(Pixel Addict Magazine Cover Feature, Issue 28, 2025)

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A note on this post: written in 2023, some of what follows has since been overtaken by events in AI and the pace of change in this area has been considerable. Other points, I believe, remain as relevant today as in 2023, perhaps more so. I leave it to the reader to decide which is which. (If there are any readers left in 2026…) – JH

“The enemy of art is the absence of limitations”

ORSON WELLES

The confluence of music and technology is nothing new; even standard orchestral instruments are historical artefacts of technological innovation. As a composer who has weathered a few minor paradigm shifts, I find myself anxious about the big one lying ahead. This time around, I sense more may be at stake than only the livelihoods of artists: some of our fundamental beliefs about the purpose of music, its personal nature, and the role it plays in our lives might undergo a transformation.

Early in my career, I branched into relatively uncharted musical territory: devising interactive music systems for video games after the introduction of digital audio and streaming.  This was a time devoid of ground rules and textbooks, with little in the way of formalised terminology or any theoretical foundation, and it felt as though I was making things up as I went along. 

One project from over twenty years ago, the BAFTA-nominated Republic: The Revolution, sticks in my mind, having afforded me considerable free rein to explore my ideas.  The game’s executive designer would later go on to co-found Google-owned AI lab, DeepMind – recently sharing in, no less, the 2024 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

Today, tools of this kind have become so familiar that their origins as inventions are long forgotten. Off-the-shelf solutions are plentiful and educational courses abound, but I can remember when simply grasping the principles of interactive music posed challenges, particularly for those rooted in the classical tradition or linear media.

The apprehension I felt all those years ago, I suspect, isn’t unlike that experienced by many after the introduction of desktop music technology in the 1980s and 1990s. Initially daunting, sequencers, synthesisers, and hard disk recorders quickly became mainstream in music, and have since been lauded for the role they’ve played in democratising production, contributing to massive industry expansion.

Such change signified a victory for the tech-savvy musician but brought devastation for some: ‘Pen and paper’ composers and orchestrators – once dominant in film and television – were among those hit by the advent of MIDI and computer-based production, and their numbers have dwindled dramatically since the 1980s. 

Unsurprisingly, this shift was met with little public outcry at the time, not unlike the subdued reaction to the decline of professional photography after the adoption of digital cameras and smartphones.  Indeed, such advances appear to have been largely welcomed by many, viewed as having created opportunities for millions to pursue creative endeavours previously thought of as wildly inaccessible.  

Creative destruction – the process by which a technological shift opens more doors than it closes – inevitably produces winners and losers, and this is a cycle as old as innovation itself.   But will AI Music come to represent a paradigm shift too far for composers?  Are we looking at creative destruction this time around, or something more akin to total annihilation?

To get an inkling of what may lie ahead, it might be useful to look at how composers are perceived in the public imagination, both historically and in the modern day.

Despite widespread and persistent technologisation in music, the public’s perception of the composer – romantically depicted in Western popular culture and by classical music outlets – remains that of a stern, wild-haired maestro seated at a grand piano or feverishly sprawled across a desk, manuscript paper and quill in hand. Such figures are often seen as suffering for their art, agonising in their quest to express an intensely personal musical vision.

Conductors like Leonard Bernstein and Simon Rattle, known for their dramatic conducting styles over many decades, have reinforced this image – embodying the passion of the concert hall and becoming the public face of classical music for millions.

So ingrained is the archetype of the Western composer – who is, at the very least, a sentient being, and at most, a tortured and deified genius – that we continue to recount their stories, often over centuries, endlessly examining the inspiration behind their works. 

For instance: audiences for classical music remain fascinated by Mozart’s lack of recognition during his short, tumultuous life, and continue to reflect on Shostakovich’s artistic constraints within the Soviet Union.  And how many of us think of Beethoven’s music without contemplating the profound impact of his deafness? 

Artists’ stories and their emotional and intellectual responses to their circumstances appear integral to our appreciation of them, to the extent that it can become undesirable to separate artists from their art. We tend to romanticise such figures, requiring knowledge of their inner lives in order to process their creations, often looking towards experts and reviewers to validate and curate works for us.  How else, I wonder, can we navigate the immense sea of human creativity?

This principle isn’t confined to classical music. In pop music, too, a song isn’t created in a vacuum; it is experienced through the lens of an artist’s life, within the context of social change or a broader cultural movement.

The structure and duration of songs have stayed fairly consistent for sixty years or more – in part determined by the length of a 45 RPM single – and countless songs share similar motifs, chord progressions and production techniques, yet other mysterious factors appear to contribute to their ongoing appeal and cultural resonance. It would appear that there is no reliable algorithm for cool.

This perspective, I believe, is essential to our understanding and appreciation of music; part of the very way we perceive and ascribe value to it. It highlights the significance of a musician’s persona and the intrinsic motivation behind their works. 

While composers may be less visible to the public than performers, they are still widely regarded as the primary architects of music – the minds behind the musical blueprints, so to speak.

Towards the start of my career, the title of “composer” was laden with gravitas, and over a decade passed – and numerous projects – before I felt able to even present myself as one. I’d grown up believing that this particular job title, much like that of “writer,” had to be bestowed upon me by some musical institution or another before I could rightfully own it.

