Learning to Compose Game Music through Musical Transcription

8 ways transcription helps you compose better game music

If you want to compose game music for a living, you need to be well-versed in almost every genre of music. Video game music is not so much a genre, but an umbrella term of every musical genre adapted to the specific medium of games.

Koji Kondo brings bluegrass, folk, and Latin influences to the classic Mario games, while Garry Schyman brings a rich history of film scoring to his work on the Bioshock series. It’s really tough to pin down a “video game” sound, as games often traverse many genres and even blend genres in unique ways.

With every minute spent transcribing music, your ear is internalizing what makes a song “feel good.” These internalized insights help you compose game music with a richer understanding and confidence.

Just like people who read a lot of books often know the right word to write or say at the right time, musicians who make a habit of music transcription have a deeper understanding of what makes music work, and, perhaps more importantly, how to employ those same techniques in their own compositions.

The point is, you may be asked to compose game music for a 16-bit platformer one month, and then a sweeping orchestral ballad the next, only to be followed by a request for jazz combo arrangements. How can you possibly learn all the styles of music you may be asked to write?

The Secret to Learning Anything Musical is Transcription

I’m very wary of silver bullets. The longer I live, the more I realize that success is often the result of years of incremental, persistent work as opposed to a particular secret.

I don’t believe there is a secret to business. I don’t believe there’s a secret to a happy marriage. I don’t believe there’s a secret to health. That said, transcription is by far the closest thing I have encountered to a secret in the world of music.

It’s like a superpower that literally enables you to learn anything.

Allow me to illustrate this point with a few anecdotes from my personal experience.

Other people who love stealing

Sam Matla creates content on his website and podcast to help young producers write better electronic music. One of the biggest questions he’s asked by newbies is how to produce an effective drop.

For those of you that aren’t privy to EDM, the drop is the climax of the song and often the most memorable part of an electronic production.

Sam answers their question with another question: “How many drops have you studied and reproduced?” I would wager most novice producers meet that question with sheepish silence.

When the Super Marcato Bros wrote their tribute album to Super Mario World, they transcribed, by ear, all of the music from the game on the piano to capture the spirit of Koji Kondo.

Carlos Eiene (insaneintherainmusic) said transcribing solos has been the biggest factor in his growth as a saxophone soloist.

Kris Maddigan, the composer of the wildly successful Cuphead, says transcription is even better than having the composer teach you (because some composers may not even be great teachers).

I could go on and on, but I will spare you and instead take this time to recommend the book Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon. If you want a full volume dedicated to the value of copying great work and the power it has to spur on creative growth, this book is a must-read.

[bctt tweet=”‘The difference between plagiarism and writing a good piece of music is instead of stealing from one song, you’re stealing from six.’ – 8-bit Music Theory” username=”8bitMusicTheory”]

Why you need more transcription in your life

If you’re a composer or student of music, you likely have already done some transcription of your own. However, you may not be convinced of the manifold benefits of transcription.

That’s okay. I wasn’t either.

It wasn’t until this idea was drilled into my head by almost every single guest on my show that I started truly seeing the value of copying and studying the work of others. These are some arguments I’d present to the skeptic as to why transcription should be a part of your regular, weekly workflow.

1. It’s the Best Way to Find Your Unique Sound

When I was a kid, the popularity of Pokémon was at a fever pitch. When we weren’t trading cards, watching the show, or playing the Gameboy games, my little buddies and I would sit around and draw Pokémon characters (Ah, simpler times).

It was a badge of honor when we could draw a Pokémon freehand from memory, or perhaps from a light reference.

There was a stigma among my jorts-wearing, Sour Skittles-eating, N64-playing posse though — tracing.

Anytime one of us showed the group a great drawing, the first question was always: “Did you trace that?”

If the answer was yes, the “artist” was forced to relinquish their holographic Charizards and was cast into exile like a leper.

Not really. But the point still stands: the idea of copying someone else’s work is definitely something that rubs people the wrong way.

8-bit addressed this objection with stunningly simple logic in our interview. “The difference between plagiarism and writing a good piece of music,” He said. “Is instead of stealing from one song, you’re stealing from six.”

