Here - ANTRIKSH BALI

Transcription

Leaping Across Clichés and Thematic Boundaries: The Synthesis of an 'Anti-Score' in Bioshock
Infinite
Antriksh Bali
FS-695-001: Culminating Experience/Thesis
Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree:
Master of Music in Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games
Berklee College of Music, Valencia
Faculty Advisor: Ben Houge
1st July 2015
Bali 2
Bali 3
Index 1. Index…………………………………………………………………………………………..3
2. Synopsis…………………………………………………………………………………….....4
3. Introduction: The Composer & The Game……………………………………………………6
3.1. Composer History & Background………………………………………………………..6
3.2. Bioshock: History & Overview…………………………………………………………..7
4. Music Overview……………………………………………………………………………...10
5. Musical Background and Influences…………………………………………………………14
6. Thematic Development………………………………………………………………………16
6.1. Constants & Variables: Columbia’s Dissonant Tonality………………………………..16
6.2. Elizabeth: A Door Between Worlds…………………………………………………….25
6.3. The Luteces: A Radical Departure……………………………………………………...33
6.4. Songbird’s Fury: Combat in the Sky……………………………………………………39
6.5. Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Vocal Music in Bioshock Infinite………………………53
7. Significance of Period Music………………………………………………………………...59
8. Sound Design………………………………………………………………………………...62
9. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………...71
10. References……………………………………………………………………………………75
Bali 4
Synopsis Bioshock Infinite is an interactive first-person shooter video game, which was developed
by Irrational Games and published by 2K Games. The game was developed originally for
Microsoft Windows, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 and released on March 26, 2013. It was later
ported to OS X1 on August 29, 2013 and to Linux in 20152.
The game follows the story of a disgraced ex-detective called ‘Booker Dewitt’ in the year
1912 who is tasked with a mission to retrieve a young woman called Elizabeth who has been
trapped and kept captive for many years in a flying city called Columbia. The player plays from
the perspective of Booker. While the first half of the game has the player looking and searching
for Elizabeth, the latter half deals with much more complex themes that involve dealing with a
city in the midst of a Civil War, at the same time dealing with a number of opposing forces that
range from dealing with a ‘false prophet’ called Comstock to various enemy factions in constant
conflict with each other. There is also some amount of influences from fantasy and science
fiction.
While most games have a straightforward objective, Bioshock Infinite as a game has been
known to skirt the delicate line between being story-oriented and being a video game where the
player can choose what to do3. This brings forward an interesting opportunity for music to
provide a sense of narrative to the game, which helps in establishing the key role of the music
across various different levels and locations in the video game.
1
Philippa Warr, ‘BioShock Infinite Gets Mac Release Date (Wired UK)’, 2 August 2013, http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-‐08/2/bioshock-‐infinite-‐mac 2
2K. ‘Good News, Linux Gamers: BioShock Infinite Is Coming to Linux in Early 2015. More Details Coming after the New Year.’ Twitter, 5 December 2014. https://twitter.com/2K/status/541003305174839296. 3
Christian Evan Erali, ‘Dissonance in Games: Refining Gamecraft’, 3 July 2014, 12 – 13, http://issuu.com/christianevanerali/docs/christian.erali_ludonarrativediss/0 Bali 5
This thesis aims to explore the strong connection between the narrative elements of the
characters in the storyline of the game with various themes and motifs found throughout the
music score.
Bali 6
Introduction: The Composer & The Game Composer History & Background
Garry Schyman studied music composition at the University of Southern California. He
initially wanted to be a composer primarily for film and television4. After studying at USC, he
started working with Mike Post and Pete Carpenter in the 1980’s. He wrote music for various
television shows like The Greatest American Hero, The A Team and Magnum PI while working
as part of a music composition team with renowned TV composer Mike Post5.
Garry Schyman went on to make music for several television shows, movie of the week
features, low-budget and mid-budget movies. Subsequently he started scoring music for a few
games in the 1990’s for Philips Interactive6, one of which was said to have been one of the first
orchestral scores for a video game7. In 2004, Garry Schyman was given the opportunity to score
Destroy All Humans!8, a video game that was being developed by now-defunct Pandemic
Studios in collaboration with game publishing company THQ. Later on, the company really liked
the style of music on some tracks from his demo CD that was sent to them via his agent, and
decided to ask him to do a ‘pitch’. He was hired to make music for the game some time after he
refused to do the pitch. The music was scored in a 1950’s science fiction orchestral score style
and was inspired by The Day The Earth Stood Still score written by Bernard Hermann9.
4
Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, Hit List Interview with Bioshock Infinite Composer Garry Schyman, 4 June 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VQ1bBb_DF8 5
Garry Schyman, Interview: Garry Schyman -‐ Bioshock Infinite, interview by Tracksounds and Masalar, YouTube (YouTube, 9 May 2013), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sXZj-‐Aw47o. 6
Ibid. 7
‘On the Road-‐to NOW! A Brief History of Games and Game Audio’, in The Essential Guide to Game Audio The Theory and Practice of Sound for Games, by Steve Horowitz and Scott Looney (New York: Focal Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014), 31–32. 8
Garry Schyman, ‘Destroy All Humans! Director Praises Game’s Score’, Garryschyman.com (Garry Schyman, 2 March 2005), http://garryschyman.com/2005/03/02/hello-‐world/ 9
Video Game Sophistry, VGS Radio Interview: Garry Schyman -‐ Composer of Bioshock Infinite ‘Music and Visuals Makes Magic!’, YouTube (YouTube, 3 April 2013). Bali 7
Having worked with the audio director Emily Ridgeway from Destroy All Humans, Garry
Schyman was recommended for the Bioshock score when she started working at Irrational
Games, the game developer behind the Bioshock franchise. This was the beginning of a threegame relationship with Irrational Games that would eventually lead to the culmination of Garry
Schyman scoring Bioshock: Infinite.
Having grown up playing the piano and listening to classical music, some of Garry
Schyman’s musical inspirations are 20th century composers like Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky,
Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich as well as modern day film composers like Jerry
Goldsmith, John Williams and Bernard Hermann (Mysterious Island). Garry Schyman currently
teaches Video Game Scoring at University of Southern California in the Scoring for Motion
Pictures and Television program while he works on a number of different film, television and
video game projects.
Bioshock: History and Overview
Bioshock is a first-person shooter video game franchise that has consisted of three video
games so far – Bioshock, Bioshock 2 and Bioshock Infinite. As of May 2014, Bioshock Infinite
has sold over 11 million copies bringing the total number of sold copies of all Bioshock games to
25 million worldwide10.
Some of the major influences for the development and concept of the stories in this video
game franchise have been utopian and dystopian fiction writers like Ayn Rand, George Orwell
and Aldous Huxley11. Apart from the obvious literary influences, the influence of early survival
10
Eddie Makuch, ‘BioShock Franchise Still “Really Important,” Publisher Says’, Gamespot, 28 May 2015, http://www.gamespot.com/articles/bioshock-‐franchise-‐still-‐really-‐important-‐publishe/1100-‐6427664/ 11
Ken Levine, PRE-‐E3 2006: BIOSHOCK, interview by Douglass Perry and IGN, 5 May 2006, http://www.ign.com/articles/2006/05/06/pre-‐e3-‐2006-‐bioshock Bali 8
horror games (System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Thief (1998))12 and movies like Logan’s Run13 can be
found. Influences that were specific to Bioshock Infinite were the Occupy movement of 2011,
Civil War in the early 1900’s, Erik Larson’s 2003 non-fiction book The Devil in the White City,
The Columbian Exposition at the Chicago World’s Fair of 189314 and the concept of American
exceptionalism15, conservatism and religious nationalism16.
The common element that has existed across all three games is the combination of firstperson-shooter genre of video games with the presence of a strong narrative storyline and the
unequivocal stress placed on the power of choice, with in-game decisions affecting game
outcomes to some extent – something which has been traditionally associated more to roleplaying games (RPG’s)17. There were also traditionally many elements of non-linear emergent
gameplay in the original Bioshock, which have decreased in Bioshock Infinite18
“To me, there’s two things that make a ’BioShock’ game ’BioShock.’ It takes place in a
world that is both fantastic and ridiculous. Something that you’ve never seen before and
something that nobody else could create except Irrational, but it’s also strangely
grounded and believable. The other thing that makes it a ’BioShock’ game is (about)
12
Ibid. IrrationalGames’s channel, ‘Ken Levine Filmed at a BAFTA Q&A’, YouTube (YouTube, 16 March 2013), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Efv9Mgwk8SU. 14
Hayley Tsukayama, ‘The Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street and “BioShock Infinite”: How a Video Game Is Reflecting Life’, interview by Nick Cowen, Washington Post, 25 October 2011, http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/the-‐tea-‐party-‐occupy-‐wall-‐street-‐and-‐bioshock-‐infinite-‐
how-‐a-‐video-‐game-‐is-‐reflecting-‐life/2011/10/21/gIQAlU8fGM_story.html 15
Ken Levine, How BioShock Infinite will be prescient – interview with Ken Levine, interview by Nick Cowen, 1 December 2011, https://web.archive.org/web/20140104212635/http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/dec/01/bioshock-‐
infinite-‐interview-‐ken-‐levine 16
Chris Suellentrop, ‘Why BioShock Infinite’s Creator Won’t Settle for Success’, Wired UK, 6 December 2012, http://www.wired.com/2012/12/ff_bioshock/. 17
‘Forced Choice: Bioshock and Retroactive Causation’, in Bioshock: Decision, Forced Choice and Propaganda, by Robert Jackson (United States: Zero Books, 2014). 18
Ibid. 13
Bali 9
having a huge toolset of power and a huge range of challenges, and you being able to
drive how you solve those challenges. With ’BioShock Infinite,’ we’re really just
expanding upon that.” – Ken Levine19
Game development work on Bioshock Infinite started in February 2008 under the
working title Project Icarus20. Irrational Games worked in secrecy for two and a half years on
this project before it was finally premiered. While insider blogs and popular press published that
Garry Schyman was the music composer in December 2012, first-hand interviews and personal
accounts seem to reveal that Garry Schyman was working on music for Bioshock Infinite since
before Electronic Entertainment Expo 201121.
19
Russ Frushtick, ‘“BioShock Infinite” Developer Avoided “Repeating” Original Game’, MTV, 8 December 2010, http://www.mtv.com/news/1645673/bioshock-‐infinite-‐developer-‐avoided-‐repeating-‐original-‐game/. 20
Jake Gaskill, ‘Teaser Site For Irrational Games’ “Project Icarus” Goes Live’, G4, 28 July 2012, http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/706568/teaser-‐site-‐for-‐irrational-‐games-‐project-‐icarus-‐goes-‐live/ 21
"Electronic Entertainment Expo, commonly known as E3, is an annual trade fair for the video game industry, presented by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). It is used by many video game publishers and accessory manufacturers to reveal and advertise their upcoming games and game-‐related merchandise." ‘Electronic Entertainment Expo’, Wikipedia (Wikipedia, 29 June 2015), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Entertainment_Expo. Bali 10
Music Overview The evolution of the music for the Bioshock Infinite involved a process, which can
broadly be divided into two different parts. One which consisted of partially scoring music
directly to a number of movie sequences that play in the game and the other, which consisted of
creating small sequences of music or sound that play in various sections of the game. The
musical behavior in the second part is also influenced by a number of environmental factors in
the game that varies between player health, proximity to enemies and location in the game to
name a few22. What characterizes the music for Bioshock Infinite as truly innovative and unique
is the fact that most common archetypes that have come to be associated with typical game
music scores were strongly discouraged, like the use of large orchestras and an ‘epic sound’. Ken
Levine and Irrational Games made a strong effort to push Garry Schyman to break away and
experiment with different composition techniques and writing methods. This push would
eventually lead Garry Schyman to experiment with various random composition techniques23 in
the game.
As opposed to the first two Bioshock games, Bioshock Infinite was composed keeping in
mind that a fresh approach was needed for the music. The location and time of the game (the
game is based in the year 1912) had an integral part to play in this decision24. The fictional city
of Columbia was located in the sky and there was sunlight present, which was something that
alluded to a more cheerful setting than the game’s initial dark one. This kind of setting had an
22
Elder-‐Geek.com, ‘Interview with Garry Schyman (Bioshock Series Composer) -‐ Loudr Game Music Festival Series’, YouTube (YouTube, 1 December 2013), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHsMUvP9uyc 23
karmanaut, ‘I’m Garry Schyman, Composer of the Scores for Bioshock and Shadow of Mordor, Here to Take Your Questions on the Art, Craft, and Agony of Scoring Games. AMA! • /r/IAmA’ (reddit, 15 May 2015), http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/35ytwq/im_garry_schyman_composer_of_the_scores_for/ 24
Garry Schyman, ‘Gary Schyman Talks To Us About Scoring “BioShock Infinite”’, interview by Gamma Squad, 25 March 2013, http://uproxx.com/gammasquad/2013/03/interview-‐gary-‐schyman-‐on-‐scoring-‐bioshock-‐infinite/. Bali 11
important impact on the musical approach. Having started working initially with an orchestral
music setting in mind (partly due to Ken’s suggestion and his involvement with the creative
process of the game), through the process both the composer and company realized that the
music of the time period while being orchestral tended to be more European than American25.
This would clash with the general themes of the game, which heavily dealt with American
culture in the 1900’s. An in depth study of the popular music of the era did not provide sufficient
background to be used from the standpoint of scoring26.
Not having anything to base the music on, Garry Schyman who was hired as a contract
composer for the game, decided to start working on the music by taking into consideration one of
the central characters of the game called Elizabeth. This was also motivated by the fact that
during an early preview of the game at Electronic Entertainment Expo 2011, the general
response was that of interest towards Elizabeth. Garry Schyman decided to write a theme for
Elizabeth with a small number of string instruments with the idea of the music being sparse and
spare rather than busy and complex27.
Once Elizabeth’s theme was recorded and presented to Ken Levine, the creative director,
it was generally agreed upon that a more intimate and smaller setting would work better for the
game instrumentation-wise. This decision set the tone for the rest of the music heard throughout
the game. Garry Schyman decided to start recording with a small set of musicians that varied
25
Garry Schyman, ‘Interview: BIOSHOCK Composer Garry Schyman Rockets to the INFINITE’, interview by Daniel Schweiger, Assignment X, 28 April 2013, http://www.assignmentx.com/2013/interview-‐bioshock-‐composer-‐garry-‐
schyman-‐rockets-‐to-‐the-‐infinite/ 26
Garry Schyman, Game Music Spotlight: BioShock Infinite Composer Gary Schyman, interview by Game Informer, by Matt Helgeson (Game Informer, 19 March 2013), http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2013/03/19/game-‐music-‐spotlight-‐bioshock-‐infinite-‐
composer-‐gary-‐schyman.aspx. 27
Garry Schyman, Heard About: Shaping BioShock Infinite’s score, interview by John Broomhall (Develop, 25 September 2014), http://www.develop-‐online.net/interview/heard-‐about-‐shaping-‐bioshock-‐infinite-‐s-‐
score/0198049. Bali 12
from two or three players up to ten players per session. The outcome of these recording sessions
was noteworthy: the music sounded bigger and larger than life even though there were not a
large number of orchestral players used in any of the recordings. The nature of these recordings
(string ensemble-based) set the tone for what most of the music in the game sounds like.