In stark contrast, in today’s marketplace, becoming a composer requires little more than self-identifying as one, acquiring some rudimentary music production tools and declaring an intention to write music. While this is a victory for the democratisation of music-making, I fear that AI may push this trend to potentially absurd extremes.

A similar phenomenon occurs among writers: how often do we encounter people who claim to have a novel inside them, even though such a novel rarely ever materialises? With tools like ChatGPT, bringing that elusive novel to life may now be a reality for many, but isn’t doing things that way missing the point of the exercise?  Much like climbing a mountain, isn’t the ascent itself the very reason for doing it? 

Using generative AI to create a supposed work of art feels, to me, much like teleporting a mountaineer to the summit of Everest: where is the satisfaction in doing so? Why would anyone care about a goal so easily attained?

I’ve always favoured a can-do culture and the notion of a meritocracy open to everyone, yet in the face of AI, even I now find myself wondering where, in future, we might look to draw the line in determining who – or what – qualifies as a real artist. Is such a distinction even possible anymore?

With the advent of AI music models, are we to begin considering individuals as composers based on their ability to craft effective text prompts for generative AI music engines? 

This notion is already being embraced by some who unhesitatingly equate their roles as prompt engineers to those of existing composers and artists. AI music tools such as Suno and Udio ostensibly claim to “democratise” music-making but, as far as I can see, appear to carry out all of the creative work on behalf of users.

Similarly, there are prompt engineers in the realm of the visual arts marketing themselves as the peers of seasoned professionals, with little or no regard for the enormous dedication, skill and craft such artists have cultivated over many years.  Is this really what society as a whole now envisions for its artists? 

Serious concerns exist, too, about how generative AI models may have been trained using copyrighted works, with a lack of transparency surrounding these processes – particularly when resulting outputs end up being commercially exploited. The issue remains unresolved and has, sadly, mostly been overlooked by the media. Artists of all types are growing increasingly desperate, as indicated by a recent statement from composer and Fairly Trained CEO Ed Newton-Rex, signed by tens of thousands of artists rejecting the use of AI in this way.

It would seem that the real and perceived benefits of AI – in fields such as medicine and healthcare, along with AI’s huge potential economic impact – have blinded governments and much of the public from considering the legitimate concerns of artists – even though, in 2022, the creative industries alone contributed £126bn in value to the UK economy.

Let us not forget: without human innovation and the impulse to create, there would be no concept of music, nor would there be anything for AI music to model or emulate. Shouldn’t we, therefore, pause and reconsider before handing over control of this precious human invention to legions of prompt engineers and machines? 

The quality of generative AI’s output largely depends on human-made input, yet very few major tech companies appear willing to even acknowledge AI’s debt to humanity for creating the foundations of personal creativity that they seek to mimic and automate. Not even so much as a “thank you” in many cases.

To many artists today – and by “artist,” I mean those who were motivated enough to actually create works before the advent of AI tools that apparently automate the process – it feels as though cherished, intrinsically human art forms are being prised from them and handed over to tech bros – often for profit and under the guise of democratising creativity for all.

I don’t buy the democratisation narrative – not yet at least – but can see how ingenious a marketing ploy it is. It allows subscribers to indulge their fantasies of becoming the artists they’ve always wanted to be, while simultaneously lining the pockets of tech companies at the expense of human creators. The only people who lose out in this equation are the real, working artists.

If this attitude towards creativity is inevitable for our society in the long run – which it very well may be – then surely, at the very least, the works used as training data should be licensed.

SOME DIFFERENCES BETWEEN AI AND HUMAN-MADE MUSIC

Differentiating the various potential niches for AI deployment in music could, I believe, hinge on understanding their primary musical objectives. After all, not all music seeks to provide deep insights into the human condition; sometimes, simply being fun, relaxing, exciting, danceable, or merely interesting will suffice for many listeners.

This variance leads me to be fairly optimistic about the coexistence of AI-generated and human-created music in the early days of AI Music, albeit with some overlap and the blurring of boundaries here and there.

In the long term, however, if intensely personal, human-centric music – as many of us conceive of it today – is to retain its value, surely it will be necessary for it to continue being written and performed by actual human beings – in ways transcending any mere computational or statistical exercise. 

Some – admittedly not all – technologists appear to consider the role of prompt engineer sufficient for generating meaningful music. But here – just as with the less-than-convincing democratisation narrative – the cynic in me questions the depth of this belief: Is it genuinely held or merely a superficial claim?  A token gesture to rationalise and morally sanction the invention of AI music tools by overstating the true extent to which humans will actually be involved in the creative process? 

In the face of already dwindling human involvement in music making over the last few decades – from automated music production tools to the increasingly infrequent use of living musicians in favour of samples – I find myself wondering: just how much human involvement in music, and what type, is enough to authentically capture the personal experience of human beings? 

A first step in answering this may be to look at the commonalities of human and AI-made music, because some appear to exist, and then to consider a few differences between them.

