Episodes
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What Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone Means for Your Game Composition Career
Growth never happens in the comfort zone. In this episode, I share stories from my own career as a game composer—times when I stepped into unfamiliar, uncomfortable situations and how those moments led to real breakthroughs. If you’re looking to grow your game composition career, this episode…
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Don’t Sign That Yet: What Game Composers Need to Know About Deals with Noa Beazley
What should you charge to score a game? Should you sign an exclusive contract—or not? How do you protect your creative rights without burning bridges? In this episode, I sit down with Noa Beazley, a Boston-based composer and multi-instrumentalist whose game scores span genres—from the Latin-metal...
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Is Your Music Satisfying To Listen To? w/ Jason Walsh
How does your music sound? Maybe the notes are good, but the recording sounds like General MIDI from 1991. Maybe the production is good, but your music sounds like everyone else. Maybe you have no idea how your music stacks up. Today's guest, Jason Walsh, has worked for over a decade on some of…
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Stop Chasing Gigs: How Chris Rickwood Built a Career Where Work Finds Him
At the start of your game audio career, you’ll need to grind. A lot. Finding consistent work means meeting people, stepping out of your comfort zone, and spending an inordinate amount of time on business activities—not just writing music. But over time, your career can pivot. Opportunities begin…
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Essential Questions To Ask Developers When Planning a Games Soundtrack w/ Gina Zdanowicz
Gina Zdanowicz, Founder and Audio Director of Serial Lab Sound, has cultivated a dynamic career spanning over two decades in the game industry, leaving an indelible mark on titles such as Eternights, Paladins, Just Cause 3, Bioshock 2, and numerous indie, e-Learning and midcore games. Gina has…
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Creating Streams of Income As A Game Composer w/ Megan McDuffee
Megan is primarily a video game composer. She did the music for River City Girls 1 & 2, the Halloween and Ash vs Evil Dead games from Retro Realms, and I believe she composed most of the music for the Atari Recharged games. Not only does Megan do a ton of custom work for games, but she also earns...
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Developing the MIndset of a Pioneering Game Composer w/ Olivier Deriviere
Today you’ll be listening in on a conversation with lifelong gamer, composer, and music designer Olivier Deriviere. He has created the music for games such as A Plague Tale: Innocence, A Plague Tale: Requiem, Dying Light 2, Streets of Rage 4, and, most recently, South of Midnight. Equally...
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Becoming Known As A Composer with Tobi Weiss
Tobi Weiss is a video game composer who has amassed a following of over 120K on Instagram. He emphasizes the importance of being genuine with your audience and staying true to yourself while working hard to become known and find more work. This is a value-packed conversation for anyone looking to...
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Two MUSTS If You Are Going To Make It As A Video Game Composer with Brendon Williams
There is a lot to do and learn as a freelance game composer and it can be hard to figure out what activities are most important to focus on, what skillsets are most important to develop, and how a composer needs to think to make this career happen. This episode will help you get inside the head…
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The Top Skills Composers Must Have with Robbie Dolan
Game composer, sound designer, and audio engineer Robbie Dolan talks about the top handful of skills that are essential for composers in order to carve out a career in today's marketplace. Robbie wasted no time establishing a strong career in the game industry and the knowledge and experience he...
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7 Must Know Building Blocks of Interactive/Adaptive Music with Michael Sweet
Michael Sweet is a video game composer, sound designer, audio director, and all around audio pro. He has also been teaching game audio at two of the top music programs in the world. He has worked on over 100 award-winning games and has basically done it all in the world of game audio. In our...
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How To Write Music That Gets You Gigs
Today's episode is taken from module 3 of the START course. Module 3 is all about how to write demos that can help you find video game scoring work. This episode discusses the how and why of creating targeted demo music, and how targeted music is different than making music as an artist in…
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How To Improve The Quality Of Your Game Music with Ryan Ike
Today’s Guest, Ryan Ike, is a very accomplished indie game composer and an all-around awesome dude. You can hear his music in indie game hits like Wizard With a Gun, Shadows Over Loathing, Where The Water Tastes Like Wine, Gunpoint, and more. We had a great conversation about Ryan's diligent…
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How To Be a Freelance Composer with Jeff Broadbent
Jeff Broadbent is an award-winning game composer who has worked on many of the industry's largest franchises, including Diablo, Apex Legends, Call of Duty, Assassins Creed, and many more. Not only is Jeff a talented composer but he is an effective networker and strategic business person. He has…
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How To Break Into Game Composing In 2024
This episode discusses three areas of focus that can help you make great progress in your video game composing career. Having a system and goals for music creation, building up a team of people around you, and tracking your progress are all powerful tools to help you achieve and succeed in this...