Creatively, a strong quality of the music score was the intimate way the music was
played. A large amount of stress was placed on the music being played very expressively as there
were a small number of players and the situations in the game asked for the intimacy to show
through. Being that the ensembles were primarily string players, there was a conscious decision
to make the music as ‘fiddly’ and less ‘vibrato’ as possible28. To make sure this aspect of the
score would be a strong point, Garry Schyman tried a different approach to writing music for the
game. Instead of writing the music first and then creating a ‘mock up’ or a track that uses
primarily software-based samplers to create realistic sounds, he chose to write music and then
take it straight to an ensemble of live-players. They would perform the music and record it in
recording sessions that took place about every two weeks. These sessions were stretched out over
the duration of six months. This could also be analyzed as an economic approach to the process
as recording with a small ensemble of string players would prove to be much more cost-efficient
and rewarding as opposed to recording an entire orchestra.
Another core aspect of the score in the game has been the presence of strong themes that
relate to the various characters within the game. Garry Schyman has time and again asserted that
music for video games is not just meant to enhance or maintain the mood or increase the
intensity, but also to drive certain functional aspects of the video game like the narrative
storyline or the game mechanics. Various objects or characters within the game world of
28
Video Game Sophistry, ‘VGS Radio Interview: Garry Schyman -‐ Composer of Bioshock Infinite “Music and Visuals Makes Magic!”’, YouTube (YouTube, 3 April 2013). Bali 13
Bioshock Infinite have received phrases, melodies or tones. Michael Sweet’s book Writing
Interactive Music for Video Games explicitly mentions that a composer’s responsibility, along
with the rest of the audio team, is to make sure all of the unique [sonic] elements help unify the
vision of the music for the project29. It is clearly this particular idea that seems to have driven an
essential part of the score in the video game.
To summarize the topics of this chapter, music in the game is divided into two parts,
scoring to cinematic sequences and scoring during gameplay that is implemented by creating
smaller passages of music out of existing ones, which respond to player behavior. Music that was
conventional and too obvious was discarded in favor of unique writing methods. The location
and time-based setting of the game played a part in the unique approach to the music. Initially
starting with an orchestral aesthetic, Garry Schyman eventually realized it was not the correct
approach due to the music sounding more European than American and shifted to a more
intimate sound that consisted of fewer players. This decision was a consequence of recording
Elizabeth with a small ensemble and setting in mind. This was enough to convince Ken Levine
that a small intimate setting would suit the music for the game. Music was composed
unconventionally with pen and paper as opposed to ’mocking up’ using traditional samples.
While music demonstrates being strongly connected with the characters and the narrative in the
game, it is also worth noting that music was often used as a guideline to the player while playing
the game so as to give an idea of what was happening in the game.
29
Michael Sweet, ‘Music as a Gameplay Element’, in Writing Interactive Music for Video Games: A Composer’s Guide, by Michael Sweet (United States: Addison-‐Wesley Educational Publishers, 2014), 188. Bali 14
Musical Background & Influences The spare and minimal aspect of the music that was composed for Bioshock Infinite was a
direct consequence of its influences. Ken Levine stated in an interview that the instrumentation
and style had an important part to play in the evolution of the music. Some of the early
influences that Ken Levine (the creative director of Bioshock Infinite) seemed to have were
Johnny Greenwood’s score for There Will Be Blood and the score for 12 Monkeys composed by
Paul Buckmaster30.
Garry Schyman claims not to have been influenced by the style of music that was
common in the time period the game’s story is placed in (early 20th century, and late 19th
century). This was primarily because he felt that following that style would place a very
restrictive limit on the functional abilities of the score. However, he has also mentioned that the
fact that music was a lot simpler gave him a direction to follow in terms of the score31.
“The score can almost be deemed an “anti-score” in the sense that it avoids the clichés of
most film and game soundtracks. Of course the fact that the game is set in 1912 in a city
that was born from America - though becomes the opposite of America - was very
influential but not determinative. I did not wish to imitate the popular music of 1912
which is not particularly emotional to our ears in 2013.” – Garry Schyman32
30
Garry Schyman and Ken Levine, ‘The Music of Bioshock Infinite’, interview by Andrew Goldfarb (IGN, 12 March 2013), http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/03/12/the-‐music-‐of-‐bioshock-‐infinite 31
Garry Schyman, ‘Sound Byte: Meet the Composer -‐ BioShock Series’, interview by Gamespot (Gamespot, 24 March 2013), http://www.gamespot.com/articles/sound-‐byte-‐meet-‐the-‐composer-‐bioshock-‐series/1100-‐
6405858/. 32
Garry Schyman, BioShock Infinite’s composer Garry Schyman on making music for the Songbird, interview by David Valjalo (PC Gamer, 14 March 2013), http://www.pcgamer.com/bioshock-‐infinites-‐composer-‐garry-‐schyman-‐
on-‐making-‐music-‐for-‐the-‐songbird/ Bali 15
There are a number of different influences that Garry Schyman has cited over the period
of several years, through interviews and candid talks about Bioshock Infinite. One of the most
characteristic influences that he has stated is the music of Stephen Foster, a famous songwriter
from the 1800’s who wrote many famous songs like Camptown Races and Jeanie with the Light
Brown Hair33. One of the first music cues that is heard in the game is a track called Lighter than
Air which acts as an introduction to Columbia. Garry Schyman claims that Stephen Foster
influenced Lighter than Air to a certain extent.
The relationship between the protagonist and Elizabeth is also essential to the game and
plays a central role in the musical development along with a large number of unconventional
composition techniques used for the combat music. These range from random composition to
small passages of music or sound that play when certain actions are carried out in the game.
These small passages are also used to give clues to the player about their current situation. For
example, when the player is close to death, the percussion of the combat music starts to sound
reversed.
Bringing this chapter to a close, we will now mention some key points. The major
influences for the score during the initial stages were the scores for 12 Monkeys and There Will
Be Blood. The composer stated not being influenced by the time and era of the game for the
music, as it would place too many restrictions on the style of music and make it inflexible. The
idea behind the story of the game was important to Garry Schyman who states it as influential
but not determinative. Some other key influences behind the score were Stephen Foster, who was
a songwriter from the 1800’s and the story of the game itself. The most important factor was the
relation between the protagonist and Elizabeth and other elements like in-game combat.
33
Garry Schyman, Garry Schyman’s BioShock Infinite on Top Score, interview by Emily Reese, 6 June 2013, https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/top-‐score/id434473316?mt=2#. Bali 16
Thematic Development Constants & Variables: Columbia’s Dissonant Tonality
Welcome to Columbia
One of the first pieces of music to play during the game is a piano solo that occurs when
the player first sees the game world of Columbia. This piece adds weight to the dramatic nature
of the game world, which happens to be a floating city in the clouds. Regarding the creative
process behind the composition of Welcome to Columbia, there were a number of different
approaches that Garry Schyman tried to use to score the starting scene of the game. However,
when nothing seemed to work, Jim Bonney, the music director stepped in and tried a few
different approaches using a number of different chords34. The piano used for this composition
was the one located in Jim Bonney’s office. The sonic nature of the piano used for the
composition was more a ‘parlor upright piano’ than the more evil-sounding larger concert grand
piano sound that is known to be characteristically associated with ‘Cohen’s Masterpiece’ a track
that was present in the soundtrack for Bioshock score.
The music is written in the key of A flat major and has a chordal, major-scale nature to it,
except for the opening string sequence which is dissonant. The main motif while consisting of
mostly six bars, can be further broken down into two sections A (Bars 1 and 2) and B (Bars 3
and 4). The last two bars are an identical repetition of section A, bringing us back to the same
chord progression that is present in the start.
Another important aspect of the composition is a large amount of unmeasured tremolos
that are played by the string section in a very ‘hurried and violent’ fashion in the beginning,
34
Game Trailers, ‘Composing BioShock Infinite | BackTrack Full Episodes’, Gametrailers.com (GameTrailers, 15 March 2014), http://www.gametrailers.com/full-‐episodes/i7tvjh/backtrack-‐composing-‐bioshock-‐infinite Bali 17
something that is characteristic of the horror genre35. There are aspects of aleatoric36 music that
seem to be a driving force for that part of the score which can be deduced from the fact that the
rhythm of the notes being played is ambiguous or ‘not fixed’. The sequence starts with
violoncellos playing unmeasured tremolos over notes C, C# and D which is then followed by
violins and violas later joining in the higher octaves and increasing in dynamic range to reach a
crescendo before the piano motif comes into play. Figure 1: An anonymous arrangement of ‘Welcome to Columbia’ composed by Garry
Schyman and Jim Bonney37
35
‘(Re)Situating and (Re)Playing the Genre’, in Making and Remaking Horror in the 1970s and 2000s: Why Don’t They Do It like They Used To?, by David Roche (United States: University Press of Mississippi, 2014), 119–54. 36
"The word aleatory is defined as depending on the throw of a die, by chance, or random. Aleatoric composition refers to a technique used by many composers of the twentieth century that introduces variability or chance into the performance or composition of the piece." ‘Aleatoric Performance Techniques for Video Games’, in Writing Interactive Music for Video Games: A Composer’s Guide, by Michael Sweet (United States: Addison-‐Wesley Educational Publishers, 2014), 230–31. 37
‘252019408 Welcome to Columbia Bioshock Infinite’, Scribd (Scribd, 30 May 2015), https://www.scribd.com/doc/267116184/252019408-‐Welcome-‐to-‐Columbia-‐Bioshock-‐Infinite. Bali 18
Isabella van Elferen’s states in her book on Gothic Music that mickey-mousing is an
important part of video game music which serves as a reaction to the player’s actions38. While it
could be argued whether there is any aspect of user interactivity in this particular instance seeing
that this cue plays during a cutscene or a cinematic sequence as it is more commonly known, It
can certainly be deduced that the first twelve seconds of the composition work as an integral tool
to immerse the player into the game, as the protagonist in the game is trapped and launched into
the air unexpectedly. The sound of tremolo strings help in reinforcing the feeling of a
‘destabilized’ center, something that is also known to be common in horror games like Silent
Hill39.
A key perspective behind the composition of this piece is the amount of contrast that
exists between the heavily dissonant aspect of the first twelve seconds and the rest of the piece.
This can be considered reminiscent of Jerry Goldsmith’s score for Poltergeist (1982) where he
contrasted the melodic aspect of the lullaby for the character Carol Anne with varying chromatic
and dissonant elements that are generally related to the depiction of the paranormal40. Another
key aspects of the instrumentation is the prominent use of pedal noise as means to enforce the
idea that the piano being played is aged and authentic. During gameplay, the pedal noise is
mixed in with the creaking sound of the capsule inside which the player is flying before it hits
the ground. The use of steel-like lap guitar is also added to enhance the fantasy-like situation of
the game world and to increase game immersion.
38
‘Gothic Game Music: Hyperreality Haunted’, in Gothic Music: The Sounds of the Uncanny, by Isabella Elferen (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2012). 39
Zach Whalen, ‘Play Along -‐ An Approach to Videogame Music’, accessed 30 June 2015, http://www.gamestudies.org/0401/whalen/ 40
Neil Lerner, ed., ‘The Monster and the Music Box’, in Music in the Horror Film: Listening to Fear ; Edited by Neil
Lerner (New York: Routledge, 2009), 43.
Bali 19
Lighter than Air
Lighter Than Air is the fourth track on the soundtrack of the video game Bioshock Infinite
and is another one of the initial tracks that introduces the player to the fictional world of
Columbia. A strong characteristic of this track is the dissonance and chromaticism that define the
melody of the piece. While Garry Schyman has vehemently denied taking any influences from
the classical music of the early 1900’s era, he has mentioned on more than one occasion that the
inspiration for this particular cue came from Stephen Foster, a songwriter from the 1800’s.
Another inspiration while working on this particular piece was trying to visualize the use of open
space with a string ensemble. He was influenced by the ‘sound of fiddle music out in the
country’. The instrumentation used for this piece was three violins, three violas, three
violoncellos and a double bass41.
Freely q = ˙
50
Violin
5
Vln.
˙
4˙
&4
&
∑
#˙
˙
˙
˙
#˙
˙
œ
˙
œ
#œ œ œ
˙
˙
˙
˙
Figure 2a: Transcription of a small solo violin passage of Lighter than Air. The free and
legato aspect of the tempo combined with the uneven way in which the notes are played
provides a dramatic ‘floating’ effect
41
Garry Schyman, Interview: Garry Schyman -‐ Bioshock Infinite, interview by Tracksounds and Masalar, YouTube (YouTube, 9 May 2013), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sXZj-‐Aw47o. Bali 20
˙
#˙
Freely q = 50
Violin
4
&4
œ
˙
œ
˙
#˙
#˙
˙
Figure 2b: All through the composition Lighter Than Air, there is a distinct musical
progression that implies lack of a fixed tonal center or scale. The shifting of scales is
obvious in this particular passage as it contains notes that would otherwise be implied as
being in the scale of D are rejected and instead more exotic notes like C# and B seem to
be used to provide a sense of de-stability
There was also a change in the approach Garry Schyman took towards composing this
particular cue. He claims to have ‘doubled’ the recordings or, in more simple terms, recorded the
score twice and superimposed the different takes. This approach gave a heavier sound to the
score thereby increasing the dramatic effect upon the player in the game. Furthermore, Garry
Schyman decided to work on the song by creating layers in the composition. There are namely
two different layers in the cue. There is a melodic layer that is more prominent to the listener,
which consists of a melody that is mostly major scale sounding. Garry Schyman has cited the
influence of Americana music as the reason behind this layer being melodic and tonal. The
second layer has a more chromatic nature with the notes constantly shifting between different
scales. This particular shifting between scales is reminiscent of one of the early works of
Beethoven, namely the final movement of the Piano Trio in C minor, op.1 no.3 where the theme
having returned to the tonic42, is suddenly brought back to B minor which is a semitone below
42
Harald Krebs, ed., ‘An Evolutionary Perspective on Nineteenth-‐Century Semitonal Relations’, in The Second Practice of Nineteenth-‐Century Tonality, by William Kinderman (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), 87–
113. Bali 21
the tonic. This stylistical movement between scales is part of a larger approach that is mentioned
as an idea behind chromatic transformations where all twelve triads of the tonal system are
equally available as tonics within a piece43.
43
‘Common-‐Tone Tonality’, in Chromatic Transformations in Nineteenth-‐Century Music, by David Kopp, 1st ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 1. Bali 22
Figure 3: An excerpt taken from the final movement of the Piano Trio in C minor, op.1
no.3 composed by Beethoven that demonstrates the idea of chromaticism
Bali 23
Furthermore, what enforces the opinion that chromaticism was an integral aspect of this