Much of the music composed in any era can be somewhat derivative, fitting established stylistic frameworks – not every piece of music has to break new ground to have value.  There are benefits to adopting existing musical languages, enabling audiences to extract and perceive meaning quickly and easily, just as is the case with spoken language.

It’s feasible, too, to suggest that the creative process within the human mind shares some fundamental similarities with an AI’s, involving the assimilating and recombining of musical elements. 

And, I dare say, someday it may become impossible to distinguish – at face value – between isolated artefacts of creativity as being uniquely human or AI generated.

A key difference remains, however, regarding the origin and purpose of human music: it is created by and for sentient beings.  This perception gives music enormous intrinsic value.

Given this value, then, what is the bare minimum level of emotional investment and musicianship that audiences will tolerate before losing interest in music altogether, or consider it to be soulless or valueless? 

Are abstract text prompts really sufficient to guide the creation of a tangible musical artifact – often in the form of a mere audio file – when the output is left up to a machine? If they are, then I would compare this process to conceptual art, where the idea behind a work is vital, transcending its physical expression. It’s an idea I find myself unable to embrace in most spheres of music-making.

In the future, I wonder, will the mere knowledge that a human being has participated in the creative process – even minimally as a prompt engineer – satisfy listeners or will AI be able to get away with implying human involvement instead? 

Given that AI has mastered human-like conversation and tools such as ChatGPT are already anthropomorphised by some, should we allow ourselves to be deceived in such a way?

Today, I’m reminded of the uncanny valley phenomenon in computer animation, where increasing attempts to mimic human likeness can lead to a peculiar eeriness – detectable by some, but not all human beings.  My own feeling is that AI technology might be better used for tasks highlighting its uniqueness, rather than trying to mimic human artists. 

RISKING PUBLIC INDIFFERENCE

In the long term, I don’t believe that the adoption of AI music tools can be prevented, nor do I think it should be.  And my concerns don’t only lie only with AI’s soon-to-be extremely impressive capabilities, either.

What worries me more is the question of whether audiences will, over the long term, become indifferent or even oblivious to the very idea of differentiating between human and AI-generated works. Will the fundamental principles of craftsmanship and visible human involvement in the arts, existing for millennia, continue to be valued in the age of AI – particularly as we face an inevitable flood of computer-generated works?

Someday, I can imagine a situation where promoting music created by humans and AI is done side by side, with less and less distinction required between the two. Without a clear and direct connection to artists themselves – or any insight into the creative process – seeing beyond this form of manipulation may become challenging. Many of us, I expect, will simply stop caring, as making the distinction – if it isn’t advertised – will require too much effort.

Thankfully, some AI labs, such as Google DeepMind, are trying to tackle this problem with tools such as SynthID – created to watermark content as AI-generated at the point of creation in order to keep the public informed.

LOSING CONTROL

Ways of curating and distributing music for public consumption continue to evolve all around us. Long gone are the days when only a few major entities, such as the church, academic institutions, or record companies, held the reins over such activities. Historically, this type of control has invariably been combined with the power to determine, validate, and even distribute content to the masses.

This effect is amplified by those with the most resources and means of promoting music – further relegating its intrinsic value to a secondary role.  In an overcrowded marketplace for music, more and more needs to be spent in order to gain attention.

Much of the music we encounter around us is driven by aggressive marketing or linked to highly marketable entities such as films, TV talent shows, games, or social media influencers. To stand a chance of being heard, artists often have to piggyback on these mediums and platforms – yet another shift away from the idealistic notion that artistic merit alone is the path to success. Perhaps this is the sad consequence of what has essentially already become an oversaturated arts landscape in the era of democratisation. 

The widespread accessibility of marketing tools themselves – ironically, in part thanks to AI and algorithms, offer to level the playing field in what will, I’m sure, be seen by some as yet another victory for the individual. But in a world already overflowing with music and messages, it remains to be seen whether such changes will really be of much use in a global, AI–fuelled race for attention and engagement.

WHAT COSTS NOTHING IS WORTH NOTHING

The scarcity of recorded music once significantly determined its market value. Before desktop tools and extensive sample libraries emerged, access to expensive recording studios and music ensembles was extremely limited, making it challenging for musicians and composers to realise their musical ideas. The complexity of externalising and refining musical ideas might have deterred many from even trying, possibly ensuring that only the most privileged, talented, hardworking, or committed rose to prominence.

At the time of writing, over 100,000 tracks are uploaded to streaming platforms every single day.  And this is before the widespread adoption of AI tools promising to make the creative process easier than ever.  With more recorded music in existence than anyone can realistically listen to in a thousand lifetimes, will the adage, “what costs nothing is worth nothing” begin to apply as the cost of creative thought theoretically tends to zero?

This question gets to the heart of my motivation for writing this article. While increasing technologisation appears to have made the creative process easier than ever, it has also blurred the lines between talent and technical proficiency. The adoption of AI music tools will, I believe, only accelerate this change – for better or for worse.

Perhaps in the face of future generative AI, the very notion of attempting to ‘qualify’ a composer will become futile – seen as an outdated, almost aristocratic folly in an era where were all of us are artists. Yet, in the kind of a meritocracy many of us claim to aspire to and support, the idea of rewarding the laziest among is surely pretty unpalatable.