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Emotional Composing with AAA Composer Jeff Kurtenacker
Today’s guest is Jeff Kurtenacker, an amazing composer and sound designer for AAA games. He is currently the audio director for Deck Nine Games, and has also worked as a senior composer for Blizzard and worked on a ton of projects as a freelancer before that. Jeff wrote over 14 hours of…
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Hogwartz Legacy Composer J Scott Rakozy
Grammy-nominated composer J Scott Rakozy talks to us about his background in music, his process for creating convincing midi mach-ups, how he got to do the music for Hogwarts Legacy and much more! Check out more about Scott at his website and Instagram: https://www.jscottrakozy.com...
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5 Year Career Anniversary
Enjoy this special edition episode celebrating my 5-year anniversary as a video game composer. I give career highlights and share the big lessons I learned each year. If this episode is helpful or inspiring please share it with another game audio person you know. If you don't know any, meet...
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Fresh Composition Career Ideas with Vinicius Barbosa
Vinicius is an LA-based composer for film, tv and video games. He was nominated for an Emmy with his music editor work on Go Go Cory Carson. Vinicius reveals what he did to build connections and start working with well-established composers on major projects. There are a lot of invaluable and…
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From Elementary Educator to Video Game Composer with Nate Madsen
Nate Madsen is a long time veteran composer in the video game industry, with extensive experience as a freelance and in-house game composer. Nate shares really great insights and personal experiences on networking, prospecting for projects, personal improvement and so much more. Follow Nate at…
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The Creators Journey: Interview with Composer David Fairfield
In today's episode, composer David Fairfield talks about what he calls the creator's journey. Going from hobbyist, to time liberated, to mastery. David is a Music Composer, Sound Designer, and Audio Director who has worked in the gaming industry for 15 years. He has worked with some of the…
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Musical Storytelling with Elias CEO and It Takes Two composer Kristofer Eng
Today's guest is Kristofer Eng who is an award-winning composer for his work on the game It Takes Two. He is also the CEO of Elias software, which is audio middleware initially designed exclusively for video game music (sound design capabilities were added later). Kristopher talks about his…
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Music of Guild Wars 2 with Maclain Diemer
Maclain Diemer of Guild Wars 2, Salt and Sacrifice, and other great games joins us to share his valuable perspectives and experience on being a full-time composer for games.
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3 Tips To Help Networking Become More Comfortable and Genuine
Building strong relationships is crucial to any creative career, and it is especially true for game composers. A majority of the opportunities for game composers are freelance. With most of us working outside the "in-house" or company setting, having a robust network with solid relationships is...
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Growing Your Game Audio Career Through Omnipresent Visibility
In this episode, I share where I am focusing and what I am currently doing to grow my business. As video game composers our biggest problem, and the reason we don't have more work, is visibility. If every game developer on the planet knew who you were and was familiar with your music you would…
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Procrastination, the right running shoes, and your game career.
Many good activities can be excuses that slow our progress toward great things. Forever tweaking tracks, learning more before you take the next step, doing it 'one day' after you update or buy this or that, on and on. Practicing, buying new gear, learning about the industry, and more can all be...
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Most People Don't Do This: But it's Great For Your Career
A great way to make more meaningful connections with video game industry leaders, add value, and have a lot of fun is by volunteering at industry events. This podcast tells a simple story of how volunteering can open doors and help boost your game composition career.
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Killer Testimonials: How to get testimonials that build trust
Well-crafted testimonials build trust. Trust is essential for having a solid video game composition business. The more people trust you, the quicker you will get deals and the more money your clients will be willing to pay you. In this episode, I break down six steps you can use to get killer...
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Networking: Friend or Foe?
For many, networking is a word that induces stress and anxiety. A necessary evil that must be suffered through in order to find work. If only there was another way! There isn't. But an adjustment in how networking is approached could make all the difference. This episode will look at another way…
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CMFG - Music Enhances the Aesthetic
One role of music in media is to enhance the aesthetic appeal and goals of the project it is attached to. Our job as video game composers is to understand what the aesthetic of the game is and work to support it, as opposed to undermining or supplanting it. Reach out with episode ideas, comments,...
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CMFG - Using Your Music to Give Context
One fundamental role that music plays in video games as well as other media is through providing context. This is a very important role to understand and for composers to effectively use. This discussion comes out of chapter one of Chance Thomas' Composing Music For Games book, as a part of our...
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CMFG Propelling Action Foward With Music
One of the six most common roles of music in media is for music to propel the action forward. Understanding the essential role of music can inform a composer's craft and improve their ability to create effective and artful music for the media. Send an email with your ideas for future episodes to...
