What the title says: here is a quick tip for you if you are a musician and want to work on a small game project.
DON’T BE FLEXIBLE!
I discussed that with Tale of Tales when they were here at Clash of Realities and we had similar experiences. It came up quite recently as I’m playing with different game ideas for my next projects. When I’m looking for somebody to do sound or music for me, I’m not interested in flexibility. Don’t say you can do “any style.” Because flexibility means extra-work. It means we need to invest a tremendous amount of time and effort to decide precisely on what kind of style the game needs. It’s an endless back and forth of samples with pages of critique. It involves using samples from other artists to communicate, which in turn may lead to blatant plagiarism. It often even boils down to discussing insanely anal details. In the end the game designer ends up deciding every detail of the music and the musician ends up being the executive. It’s frustrating and inefficient for both parties. And the music you decide on may end up not even being the best quality possible. It’s just the first you both could live with.
What you should do instead is communicating clearly a preferred kind of music and style. Please indulge in you preference and show me the kind of music you like working on. Show me the kind of music you would do on your own if money was no concern for you.
Because what happens is that I may have a vague idea of the vision for the game. I will seek out musicians who seem to fit into this vision. Browsing trough a portfolio with 10 completely different samples is useless to be at that point. I need somebody who I know can pull it off without any additional input. I need somebody I can contact, just ask them to make music for the game and let them do their thing. I can concentrate on the other stuff and the musician can be creative and simply continue doing what they like. Everybody is happy!
Of course this is just my perspective as a small indie. I can imagine that it can be different for larger productions where there are more resources and the where the specific musical style is not that important. On the other hand, when you want to get into games, indie games are the place to start, right?
I was wondering, has any of you experience with sound and music in indie games?
Hello Krystian,
interesting article, and a good discussion starter.
But I guess I do not really agree.
I guess it’s great to be the go-to guy for sound XY and a few are rich and famous for that. But it’s only one path. I think, while you should as a composer be open concerning styles you don’t like – thereby saving everybody time and effort trying to bend you into the needed style – limiting yourself to a certain style has many drawbacks.
- You assume that everybody bases their decision on the music. I experience that most of the time, the decision is based on trust and sympathy first. “I trust this guy”. “I like him”. And if you have found your go-to guy, you don’t want him to be able to only work on game #1, what about game #2 and #3? They need different musical styles. Bummer.
- I often hear: “You have got the job” before anybody said a word about the style. I love those meetings. They TRUST me to be able to pull it off, whatever they need. Including stuff I have never done. I emit confidence I guess.
- Recently, I got a commercial job in a certain musical area for the first time. I was able to present 10 demo songs, all shades of that genre, and my customer was able to pinpoint the exact substyle he would like (”between #3 and #7″). My flexibility allowed him to trust me, because I had proof of concept so to speak. I’d never got the job with 5 times demo #1. My flexibility also allowed my contact to discover what exactly he wants for his game.
- A customer recently said to me “You are the expert, I trust you to make the right choice. Choose the sound you think works best.” Rare, but it does happen. See, it’s all in your head. Change how you work with your partners. We have done about 100 songs in the last year. We had to change about 8 of them. The other 92 were happily accepted. That’s the way to go, get a partner who understands your game and (hopefully) hits the mood right on the head, and you can work on what YOU do best in the meantime.
- Sometimes games have a huge range. Recently we had orchestral Hollywood, a classical guitar peace, Bar Jazz, Pink Floyd and Duran Duran in 1 project (a mix like you would have in any other movie). You don’t want to work with 5 “limited” composers in that case.
- I don’t sell music. I solve problems (”Oh god, we still need music”) and provide value (”this scene works a lot better now!”). You don’t have to take me by the hand and tell me every step, you can make ME worry about that.
- If you disagree with me all the time, we might not be a perfect match. It’s not usual, if you experience that all the time, change your team.
- And of course, if you as a composer openly limit yourself, you limit the incoming leads, leading to less jobs (unless of course are at the top of the field in the few styles you do!) and you might drain yourself if you don’t jump from genre to genre like I do.
Sorry for the long comment. To sum it up:
- Choose a guy or girl you think you can trust, who feels your game.
- Take a step back. Give good, precise directions and let the magic happen. Cornering a composer will not make him come up with something YOU haven’t thought off.
- If there is a problem with a song, let it sink for some time, then give exact directions what to change. Do not use this process to discover what you want. “Naaah, that’s not it either. Try something else” or “Possibly the first one was the best after all” is not what anybody want’s to hear (it’s in my spam filter, actually). The composer is not the one who needs to change here.
- Try to have 1 contact to the composer (team) who also has the power to approve deliveries. The more voices in the mix, the more fuss. Never run around and ask your entire team what they think. Never try to please everyone. The music is not designed for your Ipod heavy rotation, but to make your game better.
Hey Daniel, thanks for stopping by. I’m really pleased to hear your perspective. You’ve raised some good points. Let me try to reply to them.
Yes, if a musician is already working with a game developer then this is of no concern to him anymore. But I’m not talking about this scenario. This is about what to do in order to appear attractive for new projects.
That doesn’t explain anything really.
I’m not talking about big projects either. This is specifically for small-team indie stuff.
This seems like a kind of project where music doesn’t play a big part in the creative vision. That’s not how I make games.
Again, doesn’t really explain anything.
So what I do that with a composer that advertises as being able to pull of “any style” and I get bullshit? Then I need to explain why it’s bullshit and explain what this game is about and blah blah blah. I don’t want to go there. I need a person I know already does the kind of music I need.
Neither of us should be forced to change.
It seems to me like we are talking about a very different kind of development. I don’t have a team. I am just one person doing everything. In such a limited environment a “flexible” musician introduces just more variables to an already complex problem. Being flexible only BECOMES another problem instead of solving anything. What I need is output I can depend on.
[...] the developer composer relation I just posted a far-too-long comment to Krystian Majewski’s blog post. Krystian is the guy behind games as Excit (a well polished browser puzzle game) or Trauma (a story [...]
Hm, I think “don’t be flexible” is a little misleading in this context – since musicians traditionally are not the type of artists who love to get critisiced on their work. But to accept the right amount critic is essential for doing professional work.
I agree with you on the point, that having musicians with a defined style is great for doing outstanding work. Stick to them. But this is a decision that the game designer at least has to to: to pick the right people for the team. I am sure you WANT to work with flexible aritsts, especially if it come to essential fine-tuning the the final work. People saying “Nah, I don’t change anything, because I am the artist here” can be really painful to work with.
Yeah, sure. “Don’t be flexible” is partly meant to be a provocation. It’s seems counter-intuitive at first.
Sure, some flexibility is always necessary. But that’s not what you should advertise because everybody does that. I take that as granted.
On the other hand, the idea is to get rid of “fine-tuning” and give all authority to the musician himself.
Well, do not wont to get into wording war here. We totally agree, to best work with people, able to have visionary feelings in that context.