Buy. This. Book.

Are you a composer? Indie developer? Professional musician, video game enthusiast, proprietor of gaming delights? Buy this book.
Winifred Phillips, renowned award-winning video game composer, has published a book that is an unbelievable resource even beyond the gaming industry. Written with a refreshing upbeat realism, she explains the challenges and benefits that stem from writing video game music. She explores pitfalls to avoid, techniques on the rise, and the makeup of a development team.

Within technical explanations of aleatoric music (good for horror games, certain elements of the music left to chance) and generative music (offspring of aleatoric music, elements of gameplay trigger predetermined musical phrases or motifs), Phillips gives a real-world account of the importance of immersion, and what musical techniques can be used to attain Total Immersion in a gaming experience. This book is accessible for classically educated musicians with no tech experience, techies with no formal music training, and gaming enthusiasts who want to know what goes into the process of writing, recording, and producing game music.

Within the sections concerning linear loops, Phillips gives a beautiful metaphor: composing a linear loop is like taking a walk with a friend on a circular path. If the conversation is good and the path is lovely and unobtrusive, you might walk along for hours without noticing anything. However, if there are landmarks on your hike, then both you and your friend will become unsettled, realizing that you've been walking in a circle. A well composed linear loop doesn't have ''landmarks,'' but does have enough content to be interesting, just like the hike in question would have flowers along the path, mushrooms in the shadow of a tree, and so on and so forth.

Later in the book, technical aspects of composing are combed through, and we get advice on how to avoid common problems and suggestions on techniques that work for specific gameplay types (action/adventure, puzzle, racing, etc). Phillips also explains the starting point for burgeoning game composers where hardware is concerned, something that many of us *cough, cough* struggle with; some of us didn't get a decent music technology course in university.

Go buy this book. It is a wealth of information on recording, digital audio workstations, composition techniques, and the politics of working in the (gaming) music industry. Click here to buy A Composer's Guide to Game Music on Amazon and read more reviews like mine!

As for me, I've been spending my days researching hardware and networking with indie developers. (Do you need music for a game? Hit me up through my website.) I'd love to meet Winifred Phillips and have a coffee over a discussion about women in gaming music, exciting new tech, and whatever video games we've been playing lately. (For what it's worth, I'm still obsessed with Dark Souls.)

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