So I've lurked here for quite a while now. A couple years in fact. Finally I've decided to speak up. I pose a simple question to a broad topic. What is a good method for approaching music for games? I've been doing music for years now, and have a professional job doing music for TV and commercials, so coming up with music is not an issue. For me it's more of the approach, as I work for a company that produces music...however I'd love to do my true passion which is music for games. Would a good approach be to, say, come up with an original game concept and score to it based appropriately? The upside to this I can see would be that you're showing your ability to compose based on a concept. The downside is that I'd think people might also think you're blowing smoke because the concept could have been something the composer came up with simply to preceed their work, NOT to compliment the actual game concept itself. Any thoughts on this?

Quote: Original post by Arudius
Any thoughts on this?

Yeah. Don't do that. If you do that, then first you have to explain the game you came up with, which gets in the way of showing off the music. You can create your own tunes for a number of popular games. Pick a number of genres.
For example, make a tune for Mass Effect (a triple-A sci-fi combat game). Make a tune for Legend of Zelda, make a tune for Splinter Cell, make a tune for Call of Duty, make a tune for Sudoku.
You can explain less that way. And that's a good thing. The less you have to talk, the better your demos go.
Also I recommend you read my article on game audio. It's at http://www.sloperama.com/advice/lesson53.htm

Tom pointed out some good ideas (not only read number 53, all the lessons are very good reading material to get insight in the industry) and I think another good way is applying here for a mod or an Indie game. In this way you can actually learn how it is to work with teams that create games, you will learn people (which is always a good thing :D) and I think a company rather sees a portfolio with actually experience from within the industry (even if it are hobby, semi-pro or whatever kind of teams) then from an individual who is just working on its own.

Maybe you might consider joining the Game Audio Network Guild (www.audiogang.org). A very nice site with loads of information. I recently joined and have not regret any penny spend on it.

Good luck!