Musicians seeking to do game music… A few pro-tips… And why did I repost this?
Note: I am reposting this from a post I made on reddit.com because it is actually pretty well written.
I’m always up to listening to musicians show off their talent to try and land a job in game development, even if it is just for free to gain some experience. While some of the music I hear isn’t too bad in and of itself, I do hear a few tracks from time to time that are, well, not aimed at the right venue per say. To help along my fellow Bloggers, I want to list a few items that I think are important to make me not close your website half way through the first track, and hopefully other gamedevs can help share their thoughts as well in the comments.
Note that I don’t consider myself an expert in game development, but I do consider myself knowledgeable and make an active effort in the Indie world of iPhone gamedev (sorry, not trying to self promote, just validate credentials). Of course, I am fully capable of being wrong, out of my mind, or just plain stupid myself, so, take what I say here as you will.
A few protips:
- Always make a website with a variety of your sample tracks available (and preferably have a good few of them all on a splash page (so one doesn’t need to learn your site nav) using simple flash or similar plugin) – this is your portfolio and the first thing many gamedevs look at with any musician. Don’t necessarily worry about how your site looks (you’re a musician, not a graphics artist, and we know that – just as long as it doesn’t look done by a 13 year old kid you’ll be fine) or how long/short your samples are, or even how complete they are, but rather focus on what you can provide a game company with. Variety is a plus, as is more than one track. Existing promotional services are fine, especially if they aren’t too flash crazy. Also be sure to clearly make visible your contact info, services/collaboration info (e.g. are you willing to work (or provide creative feedback or similar) for free (but maybe with self promotion rights), do you expect payment up front or on a monthly basis, do you accept profit sharing (instead of or in addition to), etc.), as well as any track licensing notices (so if I hear something I like if I know I can rip it or not).
- side edit: Some people do put a bit of effort into the look of their site and can make a valid point about it helping to sell their work. This isn’t a bad thing – I am just making the point that looks is not as important as the music itself. Between hiring somebody with a poorer site but better music than a competitor, guess who gets the gig?
- Please make music for video games, not for a stand-up/live audience, like one would do if they were going to be a live performer. The music you’re making is for video games, not live performances. This cannot be stressed enough. Music, like art, like programming, like marketing, etc. is just one part of the entire puzzle of building a game – don’t try to make it out to be the only part (which likewise is certainly the case with a live performance).
- Game music always acts as a complement to the definition of a visual scene, IMO especially in terms of mood. I highly recommend that you pair your audio with a visual as to show how you can take your music to define the visual in an emotionally interpreted sense. Sung vocals are a really hard one to pull off in this regard (but I’ve seen them done well at certain points), but keep in mind that music is there to invoke something inside the gamer the visual alone cannot, not necessarily tell its own story.
- side edit: My current musician is very keen on mentioning that the intended emotion in a piece may not be the way people necessarily feel it. I personally feel that regardless of the way people may feel about it, the more that they are effected by your work the better. There will always be a good deal of variant interpretation regardless, but IMO the better you can capture the intention the better the piece.
- Avoid rock-n-roll. I know, sometimes it does fit, but likewise I’ve seen far too many who think that putting an Ozzy Osbourne or ACDC like track to a fast action FPS or likewise fits… More often than not it does not fit. Remember, game music complements the visual, not stands on its own. The game is there to create an experience, and everything must aim towards this end – music cannot in this way be trying to stand on its own.
- If the game has music that overlaps and cross fades, trying to keep it in the same key really helps the cross fade not sound like crap.
- Motifs are really awesome (especially when complementing a certain character’s appearance on screen), but they have to stand out and be used in the right way. A few notes of a motif doesn’t do much to non-musical people, but a solid melody, reused in the right situation, can be quite powerful (e.g. darth vader).
- Be capable of working with multiple kinds of instruments, in multiple genres, and understand what various forms of notes and rhythms make up various styles/genres. As a game progresses, there are soft parts as well as hard parts, and being flexible (and showing that you can be on your portfolio with multiple tracks) is a huge bonus to make you look like a professional musician.
- A lot of music comes later on in a game project, as music in a lot of ways is built to fit a particular visual scene (think musical scoring for movies). Good game musicians should know how to take a visual and create a musical interpretation of it. Sometimes though music can act as the means to build a game up around, and in such case the approach is to build out from the music (of course, in terms of game design, you can do build outs from a variety of aspects, including music, but not limited to just). Regardless of the approach, games that have a special harmony between audio and visual really speak out (since that’s the way it’s done right).
- Be prepared to work with others who may have ZERO musical knowledge. As a professional programmer myself, all too common I come into situations where a client is looking not just for me to program, but to counsel them on, and this may sound mean but it’s so true, on why they are stupid, and what they need to know to be smarter. Communication is a huge thing here, especially with musicians who are selling themselves to projects as an independent contractor. Remember, it’s more than just making the music, it’s also counseling and educating clients to help them figure out what they want too, even if they can’t pinpoint it just yet.
- side edit: A lot of the marketing books I’ve read that deal about service based industries talk quite a bit about education being a central part of the client relationship. I agree with such an approach, as even with myself I’ve had a lot of my own issues understanding music and the composition process until investing time into learning some basics.
- Be prepared to possibly take crapshoot work to build up and pad your portfolio. Now, please, I’ve gotten into some huge arguments on this point before, and have heard some good points, especially around doing free work for an established studio being much more rewarding than doing free work for a newer Indie studio… But here’s the thing: you still need to be managed, still need to be told what to do, still need to be dealt with, etc. – an established studio may not want to waste their time on those aspects because the person doing that dealing with you is on salary, and unless you really do have the skillset needed, your work may simply not cut it for the ship (read as, you’re not good enough (yet)), thus possibly wasting their time (and pissing people off). Regardless, any amount of work you put out (even if the project goes nowhere, even if it is just Indie) is really hard to be used against you – trust me, there is no such thing as failure in trying. Also, a lot of business professionals (myself included) are biased and feel that unless money is involved in the equation, “free” talent may simply not have the needed motivation to stay on task (not always of course, but those people have awesome written all over them from the start anyways), even if the project interest isn’t to blame (and I can attest to this first hand!) – I’ve recently written about such in Indie Game Magazine about this actually (sorry, self promotion), and even have heard of people so desperate for experience that they pay the companies to hire them on (was an article on Reddit at one time even).
- side edit: If you can land work at a good studio, awesome, but don’t expect a high pay outright just because you’re here – the game industry is heavily saturated and you have to be real good to make it anywhere. If you do land a free spot though, please, don’t be lame and cut out a week or two into it – if you agreed to go into it for free be prepared to put out the same effort as though you were being paid (sounds one sided I know, but, honestly, nothing sucks worse than having to find a new musician/artist/etc. any amount of way into a new project).
Finally, I love it when musicians advertise for their services and am always up to listening. The downvoters to these kinds of threads (especially those who go nuts over self promotion) need to take a hike – musicians, like any other professional, spend a lot of time on their profession and it is always awesome to see somebody really excited about what they do.
And to other game devs, feel free to post your own lists of items you think are helpful.
Best of Luck!
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