particular composition is an excerpt from an interview where Garry Schyman was questioned
about his study under the composer George Tremblay. George Tremblay was a student of Arnold
Schoenberg, who was an early twentieth century composer and a strong advocate of twelve-tone
composition techniques. While Garry Schyman does confirm using George Tremblay’s style of
twelve-tone composition for one of the cues in Bioshock Infinite44, there is no evidence to
support the fact that this was the composition that he was talking about. However, looking at the
evidence and the analysis above, it is clear that the music in this composition is heavily defined
and influenced by early twentieth century chromaticism.
As mentioned before Garry Schyman cited the influence of Stephen Foster as a
fundamental inspiration for this composition. One composition that has repeatedly mentioned by
Garry Schyman in interviews that was composed by Stephen Foster is Jeanie with the Light
Brown Hair. On further analysis of the musical nature of Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair there
are two passages in particular that exhibit a constant shifting between different scales that give
an ‘otherworldly’ quality to the music, something that seems to be common among both
compositions. On observing the piano accompaniment in the two lower staves of the composition
in figure 3a, it was deducted that there is movement from an F major chord that is stable and
more ‘happy’ in bars 1 and 2 to a more minor sounding-accompaniment that moves from the
tonic to the minor third in the D minor scale. This kind of melodic shifting between scales and
elements of modulation seem to be prominent in Lighter than Air as well.
44
Garry Schyman, Game Music Spotlight: BioShock Infinite Composer Gary Schyman, interview by Game Informer, by Matt Helgeson (Game Informer, 19 March 2013), http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2013/03/19/game-‐music-‐spotlight-‐bioshock-‐infinite-‐
composer-‐gary-‐schyman.aspx. Bali 24
Figure 4: A small passage from Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair originally composed by
Stephen Foster45
Extending this observation further, it can be said that not having a fixed tonal center and
using different scales as equally available tonics to change the harmonic and melodic structure of
the music forms an important part of Lighter than Air.
Furthermore, we can now sum up our observations of the compositions Lighter than Air
and Welcome to Columbia and their impact on the game. It is clear that certain music
composition techniques in combination with the use of careful articulations in these two
compositions were used to provide a musical background to the city of Columbia. Chief among
45
Stephen Foster, ‘Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair’ (Firth, Pond & Co., 5 June 1854), http://imslp.nl/imglnks/usimg/3/38/IMSLP108933-‐PMLP221516-‐SFoster_Jeanie_with_the_Light_Brown_Hair.pdf Bali 25
these is the attention given to certain notes being played unevenly or their pitch shifting in or out
of a certain scale. These small details enhance the effect of ‘floating’ that adds to the visual
nature of the game world. In Welcome To Columbia, the contrast between major scale melody
and chords combined with the initial dissonance provided by string tremolos was a key musical
idea that sets the dramatic musical guideline for Columbia that is then further accented and
explored in Lighter than Air where two different layers of music are playing at the same time –
one being chromatic and the other being melodic. The layering aspect of the music to create
motion can be seen as an extension of the idea of dissonance as a musical tool. Also, the use of
dissonance adds an ‘otherworldly’ character to the sound of the music, something that forms an
important aspect of the narrative world of Bioshock Infinite. Being a first-person shooter game,
the depth and care given to how the music affects and relates to the environment of the ‘game
world’ is unprecedented and to say the least, highly unconventional for a first-person shooter
game.
Elizabeth: A Door Between Worlds
Elizabeth’s theme played a central starting point for Garry Schyman when he first started
working on and developing the music score. This theme was an intricate part of the score for the
game and was also the most important part from the composer’s perspective46. Originally,
Elizabeth was a minor character in the game and Garry Schyman had to compose without
keeping Elizabeth in mind as a central character in the game. However, that soon changed at
Electronic Entertainment Expo 2011 where a sneak preview of the video game premiered.
Elizabeth featured prominently in this particular preview and this led to a massively positive
46
Garry Schyman, ‘Composer Interview: Garry Schyman Discusses “BioShock: Infinite” Soundtrack’, interview by Jen Bosier (Forbes, 25 March 2013), http://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferbosier/2013/03/25/composer-‐
interview-‐garry-‐schyman-‐discusses-‐bioshock-‐infinite-‐soundtrack/ Bali 26
response from the majority of the audience present there. This positive response proved to be a
catalyst for the elevation of the status of Elizabeth as an integral part of the storyline and the
music in the game.
These turn of events and drastic change in the direction of the game led Garry Schyman
to reassess the relationship between the protagonist of the game and Elizabeth. A crucial
consequence of this particular turn of events was that Garry Schyman decided to write a theme
primarily for Elizabeth. Once he finished writing the theme, he chose to go ahead and record it
without ‘mocking it up’ and he financed this recording himself47. Irrational Games would later
reimburse him for the recording charges. A key reason behind this decision was that Garry
Schyman felt that a live recording with performers would be very important to communicate to
Ken Levine, the creative director, his vision and approach towards the music for the game. This
was a comparatively unusual way to work on music for something like film or video games as
the common approach is to compose the music, mock it up and get it approved for all the music
cues and then follow up in the later stages with consecutive recordings. Instead, the approach
used in the entire score was that music would be written, followed by an approval. This would
then lead straight into recording where the music cues were recorded at a regular period of every
two weeks for a six-month period. This provided a gateway and a new approach for Garry
Schyman to be able to try approaching the music from a different compositional standpoint. This
is one of the main reasons that Elizabeth’s theme is very important in the study of the music
development for Bioshock Infinite.
Garry Schyman describes the music of the theme as very sparing and simple, with a small
number of stringed instruments. The style of the music that he wrote for the theme is what he
47
Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, ‘Hit List Interview with Bioshock Infinite Composer Garry Schyman’, 4 June 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VQ1bBb_DF8 Bali 27
describes as ‘melodic and Americana’. For the first recording of Elizabeth’s theme, Garry
Schyman decided to use two solo instrument players – A violinist and a cellist.
The result of recording a small group of ensemble musicians for Elizabeth’s theme made
one concept very clear to the music composer: what was important was not what the notes were,
but rather how the music was played more expressively in a smaller group setting. The technique
of using less vibrato while playing the strings and have the musicians play the music in a more
‘fiddly’ nature is what would eventually be used on a number of other music cues inside the
video game.
On listening to the music for the first time, Ken reacted positively to the music recording
and thought that it stimulated the creative aspects of the game very well. It also brought both the
composer and producer to realize that the game as a whole would perhaps not need a grand
orchestral score but, on the contrary, something that was more intimate, moving and emotional48.
This would eventually lead to the score following the same idea, with a string-ensemble based
instrumentation.
While there have not been any published or official scores that detail the instrumentation
used for any of the cues, there have been transcribed notations available on various sources
scattered through the internet. Some of them have been used to provide a compositional context
and credence to certain views. Having knowledge of the ensemble-based background of the
entire score in general and having confirmation from Garry Schyman through interviews that at
least one of the initial recordings for Elizabeth’s theme used a viola and a violoncello is a key
point. This information combined together with the notation provided in the transcribed score as
well as repeated hearings of the material, it is safe to assume that the instrumentation used in the
48
Garry Schyman, ‘Heard About: Shaping BioShock Infinite’s Score’, interview by John Broomhall (Develop, 25 September 2014), http://www.develop-‐online.net/interview/heard-‐about-‐shaping-‐bioshock-‐infinite-‐s-‐
score/0198049. Bali 28
composition are two violins, a violas and two violoncellos. The following is an excerpt of the
transcribed score for Elizabeth’s theme –
Fig 5a: An excerpt from a transcription for the music track Elizabeth originally composed
by Garry Schyman49
Fig 5b: Another excerpt taken from the transcribed sheet music of Elizabeth
49
Max Weidell, ‘Bioshock Infinite -‐ Elizabeth’s Theme Score’, YouTube (YouTube, 29 April 2013), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSUaEUcq1ic Bali 29
Compositionally, the music in the theme starts with a very minimal approach with two
violins playing pizzicato double stops and the violoncello playing alternately between the root
note and the D5 chord. While this constant motion continues, what brings the variation into the
passage is the viola that starts at bar 5. From bars 5-8 the aspects of the composition starts
sounding more minor and dark. This comes into full play with the violin leading the melody.
While there seems to be a pulse-like characteristic to the rhythm of the cellos and the violins at
the beginning of the piece, there is also a parallel that can be drawn between bars 1-10 of
Elizabeth’s theme and the opening passage of Verklärte Nacht, Op.4 composed by Arnold
Schoenberg in the year 1899.
Fig 6: An excerpt taken from Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, Op. 450
50
Arnold Schoenberg, ‘Verklärte Nacht, Op.4’, 1 December 1899, http://javanese.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/2/21/IMSLP64388-‐PMLP09699-‐Schoenberg_-‐_-‐
_Verklarte_Nacht_von_Richard_Dehmel_2_violins_2_violas_2_cellos_manuscript_score.pdf. Bali 30
While the similarities may or may not have been apparent to the composer during the
composition of the theme, it cannot be denied that there are certain aspects of the music in this
particular piece that seem to have influenced the style of composition. Another characteristic that
seems to have been similar between both compositions is the use of violins and the increase in
volume of violoncellos to add more depth to the composition when required, as well as the
similar use of cellos in a pulse-like way. In bars 17-20 of Elizabeth, the increase in the dynamic
level is very pronounced to add a dramatic effect along with the drastic change towards more of
a major scale that comes across as sounding ‘majestic’. Moving forward, the violin becomes
more pronounced playing the melody later in the cue with one violoncello taking up the bass
accompaniment playing arpeggiated notes for the various chords that change every two bars. In a
way, the melodic lines, along with the rhythm section for the entire piece, are shared by the viola
and the violins with an ample amount of accompaniment being provided by the violoncellos in
the bass frequencies. There is a small tempo slowdown in the end with a high pianissimo note
being played by one violin providing a sense of closure, melodically speaking, to the piece.
In addition to the amount of influence Elizabeth’s theme had on the entire music score for
the game, there are also some essentially pivotal points in the story of the game where the music
composed and used followed the same kind of composition techniques as those used in this
theme. Moreover, musical similarity can immediately be pointed out between several
compositions in the score. One of the first compositions that come to mind is Girl in the Tower,
which acts as a small introductory prelude to Elizabeth’s theme while the player first gets
introduced to Elizabeth. The music composed for this composition is on the same scale as
Elizabeth and adds a feeling of continuity, which strengthens the idea that the music score is
connected with Elizabeth in a myriad number of ways.
Bali 31
Another connection that is not so immediately obvious is a musical composition from the
score named The Girl for the Debt that plays in the later stages of the game. With a fairly sparse
amount of instruments playing trills on the tonic, what is immediately captured is the fact that the
main melody consists of alternately playing mainly Bb and A notes, which also happen to be the
same two note that are present in the starting viola line for Elizabeth (see Fig. 5a) This alternate
playing can subsequently be seen as a kind of melodic motif that is present in several subsequent
compositions including Lutece. Further, variations of this motif can also be heard in Doors but in
a darker context. There are also strong similarities between Doors and Welcome to Rapture from
Bioshock. The fact that Doors has been asserted by Garry Schyman as the only composition on
the score that is heavily influenced by the music of Bioshock ties together a lot of different
musical threads within the score.
There are also compositions like Smothered and Back in the Boat that consist of one or a
collection of stringed instruments playing solos in contrast to the similar thematic rhythmic motif
from Elizabeth with violins and violoncellos playing one chord repetitively in the background
(see Fig. 5a). Let Go is another prelude that plays at a key plot point in the game and a different
approach has been followed for this prelude as compared to Girl in the Tower. Let Go plays in a
completely different scale from Doors, which happens to be the next composition in the
sequence of the story. This asserts the fact that the score for Bioshock Infinite is a dense body of
work that is full of both similarities and contrasts, something that is seldom seen in video game
music scores these days.
To conclude this section, Elizabeth plays a central role in establishing the framework of
the musical score for Bioshock Infinite. This is done in many different ways as has been
established earlier in this section of the thesis. The broad style and musical approach to the entire
Bali 32
score was established after Garry Schyman wrote the first draft of Elizabeth and recorded the
composition with a small ensemble of musicians. This unique approach involved writing the
music and recording it with a small ensemble of musicians regularly as opposed to ‘mocking up’
the music and recording in the later stages. Further, the analysis of the music and comparison
with Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4 reveals a possible influence behind the theme.
Another notable point is the connection of Elizabeth’s theme with music playing in various
pivotal points of the game. This connection demonstrates the strong influence of Elizabeth on the
score. Compositions like Girl in the Tower and Let Go provide small introductions to the key
elements of the theme whereas compositions Smothered and Back in the Boat provide similar
rhythm accompaniments mirroring Elizabeth giving background to solos on various stringed
instruments. Other compositions like The Girl for the Debt and Doors create new motifs out of
already existing compositions by using various arranging techniques at the same time connecting
the music with other elements related to the game that range from music in the previous games in
the series to newer characters appearing in the game. The large number of connecting links
between Elizabeth and various other compositions in the game point to the notion that Elizabeth
was instrumental in connecting various pieces of music in the game. This helps in establishing
the notion that one central theme has been used to connect very different musical pieces in the
game. Approaching a music score in this way for a first-person shooter game is highly unusual as
music in this game-genre is known to be very disconnected. Even more rarely is the music
known to be highly connected with only one central musical theme in first-person shooters.
Bali 33
The Luteces: A Radical Departure
A noteworthy aspect of themes in the Bioshock franchise and, more importantly, in
Bioshock Infinite has been the rejection of traditional approaches to themes that overtly suggest
certain roles like the stereotypical ‘bad villain’ and ‘hero’ roles inside the game. On being asked