SEEKING OUT THE HUMAN TOUCH

Traditionally, art has often been idealised as a reflection of life and the human condition.  But if this is to remain true, how can AI take the place of artists who are motivated by this aim?  

AI currently lacks an inner world or any sense of purpose.  It has nothing to kick against; no motivation beyond a text prompt. Even when it acts to create, it is presently unaware that it is doing so. 

Fostered by our attachment to screens and our growing detachment from one another in person, the deep human connection that has defined music for centuries – if not millennia -is, I believe, under threat of becoming increasingly intangible. As a result, music is now often reduced by corporations to being mere “content” or “assets” – stripped of its essence as any sincere form of expression.

Compounding the problem, composers often find themselves asked to adopt the style of other successful productions or artists, guided by temp tracks or stylistic decisions made by executives – further alienating them from their own intuitions and personal motivations. 

Removing the personal from music will, I believe, become increasingly dangerous for composers in the era of AI, as it will render them even more replaceable by algorithms capable of executing similar tasks. 

The devaluing effect on music through the potential use of AI may be further aided by the aforementioned archetype of the composer: a remote, shadowy, and enigmatic figure – known to exist, but rarely observed or directly interacted with. This distance has only been increased by the ongoing technologisation and commodification of music. Perhaps it has even contributed to growing public apathy towards artistic authenticity in general – a dehumanising trend emerging long before AI hit the scene. 

Audiences appear open to substantial technological intervention in the creation of artistic works, so long as they believe – or it is implied in some way – that a key human figure is involved somewhere in the creative process, even if only symbolically or conceptually. 

The potential “handover” of all music creation to AI in future – if such a thing ever occurs, and I sincerely hope it doesn’t – could simply result from changing public attitudes toward artists, and a growing sense of detachment or indifference toward human creators in general. 

This, to me, seems much more likely in areas such as media music, where artists are already largely invisible to the public. To counter this, composers may need to step out of their darkened studios and into the public eye if they wish to endure – demonstrating what it is that makes their work and ideas unique and personally motivated.

Rather than leaving music to tech bros, composers and musicians should position themselves at the forefront of AI technology, becoming its driving force. If history teaches us anything, it’s that very little can prevent the march of technology in any domain of human endeavour, and it’s incumbent on each generation to explore new ways of staying relevant – innovating and keeping art intrinsically human – even through tumultuous technological change.

WHAT NOW FOR COMPOSERS?

My perspective on the long-term impact of AI on human artists tends to lean towards pessimism. I do believe, however, that the direction eventually taken will be determined by society at large – by composers, musicians, publishers, and audiences.  

If audiences cease to care about the origins of music, then so will the markets who serve them.  If, however, audiences take the lead – finding themselves concerned enough about human involvement in music to actively preserve it – then perhaps markets will be incentivised to follow them.

AI Music doesn’t, of course, spell the end of human-made music, nor does it mean that we, as individuals within our local communities, cannot continue to celebrate what we cherish most.  But we may need to act swiftly to solidify the valuable relationship existing between human artist and audience, or risk losing the essence of such a connection to future generations.

More broadly, if we value human-made music, we may need to show more interest in the human beings around us who live and breathe it.  If we fail to do this, then the gradual removal of humans from the creative process will become ever more likely in many settings.

Instead of choosing only to celebrate the globally famous, who are relentlessly marketed at us online from every direction, perhaps we should learn again to show some interest in the composers and musicians around us, seeking meaning in realms unreachable by AI. This might take the form of live recording, performance art and concerts – any and all areas where the human aspect is most evident and impactful.

Looking far ahead to the potential of AI in the arts – particularly if it gains some sort of inner life or sentience – this affords its own intriguing possibilities.  Maybe someday we will be led away from thinking of AI as a mere imitator of human beings towards something complementary to them; a distinct form of intelligence with its own stories to tell – as far-fetched as this sounds today.

I take some comfort in noting that the development of robots surpassing human capabilities doesn’t appear to have lessened the value of human competition in sports – rather, such technology has highlighted the unique qualities of each. We continue to value human endurance, strategy and emotional engagement, while marvelling at the dexterity, speed and efficiency of robots. It’s my hope that AI in music and art follows a similar pattern by not replacing people, serving as some kind of augmentation to a diversifying spectrum of artistic expression – maybe even giving rise to new art forms and an entirely new category of creativity.

The challenge for artists will become one of harmonising technology with the spirit and essence we cherish in human activity and interaction.  

A certain degree of inevitability seems to exist over AI’s adoption, but I believe society ultimately retains control over how much, and in what ways.   Finding a balance that ensures all forms of art maintain their profound connection with our collective human experience will, I think, be necessary if our lives are to be enriched, rather than eclipsed, by artificial intelligence. 