He went on to say that most early composers are obsessed with “finding their sound,” so they neglect the rich traditions, techniques, and composers that precede them.

The ironic thing is that copying is the best way to find your sound.

A melting pot of influences

When you transcribe a composer’s work, you take on their qualities, especially if you analyze their music from a theoretical perspective.

Subconsciously or consciously, you begin to absorb their trademark “moves” and assimilate them into your own move-set (there’s some sort of fighting game analogy there).

Here’s where your sound comes in, though. You see, your influences and the way they inform your musical decisions are completely unique to you.

So while you may think transcribing and emulating Final Fantasy VI is ripping off Nobuo Uematsu, what you don’t realize is that his music is only one ingredient mixed into the melting pot of your artistic tastes.

My music will never sound like yours because I grew up on Shania Twain (thanks, mom), then Sonic the Hedgehog, then Super Mario 64, then The Beatles, The Beach Boys, and Led Zeppelin (thanks, rebellious teenage Matt).

I’ve studied or obsessed over all of these artists, bands, or composers at one time or another (except Shania, as genius as she may be), and the amalgamation of their work mixed with my life experiences has created what one might call “my sound.”

And my tastes and influences (as well as yours) are changing more and more in my late 20’s as I listen to, transcribe, and analyze even more music from a wide swath of genres.

That’s the thing: your sound isn’t static, it’s always evolving based on the stuff you’re listening to. I’m arguing you can choose what influences you through the power of transcription. 

In my experience, emulation in the form of transcription and analysis is not only the best path to composing game music of the highest caliber (because you’re studying how great music works in the first place) but also the best path to a unique sound.

2. You learn the clichés that define each genre

8-bit theory told me every genre is composed of clichés, and that’s not a bad thing.

Whether it’s jazz, rock, Latin, EDM, chiptune, film score, or any of the thousand sub-genres in between, there are characteristic musical moves that define what a genre means.

As a composer, you’re doing yourself a disservice if you say “this feels epic” and leave it at that.

Well, why does it feel epic? There are almost always objective harmonic, instrumental, or arrangement decisions the composer made to make it feel epic.

Your job as a composer and transcriber is to figure that out.

Maybe it’s a modulation up a whole step, or a ♭VI – ♭VII – I chord progression (like the Level Complete Theme from the original Super Mario Bros). Maybe it’s the fact that the low brass imitates the strings in an elegant counter-point line, or that a vocalist belts out a note in unison with the winds section.

(If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you will when you transcribe.)

Thinking like a chef

Taylor Ambrosio Wood encourages composers to think of this process as a chef would. How would a chef know that a dish needs more paprika if you’ve never tasted paprika?

You don’t know what you don’t know. In the same vein, if a client tells you to make a piece “jazzier,” how can you jazz it up if you haven’t internalized the ingredients of what makes something sound like jazz?

This is one of the many fruits of regular transcription, and it’s a powerful way to build your toolset and prepare you for any musical request that dawns your door.

3. You better understand the traditions that define music history

Garry Schyman told me in our interview that writing music by hand is by no means an obsolete art. In fact, he recommends all composers learn the art and science of notating music the good old fashioned way.

But why would we spend time doing this? Isn’t it time-consuming and inefficient with the advent of modern music software and piano rolls?

Maybe. But if you care at all about the tradition of how music was communicated for the past 600 years, you’ll pause before discarding musical notation.

It’s almost impossible to analyze complex chord progressions strictly from the piano roll.

I mean, it’s possible, but why would you? The system of musical notation has worked for so long and still works today.

Garry used Picasso as an example. Picasso is known for his abstract, distorted paintings. He didn’t gravitate to that style of art because he wasn’t “good enough” to paint things realistically, however.

In fact, his early paintings were beautifully photorealistic.

He understood the tradition and was thus able to build upon the tradition in his own style.

And by the way, for those of you who have terrible handwriting, you don’t necessarily have to write scores by hand (you probably shouldn’t knock it before you try it though, as Gordy Haab told me it teaches you to compose from your mind’s ear and not from trial-and-error).