about why his approach to music for some characters seemed to be ambiguous, Garry Schyman
cited the creative vision of Ken Levine behind the decision to give a sympathetic treatment to
most of the characters in the game51. The theme for the Luteces plays a pivotal role in
establishing the harmonic and musical context of the game and also works as a bridge between
Elizabeth’s theme and a number of different music cues that you hear all through the game. One
of the main reasons that the theme for the Luteces was able to connect these various cues was
because of its ambiguous nature. It constantly oscillates between ‘playful’ and scherzo
expressionisms typical of waltz and other classical forms associated to dances and dark melodic
lines that have gothic influences. The genres that Lutece takes influences from range from tango
and waltz to gothic music. One of the reasons that the theme for the Luteces has been composed
and written in a very different style compared to most other cues in the game, is because the
characters are being portrayed with this theme as having qualities that make them stand out and
not seem like they are a natural part of the game world (The Luteces have been described as
‘weird and quirky’). Portraying an element of comic relief was important for Garry Schyman
while composing music with these particular characters in mind and this seems to be the central
aspect of the Lutece’s theme during most of the game.
While most of the music in the game has been scored simply like a film, The musical
treatment given to the Luteces seems to be different. In a candid interview, Garry Schyman
51
Video Game Sophistry, ‘VGS Radio Interview: Garry Schyman -‐ Composer of Bioshock Infinite “Music and Visuals Makes Magic!”’, YouTube (YouTube, 3 April 2013). Bali 34
stated that while working on music for the game he was simply scoring the music ‘to picture’ or
in other terms to cutscenes/cinematic sequences in the game. However, he expressed being
surprised at the way the music was implemented and used within the game on being asked a
question about music for the Luteces. On further examination of the music files present within
the game, it was found that a larger number of variations of the Lutece theme exist than perhaps
any other theme present within the game. Some of them have been broken down into smaller
fragments of audio.
There also seem to varying ways in which the music played in the game depending on the
level and where the player encounters The Luteces. On a large number of incidents involving
the Luteces in the game, the music has been broken down into smaller passages that can vary
anywhere between seven to fifteen seconds. This echoes a common technique used in video
game music known as ‘branching’52. In branching, music can be divided or broken down into
smaller passages of music. These smaller passages can then be played in a random order or a
sequential order. The sequence in which the small passages of music play can also be varied
depending on the actions of the player or fixed by the game developer. This helps in creating
music that is dynamic and not repetitive at the same time, keeping the player interested in the
game. This approach to the implementation of music in the game combined with the large
number of variations of Lutece help in creating an interesting dynamic musical environment for
the player.
Another important reason behind breaking down Lutece into smaller passages for the
game is memory-related. Michael Sweet in his book states that it is common in video games to
have a limited amount of memory and traditionally, all music was either played on hard-disk or
52
Michael Sweet, ‘Horizontal Resequencing’, in Writing Interactive Music for Video Games: A Composer’s Guide, by Michael Sweet (United States: Addison-‐Wesley Educational Publishers, 2014), 149–50. Bali 35
in RAM (Random Access Memory). Playing music on the hard disk would make the game
bigger in size, however it would play faster. On the other hand playing music using RAM would
make the game smaller in size but the music would take longer to play. This is still a key
constraint in video games even with games typically being about twenty gigabytes in size (20
GB). However, having small passages of the Lutece made it easier for music to be played fast
through the hard disk.
Below we can see excerpts from piano transcriptions of three different passages from
Lutece that play during the beginning, the middle and the end of a cinematic sequence involving
The Luteces. We will subsequently be analyzing the musical characteristics of these passages
along with further examination of the role, context and variation of Lutece and its connection
with various other musical elements in the game
Lutece
By Garry Schyman
q = 120
Piano
j
4
& 4 ##œœ œ ‰ Ó
? 44 ##œœ # œJ ‰ Ó
{
j‰ Ó
#œ ˙ ™
‰
œ
#
œ
J
#œ
#œ
œ#œ ‰ Ó
J
##œœ J ‰ Ó
#œ #˙ ™
‰
J
#œ# œ ‰ Ó
J
Fig. 7a: Transcription of the beginning section of Lutece composed by Garry Schyman as
an arrangement on Piano
Bali 36
Piano
3
& 4 #œ
{
? 43 ##œœ
#œ
œ
œ
œœ
œ
œ
#œ
nœ
œ
œœ
œ
œœ
œ
Fig. 7b: A small excerpt of the middle section of Lutece composed by Garry Schyman
transcribed for Piano
Allegro
Piano
& œ # œ #œ #œ #œ
?
˙™
{
œ
#œ nœ #œ
‰
œ #œ
‰
‰
‰
Œ
‰
Fig 7c: Ending section of Lutece composed by Garry Schyman transcribed for Piano
The style of music being more waltz-oriented, there is usually a small amount of pause
between various passages of music. The small pauses of silence are part of the audio file. These
periods of silence add to the general unpredictable nature of the music. Furthermore, the
programmers have been clever in implementing the music as looped audio files instead of
programming silence between subsequent playback of different passages. In this case, even if
there is a delay between the playback of two different consecutive files one after the other owing
to gameplay or computer performance issues, it becomes a part of unpredictability of the music.
This is a trick, which is again often used in video game composition. Various elements of
Bali 37
randomness are introduced into the music as the position and behavior of the player within the
game may not always be known53.
The instrumentation used for Lutece in Bioshock Infinite is nothing short of unusual. The
use of accordion in addition to the other stringed instruments in all variations of the Lutece
theme is very prominent and plays a crucial role in establishing the function of the Luteces as a
source of comic relief within the story. While there is wit and comedy related to several versions
and arrangements of Lutece within the game, there are also some versions that consist of
melodies moving over chordal progressions that are unstable and dark in nature. This exhibits an
important characteristic of musical treatment within the game world of Bioshock Infinite, which
is an ambiguous musical approach to various characters and melodic motifs related to the game.
The music for The Luteces usually starts with a very sparse chord on an off-beat for two
or four measures which is then followed by a more chordal approach with more notes being
played and the note density increasing to demonstrate increasing dramatic effect. Depending on
the level and the version of the Luteces, the middle passage may be as short as two bars or as
long as up to twelve or sixteen bars. These sequences are then further divided into smaller
sequences that play in an order depending on the game environment. During the middle passage
there may be a change in orchestration or a change in the melodic content of the theme. The
ending of any particular sequence of Lutece usually consists of a really fast arpeggio on the
harmonic minor scale of C# going upwards. However, this may not always be the case. Certain
versions of Lutece end with melodies in the minor scale being played by violins or violas. There
is also a strong melodic connection between the later half of Lutece and another composition in
the score called The Girl for the Debt, which is also melodically connected to Elizabeth. This
53
Michael Sweet, ‘Writing Transitions and Stingers’, in Writing Interactive Music for Video Games: A Composer’s Guide, by Michael Sweet (United States: Addison-‐Wesley Educational Publishers, 2014), 165–74. Bali 38
reinforces the idea that Lutece is part of a larger musical framework that works within the game
and is indirectly connected to a number of other compositions within the score.
‘Yeah, they really are from another world, they don’t quite fit and belong in this world,
and they’re sort of talking above everything, above everyone. As if they’re talking among
themselves and you’re trying to understand why they’re above it all. They’re almost like
the comic relief in the game’ – Garry Schyman (about Lutece)
In a nutshell, the music score relating to The Luteces was composed keeping in mind that
the Luteces were supposed to be ‘oddballs’ and the only way to make that more apparent was to
composer something unusual for the Luteces. The music was influenced by waltz and composed
in an odd time signature. To be able to make the music more ‘strange’ and implementable in the
cinematic sequences as well as in the game, certain game audio production techniques like
‘branching’ were used to break apart the entire structure of the song and use the smaller passages
of the music to bring forth the dynamic nature of the music. This usage of smaller musical
passages was also beneficial from the perspective of memory needs of the game. There were a
large number of variations and arrangements of Lutece that are used in different sections. Most
of these variations consisted of a two to four bar long introduction followed by a longer middle
section, which was then followed by a short ending. The presence of small amounts of silence in
the audio recordings between passages were used for the benefit of the game and the usage of
this silence worked towards adding a level of unpredictability into the music. In addition the use
of accordion only for themes related to the Luteces proved to be an effective way to make the
music for the Luteces different at the same time establishing elements of comic relief. However,
Bali 39
the music occasionally shifted to darker moods as demonstrated in compositions like The Girl for
the Debt and several other variations of Lutece. Other points worth noting are Elizabeth is
indirectly melodically influenced by variations of Lutece and more importantly, the fact that an
unusual theme was constructed around not a main character in the game, but rather supporting
ones. Moreover, the style of composition used is drastically different from that used for all other
tracks in the game. This points towards the strong inclination of Garry Schyman and Irrational
Games to try and break the conventional good-hero-bad-villain syndrome that plagues most
shooter video games these days. This makes it apparent that the musical treatment given to the
Luteces was nothing short of non-conventional and ‘genre-defying’.
Songbird’s Fury: Combat in the Sky
The Songbird
The Songbird is one of the major characters present in the story of the game and there are
key elements related to the music and sound design surrounding this particular character that
helped initiate a ‘musical blueprint’ that has been further replicated and expanded for the various
combat systems in the game.
The first appearance of Songbird happens in a fairly early stage of the game where the
player is supposed to escape from a tower with the Songbird closely trying to pursue the
protagonist in the game. Being a very high-tension moment full of jumps and scares, it was
perhaps only evident that the music would take elements characteristic of suspense and classic
horror to create a sense of fleeting fear in the air.
The first set of sequences of the Songbird theme in the game differs to a certain extent
from the version of the theme that can be heard on the soundtrack. The first sequence starts with
Bali 40
a fairly simple percussion track consisting of two elements – one a bass drum, and the other a
metallic percussive sound which are together played as a central leitmotif that constitutes the
entire cue. With the rhythm being reminiscent of someone knocking on a door, it is perhaps no
coincidence that this sequence is played when the Songbird tears up a part of a wall to try and
capture the protagonist.
Bass Drum
q = 144
4 œ œ ‰ œj ˙
/ 4
∑
j j
œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ
Fig. 8a: The ‘knocking’ bass drum motif associated with the Songbird
As the player moves further through the level, the music quickly intensifies and more
elements are added to the simple percussion in the beginning. The second level of the music adds
an ensemble of string players into the percussion. The sounds produced and the techniques used
to produce these sounds with string players are somewhat unconventional and highly varying.
Some strings are constantly playing up and down glissandos while others are playing clusters at
very high pitches. There are also other string players playing somewhat more conventional notes,
but without any regard to the percussion. Notating or transcribing the music or parts being played
by the string players is outside the scope of this thesis. The dissonant landscape provided by the
rhythmic drums in contrast with the out of rhythm dissonant strings provide an ominous
background to the player who must make fast decisions.
Bali 41
q = 144
Percussion 2
° / 44
4
Œ
/4œ œ
Percussion 1
Bass Drum
∑
∑
Ó
j j
4
¢/ 4 œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ
∑
∑
œ œ Œ
∑
j j
œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ
5
Perc. 2
Perc. 1
B. D.
°/
∑
∑
Ó
∑
∑
≈ œœ ≈ Œ
∑
œœ ≈≈ ‰ œœ
j j
/ œœ‰ œ œ ‰ Œ
∑
j j
œœ‰ œ œ ‰ Œ
∑
j j
œ œ ‰œœ ‰ Œ
j j
¢/ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ
∑
j j
œœ‰ œ œ ‰ œœ
∑
j j
œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œœ
10
Perc. 2
∑
∑
°/ Ó
≈ œ œ ≈ ‰ ≈ ≈ ≈ œ œ ≈ Œ
œ œ ≈ ≈ ‰ œ œ
Perc. 1
/
∑
œ
œ
‰ œj œj
‰
Œ
B. D.
¢/
∑
œ
œ
‰ œj œj
‰
œ œ
12
Perc. 2
°/ Ó
≈œœ≈‰ ≈≈
∑
∑
∑
∑
Perc. 1
/
∑
∑
∑
∑
∑
B. D.
¢/
∑
∑
∑
∑
∑
Fig. 8b: The gradual progression of percussion sounds in the Songbird Theme can be
seen here as elements of poly rhythm start coming into play with the entry of Percussion
2
With the third layer, the intensity of the percussion increases and more percussion is
added to provide a sense of panic and hysteria. With the fourth and final chunk of the music,
instead of adding more layers, the music moves in a different direction, with a musical change in
the percussion and the strings. Music becomes more rhythmic, and using less melody. The
emphasis is placed on the rhythm and the somewhat dissonant chord being played by the strings.
Bali 42
q = 144
(play unevenly)
Percussion 2
Percussion 1
Bass Drum
Violin I
3
° / 44 œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
4
/4 œ
œ
œ
œ
œ
œ
œ
œ
4
¢/ 4 œ
œ
œ
œ
œ
œ
œ
œ
4 >œ.
& 4 #œœ
Œ
Ó
>
#œœœ.
Œ
Ó
(play unevenly)
œœœœœœœœœœœœœœœœ œœœœœœœœœœœœœœœœ
Perc. 2
°/
Perc. 1
/
œ
œ
œ
œ
œ
œ
œ
œ
B. D.
¢/
œ
œ
œ
œ
œ
œ
œ
œ
>œ.
& #œœ
Œ
Ó
>
#œœœ.
Œ
Ó
Vln. I
Fig. 8c: The final stage of the Songbird theme signifies a more frantic situation with
Percussion 2 playing twice as fast as compared to the first two passages whereas
Percussion 1 and Bass Drum play at half the tempo
There can be parallels drawn between the chords played in this section and the classic
string stab sounds that could be heard in the Bernard Hermann-scored film Psycho. It is also of
note to know that Garry Schyman has stated being artistically influenced by Bernard Hermann
on a number of different occasions. The dissonance present in Songbird can be attributed Garry
Schyman taking inspiration from a number of previous cues in his previous work from the work
of Bernard Hermmann.
Bali 43
Fig. 9: Opening sequence of chords from the film Psycho54
While music relating to the Songbird is mostly present during cinematic sequences in
which Songbird makes an appearance. In terms of the entire duration of the game, the amounts of
cinematic sequences with the Songbird are comparatively low as compared to other elements and
characters present in the game. This is one of the major reasons that music for the Songbird is
mostly played in the game in the form of one or two audio files at a time. The playback for music
relating to the Songbird is mostly linear. This is in exception to when Songbird plays in the
middle of combat in certain cases. In such cases, the music has been implemented differently
inside the game. During combat, there is shifting between different combat states which requires
instant shift between high-intensity of the music and the low intensity. Songbird was composed
and recorded slightly differently for the combat cues. This brings forth an important point
relating to writing and composing music for videogames. Sometimes the same piece of music
has to be recorded in several different versions so that it is possible for the music to be used in
different parts of the game.
In addition to the above-mentioned musical elements, there are some small characteristic
melodic motifs that are associated with the Songbird in the game. These consist of the ‘Songbird
Call’ and another small melodic motif that can be played in certain stages of the game where the