Copyright James Hannigan 2024

AFTERTHOUGHT: THE DIVIDED BRAIN

A question arising in relation to the adoption of AI tools is whether we are collectively losing our ability to discern what is genuinely human in our online interactions – musical or otherwise. In his book The Master and His Emissary, Psychiatrist and Philosopher Ian McGilchrist explores the concept of the divided brain, suggesting that the world – particularly in the West – is increasingly leaning towards left brain dominance. He posits that the left hemisphere is largely reductive in its outlook, perceiving the world in terms of discrete parts and certainties, whereas the right hemisphere is more questioning, viewing the world holistically and recognising beauty and interconnectedness.

In this sense, perhaps the reductive left brain qualifies a piece of music as such simply because it superficially matches the description of music, whereas the right brain questions its authenticity and purpose in a broader context. 

The right brain may be particularly attuned to the nuances and deeper meanings that go beyond surface appearances, perceiving emotional depth inherent in artistic creations. For the right brain at least, human beings and their motivations clearly do matter. Is it any surprise, then, that some the left brained leanings of some technologists miss the point of why we have music in the first place?

Perhaps this hemispheric tension and the tendency towards left brain thinking in today’s detached, online world, is making us more prone to being seduced by the illusion of personhood generative AI apparently seeks to fabricate. 

That we can so easily be fooled may say less about the capabilities of the AI itself than it does about our own diminishing ability to understand one another as human beings. Many any of us, I believe, would be horrified by the notion that we can be lulled into perceiving music as heartfelt, when the AI model behind it not only has no heart, but the lights aren’t even on in its figurative head.

<< BACK TO WORDS

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Do games really need music? Yes, suggests James Hannigan, but the music must become as dynamic and interactive as the rest of the game, rather than simply echoing film scores…

 “New inventions often mimic the forms available at the time of their inception. The first automobiles did look like ‘horseless carriages’; the first electric light fittings resembled gaslight fixtures; our current computers are a hybrid between the typewriter and television. Similarly, the content of new technological art forms often mimics earlier forms.
Early films were theatrical performances played to an unmoving camera; recordings were souvenirs of performances, trying to capture (in classical music, at least) the acoustic world of the best seat in the concert hall; and early television was radio with pictures. In most cases (classical music being an interesting exception), eventually the form begins to influence the content. “

– MUSIC FOR INTERACTIVE MOVING PICTURES, STEPHEN DEUTSCH

Should the role of music in games follow the model that has developed for the cinema, or should it take another approach completely? Put another way, should the implicit linear nature of scoring music become more non-linear, like the game itself.

Cinema scores tend to be linear and complete within themselves. But does music need to be ‘complete’ for games? One selling point of games is that players complete them, rather than merely viewing them like films (we wouldn’t say that an audience ‘completes’ a film). Many games are intentionally left open for players wishing to create a narrative for themselves. Inherent in the tools used for music production is the idea that music can be entirely composed and rendered before it reaches the point of application. Yet games have the effect of re-ordering or ‘triggering’ musical segments in unpredictable ways.

A little historical perspective is useful here. Film music has been with us for so long, it’s easy for us to forget how it first came along. In the late 1920s, when film audio was introduced, music – and sound in general – was of interest to audiences simply because of its novelty, regardless of its relationship with events onscreen. It was over a decade before film composers as we think of them today began emerging; the language of film music we’re familiar with was slowly introduced by composers and filmmakers seeking to explore the possibilities of a new and unique medium.

Will such a movement take place in games? Perhaps it’s already underway. Game developers and composers have to create and apply music in meaningful ways, but this process may be held back while confusion persists about the role of music in games.

The novelty of any digitally recorded music in games has long since passed, but it’s been replaced by consumer expectations for stylistically appropriate music heard at the ‘right’ times in-game. When players encounter large-scale, ornate music (like that heard in the most intense moments of epic films) placed somewhat arbitrarily in menu screens or while characters stand idly around in-game, they may well ask what this music is for, over and above sounding good and ‘setting the scene’.

To some, the music may seem capricious, rather than complementary. Such music demonstrates an unconvincing relationship with what players see taking place before them.

History also suggests a precedent for where a more appropriate approach to game music might come from. In 1941, Orson Welles – an outsider from the world of radio who knew little about the technology or conventions of filmmaking – transformed the film industry. With the soundtrack to the classic Citizen Kane, music and picture became more organically intertwined and mutually supportive. Dedicated, forward-looking games composers also try to bend the rules by writing and preparing music with games in mind. However, what they’re up against is the conventions of scoring for picture in general and the expectations of game developers in particular, who often want to experience the music complete, before it’s placed against the game itself. Game composers are rarely able to audition music in context and, apart from cases of composing to picture, are often forced to work in a vacuum

Before any real solutions to these problems can emerge, it may be important to work out just what it is we are trying to achieve in the first place with music in games. Doesn’t a musical problem require a musical solution?

Here’s a critical area where the imperatives of film and game music diverge. Film scores exist for a passive audience mainly to support the unfolding narrative they’re watching on screen. This music is obviously inaudible to the characters in films, and these characters are unaware of any meaning embedded in it. In games, however, this type of music is audible to players, who are both audience to and participants in onscreen events.

If, therefore, we use this type of music in games and expect it to function precisely as it does in many films, it’s a bit like providing music for someone watching someone else play a game. Recognising the players’ duality of audience and participant opens up a Pandora’s box when we question the very purpose of music in games.

