 

Music in Film

I hear too many people say that the music in movies isn't important. It's sadly false. In the words of George Lucas, "The sound and music are 50% of the entertainment in a movie." I have to say, I couldn't agree more. As a film buff and high school musician/composer, I'm actually excessively passionate about this subject. I don't know how, but I'm going to do my best to explain just how right Lucas was when he said that quote.

Music in movies can be used to make you feel a certain way without even realizing it. There are so many great example that I don't think anyone could list all of them after a decade of writing. That might be a hyperbole, but I'm just trying to get the point across. I've been spending the last twenty minutes trying to figure out how to explain my strong opinions on this subject, but I still haven't thought of anything. I figure I'll just try to use some examples, but it's really up to movie watchers to decide if they agree with me.

If you've ever watched something sad in a movie, when you listen really carefully, there's always emotional music playing on in the background. If you've watched something triumphant happening in a movie, then the music would portray similar emotions. You can list off all the thoughts and emotions that you can think of, and every single one can be put to music.

I don't know about everyone else, but I've never seen a really good movie with really bad music. Similarly, I've never seen a really bad movie with really good music. It's not one or the other, it's a good movie and good music or a bad movie and bad music. The movie effects how good the music can be, and the music effects how good the movie can be.

Take Lord of the Rings as an example (any of them, they're all great and done by the same composer: Howard Shore). There are so many different leitmotifs (I'll explain one day) within in the movie and they're all so pronounced that you can almost tell what's happening in the movie without actually watching it. And in my opinion, you can't listen to the Hobbit theme without smiling out of the pure joy that the music portrays.

Another great example is Pixar and it's movies (except Big Hero 6, it's not a very good example). Pixar knows how to use music to multiply the emotions you feel by ten times. They build a theme between two characters and use that theme later on to really make you sad or happy, depending on the situation of course.

It's much more difficult to explain how important music is in movies than I thought it would be. Just watch any movie without the music and you really get a sense of what I'm trying to say.