54
Ross Fenimore, ‘Voices That Lie WIthin’, in Music in the Horror Film: Listening to Fear, ed. Neil Lerner (New York: Routledge, 2009), 85–86. Bali 44
protagonist is supposed to stop the Songbird from attacking. The notes C-A-G-E can be heard
playing in the latter sequence. The ‘Songbird Call’ however is slightly more complex and plays
with a more ‘swingy’ rhythm in a sound that is reminiscent of old steam engines.
Unevenly, in a swinging fashion q = 130
Whistling
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
&
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
&
3
Whist.
œ
œ œ œ œ œ
œ œ
œ œ œ œ œ
œ œ
œ
∑
Fig. 10 Transcription of the ‘Songbird Call’ that plays in various stages of the game before the arrival of the Songbird Another important aspect of music for the Songbird is the fact that it has also been broken
down into smaller passages and implemented in a number of cinematic sequences concerning the
Songbird as well as (more importantly) one of several possible music sequences that play when
the player is engaged in combat. The latter approach also consists of the use of a video game
music technique popularly known as ‘branching’. The aesthetic and approach to the same theme
has been slightly different in both cases with the focus being more on music being more
‘loopable’ in combat sequences and in contrast, music being more dramatic and non-repetitive in
cinematic sequences. The fact that the music concerning the Songbird is put forth as a combat
cue also points to the notion that The Songbird in essence is a character associated with conflict
throughout the game. This characteristic of the Songbird acts as a perfect interlude to the more
Bali 45
combat-heavy part of the game, which is mostly the latter half. However, music in combat
functions as a separate entity regardless of the Songbird’s appearance.
To emphasize on the main points of this section, the first appearance of the Songbird in
the game occurs at a high-intensity scene in the game which asked for a musical treatment that
was very much in vain with suspense and horror music. The general feeling of the music
associated with the Songbird is that of escalation as demonstrated by transcribed examples,
Music moves from a very minimal bass drum pattern to a much more complex rhythm which is
driven and high-intensity in nature. It also incorporates elements of polyrhythms within various
percussive instruments, which is then followed by Bernard Hermann-esque cluster stabs on the
strings. Music implementation for the game is mostly linear playback of audio files during the
cinematic sequences except for when Songbird plays in combat, in which case the music has
been adapted to be more ‘loopable’. We can conclude by saying that Songbird embraces the idea
of combat, by incorporating a large amount of percussion that is very characteristic of combat in
the game, at the same time maintaining the it’s own originality and uniqueness in terms of how
the music is arranged and orchestrated. Seldom is music in video games thought out this well,
with music tying in to the main themes of the game yet managing to maintain its own narrative.
This constitutes an important aesthetic behind the music of the game where highly
unconventional methods of music composition and tying various narrative plotlines form the
backbone of the development process.
It’s Combat Time!
Bioshock Infinite is primarily a first-person shooter game. Therefore, in-game combat
makes up a large fraction of the game with the protagonist having to deal with enemies from all
Bali 46
sides and in varied situations. Being a strongly combat-driven game it was essential to reflect
drive and intensity in the music that plays during combat.
The emphasis placed on dynamic music in combat for Bioshock Infinite is perhaps one of
the biggest differences in approach between Bioshock Infinite and the older Bioshock games.
There are approximately between six to eight music cues that were composed specifically for
combat in the game. While six of these can be found in the soundtrack release of Bioshock
Infinite, namely Battle for Columbia I-V and Songbird. There are two other combat cues that are
not present on the soundtrack release. There is no evidence to prove that these two cues are not
actually different takes or parts from the other combat cues.
During the earlier stages of development of the combat music within the game, the
composer decided to score the music for the combat using a more conventional orchestral
approach as a large amount of intensity was required and orchestral music is traditionally much
closer to high intensity music. However, as the combat music further developed, the orchestral
approach was completely discarded and a strong emphasis was placed on ‘the limitations being
the strength’55 and writing music that rejected the conventional and was more unique in nature.
What resulted was a palette of dissonant and random sounds using stringed instruments, which
were ‘driving’ in nature, supported by a backdrop of metallic percussion that was much smaller
in scope as compared to orchestral percussion.
Another point worth noting is that the stringed instruments were recorded prior to the
recording of the percussion. An important aspect that was critical to the evolution of the combat
music was that it was very noticeable when the music playing during combat did not reflect what
was going on inside the game. There was a strong effort to let the player know when something
55
Game Trailers, ‘Composing BioShock Infinite | BackTrack Full Episodes’, Gametrailers.com (GameTrailers, 15 March 2014), http://www.gametrailers.com/full-‐episodes/i7tvjh/backtrack-‐composing-‐bioshock-‐infinite. Bali 47
big had happened on screen, not just visually but through the clever use of sounds and audio cues
in the music. At this point the technical aspect of music and the use of audio systems started
coming into play. The music director Jim Bonney and the technical sound designers involved in
the game had to collaborate on the combat music implementation as there was a strong need for
the music in the combat to be dynamic and responsive to the actions of the player. Furthermore,
since the music for the combat in the game needed to have its own implementation strategy
within the game, Garry Schyman ended up taking a more modular approach to his music to
better match the gameplay mechanic of the game. This involved breaking down all of the combat
cues into smaller chunks of music, with as many as three different versions of one same cue –
two that are low intensity and are meant to sound when the player backs away from the combat
and one that is high-intensity sounding when the player is actively involved in combat. Taking
the interactivity of combat one step further, there are signature audio cues that play during active
combat when the player scores a ‘kill’ or a ‘headshot’ which further works towards enhancing
the gameplay and storyline.
The percussion used in recording the combat music was, to say the least, unconventional
and atypical for a film or video game score. While Garry Schyman and Jim Bonney played most
of the percussion found in the combat music, a percussion session player also provided
percussion sounds in a recording session where unconventional instruments were used to provide
unique percussive sounds; for example, an old violin being tapped with spoons. The instruments
used for the percussion were small metal and hand-held instruments, a well as a small drum
owned by Jim Bonney among several other unconventional instruments. A unique characteristic
of the percussion found in the combat music is that the playing was not ‘quantized’ or artificially
edited to come on the right time so as to align to the time-based grid of the music. Garry
Bali 48
Schyman states the unquantized percussion playing as sounding similar to ‘warriors going into
battle and playing on drums’. A consequence of such a style of percussion playing was that the
percussion very rarely seems to be in sync with the music.
A number of different recording and production techniques were applied to the music for
this particular track in a way that is similar to Lighter than Air as a part of the music
development process. One of these techniques involved doubling the takes of the music
recorded. However, it soon became clear that the intense nature of the music would get diluted
when takes were doubled due to this; the idea of doubling takes was eventually discarded56.
Because of the intense nature of combat, Garry Schyman was required to create music that was
rhythmic and very strong in nature. The rhythmic nature of the music can be further highlighted
by having a look at the transcription for Battle for Columbia I shown below.
56
Garry Schyman, Interview: Garry Schyman -‐ Bioshock Infinite, interview by Tracksounds and Masalar, YouTube (YouTube, 9 May 2013), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sXZj-‐Aw47o. Bali 49
Battle for Columbia I
Composed by Garry Schyman
4
& 4 #œ
œ
Horn in F
Shakers
° / 44 œ
& #œœ
Shk.
°/ œ
Timp.
/ œ
Sm. II
œ œ œ
Œ
œ
4
¢/ 4 œ
3
Sm. I
j
œœ ≈ œœ
œ
Arranged by Antriksh Bali
≈
œ œ
Ó
4
œ
œ™
œ
/4œœ œœ
œœ œŒ
Small Perc. I
Hn.
œ
4
/4œ
Timpani
Small Perc II
Œ
/ œœ
¢/ œ
œ œ œ™
j
œœ
Œ
œ
œ œ œ
Œ
œ
œœ
œ
≈œ
œ
œ
œœ
œ œ œ™ œ
œ
œ
œ
œœ
œ
œ
‰
œ™
œ
œ
œ
œ
œ œ œ œ œ œ
Ó
œœ
œ
œ
œ™
Ó
œ
œ
œ
œ
∑
œ
œ
‰
œ™
œœ
œ
œ™
œ œ œ™
≈
Ó
œ™
œ
œœ
œ
œ
∑
œ
œ
œ œ œ œ œ œ
Ó
œœ
œ™ Ó
œ œ œ™ œ œ œ œ
œ
Fig.11: A short arrangement of Battle for Columbia I composed by Garry Schyman
transcribed for percussion instruments
Typically, a combat cue in the game has a fixed structure in terms of the music playing,
however looking at the environment inside a game. It is not always economical to have one
passage of music playing throughout the duration of combat. Video games are not always exact
or linear in the way music for film or television is supposed to be. Extra care has to be put in
music composition for games to make music reusable and at the same time, structured in a way
Bali 50
that the music does not come across as repetitive or extremely boring57. Combat music in
Bioshock Infinite follows this formula. Combat music uses the technique of ‘branching’ in a
slightly different way than most other sections in the game. Mostly during the combat, music has
been divided and broken down into smaller passages that crossfade or play in a certain sequence
depending on the status and position of the player in the game. To put forth broadly, In total
there are about eight combat music tracks. These tracks are each divided into three sections –
Two sections are played during ‘passive combat’ or a state of combat in which the player is not
particularly engaged with enemies or opposition in the game. The music might shuffle between
these two sections depending on a myriad of factors. These can be the proximity to or distance
from enemies, on whether the player is attacking someone or crouching. The third section is one
with a high amount of intensity and typically consists of a large number of extended effects
being played on stringed instruments complemented by high intensity of percussion playing.
Sometimes, the different sections consist of the same instruments playing the same music but
with additional elements like percussion or ‘stingers’. These stingers are also played when the
player finishes combat. Depending on what stage of completion the audio file is at the moment
when combat is finished, the game chooses between one of several possible audio files
depending on which one fits the musical passage the best at that time. In a way, this can be called
a ‘intelligent decision-making musical combat engine’ within the game which choses between a
large set of musical sequences playing the right one for a particular situation. This kind of an
‘intelligent music engine’ is something that has been explained about in detail in Michael
Sweet’s book58.
57
The Language of Music Storytelling in Games’, in Writing Interactive Music for Video Games: A Composer’s Guide, by Michael Sweet (United States: Addison-‐Wesley Educational Publishers, 2014), 15–21. 58
‘Using Middleware to Create Advanced Compositions’, in Writing Interactive Music for Video Games: A Composer’s Guide, by Michael Sweet (United States: Addison-‐Wesley Educational Publishers, 2014), 252–54. Bali 51
However, care has been taken throughout the game to not over-depend on
implementation and interactivity of the music. Garry Schyman stated in an interview that it is
important for music in a game to be the right balance of interactivity and musicality. If the score
is too interactive, the player might some time end up playing the music rather than focus on the
game. On the other hand, making music completely non-interactive makes the music seem more
‘ornamental’ inside the game as opposed to complementing the player’s actions. This brings
forth an interesting idea that was stated by Garry Schyman in another interview – The best music
in video games is one where the player does not even realize it’s there59. This point is important
especially in an interactive media field like video games where the amount of interest a game is
able to sustain from the player directly determines it success.
In addition to the musical sequences mentioned above, there are also two sets of ten to
twelve musical sequences that play during in-game combat when the player is very low on health
and when the player dies in the game respectively. The audio production technique used for
sound when the player dies in the game is noteworthy. The audio files that play during death of
the player consist of a giant percussive hit with a large amount of artificial reverb along with a
cluster of violins playing a short rhythmic ending which is a few seconds in duration. The
uniqueness of this ending musical passage becomes more obvious once you compare the music
file present within the game application with what plays during the game. The audio file in the
game files consists of a really long reverb tail that continues long after string cluster is played.
By observation and hearing deduction, it becomes apparent that this file is made to quickly
through a low-pass filter in the space of a few hundred or a thousand milliseconds within the
game when the player dies. This is a unique example of realtime-audio processing within
59
Elder-‐Geek.com, ‘Interview with Garry Schyman (Bioshock Series Composer) -‐ Loudr Game Music Festival Series’, YouTube (YouTube, 1 December 2013), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHsMUvP9uyc. Bali 52
Bioshock Infinite, something that was largely known to not be possible until recent times. The
musical sequences that play when the player is low on health consist of rhythmically similar
passages to the various combat cues but with percussion tracks reversed. This approach to the
combat music in the game can also be heard in a particular level in the game where the player is
inside an asylum and adds to the dramatic effect when the player is engaged in combat.
Musically, the presence of combat music that is looped presented a huge challenge to
Garry Schyman as none of the previous Bioshock games were known to have music particularly
composed for combat sequences. Garry Schyman had to compose up to three to four different
versions of the same music compositions with slightly different arrangements and
instrumentation. This is known to be a highly unorthodox method of composition to apply to
making music for a game. Being a primarily shooter game having a large amount of combat all
through the game, the challenge to keep combat music interesting and non-repetitive was a
difficult and one that is seldom encountered in first person shooter games these days with looped
music or music composed in a cinematic linear fashion being the norm.
In essence, the music that accompanies the combat in Bioshock Infinite signifies a notable
achievement musically and implementation-wise within the framework of interactive media art.
To summarise, the combat music for the game consists of close to eight different music
compositions that have each been broken down into three different levels of intensity to
accompany varying levels of combat. This collection of musical sequences also consists of a
large number of musical stingers and one-shot hits that play in reaction to the player’s actions in
the game. This was seen as a necessity by Jim Bonney (the audio director) to depict action in the
game. The style of the combat music was supposed to be rhythmic and driven initially, but later
ended up evolving into music which was very lose in rhythm but at the same time, retaining the
Bali 53
driving characteristic of the music. To compose the combat music, an aesthetic of ‘limitations are
the strength’ was used to provide unconventional music using unique instruments like small
percussion along with extended techniques on the strings. The strings for the music were
recorded before the percussion that was later added by Jim Bonney, Garry Schyman and a
sessions percussion player using unconventional playing techniques. Game audio production
techniques like ‘branching’ and ‘looping’ were used throughout the music to give the illusion of
music being unpredictable and to an extent, dependent on run-time actions in the game. The use