The point is to transcribe to musical notation; a language universal to all musicians. There are plenty of digital tools to help you achieve this. MuseScore is my favorite, but we’ll talk more on that in an upcoming post.

4. You fill up your creative reservoir

There’s no such thing as writer’s block because there’s no such thing as reader’s block. At least, that’s what someone said somewhere on the internet, so it must be true, right?

Whether you agree or not, it brings up an interesting point. As creatives, I believe we have reservoirs of creative energy. Lots of different things contribute to how full or depleted we feel when we sit down to compose game music.

The types of music we’ve been listening to, how busy we are with creative work, and even if we got a good night’s sleep last night are all factors that affect our creative energy.

Transcription fills your mind and subconscious inner ear with ideas.

After I transcribe and analyze a piece, I feel myself bubbling over with new chord progressions, voicings, melodic patterns, and rhythms to try out in my next composition.

Sometimes, you need to push through the drudgery of an unfilled creative reservoir, but if you’re feeling really dry, consider transcribing a piece and see if that doesn’t revitalize your creative energy and fill you back up.

5. You build the strength of your inner ear

It’s a pretty amazing feeling the very first time you’re in the car listening to some music and you’re able to identify the chord progression and intervallic structure of what you’re hearing.

The first time this happened to me was after I transcribed.

As I kept transcribing, my ear kept growing stronger. Early in my musical journey, I transcribed Starlight Zone (my analysis is… questionable) from Sonic the Hedgehog. All of the sudden I started hearing the distinctive sound of the secondary dominant everywhere.

Why? Because Sonic composer Masato Nakamura makes special use of this harmonic move as a key moment in the tune.

I had so internalized the sound of the secondary dominant, it was now part of the vocabulary of my internal ear. I was like Neo in The Matrix. Rather than hearing songs as whole entities, I started hearing them in “1’s and 0’s,” so to speak.

The disparate parts started jumping out at me, which only enhanced my ability to compose game music.

As you transcribe, I’m willing to bet my bottom dollar you’ll start experiencing these same benefits.

6. You’re left with a playable piece of music

One of the additional benefits of transcribing a piece of music is that you’re left with a tangible piece of musical data.

You can do whatever you want (within the bounds of copyright law, of course) with this sheet. You can arrange it for piano for your personal enjoyment, break out parts and hand it off to a string quartet, or anything in between.

8-bit told me he has a library of all the music he’s transcribed meticulously organized on his hard drive.

There is something very satisfying about having a clean, complete, accurate transcription of one of your favorite songs in your possession.

Not sure what else to say on the topic. It just feels good.

7. You learn music theory the easy way

You can learn theory from a book or course. Or, you can learn theory through the study of actual music, and cross-reference your discoveries with learning resources.

I’m not knocking all the incredible music theory resources out there. I’m only saying that music theory concepts tend to stick when we encounter them “in the wild.”

I learned why a ii – V – I chord progression works from a teacher. I learned what a ii -V – I feels like through studying it in real-life music.

If for some reason you keep seeing the V chord of a key go back to the I chord, you’d be inclined to think there’s some sort of pattern there.

You know that it feels resolved, but you’re not sure why. So you look up a V – I chord progression and find that it’s called a perfect cadence and has been building and resolving the tension in music for hundreds of years.

In short, transcription is the best way to truly learn practical music theory. Transcribe and dig into the actual pieces of music where theory is applied and reference your discoveries with books, sites, and good ol’ Wikipedia.

Helpful music theory resources

I’m a theory nerd myself. For those of you who want to dive deeper into this rabbit hole. Here are a few resources that have helped me along the way:

8. You learn the secrets of proper arrangement and instrumentation

A transcription contains all the musical data of a piece. The rhythm, melody, harmony, motivic structure, form, time and key signature (and if you’re thorough), dynamics, and articulations are all reflected in musical notation.

This means beyond just instrumentation or chord progressions, you can study all the aspects of what makes a song tick, including the arrangement.

Arrangement is such an important aspect of composition I neglected for so long. Creating raw melodic content is a great skill, no doubt, but our jobs don’t end there.

