Music considered as art, science and universal language is a means of expression without limits that reaches the most intimate of each and which is present in every day of our life. It can convey different moods and emotions through symbols and sound images, which release the emotional, affective and intellectual auditory function.
In the same way, it allows to express fears, joys and deep feelings of all kinds. It is an art that communicates, entertains, stages, among other functions, and it is for all this, in addition to other factors, that the image has been combined with music, thus generating improvised pieces and rhythms already established. Although the idea was born that the music should have a clear purpose. So it was decided that it should have an expressive purpose and that melodies should be created to accompany specific images.
In other words, a soundtrack has the ability to reinforce, through its effects, the intentions of each sequence, whether through orchestrations, different rhythms or even through the use of silences. This is the key for the symbiosis to be effective and even video games do not escape this maxim, especially those related to terror.
The emotional vibration of sound
Fear: Can anyone say they have never felt fear? It’s an emotion that invades us in all circumstances of daily life and it’s not a bad thing, it’s normal. After all, anything can frighten a certain person and it can be real fear, in the face of real danger and which has adaptive value or unreal if it has an imaginary, distorted and catastrophic origin.
In the latter case, it is common that, faced with a scene of terror, many people tend to cover their eyes in front of their ears. What many forget is that the music is key to making this scene sound even more terrifying than it would without an accompanying soundtrack. It’s much more than a mixture of improvisation, intuition, unbridled talent and recklessness. He is essential grammar toolwhich not only has the profound ability to haunt, surprise and terr ify (a primordial quality that reaches deep within us), but also narrative continuity and representation.
In the context of video games, we are dealing with audiovisual products that accentuate and reiterate negative emotions (especially fear, even if this can be accompanied by anger, sadness, passivity, surprise, etc.) The relationship between music and evil in video games is no it’s not new or recent, it’s something that’s been in the dance for many years. Something that relies on the ability to create disharmony and its power to encourage base passions through sound.
the sound of fear
For example, in sagas like Silent Hill or Resident Evil, their composers have always felt the need to emphasize and bring the player to understand the intentions of the characters, using pitch first. In this regard, as a resource in the correct definition of the degree of unreality and transgression of limits in the different situations they face. Loudness also plays an important role, both in the character’s response, and that of the player himself.
Basically, loud sounds, music, and voices shock, stun, and frighten us when we’re in control. And it stands to reason that the greater the power of the threat lurking at the end of each bend, the greater the intensity of the sounds it can emit or cause. In this sense, some disturbing situations are caused by sudden changes in intensity, causing a strong surprise, as well as by whispered voices, which are located in the immediate vicinity of the character and force an approach that makes us fear not being able to l ‘to avoid. this.
It is clear that the intention to disturb materialized in several ways. Although the absence of sound also managed to be a clear representation of breaking stereotypes in video games, turning moments of absolute silence into something terrifying. However, the absence of noise makes dead silence a kind of reason to cause nervousness in the player, a tool to create tension, which has long been used in cinema.
Sounds of terror and despair
In short, it can be said that sound in horror video games is a complex bundle of information and its decoding in the human brain, in a metaphorical sense, goes beyond the goal of the composer. It’s the closest thing to a spirit responsible for the whining and creaking of the house at night. And because a few chords can symbolize the monster more accurately than any timbre made up of textures and polygons.