of these techniques in combination with a large number of versions of combat music was used to
synthesize something like a ‘intelligent decision-making combat music engine’. However, care
was taken to balance the amount of interactivity and linearity within the combat music along
with some interesting audio production techniques to provide a fresh combat experience every
time the player engages in combat. The ability to fragment or break down music to fit inside a
game and record several different versions of the music is an unconventional way to approach
musical scoring for any form of media and Garry Schyman has managed to pull it off putting
forth a solid example of how unconventional music composition and production can be used to
make something as mechanical and repetitive as combat, interesting again.
Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Vocal Music in Bioshock Infinite
Will the Circle Be Unbroken? is a Christian gospel song, which was originally composed
by Charles H. Gabriel, written by Ada R. Haberson and published in 191060. It is featured in
many prominent sections of Bioshock Infinite including the first level and before the ending of
60
Charles H. Gabriel, ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken?’, 1910, https://archive.org/stream/alexandersgospel00alex#page/n32/mode/1up. Bali 54
the game. It also provides a thematic context to the story of the game in terms of helping the
player understand the various complex plots involved in the game.
The original idea of adding several renditions of the track first came to Ken Levine while
the game was being developed. He reportedly had a difficult time picking which version of the
song had to be present in some of the first trailers of the game, as the idea was inspired from the
original version of the song that did not contain the word ‘Lord’. The more widely known Carter
Family version of the song includes it. He finally chose on the simplest version of those
available61. There are namely three different renditions of the song within the game along with a
few times Elizabeth sings or hums the tune in certain cinematic sequences.
Ken Levine, understanding the importance of music in the game, devised an idea where it
would be possible for Elizabeth and Booker, the two main protagonists in the game, to be able to
perform a small excerpt of the song within the game. Taking this idea forward, Ken suggested
the idea to Courtnee Draper (the voice actress for Elizabeth in the game) who then decided to
record a Broadway-style rendition of the song and sent it back to Ken for approval. However, the
version that was implemented in the game was drastically different and the arrangement was
simpler and much sparser. The instrumentation for this particular version was only an acoustic
guitar and vocals.
61
Ken Levine, ‘Q&A: Ken Levine’s Brave New World of BioShock Infinite’, interview by Wired (Wired, 26 April 2012), http://www.wired.com/2012/04/ken-‐levine-‐interview/ Bali 55
Lento q = 60
C
4
4w
w
w
7
A. Gtr.
& j œœ ™™
œ
10
A. Gtr.
œœ œœ œœ
œœ
F/A
w
w
w
w
w
j œœ ™™ œœ œœ œœ
w
œ
œ
œ
œ
œ
œ
œ
œœœ
œ œ œ
œ
œ
˙
œœœ
C
∏
& œ
4
4
˙˙
C
∏
w
w
w
w
w
∏
∏
4
&4
∏
Acoustic Guitar
G
w
w
w
w
œœ
˙
œ œ
∑
Figure 12a: Transcription of Guitar for the Guitar & Vocal version of Will the Circle Be
Unbroken? The above figure is a transcription of the guitar part that plays in the guitar and vocal
version of Will The Circle Be Unbroken? during a level in the game. Courtnee Draper performed
the vocals in this particular version and the guitar was played by Troy Baker62 (the voice-actor
for Booker Dewitt in the game). This was a simplification of the original version, which can be
seen below in an excerpt taken from the published score in 1910. The reduced version depicted
above has taken liberties and added more of an improvisational quality to the accompaniment for
the vocals with the chords moving between C major, G major and A minor. The harmonic
structure of the composition is more open and strongly complements the improvised fashion in
which the vocals have been sung for this particular version.
62
IrrationalGames’s channel, ‘“Will the Circle Be Unbroken” Duet’, YouTube (YouTube, 6 March 2013), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3lp4LkEPDM. Bali 56
Voice
4
&4
Freely
œ œ œ ˙
œ œ œ ˙
5
Voice
&
œ œ œ ˙
œ œ ˙
œ
œ œ ˙
Ó
œ œ œ
Œ
œ œ ˙
œ œ œ
Ó
Figure 12b: A transcription of the voice track got the Guitar & vocal version of Will the
Circle Be Unbroken?
The notes for voice imply more of an open major harmony as opposed to having a minor
tone. The guitar, which provides accompaniment, adds a touch of a minor-major duality in the
piece, which contributes to making the piece more lively and adding to the emotional effect.
Another point worth noting is that while the vocal melody spans a length of approximately eight
bars, the accompaniment on the other hand spans a longer number of bars i.e. twelve. This brings
forward an important characteristic that is typical of video game music – syncopation. On
looking through the video game program files, it was deducted that the music for this track was
divided into two different audio files – one containing only guitars and the other containing only
vocals. Both of these files play at the same time despite not being of the same length. This
creates an interesting musical behavior where the music lines up perfectly every twenty-four bars
instead of eight or twelve bars. This makes the music more dynamic at the same time also
making it less prone to repetition. This musical technique is used in a number of different video
games and is known as non-sequential looping or horizontal resequencing63.
63
‘Horizontal Resequencing’, in Writing Interactive Music for Video Games: A Composer’s Guide, by Michael Sweet (United States: Addison-‐Wesley Educational Publishers, 2014), 143–54. Bali 57
Other versions of the song that can be found in the game have not moved in drastically
different directions in terms of composition and have mostly remained true to the original main
melody of the song. Marc Lacuesta arranged these versions of the song in collaboration with
Maureen Murphy (solo vocalist) and Jim Bonney expressed satisfaction with the way the
arrangement was approached. The vocal aspect of the music seems to be the important factor in
these compositions. One of the main reasons behind this creative decision of having a choral
version might have been the influence of religion on music during this particular time period64,
which at the same time had become a core theme throughout the game. Music during and before
the 1900’s was only starting to move out of the common forms of religious hymns and sermons
and move towards the genres of jazz, swing and ragtime among others.
Inside the game there were a variety of different methods used to implement the choral
version of the song. While the guitar version was simply played as a cinematic theme, the choral
version was implemented differently. Looping techniques were used in certain sections of the
song, which were subsequently broken into three different parts that sound in different areas and
stages in the game. This kind of usage of music can once again be attributed to ‘looping’ and
‘branching’.
To sum up, the use of vocal music inside Bioshock Infinite has been sparingly used but it
proves to be very effective in the places where it has been used. While vocal music being used in
video games is in no way unconventional or unique, It is definitely worth mentioning that a large
chunk of the storyline in the game as well as various key stages uses this piece of music to give
some hints to the player. The idea to make this song a key musical track in the game was initially
Ken Levine’s and eventually as many as three different versions of ‘Will the Circle Be
64
Travis Reginald Joseph Doucette, ‘The Historical Development of the Modern Worship Song Over The Past 100 Years’, 2008, http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1081&context=honors. Bali 58
Unbroken?’ can be found all through the game. These different versions are all played using
various video game music implementation techniques like branching and looping. While the
guitar version of the song is played during a cinematic sequence in the game, the Choral version
of the song is used in one of the first levels in the game, which involves walking inside a church.
These two versions differ drastically with the choral version staying faithful to the original
arrangement while the guitar version aims to add a more improvisational tone with the use of
guitars and solo vocals by voice actress Courtnee Draper. It is however worth mentioning that
even though Garry Schyman had very little role to play in the presence of this music piece
throughout the game, he did have knowledge of it. This brings forth an important point that
related to music in video games. A large number of video games will sometimes prefer to license
tracks or use old songs or arrangements as opposed to ask the composer to write some music for
a certain scene. Clearly, in the world of Bioshock Infinite which is incidentally also part of the
Bioshock game franchise, it was essential that vocal music be used as it would be important in
connecting the music in the game with various samples of period music that are present all
through the game, something which we will learn more about in the next chapter.
Bali 59
Significance of Period Music The Bioshock franchise has been known to effectively use a large amount of period music
in all its games. A large amount of research went into incorporating old songs from the early
1900’s into the game. An important aspect of these in-game songs was the fact that they were
used as source music in the sense that they were not a part of the score but appeared as hidden
tracks playing through the game. Sometimes they appeared in connection with nearby objects
like radios, transistors, phonographs or other in-game objects. Some of the melodies used in
these in-game songs belonged to ragtime artists like Scott Joplin or the musical genre of ragtime,
a genre that rose to prominence during the early 1900’s. The first event widely viewed as critical
to the rise of ragtime was the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair65, a key inspiration for the world of
Bioshock Infinite as well. A common musical characteristic of ragtime is throwing the accent on
offbeat notes and its extended use of piano, something that is a key influence behind most of the
source music found in the game.
Figure 13: A short excerpt from Charles Ives’ Memos (p. 56), which demonstrates the
‘swingy’ feel of ragtime66
65
Rebecca Erin Smith, ‘Exploring the Multi-‐Generational Influence of American Ragtime Music through the Works of Charles Ives, William Walton and William Bolcom.’, 2012. 66
Ibid. Bali 60
A key aspect of several of the source songs in the world of Bioshock Infinite is the fact
that there was no strict rule for songs to be from the early 1900’s. Jim Bonney, the music director
for the game, has stated that the reason behind this decision was to maintain the ability of various
tracks to be able to stand on their own as opposed to standing on the success of the original song.
There was a conscious decision to make the songs not sound like ‘cheap rip-offs’ but rather
making sure the setting, location and mood they were sung in related to the narrative storyline.
For example – Credence Clearwater Revival’s Fortunate Son was chosen to be sung acapella by
an African-American woman in the game world’s slums as opposed to how the original was
sung67.
Another song that was hard to emulate for the game developers as source music was God
Only Knows, a song performed by a barbershop quartet standing on top of a flying airship in the
game. Having been evolving for more than a hundred years68, the genre of barbershop harmony
was a challenge. The game developers had to hire Clay Hine to do an arrangement of the song
that could be localized to the time period of the early 1900’s69. Another major issue was the
creative problem that was faced in regards to the expression of this particular song – on whether
it had to be cheerful and exciting or more morose. There were also a large number of audio
effects added to the various recordings of the source material. This included adding in recordings
of gramophones and phonographs to increase the noise floor along with a large number of
modern audio plugins to give a tarnished sound to these recordings so they would have the
67
Chelsea Stark, ‘You’ll Notice Some Eerily Familiar Music in “BioShock Infinite”’, Mashable (Mashable, 31 July 2013), http://mashable.com/2013/07/31/bioshock-‐infinite-‐music/. 68
Lynn Abbott, ‘“Play That Barber Shop Chord”: A Case for the African-‐American Origin of Barbershop Harmony’, American Music 10, no. 3 (1992): 1–6, doi:10.2307/3051597. 69
Game Trailers, ‘Composing BioShock Infinite | BackTrack Full Episodes’, Gametrailers.com (GameTrailers, 15 March 2014), http://www.gametrailers.com/full-‐episodes/i7tvjh/backtrack-‐composing-‐bioshock-‐infinite. Bali 61
characteristic of an ‘antique’ sound. While source music does play a role in the overall musical
ecosystem of the game, an in-depth analysis of its role and it’s backdrop is not considered in this
thesis.
To bring together an overview, we can say that Period music plays an integral role in
adding more time-period based to context to the sound in the game. While Period music is not an
essential part of the musical score in the game, the large amount of music tracks used in
Bioshock Infinite deserve a notable mention. Most of the music playing in the game, which is
period music, can be found in nearby objects like transistors, radios, transmission devices and
public announcement systems. The sound of the music in these devices was artificially degraded
using audio plugins and using a variety of antiquated equipment to add a layer of authenticity to
these period songs. This adds an interesting dimension to the gameplay. A large number of tracks
in the game are in the swing-like style of ragtime that was first popularized by artists like Charles
Ives and Scott Joplin. In addition there was a constant effort from part of the developers to not
simply rip-off songs of the period but to try and experiment with arrangements, styles and
different approaches to well known as well as lesser-known songs of the time period. This
approach exemplifies the creative vision for most of the music in the game, which strives to be
unique and not mindlessly ape existing clichés and established stereotypes. Instead, there has
been a movement to make all the music brings forth an interesting new vision, which does not
necessarily coincide with ones provided in games before. This in essence is what makes the
musical language of Bioshock Infinite unique.
Bali 62
Sound Design Creative Direction and Overview
Garry Schyman stated in an interview that “music is imperfect at saying things but you
have to go by your intuition and think what it sounds like being in the air and being in the water”
which is something that the sound design the game clearly agrees with. Regarding the creative
direction of not just the music but all the sounds in the game as a whole, Jim Bonney stated that
it was sometimes easier to make the noise and then talk about it rather than trying to talk
expressively and effectively about music or sound and move from there onwards. Sound Design
was an important part of the game, not just in the sense that it provided more background and
depth to the score, but also because it gave credence to the idea that, in areas where the score was
sparse and music was not overt, it provided more immersion to the player in terms of
environment and what was happening in the world of the game.
There were more than twelve people working on the sound design for Bioshock Infinite
by the end of the production stages70. Some of their tasks were related to bringing together the
sound, music and voiceover in the game. Some of the plugins used during the production stages
of sound design were products by Waves, D16 Group, Waves and u-he. For the reverb and
impulse response aspects of the sound design, plugins like Altiverb and Speakerphone were used.
Inspiration for the sound design was taken from various art, film, literature and music sources
that were popular during the early years of the 20th century. Various antiquated machinery and
tools were acquired from that period to try and grasp the nature of sound during that time71.
70
Jeff Seamster, Interview with Irrational Games’ Senior Sound Designer, Jeff Seamster, interview by Sam Hughes and The Sound Architect, 19 January 2014, http://www.thesoundarchitect.co.uk/interviews/jeffseamster/ 71
Patrick Doolin, ‘Road To Two5Six: Patrick Balthrop’, Kill Screen Daily, 12 May 2014, http://killscreendaily.com/articles/road-‐two5six-‐patrick-‐balthrop/. Bali 63
While above elements influenced the sound design in the game, a larger part of the inspiration
for the sound design came from the concept art for the game and the fictional city of Columbia.
A notable constraint that was faced during the sound design process was the fact that the
time period and setting of the game had to be taken into account and none of the sounds could
