Hey everybody! I’m video game music composer Winifred Phillips, author of the book A Composer’s Guide to Game Music. Since the publication of my book by the MIT Press, I’ve maintained a monthly series of articles designed to expand upon the content of that book and enable further exploration of related topics. Inspired by my more recent video game projects in popular franchises such as Jurassic World, Lineage, and Sackboy, these articles have delved into subjects ranging from interactivity, to music theory, to business and networking.
The sheer number of articles has necessitated the inclusion of a navigation tool, so I now include an annual “Big Index” that can assist us in finding our way through the content that’s accumulated over the years. What follows is that index, organized by general subject matter. New to the index are articles from the past year that have engaged in more detailed and technical discussions of music theory-related topics, with deep dives into non-diatonic construction that included atonal and polytonal composition. I’ve also included the transcripts of my interviews with National Public Radio and the BBC that took place in 2023.
These are articles that explore different aspects of dynamic music construction. As an example, here’s an excerpt from the article Horizontal Resequencing & Song Structure for Composers:
"Linear music is a single contiguous unit, like a straight line moving in one direction, with a beginning, middle and end. But dynamic music is more like a maze that can move in many directions with lots of divergent possibilities. The art of interactive music creation and implementation is not just about understanding and deploying interactive music systems. It’s also about looking at the nuts and bolts of these systems and seeing all of those divergent possibilities." (Read more here)
Dynamic Music Case Studies
Dynamic Music General Concepts
Dynamic Systems
These articles consider the power of music to influence the functions of the brain. Here’s a quote from the article Video game composers can make you smarter:
"Can video game composers make you smarter? W