Another type of music heard in films is known as ‘diegetic’ music – music audible to characters as well as to audiences (a film score would be non-diegetic music). Examples are the music that characters hear in onscreen bars or on radios. In games, Grand Theft Auto features diegetic music emanating from the radios of stolen cars.

The difference between diegetic and non-diegetic music in films is clear because the role of the audience is so well defined. But complementary music used in-game with films in mind cannot easily be said to be non-diegetic when a player is participating in events, because such music treats the player as the audience. That this music is audible to the player, who has adopted a role in the game, suggests it influences his or her behaviour as well as commenting on events occurring in-game. Yet composers are often asked to create music fulfilling this ‘player-as-audience’ role. Thus, it’s no surprise that the option to ‘disable music’ continues to exist – regardless of how good it sounds.

Raising this issue might seem frivolous, but if music were deemed important, players wouldn’t so readily detach it expecting the game to still make sense. Yet many games allow users to do just that to the carefully pre-planned balance between sound effects, dialogue and music.

This gets to the heart of the difference between films and games, moviegoers and gamers. The former want and expect picture and music to act as one; gamers, on the other hand, want options.

If that’s the case, then creating music just for its own sake is the worst option of all. The solution is to bring the composer into the game development process far earlier. Not only will it help ensure that music is used more appropriately but it will also engage the composer at a more basic level, thus enabling the composer to engage the player more deeply.

We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Game composers and developers simply need to acknowledge that, while similar in many ways to the film experience, or even to theatre (where the characters on stage can often hear music emanating from the orchestra pit), games are their own unique domain and their music should be equally unique.

If music in games is to be as useful as it is in films, it needs to add a dimension to the experience. A few popular examples of games with effective music are Metal Gear Solid 2, Halo and Resident Evil. What sets games like these apart is the way music becomes integral in playing them. Music is only heard when it has something to say in-game. In Metal Gear Solid 2, for example, music actually provides players with information they need to play the game effectively (for instance, signifying impending danger when little else does) and also features convincing transitions as music follows events moment by moment, significantly intensifying the action or a sense of urgency.

In the case of Resident Evil, music (and silence) is equally effective. Anyone who has played this and encountered the peaceful music associated with finding a typewriter out of harm’s way can vouch for how powerfully music can be as a signifier of emotion – in this case, a feeling of safety. Very little of the music in these games involves the use of large-scale orchestral music, but we would be hard pressed to argue that this detracts from its effectiveness.

Here we’re beginning to get at the ultimate point: making music makes sense as part of the whole. Film audiences are more likely to fondly remember music if it is entwined with the most poignant or evocative moments of films. For example, many of us will be familiar with John Williams’ Raiders of the Lost Ark, which is particularly potent when we bring to mind the exploits of Indiana Jones. Equally, sometimes the least obvious use of music can be the most effective. A good example is Jerry Goldsmith’s score for Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, which avoided mimicking the film’s 1930s San Francisco setting and instead employed a powerful contemporary musical language to focus on unseen tensions between characters.

In games, despite our growing use of film industry production methods and values, we’re nowhere near this level of artistry yet. But it’s achievable.

There is unique information that music in games can convey. We know music can in some way situate players between the roles of audience and participant, or distance players from the game world and manipulate the extent of their immersion. Music can signify emotion, reward or punish players, lead players in various directions, be location-based, or even reflect the underlying game-state. However, the necessary synergy often fails to emerge through a lack of connectedness and coordination, along with a somewhat unimaginative reliance on older forms.

Games tend to come together well when they are the vision of a strong designer (not unlike a film director) and a tightly knit team who share a vision. In many cases, games development is a haphazard or democratic process, in which almost everyone is an expert. If we continue to place ‘film music without a film’ in games, this state of affairs will only continue. If, however, we continue to challenge the nature of musical content itself and slowly introduce a new musical language specifically for games, then there is some hope music will be truly integrated with most games of the future.

Perhaps a certain kind of compositional system could be employed, leaving music open-ended before the point of use? This would be true interactive music, completed by players in the course of completing games, not just pre-composed music triggered by cues – currently often written either as homage to film or stepping stone to Hollywood.

At the moment, technologists still often control musical (and most other) content going into games. A film industry analogy would be if the makers of cameras had exclusive rights to determine the content of films.

There is an aphorism that sums up this relationship well: ‘Those who control the technology of a new medium control its content as well.’ Then there is Professor Deutsch’s reciprocal corollary, ‘As the technology spreads, the control of its content dissipates.’ We need to be aware of how the use of music in games is progressing so that we can proactively guide it through that process. On the other hand, the games industry will have a natural evolution into niches, some of which will be less the domain of the technologists, so a synergy between music and action (and interaction) can also come about organically.

The universe seems to like to achieve its own balance. So it will likely be with games, between the artists, composers, developers, moneymen and corporations that make and distribute games. And don’t worry that artistic people will inevitably have less leverage in games’ future than more pragmatic personnel. In time, games composers and other key creatives will likely develop their own celebrities, akin to how cineastes refer to a score as the ‘John Williams soundtrack’. Consumers like to believe there are larger-than-life people behind these products. A less tangible but equally significant point is that consumers could well be uninspired by the anonymous nature of office-based games development of today.