feel too modern. There was also the unique challenge of trying to simulate how things would
sound up in the air as Columbia was a flying city and it was an important factor contributing to
suspension of disbelief72. Some of the sounds in the user interface and experience of Bioshock
Infinite were strongly influenced by the sound of the previous Bioshock games as an ‘occasional
nod’. Other than that, most of the sound design in the game was built purely from scratch.
The Boys of Silence
The sound for ‘The Boys of Silence’, a formidable opponent in the game that appears
near an asylum, had a fairly long process behind it. While working on early Songbird prototype
sounds for the game, heavy metal singer Mallika Sundaramurthy was brought in to the recording
studio to scream as part of the sound design process. However, the sound was later used for this
particular villain, albeit with a lot for effects to the point where it became almost unrecognizable.
Several other excerpts of the source material recorded with Mallika were later implemented in
various different parts of the game. A large number of sound effects in the game were taken from
human sounds and later morphed with more synthetic textures and sounds.
72
Winifred Phillips, A Composer’s Guide to Game Music (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014), 34 – 35. Bali 64
The Songbird
When work started on sounds for the Songbird, the first assumption made was that the
Songbird did not have its own voice at all. What came out of that assumption was the idea that
the player should hear the Songbird’s effect on the environment and it’s movement. Once the
movements were mapped, came the creation of sounds for the breathing of the songbird73.
Starting with the sounds of movements of the Songbird, the audio team eventually arrived at the
point where they were missing a layer – a form of creative expression. There was no way that
they could express feelings like anger, jealousy or happiness. This was a real challenge for the
sound designers – to come up with a sound vocabulary that could reflect on the various
emotional states of the Songbird.
To build up this vocabulary, a process had to be defined whereby first, a general idea was
decided upon which would then be followed by recording of sounds and ultimately production
and mixing with synthetic sounds. The first source sounds to be used were screams. As the
development process would further progress, a number of different iterations of the same sounds
were tried and tested until the most suitable sound for a particular situation was found. The fact
that the character’s look and visuals were being developed at the same time as the sound design
process made the process more difficult.
To simplify this difficult process of finding the right sounds, it was decided that a good
approach would be a flexible rejection of the notion that every single moving part in the game
would have its own sound. To further expand on this approach, during certain scenes, certain
sounds would have a higher priority than the others depending on the narrative and what was the
most important sound to hear for the player. The sound of the Songbird’s machine-like
73
hool10, ‘Irrational Games: Making a Monster’, YouTube (YouTube, 14 April 2012), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWA4BAedDnw Bali 65
movement was on most occasions played back as one audio file, which would typically be
played in a cinematic sequence. However, there were also a large number of sound effects that
were custom-developed for the Songbird’s movement that would play simultaneously in the form
of very small audio files. These small-duration audio effects took influence from the idea that
most of the machines presented throughout the game were ‘first-generation machines’ unlike
Bioshock in the sense that the machines do not come across as sounding old but rather
meticulously crafted. The idea that the player can hear how a machine works by listening to the
sound was also an important factor that the sound designers kept in mind.
The Handyman
The Handyman is a giant mechanical robotic monster that is found in the game that is
hard to eliminate and poses a significantly difficult challenge for the player to move forward. For
the sound of the Handyman’s hands which were known to be a defining feature, a ratchet was
used to record source material, which was slowed down and pitch-shifted followed by adding
some amount of distortion. For the leg movement of the Handyman, an old television stand was
used. A person sitting on top of it provided a large amount of stress. This helped generate the
creaky sound that was different to the giant metallic sound that had been known to sound more
like ‘Big Daddies’ from the earlier Bioshock games. Creating a unique and identifiable
soundscape was an essential driving force for the sound design of the game and unconventional
approaches like these were used to arrive at such a sound.
Bali 66
“Authenticity is important to me. When I capture source material, I try to do whatever it
takes to get the recording I'm after. Chasing the sound ... is an integral part of my
process.” – Pat Balthrop.
The above quote, from an interview taken by the magazine ‘Kill Screen’, further
underlines the fact that sound design was an integral part of the video game. There were also a
number of other ideas that influenced the sound design like the fact that 1912 was a time when
there was new technology coming into use.
Weapons and Combat
Some of the most characteristic sounds of the game come into play during the various ingame combat sequences. There was a large amount of collaboration between audio director Jim
Bonney and Jonathan Grover, the Technical Sound Designer to try and make the music more
dynamic and cinematic, especially during combat. This followed Ken Levine’s strong realization
that, if there was something interesting happening in combat, the sound during the game and the
music needed to reflect that. There was also a large amount of detail that went into the design
and sound recording of weapons that are used in these states for Bioshock Infinite.
The sound for the guns were captured at a gun range in Massachusetts keeping in mind
the resources of the audio team and the best possible layout that would help capture as large a
range of frequencies as possible74. Four microphones were used for the close-range weapon
recording with several stereo recorders placed throughout the range – one facing the weapon at a
distance of about 150 feet and another one pointing away from the weapon at a distance of 300
74
Irrational Games, ‘The Gun Range Part 1: Recording’, Irrational Insider, 26 January 2012, http://irrationalgames.com/insider/the-‐gun-‐range-‐part-‐1-‐recording/ Bali 67
feet. This also included an omnidirectional microphone that was placed at the center of the range.
The microphones that were farther away from the weapon were used to capture the echo and the
tail of the weapon sounds while the closer-positioned microphones would be able to catch the
immediate transients of the sound. There were also several other characteristics of the gun
sounds that would vary depending on distance, material, size and the mechanics involved,
however a large number of these factors were taken into consideration in the later stages of
production. At the same time, the mechanic sounds of the guns were recorded separately as the
sound of the gun shooting would be overpowering.
While it was important to find weapons that would come across as sounding from the
early 1900’s, it was not easy to find such weapons and the developers decided to choose an
approximation rather than the exact weapons75. Another reason behind the approximation was the
need to have ‘clunk and clank’ sounds that were characteristic of the period76. Hence, a
reasonable amount of approximation in the time period would still work. Some of the guns used
in the recording session were the Mauser C-96 pistol, a .357 Magnum and an AR-15.
Ambient Sounds
The presence of various environmental sounds like air, wind, water, firecrackers,
buildings and movement were also an important and integral part of the development of the
video game. One particularly interesting aspect was the sound of the wind in the game. During
the pre-production stages of Bioshock Infinite, there was an early realization that the wind
needed to have its own unique sound. This realization led audio directors Jim Bonney and Scott
Haraldsen to carry out a different approach to recording wind sounds. This approach dealt with
75
Irrational Games, ‘The Gun Range Part 2: Gone Shootin’’, Irrational Insider, 3 February 2012, http://irrationalgames.com/insider/the-‐gun-‐range-‐part-‐2-‐gone-‐shootin/ 76
Irrational Games, ‘The Gun Range Part 3: Target Acquired’, Irrational Insider, 9 February 2012. Bali 68
recording the effect wind would have on different surfaces (aluminum, high tension wires) as
opposed to simply recording the sound of wind. This recording was carried out using contact
microphones.
Other interesting sound design-related game development happened within the video
game engine. The tools used for the development of Bioshock got comparatively outdated during
the development of Bioshock Infinite. Bioshock having been developed in 2006 had made use of
Unreal Engine 2, a video game development engine created by Epic Games. However, being a
game in the same franchise, Bioshock Infinite reused certain mechanics. But looking at the fact
that Bioshock Infinite was a game of much higher complexity than the original Bioshock, it was
concluded that using a modified version of Unreal Engine 3 would better suit Bioshock Infinite
Seeing that Bioshock’s audio system was not up to par, the audio development team at Irrational
Games decided to develop a new audio pipeline that supported a 5.1 surround sound system with
an adjustable dynamic range and a fully dynamic mixing system especially for Bioshock
Infinite77. During the process, they also ended up implementing a custom sound propagation
system so that voices could properly echo down corridors and around buildings along with a
dynamic wind audio system that would be able to reflect the dynamic weather in the game.
Audio Easter Eggs
There were also earlier unconfirmed claims that some of the ambience in certain levels of
the game had been created through the use of extreme pitch and time-shifting of actual acoustic
recordings of performed music. These allegations were later confirmed to be true by Patrick
77
Brian Leahy, ‘Irrational Details BioShock Infinite Engine Improvements’, Shacknews, 3 November 2010, http://www.shacknews.com/article/66321/irrational-‐details-‐bioshock-‐infinite-‐engine Bali 69
Balthrop78, one of the audio directors in the game who cited the need to experiment with
ambience and texture as a driving force behind such techniques. Some whispers and sound
effects that the player can hear when collecting certain power-ups have also been revealed to be
spoken dialogue quoting Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet that had been reversed.
To state in a nutshell, sound design worked as a functional backdrop in a variety of
situations in the game and acted as a great immersion tool when musical score was sparse. This
also flows well with the idea that Garry Schyman has stated in the past about the music in the
game – that it was not supposed to be wall-to-wall. As many as twelve people were working on
the sound design for Bioshock Infinite and a large number of influences were incorporated from
sounds from the early 1900’s including old antiquated equipment that was used to provide an
authentic feel to the sounds in the game. Some of the user interface sounds were said to be
inspired from the sounds of the original Bioshock. Moving ahead, heavy metal vocalist Mallika
Sundaramurthy was invited to provide vocals that were used for the first drafts of the sounds for
‘Songbird’. However later, these sounds were further manipulated and implemented in a number
of different areas in the game as well as for the ‘Boys of Silence’ characters in the game. The
approach used to create sounds for the ‘Songbird’ relied on trying to understand the sound of the
interaction of the Songbird with a wide variety of environmental surfaces. Purposefully, a
combination of relevant sounds was prioritized over giving individual treatment to various
Songbird-related sounds. The sounds of ‘Handyman’ characters in the game were also important
in defining the sound blueprint of the game. Recorded sounds of material like metal articles and
ratchets were often pitch-shifted down to create the sound of creaking metal which added a
78
Megan Farokhmanesh, ‘Irrational Games Explains BioShock Infinite’s Hidden Audio’, Polygon, 13 April 2013, http://www.polygon.com/2013/4/13/4220684/irrational-‐games-‐explains-‐bioshock-‐infinites-‐secret-‐audio. Bali 70
mechanical quality to the sounds of the Handyman. Weapons and combat were also instrumental
in making the combat believable and more realistic with real early-twentieth century guns being
picked, chosen and recorded using as many as six to seven different microphones at a gun-range
in Massachusetts. The multi-track recording of various weapons helped in isolating and
subsequently enforcing certain sonic qualities of the weapons wherever required. Ambient
sounds were present all through the game with considerably large amount of work being put
behind various audio systems being developed that could accurately depict the echoing of sounds
across halls, corridors and in open spaces. In addition, easter eggs within audio files were found
in certain sections of the game. Some of these files were revealed to be time-shifted versions of
performances recorded for the game. The high level of detail with which the various sounds in
the game were designed is noteworthy. Keeping in mind different factors involved within a video
game, there is no doubt that the process of sound design was influential in giving a strong
background support to the music for the game. Sound design is often a crucial factor that can
reinforce the player immersion or destabilize it. Clearly, in Bioshock Infinite, the sound design
works complimentarily to the music score in a way that allows both the score and the sound to
breathe. This creates an evocative sense of realism within the world of the game, at the same
time maintaining an equal balance between sound design and music. This balance can often be
very difficult to maintain in video games and something that is exemplary in Bioshock Infinite
and worth mentioning in the same vain as the music in the game.
Bali 71
Conclusion In conclusion, the score for Bioshock Infinite composed by Garry Schyman manages to
completely hold up with his assertion that the music in the game can almost be thought of as an
‘anti-score’ as it avoids majority of the common clichés that are rampant in most film, television
and video game soundtracks these days. To start with, the game was based in the year of 1912,
and the easier and simpler approach might have been to score the entire game in the style of
music in 1912, however that common pitfall was avoided to go for something more original and
unique. Instead Garry Schyman decided to use the story of the game as the main source of
inspiration for the music so that the player would be able to connect with the story of the game.
The relation between Booker and Elizabeth was given special importance while trying to score
the music. The in-game combat was another integral part of the music. The music for the entire
game was also developed out of the first composition that Garry Schyman composed which
happened to be Elizabeth.
Initially starting with the idea of an orchestral score, the orchestral approach was
discarded in favor of a smaller chamber music setting, which previously worked for Elizabeth.
Music was composed and recorded with an ensemble of musicians every two weeks for a period
of six months instead of using ‘mock-ups’ until the later stages. This was again, an
unconventional method to score music for a video game, which stemmed out of using a different
approach for the composition and recording of Elizabeth. There also seem to be similarities with
the compositions of Schoenberg and Elizabeth, which could have been a possible influence on
the theme. Further, A large number of musical compositions present in the score have
connections with Elizabeth, which in many cases mirrors the relationships between the various
characters in the game. It is highly unconventional for first-person shooter games to have music
Bali 72
that connects with game characters on a human emotional level and music in Bioshock Infinite
has managed to make it seem very natural.
Thematically, the development of the music relating to the fictional city of Columbia had
certain recognizable characteristics that ranged from notes being played unevenly to the use of
several extended techniques and elements of pitch modulation. The idea of ‘floating’ was
discernible in compositions like Lighter Than Air and Welcome to Columbia. There was usage of
music production techniques like layering to give a thicker sound to compositions or in some
