Sci-Horror Game music

Welcome to Sci- Fi horror Genre

Sci-fi or scientific fiction horror is a genre of music that has been associated with the music sounds and themes that are heard in film and games. A perfect example of modern day sci-fi music can be experienced in Dead Space where Jason Graves created the iconic game score.

Dead Space 1 sound track(Graves, 2012)

Glen Schofield explains in the above video how the music and sound is critical in creating the game atmosphere at 4min 10 sec. Glen states he likes the sound design in horror movies to part of the inspiration for his creative direction when designing the environment for Dead Space.

Sounds for the horror (Schofield, 2019)

History of Sci-fi

In the past horror music can be traced all the way back to the days of silent film when orchestras accompanied the black and white film theaters. The orchestra played a set score that came with the silent film. (Garcia, 2018) This could suggest why most scores in the past were associated with creepy high pitched violins and largest drum hits to be used in a jump scene in modern day sci-fi game scores.

Phantom of the Opera (Calibration TV, 2015)

At Berklee college the above video shows how music was played from the pit in front of the audience. This is an example of how a written orchestral score was written to emphasize different emotions including horror in the Phantom of the Opera.

"Futile Escape" (Horner, 2013)

One of the reason people today listen and expect science fiction horror music today is due to the musical and sound design choices made in early films in this genre. On of the most iconic of these is the film score for the original Aliens by James Horner.

During the 80's the creation of the the synthesizer allowed composers to experiment with new audio technologies and thus synth bass and undertones can create a crazy element scary feeling. This has influenced many modern composers here is an example from the video below on how the composers have used modern synths to create the sci-fi horror feel through sub basses and dissonant frequencies.

(RPG AMBIENCE SF #01 INFECTED SPACESHIP - 2 hours of SCI-FI HORROR MUSIC, 2015)

What makes a scary sound track these days?

From listening to the sound track above we can hear there is several distinct methods of making our skin crawl through use of sound. Humans and most animals in the world to associate dissonance as a distress signal to represent danger. This is shown in a research paper by Chiandetti, C., & Vallortigara, G. (Chiandetti & Vallortigara, 2011)

A study by ULCA found in the top best sci-fi horror film and games that high pitch frequency content added with distortion noise will create a unpleasant feeling and raise interest in animals. The TED talk claims through research that high pitch frequency content coupled with dissonant noise elements will peak our human interest as well cause a sense of uneasiness. (Blumstein, 2012)

The Sound of Fear (Blumstein, 2012)

In sound designing for horror films you can often hear the use of low frequency sub bass that is create using a synth. Actually any dissonant note combinations will do the trick to create that uncomfortable and artificial feeling. As heard in Aliens soundtrack the use of violins in the higher octaves have trained a generation of composers to use similar techniques.

From the past traditionally western audiences are trained to hear the orchestral music, recently in the last 30 years for science fiction, synthesizers have come to be used extensively in modern composition to represent the artificial elements and new technologies.

So for a new composer who wants to create a score for sci-fi horror you can use several main ingredients;

• Plenty of dissonant chords or chordal runs

• Liberal use of High frequency content

• Incorporate synthesizers for pads or sub bass elements to give the technological element

• Have Orchestral elements to give an organic feel!

Bonus tip!

• Reverb it up to create a depth of space and large areas (we know there is no sound in space by to heck with science!)

Here is an example that I made for Dead Space 2 intro, the music in the background was composed by me and was referencing the music in the game Aliens Isolation.

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References:

Graves, J. (2012). "Dead Space 1", full HQ original soundtrack (OST) [Video]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/XVOm9uY03fs

Schofield, G. (2019). How Dead Space's Scariest Scene Almost Killed the Game | War Stories | Ars Technica [Video]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/BQ3iqq49Ew8

Horner, J. (2013). 13 - Futile Escape - James Horner - Aliens [Video]. Retrieved from http://James Horner

Chiandetti, C., & Vallortigara, G. (2011). Chicks Like Consonant Music. Psychological Science, 22(10), 1270-1273. doi: 10.1177/0956797611418244

Blumstein, D. (2012). The Sound of Fear: Dan Blumstein at TEDxUCLA [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQQmFocLDng

Garcia, V. (2018). History of Horror Music. Retrieved 18 June 2019, from https://elmodenafrontline.com/15042/music/history-of-horror-music/

Calibration TV. (2015). The Berklee Silent Film Orchestra presents "Phantom of the Opera" [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF30P8dLHZQ