Discussion about music in games

What the talk is about

Artem Samoilenko leads a discussion about music in games with musicologists, sound engineers, game designers and artists, with the audience joining in. They start by asking what music is: a way to convey a state or emotion, or an organization of sounds, silence included. They then compare applied and autonomous music: whether a soundtrack can live apart from the game or film. They also note that professional criticism of game music is nearly absent, with researchers rather than critics filling the gap, and ask whether someone who works in software without notation can be called a composer. Participants debate whether game music should stay in the background or be bold. They analyze an operatic aria in a StarCraft cinematic and touch on AI composers. Useful for game designers, audio producers and composers.