cases to add elements of dissonance. This managed to create a characteristic sound of the
surroundings in Columbia.
The Luteces faced a fairly unorthodox musical treatment with music providing comic
relief owing to its influences from waltz and three-step dances but at the same time occasionally
moving into darker territory in compositions like The Girl for The Debt. The Luteces are the only
characters in the game whose theme actually consists of a drastically different instrument like
accordion. This helps the music for the Luteces to stand out. Further, to make this theme
implementable inside the game, there was usage of game audio production techniques like
branching and looping. This made the music seem less repetitive as well. Much like other
characters in the game, there was no ‘good-guy bad-guy’ kind of musical language inside the
game that would in any way make the music seem clichéd.
The use of the music for the Songbird and its subsequent usage as music for in-game
combat was both important and consequential for the music in the later stages of the games. This
is because there are several degrees of escalation present in the music for the Songbird that helps
to set up the music for the combat scenes as well as for music in the later stages of the game. The
implementation of the music in the game was fairly straightforward and mainly consisted of
Bali 73
linear playback unless the Songbird theme played in combat cues in which case it was recorded
and arranged so as to ‘loop’ and branch as required. In a way, music for the Songbird embraces
the idea of combat yet manages to maintain characteristic melodic motifs relating to the Songbird
intact.
The use of vocal music inside Bioshock Infinite has not been used extensively through
the game and used in very few places, however it does make an impact in the places where it
plays. There were as many as three different versions recorded for Will the Circle Be Unbroken?
for the game and they can be found in different stages. One version consists of only guitars and
vocals being sung by the voice actors for Booker and Elizabeth and another version consist of a
choir ensemble. The song plays during key plot points of the game and hence, deserves mention.
In addition, period music also plays an important part with compositions like God Only Knows
and more popular songs like Everybody Wants to Rule the World being arranged or licensed to
appear in various levels of the game. The sound of period music in the game was artificially
degraded to better emulate the feeling of time and era.
Finally, the sound design in the game was extensive and made use of different audio
production techniques to provide a sound background to the music in the game. Sound was
carefully thought out and implemented for various characters in the game, especially enemy
characters that consisted of The Handyman, Boys of Silence and The Songbird among several
others. The sounds of guns were given a lot of importance and care was taken to make the
weapons sound like they were crafted in the early 1900’s. A large number of ambient sounds in
the game were revealed to have been created by slowing down already existing recordings of
music performances for the game. Various audio systems were developed so that realistic echo
of sounds and sound effects could be achieved within the game.
Bali 74
To sum up all points, the music development combined of various characters involved in
the narrative and the storyline of the game combined with a large amount of non-conventional
music composition techniques and sound design were instrumental in establishing the music
score of Bioshock Infinite as an ‘anti-score’. Moreover, the strong connections between the
various musical themes and the character of Elizabeth have been established in this thesis. This
adds to the assertion that thematic boundaries were pushed and ‘leaped across’ to establish the
musical score of Bioshock Infinite, a score rich in both musical ideas and music implementation
strategies from the perspective of video game music. This adds weight to the claim that the
music score for Bioshock Infinite is one of best video game scores in recent memory.
Bali 75
References ‘(Re)Situating and (Re)Playing the Genre.’ In Making and Remaking Horror in the 1970s and
2000s: Why Don’t They Do It like They Used To?, 119–54. United States: University Press of
Mississippi, 2014.
Abbott, Lynn. ‘“Play That Barber Shop Chord”: A Case for the African-American Origin of
Barbershop Harmony’. American Music 10, no. 3 (1992): 1–6. doi:10.2307/3051597.
Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. ‘Hit List Interview with Bioshock Infinite Composer
Garry Schyman’, 4 June 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VQ1bBb_DF8.
‘Aleatoric Performance Techniques for Video Games.’ In Writing Interactive Music for Video
Games: A Composer’s Guide, 230–31. United States: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers,
2014.
‘Common-Tone Tonality.’ In Chromatic Transformations in Nineteenth-Century Music, 1st ed.,
1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Doolin, Patrick. ‘Road To Two5Six: Patrick Balthrop.’ Kill Screen Daily, 12 May 2014.
http://killscreendaily.com/articles/road-two5six-patrick-balthrop/.
Doucette, Travis Reginald Joseph. ‘The Historical Development of the Modern Worship Song
Over The Past 100 Years’, 2008.
http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1081&context=honors.
Elder-Geek.com. ‘Interview with Garry Schyman (Bioshock Series Composer) - Loudr Game
Music Festival Series.’ YouTube. YouTube, 1 December 2013.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHsMUvP9uyc.
‘Electronic Entertainment Expo.’ Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 29 June 2015.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Entertainment_Expo.
Erali, Christian Evan. ‘Dissonance in Games: Refining Gamecraft’, 2014.
http://issuu.com/christianevanerali/docs/christian.erali_ludonarrativediss/0.
Farokhmanesh, Megan. ‘Irrational Games Explains BioShock Infinite’s Hidden Audio.’ Polygon,
13 April 2013. http://www.polygon.com/2013/4/13/4220684/irrational-games-explainsbioshock-infinites-secret-audio.
Fenimore, Ross. ‘Voices That Lie WIthin.’ In Music in the Horror Film: Listening to Fear,
edited by Neil Lerner, 85–86. New York: Routledge, 2009.
‘Forced Choice: Bioshock and Retroactive Causation.’ In Bioshock: Decision, Forced Choice
and Propaganda. United States: Zero Books, 2014.
Foster, Stephen. ‘Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair.’ Firth, Pond & Co., 5 June 1854.
http://imslp.nl/imglnks/usimg/3/38/IMSLP108933-PMLP221516SFoster_Jeanie_with_the_Light_Brown_Hair.pdf.
Frushtick, Russ. ‘“BioShock Infinite” Developer Avoided “Repeating” Original Game’. MTV, 8
December 2010. http://www.mtv.com/news/1645673/bioshock-infinite-developer-avoidedrepeating-original-game/.
Gabriel, Charles H. ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken?’, 1910.
https://archive.org/stream/alexandersgospel00alex#page/n32/mode/1up.
Game Trailers. ‘Composing BioShock Infinite | BackTrack Full Episodes.’Gametrailers.com.
GameTrailers, 15 March 2014. http://www.gametrailers.com/full-episodes/i7tvjh/backtrackcomposing-bioshock-infinite.
Bali 76
Gaskill, Jake. ‘Teaser Site For Irrational Games’ “Project Icarus” Goes Live’. G4, 28 July 2012.
http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/706568/teaser-site-for-irrational-games-project-icarusgoes-live/.
‘Gothic Game Music: Hyperreality Haunted.’ In Gothic Music: The Sounds of the Uncanny.
Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2012.
‘Horizontal Resequencing.’ In Writing Interactive Music for Video Games: A Composer’s Guide,
143–54. United States: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, 2014.
Irrational Games. Featured Employee: Scott Haraldsen, 23 November 2011.
Irrational Games. ‘The Gun Range Part 1: Recording.’ Irrational Insider, 26 January 2012.
http://irrationalgames.com/insider/the-gun-range-part-1-recording/.
Irrational Games. ‘The Gun Range Part 2: Gone Shootin’.’ Irrational Insider, 3 February 2012.
http://irrationalgames.com/insider/the-gun-range-part-2-gone-shootin/.
Irrational Games. ‘The Gun Range Part 3: Target Acquired.’ Irrational Insider, 9 February 2012.
IrrationalGames’s channel. ‘Ken Levine Filmed at a BAFTA Q&A.’YouTube. YouTube, 16
March 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Efv9Mgwk8SU.
IrrationalGames’s channel. ‘“Will the Circle Be Unbroken” Duet’.YouTube. YouTube, 6 March
2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3lp4LkEPDM.
Krebs, Harald, ed. ‘An Evolutionary Perspective on Nineteenth-Century Semitonal Relations.’
In The Second Practice of Nineteenth-Century Tonality, 87–113. Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 1996.
Laughlin, Andrew. ‘Telling Tales: “BioShock”s Ken Levine on Video Game
Storytelling’. Digital Spy, 20 November 2011.
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a351747/telling-tales-bioshocks-ken-levine-on-videogame-storytelling.html.
Leahy, Brian. ‘Irrational Details BioShock Infinite Engine Improvements.’Shacknews, 3
November 2010. http://www.shacknews.com/article/66321/irrational-details-bioshock-infiniteengine.
Lerner, Neil, ed. ‘The Monster and the Music Box.’ In Music in the Horror Film: Listening to
Fear  ; Edited by Neil Lerner, 43. New York: Routledge, 2009.
Levine, Ken. How BioShock Infinite will be prescient – interview with Ken Levine. Interview by
Nick Cowen, 1 December 2011.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140104212635/http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/dec
/01/bioshock-infinite-interview-ken-levine.
Levine, Ken. PRE-E3 2006: BIOSHOCK. Interview by Douglass Perry and IGN, 5 May 2006.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2006/05/06/pre-e3-2006-bioshock.
Levine, Ken. Q&A: Ken Levine’s Brave New World of BioShock Infinite. Interview by Wired.
Wired, 26 April 2012. http://www.wired.com/2012/04/ken-levine-interview/.
Makuch, Eddie. ‘BioShock Franchise Still “Really Important,” Publisher Says’. Gamespot, 28
May 2015. http://www.gamespot.com/articles/bioshock-franchise-still-really-importantpublishe/1100-6427664/.
‘On the Road-to NOW! A Brief History of Games and Game Audio.’ In The Essential Guide to
Game Audio The Theory and Practice of Sound for Games, 31–32. New York: Focal Press,
Taylor & Francis Group, 2014.
Phillips, Winifred. A Composer’s Guide to Game Music. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014.
Saffle, Michael, ed. Perspectives on American Music, 1900-1950 (Essays in American Music).
New York: Garland Publishing, 2000.
Bali 77
Schoenberg, Arnold. ‘Verklärte Nacht, Op.4’, 1 December 1899.
http://javanese.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/2/21/IMSLP64388-PMLP09699-Schoenberg_-__Verklarte_Nacht_von_Richard_Dehmel_2_violins_2_violas_2_cellos_manuscript_score.pdf.
Schyman, Garry, and Ken Levine. The Music of Bioshock Infinite. Interview by Andrew
Goldfarb. IGN, 12 March 2013. http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/03/12/the-music-of-bioshockinfinite.
Schyman, Garry. BioShock Infinite’s composer Garry Schyman on making music for the
Songbird. Interview by David Valjalo. PC Gamer, 14 March 2013.
http://www.pcgamer.com/bioshock-infinites-composer-garry-schyman-on-making-music-forthe-songbird/.
Schyman, Garry. Composer Interview: Garry Schyman Discusses ‘BioShock: Infinite’
Soundtrack. Interview by Jen Bosier. Forbes, 25 March 2013.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferbosier/2013/03/25/composer-interview-garry-schymandiscusses-bioshock-infinite-soundtrack/.
Schyman, Garry. ‘Destroy All Humans! Director Praises Game’s Score.’Garryschyman.com.
Garry Schyman, 2 March 2005. http://garryschyman.com/2005/03/02/hello-world/.
Schyman, Garry. Game Music Spotlight: BioShock Infinite Composer Gary Schyman. Interview
by Game Informer. Game Informer, 19 March 2013.
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2013/03/19/game-music-spotlight-bioshockinfinite-composer-gary-schyman.aspx.
Schyman, Garry. Garry Schyman’s BioShock Infinite on Top Score. Interview by Emily Reese,
6 June 2013. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/top-score/id434473316?mt=2#.
Schyman, Garry. Gary Schyman Talks To Us About Scoring ‘BioShock Infinite’. Interview by
Gamma Squad, 25 March 2013. http://uproxx.com/gammasquad/2013/03/interview-garyschyman-on-scoring-bioshock-infinite/.
Schyman, Garry. Heard About: Shaping BioShock Infinite’s score. Interview by John
Broomhall. Develop, 25 September 2014. http://www.develop-online.net/interview/heard-aboutshaping-bioshock-infinite-s-score/0198049.
Schyman, Garry. Interview: BIOSHOCK composer Garry Schyman rockets to the INFINITE.
Interview by Daniel Schweiger. Assignment X, 28 April 2013.
http://www.assignmentx.com/2013/interview-bioshock-composer-garry-schyman-rockets-to-theinfinite/.
Schyman, Garry. Interview: Garry Schyman - Bioshock Infinite. Interview by Tracksounds and
Marius Masalar. YouTube. YouTube, 9 May 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sXZjAw47o.
Schyman, Garry. Sound Byte: Meet the Composer - BioShock Series. Interview by Gamespot.
Gamespot, 24 March 2013. http://www.gamespot.com/articles/sound-byte-meet-the-composerbioshock-series/1100-6405858/.
Seamster, Jeff. Interview with Irrational Games’ Senior Sound Designer, Jeff Seamster.
Interview by Sam Hughes and The Sound Architect, 19 January 2014.
http://www.thesoundarchitect.co.uk/interviews/jeffseamster/.
Smith, Rebecca Erin. ‘Exploring the Multi-Generational Influence of American Ragtime Music
through the Works of Charles Ives, William Walton and William Bolcom.’, 2012.
Stark, Chelsea. ‘You’ll Notice Some Eerily Familiar Music in “BioShock Infinite”.’ Mashable.
Mashable, 31 July 2013. http://mashable.com/2013/07/31/bioshock-infinite-music/.
Bali 78
Suellentrop, Chris. ‘Why BioShock Infinite’s Creator Won’t Settle for Success.’ Wired UK, 6
December 2012. http://www.wired.com/2012/12/ff_bioshock/.
Sweet, Michael. ‘Horizontal Resequencing.’ In Writing Interactive Music for Video Games: A
Composer’s Guide, by Michael Sweet, 149–50. United States: Addison-Wesley Educational
Publishers, 2014.
Sweet, Michael. ‘Music as a Gameplay Element.’ In Writing Interactive Music for Video Games:
A Composer’s Guide, by Michael Sweet, 188. United States: Addison-Wesley Educational
Publishers, 2014.
Sweet, Michael. ‘Writing Transitions and Stingers.’ In Writing Interactive Music for Video
Games: A Composer’s Guide, by Michael Sweet, 165–74. United States: Addison-Wesley
Educational Publishers, 2014.
‘The Language of Music Storytelling in Games.’ In Writing Interactive Music for Video Games:
A Composer’s Guide, 15–21. United States: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, 2014.
Tsukayama, Hayley. ‘The Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street and “BioShock Infinite”: How a Video
Game Is Reflecting Life’. Interview by Nick Cowen.Washington Post, 25 October 2011.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/the-tea-party-occupy-wall-street-andbioshock-infinite-how-a-video-game-is-reflecting-life/2011/10/21/gIQAlU8fGM_story.html.
‘Using Middleware to Create Advanced Compositions.’ In Writing Interactive Music for Video
Games: A Composer’s Guide, 252–54. United States: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers,
2014.
Video Game Sophistry. ‘VGS Radio Interview: Garry Schyman - Composer of Bioshock Infinite
“Music and Visuals Makes Magic!”’ YouTube. YouTube, 3 April 2013.
Warr, Philippa. ‘BioShock Infinite Gets Mac Release Date (Wired UK).’ 2 August 2013.
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-08/2/bioshock-infinite-mac.
Weidell, Max. ‘Bioshock Infinite - Elizabeth’s Theme Score.’ YouTube. YouTube, 29 April
2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSUaEUcq1ic.
Whalen, Zach. ‘Play Along - An Approach to Videogame Music.’ Accessed 30 June 2015.
http://www.gamestudies.org/0401/whalen/.
hool10. ‘Irrational Games: Making a Monster.’ YouTube. YouTube, 14 April 2012.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWA4BAedDnw.
karmanaut. ‘I’m Garry Schyman, Composer of the Scores for Bioshock and Shadow of Mordor,
Here to Take Your Questions on the Art, Craft, and Agony of Scoring Games. AMA! •
/r/IAmA.’ reddit, 15 May 2015.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/35ytwq/im_garry_schyman_composer_of_the_scores
_for/.
2K. ‘Good News, Linux Gamers: BioShock Infinite Is Coming to Linux in Early 2015. More
Details Coming after the New Year.’ Twitter, 5 December 2014.
https://twitter.com/2K/status/541003305174839296.
‘252019408 Welcome to Columbia Bioshock Infinite.’ Scribd. Scribd, 30 May 2015.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/267116184/252019408-Welcome-to-Columbia-Bioshock-Infinite.

Here - ANTRIKSH BALI

Transcription

Similar documents

Conference - 2014 - Spelenderwijs mediawijs

Chapter Seven Celebrity Squared

CAMELOT COURT

free billabong surfkit giveaway!

SMALL PLOT LAND 3 ARE IN TUMBAK BAYUH

Jeroen Bourgonjon - REFL - Exploring the rhetoric of change

Songbird Radio is made up of an eclectic selection of music, local

A WONDERFUL 2 BEDROOMS VILLA IN OBEROI

STUNNING TRADITIONAL FREEHOLD VILLA FOR SALE IN OBEROI

TopWiiTter