Once we can more accurately recognize our new milieu and our relationship to it, music for games will take its place as a distinct art form, just as film music did nearly seventy years ago

Final Comment

Is there anything wrong with aiming to create filmic or cinematic experiences in games? Of course there’s not.

These arguments merely suggest we need to look again at the role of music in achieving this, firstly by recognising that the gameworld is an emotional landscape appropriated to the actions of the player, and secondly by understanding how music, and sound in general, can emotionally charge games, and centre players in the overall experience of playing them.

Emulating film may partially be the result of a desire many in games have to work within the film industry, viewing games as a secondary means of working with linear film-like sequences. It’s shocking how many will admit to this, especially among composers who predominantly enjoy writing to picture.

It’s our job to reverse this trend, not to enforce it. Going forward, music clearly should not continue to be of secondary importance in development, as it often can be, nor should it be viewed as separable from game design in general.

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Take a look at the purpose-built interactive music system of 2003’s “Republic: The Revolution” below

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What started out as a half-hearted attempt to give my studio “a bit of an arcade theme” spiralled further out of control last year, leaving me with what I can only describe as an “arcade with a bit of a music studio theme”.

I lay the blame for my cavalier attitude towards arcade machine acquisition squarely at the feet of my inner twelve-year-old, a socially awkward and troubled boy trapped somewhere in 1983.

And if this already points towards some sort of midlife crisis – which it probably does – then I feel I can at least console myself with the idea that it’s a fairly cool manifestation of one.

For some, it’s sports cars and marathon running. For me, it just happened to be garish multi-coloured lighting and games such as Defender and Space Invaders.

Inner child James declared war on his adult self earlier this year, with arcade machines becoming the chosen battleground. Across the decades, young James had screamed at outer adult James to play Atari Star Wars again – believing, naively, that this may transport him back to Bournemouth’s magnificent Pier Amusements during the 1980s.

Child James wasn’t wrong: Playing Star Wars again – thanks to the emergence of a fairly decent ‘replica’ from Arcade 1UP – proved to be a pretty thrilling experience. The familiar yolk, the assault on the Death Star, the glowing vector graphics (albeit rendered on an LCD rather than a CRT monitor), the emulated POKEY chip music and a grainy sampled Sir Alec Guinness are much as big James remembers them.

I’m tempted to crack a joke here, describing this kind of midlife-crisis as something of a quarter-life crisis, but for a British person accustomed to pumping ten-pence pieces into coin slots instead, that would be inexcusable. (Too late, it would seem).

There’s no doubting that much arcade paraphernalia – and the culture surrounding it – originated in the US and Japan, even if the British have long had their own unique way of celebrating it – particularly, as I recall, in and around seaside resorts.

I read a wonderful book by Alan Meades on this subject recently, called Arcade Britannia: A Social History of the British Amusement Arcade, which I can wholeheartedly recommend.

VINTAGE OR REPLICA?

At the risk of becoming overly techie on what is supposed to be a composer’s website, I’ll quickly answer this question by saying that I enjoy both vintage and replica arcade machines (and any retro “re-issue” consoles, for that matter).

The ongoing war with my younger self has only intensified in recent years, brought on by the frustrating availability of newer, fully-licensed ‘replicas’ from the likes of Arcade 1Up and AtGames.  These cabinets – although lacking CRT monitors and being flimsier than the vintage arcade machines they seek to emulate —are appealing for the casual arcade fan and, unlike some other solutions, don’t rely on the acquisition of illicit ROMs in order to work. I’ve had a few of these cabinets imported from the US, and do enjoy them. Brought together in a dimly lit room, side by side with the real thing, they do successfully manage to create a welcoming arcade vibe. They sound the part, too, producing the kind of unmistakable arcade soundscape (some might say, cacophony) I fondly remember from my youth.

Deemed inauthentic by aficionados and arcade purists – understandably – I wonder if some of these newer replicas (and I do use that word loosely) will themselves end up collectible some day, much in the way the many cheap, plastic tabletop games of the 1980s (such as the likes of Grandstand’s Astro Wars) have done since they hit the scene.  

As a kid, I can well remember purists scoffing at those, too. Yet, now, these little devices are considered ‘vintage’ collectibles. (Or should that be ‘retro’ collectibles? – I’ve never really been clear as to the exact meaning of this word. Does it mean old or something more akin to new old – i.e. styled after older products?). ‘Vintage’ – I think – means actually old.

Given enough time, it seems as though almost anything powered by electricity – toasters included – will eventually acquire a degree of retro tech charm, serving as a reminder of just how subjective and, dare I say it, age-related this hobby can be. Innovation and quality do motivate part of the interest, of course, but nostalgia, cultural impact during one’s formative years, generational influences and so on, do appear to play a fundamental role as well.

WHERE ARE ALL THE ARCADE MACHINES?

Much old tech end up in landfill, and it seems that in previous decades many ancient arcade machines have sadly met the same fate. Were that not the case, there would surely be many more of them in circulation, especially given how many of the things used to exist.