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Game Developers Conference Post Mortem: a composers take away from GDC
In this episode I share some of the things I learned at my first year going to the Game Developers Conference, GDC, in San Francisco. I got to meet a lot of artists, designers, programmers and fellow game audio folks. I made a lot of friends and it was a really valuable experience and I hope to...
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CMFG - Music Heightens Emotions
Music has a powerful ability to heighten our emotions. Experienced directors and game producers take advantage of this by creating great relationships with composers and getting the right kind of music in their media. Knowing about this important characteristic of music can help you when you…
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Network like a pro with Akash Thakkar: How to prepare for GDC and other Game Developer Conferences
In this interview, music business and networking master Akash Thakkar shares powerful tools on how to cut through the noise and build genuine relationships and connections. Use these strategies to prepare for big conferences like Game Developers Conference, GDC, or even local meetups or zoom...
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Inside the music of Gigasword with Jack Breen
In this episode, we are talking with solo dev Jack Breen of Hybrid Studios who is the creator of Gigasword. Not only has Jack done all of the art, design, and coding but he is also the composer for Gigasword. In this interview, Jack gets into his influences, workflow, and philosophy on music and...
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CMFG - Set the mood...with a little music!
There are 6 important roles that music can fill in media. The first of these six, setting the mood, is what we will be discussing today. Knowing the purpose of your music within a game will help immensely when digging into the planning and composition processes and help you to be a much better...
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CMFG - Music Term of the Day: Diegetic?
Quick episode defining the term "Diegetic." Knowing the lingo in an industry is important, especially when you are new and you don't know as much.
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CMFG - Tips on developing the scoring language
In this episode Tyson Cazier gives 5 exercises you can practice to improve your effectiveness at using the scoring language. These exercises can help you to understand harmony on an emotional level and use chords with more sophistication, write melodies that can better express complex emotions…
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CMFG - Music Scoring Grammar
Imagine being able to captivate audiences' imaginations and emotions with your music just like a great novelist can do with their words. Mastery of the rules and grammar of the scoring language can help you achieve those ends.
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CMFG - You Are Already Fluent in the Music Scoring Language
Music scoring is a language that you are already fluent in, this episode explains how. This is a very exciting and freeing concept for those of us that are struggling to become full-time video game music composers and sometimes wonder if we have what it takes. I love to hear if this message...
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Study Series Intro: Composing Music for Games (CMFG)
Introducing a new study series! When I first got started composing for games, and knew basically nothing, I had the great opportunity to meet game composer icon Chance Thomas. He told me about the text book he wrote to help young composers like me and recommended I study as if I were getting a...
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Quick Composing Tip: overcoming writers block
Writers block is super frustrating!!! In this episode I share one strategy I use to get my ideas flowing.
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Three Production Tips To Immediately Improve Your Music
I share 3 production tips to start doing (if you're not) to immediately improve your music production quality. Layering samples, automation curves, and recording live instruments are three no excuses techniques that can really improve your sound.
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Staying Organized And On Top Of Your Business
In this episode I share four tips on how to stay organized and on top of your business. It is far too easy to get unbalanced and give to much focus on one are of your business at the expense of other areas. This episode offers some ideas to help get your composition business back in balance while...
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April 2021 Business Report plus Special Announcement
The monthly report! This is my first monthly report episode. In my monthly reports I report on how my business is performing and progressing in the four core areas of my business: Learning, Producing, Networking, and Visibility. Starting in June 2021 the monthly report will happen the first…
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Interview with Chance Thomas: Composer for DOTA 2 and Lord of the Rings Online
In this episode I had a great conversation with Chance Thomas. Chance has been entrusted with prestigious titles and high-value entertainment properties again and again in his career - The Lord of the Rings, Avatar, Warhammer, Marvel, King Kong, Dungeons & Dragons, DOTA 2, Star Wars, Monopoly,...
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How much to charge as a composer and why you should charge for your services
It is very important to value your work as a video game composer. This episode talks about how you can do that by discussing how much to charge and why you should charge your clients.
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Not Enough Money, Not Enough Time
The two common shortages are money and time. Most of us are often looking for more of these two things. In this episode I talk about how to find more of both of those. This is one of the small and simple principles, that most people don't take the time to do, that can be a big game changer in…
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3 Tips To Getting Your First Game Composition Gig
Getting your first gig is so important! It's your initial 'foot in the door' experience to the game industry. Once you get your first video game composition gig you can officially call yourself a video game composer. Use these 3 suggestions to make it happen and get your start in the industry. If...
About this show
The Video Game Composer Podcast aims to aid you on your journey to become a full-time video game composer through sharing tips and strategies along with successes and failures from my own life.
Hosted by
Tyson Cazier
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