Distributing the melodic and harmonic content to instruments that best suit it, using dynamics to make the song breathe, building tension, allowing release, writing transitions, intros, outros, and effects are all within the purview of an arranger.

In addition to teaching you theory, transcription can teach you everything you need to know about arrangement.

I’ll give you an example.

Putting it into practice

I got a gig writing a 16-bit Sega Genesis-style soundtrack for a 2D side-scrolling platformer (lots of hyphens in that sentence). The lead artist was my point of contact and sent me several reference pieces from old Genesis games.

Clearly, the biggest inspiration came from Shinobi III, a fast-paced, combat-focused action game.

So, as per my composition philosophy, I transcribed the music from Shinobi III and analyzed how it worked. The insights I gleaned through analysis were paramount in my success with this project. Here are a few of my discoveries:

• The soundtrack favored minor keys
• Most songs were around 125 BPM
• Pieces often followed a distinct form like ABACA or something similar
• Each section of the form usually had two chords that oscillate back and forth
• The most common chords were the minor i chord and the minor iv chord
• The melody made frequent use of “extended tones” or non-chord tones that went beyond the standard triad (7ths, 9ths, 11ths, or 13ths). This gave it a gritty, dissonant feel which helped convey the emotions of fighting deadly enemies as a ninja

In addition to the above insights regarding the theory and structure of the piece. I also learned a ton about how songs were usually arranged on the Genesis. I took special care to separate the channels on this tune and analyze each one in my DAW. Here’s what I learned about the arrangement of Genesis songs:

• Genesis songs often follow this formula (with some exceptions, of course):
  • FM Channel 1 – Bass guitar
  • FM Channel 2 – Melody
  • FM Channel 3 – Harmony part 1
  • FM Channel 4 – Harmony part 2
  • FM Channel 5 – Counter-melody or arpeggio
  • FM Channel 6 – Drums (samples)
  • SN Channel 1 – Doubled melody (delayed or chorused)
  • SN Channel 2 – Doubled melody (delayed or chorused)
  • SN Channel 4 – Hi-hats (noise channel)
• Since only one channel can play samples at once, that channel (FM 6) is reserved for kick and snare, while the noise channel (SN 4) plays short clips of white noise that function as hi-hats
• The FM channels 3 and 4 are often panned hard left and hard right to give the sound a wider feel. It’s important to keep key elements like melody and bass straight down the middle unless you’re going for a specific effect.
• The SN channel’s main functions seem to be to give greater depth to existing harmonic content, like doubling the melody, acting as a 16th note delay to the melody, or doubling an arpeggio. Because of their limited timbral quality as square waves, they often don’t sound great holding the melody on their own but work perfectly as effects.

The option-anxiety of not knowing how to start the piece was immediately gone. I used the above points as rails to guide the composing and arranging process – and the client loved it!

Summary

The best thing about transcription is that it doesn’t require thousands of dollars worth of gear. In fact, if you have a computer, you can get all the tools you need for free. 

Here’s a recap of why you should transcribe often:

1. It’s the best way to find your unique sound
2. You learn the clichés that define each genre
3. You better understand the traditions that define music history
4. You fill up your creative reservoir
5. You build the strength of your inner ear
6. You’re left with a playable piece of music
7. You learn music theory the easy way
8. You learn the secrets of proper arrangement and instrumentation

Whether you’re a regular transcriber or skeptical to its benefits, I hope this post has gotten you inspired and excited to start transcribing today.

Action Steps

I’m a big fan of inspiring action in people, so here are recommended next steps:

1. Choose a song or excerpt from your favorite game soundtrack (not Dancing Mad, for your own sake)
2. Critically listen to the song several times and write down your hypotheses about how it works. This is a warm-up for your ears, don’t do any transcription yet
3. Write down a few things that perplex or interest you about the song, and maybe some things you’d like to learn. This will come in handy in the next few posts

In the next posts, I’ll talk about the tools you need to transcribe, as well as walk you through, step-by-step, how some of the most skilled transcribers I know transcribe and analyze music.

I hope you’ll join me!

Subscribe to my email list for access to resources and transcriptions. I’ll also let you know when the next posts drop. 🙂