I’ve heard it said that, after various arcade machines fell out of fashion and became commercially unviable to arcade owners during the late 1980s, some of them proved difficult to even give away. Many were thrown out, burned, or even dropped into the sea (really).

How deranged would someone need to be to drown an arcade machine?

Many arcade machines simply fell into disrepair, with some now so old that sourcing the custom-made replacement parts needed for fix them has become extremely challenging. The ongoing maintenance of CRT monitors in particular appears to be a significant issue, as they are scarcely manufactured today and few people appear to possess the skills required to repair them.

WHAT – OR WHEN – IS RETRO?

This is a difficult question, and one I don’t feel qualified to answer, but according to the podcast, This Week in Retro – of which I am a keen listener – “retro” (in gaming, at least) is defined as anything released up to and including the Playstation 3 console.

That’s for now, anyway, as the goalposts are always moving.

Off-topic a little, I was surprised to learn recently that even some of games I’ve worked on during the earlier part of my career are now considered vintage by some, which I find surprising and terrifying in equal measure. Some of the people who occasionally write to me with questions about now apparently old games such as Theme Park World, Privateer: The Darkening, Flight of the Amazon Queen, Freelancer, Space Hulk, Evil Genius, Conquest, Grand Prix 4, Cutthroat Island, Shadow of the Horned Rat, Art Academy and a bunch of others mostly from the 1990s or early 2000s (and even some EA Sports titles and games such as Red Alert 3 – which I flat-out refuse to believe are actually “old”) are usually way younger than me – often growing up during the era in question. This, I think, says a lot about the nebulous definition of ‘retro’.

For me, the retro gaming and home computing era began in the late 1970s and early 1980s, marked by the golden age of arcades, the rise of consoles such as the Atari 2600, and the emergence of home computers like the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, and, a little later, the Amiga. While many would certainly think of the 286, 386, and 486 PCs that followed as having vintage appeal now, I felt that the magic had started to fade a little by that time, even as PC games began to thrive.

SPACE WARS

Living in the UK, where space is at a premium for the majority of people, I count myself lucky to have an arcade or games room of any description.

Perhaps it’s a general lack of free space found in UK homes that explains why home arcades have never really been a thing here, and may never be.  For many on these islands, simply accommodating a new espresso machine or toaster presents a huge challenge, so it’s no wonder few arcade cabinets enter UK homes.

In contrast – if YouTube is any indicator – it would appear that the average suburban house in America can accommodate an entire cinema, arcade, bar and bowling complex. Even espresso machines and toasters get their own rooms.

THE MAGIC OF THE GOLDEN ERA

Arcades of the 1980s, as I recall, were an assault on the senses from the moment you entered them, providing not only solo gaming but a social and competitive experience as well. A place to huddle with friends in the warm glow of CRT monitors, eagerly competing on games such as Outrun, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Defender, Star Wars, Battlezone, Pole Position and countless other era-defining classics.

These glorious establishments have always been more than just a collection of machines — offering immersive experiences that are greater than the sum of their parts. With deceptively simple designs built-into the very fabric of their cabinets — much like Nintendo’s synergistic approach to hardware and game creation — arcade machines were made to function as a cohesive whole: a mesmerising combination of aesthetics, hardware functionality and gameplay mechanics. They were — and continue to be — a celebration of the sensory experience of gaming, and an unforgettable fusion of art, design, and technology.

In an era of games industry saturation and emulation-based machines boasting “thousands of games”, there’s something pretty compelling about the idea of an arcade cabinet that plays just one game properly.

With few menus to negotiate and no compatibility issues to contend with, vintage arcade machines remind me of the relatively uncomplicated, uncluttered pre-internet era of gaming — a time when it felt as though every big new game — or film, for that matter — became an event shared by millions. 

During the 1980s in particular, the eye-catching cabinets on offer — with their wonderfully vibrant side art, striking marquees, attract modes and unique control schemes — managed to lure in millions of players in on an epic scale, each and every day of the week.

There are establishments offering a 1980s-style arcade experience in the UK today, thankfully, but they are few and far between. One great one, quite local to me, is Arcade Archive, which can be found just outside Stroud in Gloucestershire. Situated above The Cave – a fantastic, hands-on retro tech museum – both are well worth visiting. Together they form The Retro Collective.

As I play — and revel in the sound of — classics such as Space Invaders and Defender in the studio arcade, I’m reminded of the immediacy and accessibility of the gaming experiences arcades used to offer, and I marvel at their enduring, cross-generational appeal — even now, in the era of photorealistic graphics and VR technology.

The arcade games of old epitomised the very essence of casual gaming: easy to learn, hard to stop playing, difficult to master —  serving now not only as a lesson in gaming history and a nostalgic reminder of a bygone era, but also as a refreshing counterpoint to some of today’s more complex and convoluted gaming experiences.

The allure of these games is undoubtedly magnified a little by the realisation that they laid the foundations of an entire industry — an entire art form, even —  establishing many of the ground rules and conventions that still hold sway today. Their lasting appeal isn’t only about the games themselves, then, but the cultural impact many have had as well, and the very fact they were the first. – JH

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