Dansk
Svenska
Norsk
Suomi
Deutsch
Italiano
Español
Português
Français
Nederlands
中文
Indonesia
Polski
日本語
한국어
Čeština
Ελληνικά
Türkçe
Tiếng Việt
عربي
Follow us
HQ
Videos
What goes into being a video game composer? - Aasma Nordic Game 25 Interview
During our time at Nordic Game 25, we caught up with freelance composer Mira Aasma, to discuss her time working in the video game industry, and how that experience stacks up to film, stage, orchestras, and choirs.
Audio transcription
"Welcome back to Gamereactor's coverage of this year's Nordic Game.
We have spoken to a lot of people in the games industry.
We've looked at things that go into games like art and writing."
"And now we are looking at music or maybe listening to music.
And I'm here with Mira, who is a musician and also does soundtracks for video games.
So, yeah, could you maybe start by introducing yourself?
Hi, I'm Mira Aasma."
"And I've worked in approximately 10 years in music in different ways.
So like everything from my own music to theatre, to performance, films, TV, music, everything.
But I've always been working quite interdisciplinary.
So gaming was a very natural and a very exciting world to me."
"And I've always thought about it as well.
But then last or kind of like one and a half years ago, I just kind of found my first project.
And from there, it's just been flowing quite good.
So it's such a nice way of working with a wide range of genres and getting to like tune into different worlds and different moods."
"And yeah, it's just really amazing.
And it's so nice being in the game world, in the game industry.
People are so, so creative and so nice and very focused on the vision.
And yeah, just super cute."
"Yeah. Before we get into the video game music, I was just curious, what is your angle into doing music?
Do you have a formal training degree in music?
Do you come from a musical family?
What is it like? Why did you get into music in the first place?
I, for the first place, I grew up, I was like born into a samba orchestra."
"So I started playing drums quite early and I played in orchestras and I started learning guitar.
I've always been composing and like hearing music in my head, kind of.
So and then I found an expression for that to like in kind of like in high school, I started producing music and then I was like, OK, shit, I can put reverb and stuff and like put them together and make this whole landscape of sound."
"So that's that's when it started.
And but I actually don't.
I went to the Royal Music School, the Royal Music College, maybe in Stockholm for a little while.
But then I actually quit because it wasn't."
"Yeah, just the school form wasn't really right for me then.
And I was also working on a lot of projects on the side and it was touring and releasing stuff.
So I've mostly been like doing and just also like playing a lot, being a lot in live music and producing all kinds of music and sounds and recording, recording foley sounds in the forest."
"And like all my music is very tied to nature also because I also grew up very close to the forest in Sweden, outside of Gothenburg.
So it's that's really close to me.
That's something I I kind of like connect to music, music and nature and magic is like the same, the same thing to me kind of."
"And yeah, and then we'll skip forward a bit and you get get started doing video game music.
And what was the first project you worked on and how did that came about?
The first project that I worked on was Sandara, a game by Studio Malusi.
That's a really, really beautiful RPG about getting into the grown up world and being effective and kind of like discovering, discovering a city, discovering a world and its secrets."
"And yeah, I really love the idea behind it.
And it's like a lot about class as well.
The lowest class is in the bottom of the city and the high class is in there.
And it's also like the city sinking."
"So so the lower classes get like disappear after a while.
So yeah, I really love the idea behind it and really like went into the to the world in terms of like what would what would the characters in this game play?
Like which instruments would they use and which world are we in?
OK, it's like it's a desert."
"It's very windy.
I'm going to like I used a lot of like wind sounds and flutes and things based on like air and wind.
And also Nikki, who's the who's the like boss of the game.
She she also wanted Ood to the Ood string instrument to be a big part of the soundtrack."
"So I collaborated with Ood musician and also a joiker from from Sápmi that put some vocals on it.
I used my own vocals a little bit as well.
So it became this like mix of like Arabic folk music or like classical music and Nordic folk music and also electronic music.
So, yeah, it's a hybrid hybrid soundtrack kind of."
"Yeah, and I can imagine when usually you do different kind of music, you're as a musician, you're the one in control.
You decide when people get to hear what it's a concert or I don't know, a sound installation or something like that.
But in video games, the players in control and maybe they'll stay in a scene for half an hour.
They're only supposed to stay for two minutes or they will just rush right ahead."
"So so this is something you when composing your music for video game, how do you manage this kind of aspect that you don't really know how long a track is going to be?
Yeah, exactly. It's yeah, it's very important to not make things too repetitive.
And you also it's also a question of like how where does the player need to focus and how can we like enhance the focus, like make something like maybe meditative, but still interesting, but not grabbing too much attention."
"And like, yeah, also also making, for example, for Sundar, I made like pretty long tracks that are looping.
