A Bad Idea?
A common phrase within the indie game dev community is “wearing many hats”. It’s an adorable way to say you have to take on ten times the number of roles you’d have to if you were working at a big company. This week, I have been wearing a party hat on my face, which is to say I have been making music. I vaguely remember two times I was exposed to GarageBand, both as part of the mandatory curriculum in school, so needless to say I am highly qualified for this.
People say you shouldn’t produce music for your own game unless you’re a professional music producer because it will turn out like trash (my words, not theirs), and you should use royalty-free music instead. I’d like to respectfully ignore their advice. In my opinion, the most important part of a game’s soundtrack is that it fits the game, which is kinda hard to get with royalty-free music. And, I mean, how hard can making your own music be? Sometimes, the key to achieving things is a bit of delusion and over-confidence.
In the end, I did make something I was happy with. Here’s one of the tracks! You can listen to it while reading the rest of this post. Or you can sit here and listen to it. I’m not going to tell you what to do.
I’m Sorry Music Bros
One of my favourite game music youtube channels is 8-bit Music Theory. If you’re into music theory, I highly recommend watching their videos. I have to be real with you though, I don’t understand most of it. I kind of thought music would be like art, you know? Put colours together and make it look pretty. But then music theory hits you with the majors and minors and the pentatonics and the Forbidden 7th Chord. It’s insanely cool, but by the time I learn all that it’d be 2025.
There is a type of glee you get from doing something that you know has rules with reckless abandon. It’s like, “I don’t know why that note in that position sounds good; I just know it sounds good. Let’s add some bells there, and some more violins. Let’s move this to a different octave— NOPE too high.”
Electronic Music
Because I’m not a pro at any instruments, I’ve been using MIDI. If you don’t know what that is, it basically means I program the music into existence. As in, I draw the notes by hand. It makes creating music really easy, but the sounds it produces don’t have the same feel as real instruments do. That’s a good thing as it means traditional musicians are not out of jobs, but it does give a distinctly digital flavour to the tracks. Maybe I’ll commission someone to play something for me like Toby Fox did for Undertale’s Undertale.
Thoughts?
So, what did you think of the track? I think it really conveys the feeling a certain time of day. Can you guess which time? Also, if you have any advice on music-making, I’d love to hear it.
This is really fun, you guys. I hope you enjoyed reading this. And thank you for having faith in me.
this is so cool how long did it take to make one track
It depends on how complicated the track is! This one took about 5-6 hours
Super cool! So did you make the music with the character’s actions already in mind?
The music is matched to the setting rather than what the player will be doing at that exact point in time. I do know what they could be doing while a particular track is playing, though
That track is so cool!!!! Sometimes I forget that all you need to create something is to Try (and also maybe a little bit of rule-defying spite)
My guess is the track is a sort of “evening time” track :D reminds me of Stardew Valley music, maybe the winter theme?
Thank you!
That’s interesting, I was thinking it sounds like the morning because it’s kinda sleepy at first then it speeds up. I like your interpretation, it’s such a compliment being compared to Stardew Valley
i love the track you included in this post an unhealthy amount … i’m so excited
Thank you so much <3<3<3