Writing Interactive Music for Video Games ─ A Composer's Guide

This is the first complete guide to composing interactive scores for video games. Authored by the developer of Berklee School of Music's pioneering Game Audio program, it covers everything professional composers and music students need to know, and contains exclusive tools for interactive scoring previously available only at Berklee.

Drawing on his experience as an award-winning video game composer -- and in teaching hundreds of music students -- Matthew Sweet brings together comprehensive knowledge presented in no other book.

Writing Interactive Music for Video Games: A Composer's Guide carefully explains why composing for interactive media is unique, and how to overcome its specific challenges. Sweet fully addresses analysis, methodology, trends, tools, and much more. He presents and compares every available technique, from basic to advanced and experimental. He even covers the business side of video game composition, sharing crucial advice about contracts, pricing, sales, and marketing.

Along the way, you'll find dozens of examples from real games of all kinds, from casual Facebook and iPhone games to AAA PlayStation 4 titles. You'll also find many "try-it-yourself" game audio scenarios, supported by digital tools for editing your music and simulating its behavior in an actual game.

Over the past two decades in music, Michael Sweet has been an accomplished audio composer and has been the audio director for more than 100 award winning video games. His work can be heard on the X-Box 360 logo and on award winning games from Cartoon Network, Sesame Workshop, PlayFirst, iWin, Gamelab, Shockwave, RealArcade, Pogo, Microsoft, Lego, AOL, and MTV, among others. He has won the Best Audio Award at the Independent Games Festival, the BDA Promax Gold Award for Best Sound Design, and has been nominated four Game Audio Network Guild (GANG) awards. As an educator over the last 5 years, Michael Sweet has led the development of the game scoring curriculum at Berklee. He has created seven classes that teach the art of video game composition, and helped develop the Minor in Video Game Scoring at the college. Before Berklee, Michael was the co-founder and creative director of Audiobrain, a company dedicated to breaking boundaries with interactive sound design and music. Michael's creative vision for 7 years had led Audiobrain to develop many emotionally immersive award-winning experiences for games (i.e. Xbox 360, Diner Dash), broadcast (i.e. NBC Sports and Olympics) and sonic branding. Audiobrain continues to be successful, and Michael consults on many of their projects. In broadcast Michaels work can be heard in many network identities including HBO, VH1, Comedy Central, CNN, General Motors, and NASDAQ. In addition Michael's digital artistry has led him to ground breaking work in the creation of interactive scores for digital design installations that have traveled the world. As a teacher and communicator Michael has lectured at many universities and prominent conferences in interactive music and sound design including Game Developers Conference, NYU, SVA, Audio Engineering Society, GDX, and Parsons The New School of Design.