So it's not it's not to like repetitive melodies and stuff.
It's more like soundscapes kind of.
So it's almost like the music becomes an environmental sound."
"So also also I like using like stingers or like small pieces, parts of music like they do in Zelda, for example, where you have like randomized melodies for when you walk around in the in the world.
That's also something that I'm doing now for a game in Germany and implementing and creating those like randomized melodies so that you don't hear the same thing all the time."
"And there's also a lot of silence in between and a lot of space.
So, yeah, exactly.
Also, if the player also walks away from the computer and just leaves it there, it's also like it has to be something that can like play in the background or something.
And some scenes more specifically can be more prominent and like more, what do you say, like stylized, more of a character to the music when you arrive to a place or when you have like a specific scene or something, it can be more like of a song or more of a, yeah, like distinct melodies and stuff like that."
"So, yeah, very, very depending on the gameplay and the world kind of.
I guess this might differ according to which project you're working on, but in terms of composing music for a scene, how much material do you have to work with?
Do you like know which gameplay is going to happen in the scene or do you have a general description or what kind of material do you have to build your music around?
I like making a lot of material and also allowing, like also making things in layers so that it can very easily be restructured or like using only one layer here and then something adds when something becomes more intense."
"And so, yeah, it's a lot of material.
Yeah, it's a difficult question.
Yeah, I guess often, like in both games and TV, you build from like some kind of like foundation layer that's more of a soundscape.
And then you add like different levels of excitement."
"So there could be like different instruments or also different like levels of room or reverb or things like that.
But yeah, it's also, I'm just kind of like throwing things out and like trying, I just like make a lot of material for like the first versions and demos and try and see like what sticks with the developer and what the developer likes.
So I just love like sketching quickly and just throwing things out and then see what works and then like work in more detail with the layers for like each of the ideas."
"We already spoke a bit about how you maybe have less control as a composer doing video games, but have you faced any other challenges that you maybe didn't expect when going into video game composing compared to doing music for TV or doing your own stuff?
Yeah, especially like not musically, like musically it's just exciting, but like when it comes to implementation, there's a lot to learn because you really need to think in a different way.
And also, yeah, also like when it comes to music, of course, but yeah, there's a lot of technical stuff that I learned recently and like also kind of like the basics of programming and like how the audio midware talks to like Unity or Unreal Engine or the game engines."
"So that's been a challenge and it takes a lot of time to like understand those systems and also use them.
But it's also super fun like seeing things come to life and also like getting an insight in all parts of the project.
Yeah, it's really, I've found the developers I've worked with recently have also been very open musically and are letting me have like a very, very much like owning my own process and very, very open."
"And which has been such a luxury. So it's really, yeah, that's been so nice.
And really like I worked with super nice people that are really like really easy to really easy to work with and communicative.
And so that's been like very, very smooth, actually.
Yeah."
"And I feel that like in my role as a composer, I actually, I get a lot of agency in what I actually do and people trust that generally and just leave it to me.
And then, yeah, but there's always people always have like more of an opinion than they think sometimes.
So it's also good to like just try out things first.
And like if someone's like, no, I don't have any preferences at all or something like that."
"You can like there's always some kind of preferences or some kind of world that they want to be in.
So oftentimes I work from references or if they just have things that they like, because they also need to the developers are also going to hear the music so much.
So they actually need to need to like it.
So I try to like kind of get a grip of which musical world we're in."
"Yeah, it's it's been like pretty smooth.
Yeah. And a final question.
What is coming up next on your musical agenda?
What are you working with at the moment?
Right now, I don't know how much I can say about everything, but right now I'm working with a very wide range of music and very wide range of games."
"It's a lot of it's like different indie projects, mainly in like Sweden, Norway, Germany and also one in Canada.
And like I do some consulting as well and kind of like getting sketches and improving them and working as a consultant in that way.
And yeah, right now in the close future, I'm working with a lot of different, very different projects, spanning everything from like metal to like meditation music."
"So which is super fun.
It's really I really just love like digging into people's worlds and people's minds and like visions.
And so it's yeah, it's a lot of like different indie projects, which is very fun because then I get to do like, yeah, tune into like different moods at the same time and not just only working with like one thing, which is which can be like a lot sometimes for like changing, changing your attention."
"But it's also very giving and very I'm learning a lot and I'm still pretty new.
I've only been working with games for like one and a half years, so I'm I'm kind of like just like having fun and discovering themes and people and different approaches, which is super fun and interesting.
Well, thanks for taking the time to speak with us.
And it was very interesting to hear about how you compose music for video games."
"So, yeah, thanks.
Thank you. So nice to meet you and talk to you."
Interviews
More
Videos
More
Movie Trailers
More
Trailers
More
Events
More