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Yes, it is.  Thanks for reading!

But seriously, folks – this is a question I’ve heard a lot and a point of struggle for many composers without a formal or classical music education.  In this post, I’ll briefly discuss some of the major topics of music theory and their relevancy to game audio professionals.  This is by no stretch of the imagination a 100% comprehensive guide, but will serve as a decent jumping-off point if you feel your lacking music theory skills are getting in the way of your composing.

(Update: For an in-depth case study on music theory from one of the greatest video game music tracks ever, check out this post: 7 Music Theory Lessons from Final Fantasy VII)

Chord Progressions (aka Harmonic Progressions)

If you’re writing music, you’ve probably inherently learned the basics about chord progressions (even if you haven’t necessarily realized that information).  Knowing the most common and effective chord progressions can be incredibly useful, because it can help simplify your decisions when deciding how to harmonize a melody or answering the “where do I go from here?” question.  Sadly, many people get hung up on learning these fundamentals because the topic inherently contains several other elements of music theory and harmony which may or may not be useful to know.  For example, knowing the most common chord progressions would be very useful if you’ve written a great melody and need to figure out what chord progressions the electric guitar should be rocking to accompany that melody.

Learning why those chord progressions work, on the other hand, will only be useful for certain scenarios that may or may not apply to you.  If I’m writing a solo piano piece with a great melody, I might discover that the chord progression – while correct – might not sound very fulfilling.  Having an understanding of the balance between consonance and dissonance, tension and resolution, and basic voice leading principles can be extremely useful tools for taking a basic-sounding chord progression and turning it into a fulfilling and complimentary accompaniment for the melody.

If I’m writing a melody for flute and have an acoustic guitar strumming along with a basic chord progression, on the other hand, that latter pieces of information aren’t nearly as important and are more likely to overwhelm or overcomplicate the process than help it.  When you’re playing “open chords” on the guitar, all that stuff I mentioned before – consonance and dissonance, tension and resolution, and voice leading – are kind of automatically taken care of because of the way the instrument is typically learned and played.  In this scenario, I don’t have to understand what’s going on and why it’s working in order to use it.

Keys & Scales

The following can be a little complex to read about without hearing examples or having someone talk you through it, but it’s very useful.  Understanding Keys and Scales will provide you with a guide along your compositional adventures by giving you a roadmap to what will likely sound good and what will likely sound not-so-good.

The key in which a piece of music is written refers to the “home” note and the scale which the piece is primarily built upon.  For example, a C Major piece of music uses C as the “home” note, and most of the music is built with the pitches contained within the Major scale if you play it starting from C.  A scale is a set combination of intervals which can start on any pitch, basically.  In a piece written strictly in C Major, all of the chords and melodies will be built using the combinations available from the 7 pitches of the C Major scale.

To reiterate, knowing what key you’re writing in and what scale you’re basing your piece of music on will inform you of the available pitches you’re allowed to use when creating chords or melodies.  While this may sound very restricting, this acts as a foundational system to build upon rather than a strict rule.  As such, people who understand the system can and will tastefully bend/break the rules.  Do you have to memorize every scale out there?  No, you don’t.  You don’t necessarily need to know the mixolydian scale or the pentatonic scale, but these may be useful as you get more sophisticated with your melody writing.  Most people get by just fine with the good ol’ major and minor scales.

Intervals

If you’re writing music, you need a basic knowledge of intervals.  This is one of those pieces of knowledge – like the alphabet, for example – that you won’t necessarily actively use or think about, but is present in everything you’re doing.  As such, knowing the musical vocabulary or intervals is essential.  The definition of an interval is the relationship between two musical pitches, or the distance between two notes.  Some examples of intervals which you’re sure to be familiar with are:

  • Octave – The baseline to the ‘Duck Tales’ theme song plays octaves over and over.
  • Perfect Fifth – The first two notes of the melody in the ‘Star Wars’ theme are a perfect fifth.
  • Perfect Fourth – The first two notes of the main melody in the original Legend of Zelda over-world theme are a perfect fourth.

Will you sit around thinking about how to use a perfect fifth in your next piece of music?  No, you probably won’t (although John Williams did do that while writing the melodies for the main themes from Star Wars and Indiana Jones).  However, it’s useful to know the most common intervals and the intervals that you personally like the most so that you can identify them in your writing.  It’s a musical of vocabulary that’s critical to know if you’re trying to learn the fundamentals of writing great melodies.

In my opinion, a knowledge of intervals serves best as a diagnostic tool.  You can properly analyze melodies written by others to learn the building blocks behind a specific melodic effect, and you can diagnose aspects of your own music to make sure you’re not being boring by staying within your comfort zone.  For example, if you’re writing a soundtrack for an RPG you may find that you never use intervals larger than a perfect fourth.  That sort of habit is easy to fall into and can result in a bunch of melodies that don’t sound very distinct from one another, but if you don’t have the basic vocabulary to critically look at your own work you may be left asking yourself “Why don’t any of these melodies really stand out from the rest?”.

Questions about Music Theory?  Fire Away!

I want to hear your music theory questions!  If there’s an area that you feel particularly weak in, or if you’re finding yourself up against the same limitations with you writing – tell me about it in the comments on this post!  I’ll do my best to help, even if you’re not exactly sure what it is you’re missing.  While this post is by no means a conclusive music theory guide, I hope I’ve illustrated some of the common elements of music theory which I believe to be incredibly useful for vide game music composers.

WANT MORE MUSIC THEORY?  7 MUSIC THEORY LESSONS FROM FINAL FANTASY VII


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