I remember the first time I  saw the sign, "No Gods or Kings. Only Man." Gazing up at the huge bust of Andrew Ryan from a crimson carpet, freshly dipped and battered from a flaming plane wreckage in the middle of the ocean, I crept down a deeply glowing staircase into a round pod of expert craftsmanship. The upholstery  was red velvet. The hand-carved wooden lever operating the drive for the vessel stood amongst a myriad of dials and meters. As I pulled it, the airlock shut behind me, and though I didn't realize it until the principal violin pierced through the mysterious veil of the deep ocean with a beauty that forced my eyes wide, a section of strings guided my submersible to Rapture. 

Bioshock is a video game that hit the XBOX 360™ in August of 2007. It is set in an underwater dystopia called Rapture, founded by an entrepreneur named Andrew Ryan as a refuge from the chaotic world of force running rampant on the surface. Bioshock is probably better known for Ryan's philosophical and political "beliefs" based on Randian Objectivism than for anything else. Many read Bioshock's story as a case against individualism and freedom, with the city depicted as constantly war-torn and degenerated. The true spirit of freedom however, is still very strong, emanating from Ryan's speeches with great passion and implemented into the achievements of the other characters in the game. Bioshock is impressive on many levels, from the incredible art direction, borrowing American art deco and displaying the period of events with great accuracy, to the innovative gameplay that encourages strategy and use of the environment and its resources. With Garry Schyman's incredibly rich score coating and completing the experience, it has proven to be one of the few games that can be considered high art as well as entertainment. With the release of Bioshock 2 and Dante's Inferno on February 9, 2010, I thought I would have a look at Schyman's work as a video game composer. 

It's interesting to even be writing about music in the context of video games. Even since the earliest years, music has almost always been implemented into video games for the same reason every medium needs music. When players hear the music of Marioland as they bob around in stupid red suspenders and a thoroughbred moustache, crushing turtles and hurling firecrackers, the goofy midi theme music reminds them just what kind of world they're in. It keeps a steady, upbeat rhythm with surprisingly complex melodies to keep the player excited and moving along. When the timer starts to run out, the music goes double time to encourage haste to the finish line. Besides, who do you know that wouldn't be able to hum the Mario theme song on command? But music is taking on more responsibility in video games lately. As video games become more widely accepted as a storytelling medium, music has taken on a similar role as it does in film while retaining its job enhancing the action of gameplay. 

The score for Bioshock was essential in connecting the player to Rapture. Its core is based in the string section and Schyman uses it masterfully to remind you of Rapture's underwater setting. The melody is most often sung by an eerie glowing violin that floats effortlessly on the waves of the rest of its section and awakens the wonder and fascination of the human mind, beckoning it to delve deeper and deeper into the city. This instrumentation is also ideal for accompanying the speeches of Andrew Ryan and accentuating the passion behind his thoughts and work. The most important thing to note of Schyman's compositional prowess is the truly organic way in which he blends his work in and helps define the world he writes for. So skillfully is it implemented, unless they listen for it, the player usually doesn't even recognize it as music, and it acts directly on the player's emotion. This allows them to get sucked deeper into the game. The way action scenes are scored puts the player's nerves at full tilt. Aided faintly by electronics, percussion and low brass often take over, creating a sort of tribal battle march. The tympani, bass drum, and drum rims do the footwork, and the tuba, french horns and trombones swing down and striking the accents. The strings remain a driving force. They pound out heavy handed eighth note patterns while nail-biting high end glissandos and tremolos crash into each other.  Though the free downloadable version of the score is relatively short and incomplete, it is still wonderful to listen to on its own. "Welcome to Rapture" is a standout as the introductory piece to the entire city, and probably the most dynamic movement in the score. "Dancers on a String" is a piano and string ensemble (still backed up a bit by auxiliary percussion, electronics, and some low winds and brass), playing an exasperated, let down lullaby. Its name refers to the ballerina statues made from real people and some sort of plaster hanging from the ceiling in one particularly creepy scene. "Cohen's Masterpiece" is the most definite piece; a piano solo supposed to have been written by a character in the game (actually written by Schyman) for the sole purpose of having it played by a pianist strapped to dynamite (get the sheet music at www.garryschyman.com!). The tracks of course lack a certain amount of cohesion relative to each other out of context, but a composer could learn loads from listening to it carefully without being distracted by the game itself. 

My brother bought Bioshock 2 pre-ordered, and got the special edition with the LP for the first score which includes twelve tracks not available for download from the website, a CD copy of Bioshock 2's score which has twenty six tracks, each about two minutes on average, a full art book, and a massive, super high quality box to put it all in. If you're obsessed with this game, which my brother and I are, and you've got the scratch, the special edition is definitely worth it. I waited for my brother to play it for a while so I wouldn't see it before I played it, but then I just started going over to his place and playing it after he'd gone to bed. I was hooked and I didn't get a lot of sleep last week, but that, too, was worth it. 

Bioshock 2 is set ten years after the first game, and Rapture has undergone significant change. Still trying to thrive in the ruins of Ryan's once great free society, the people of Rapture are now controlled by a psychologist named Sofia Lamb. As Project Delta, a Big Daddy prototype, you awaken to discover that Lamb is responsible for your integration into the machine you inhabit, your death at the end of Rapture's prime, your daughter's imprisonment, and the deterioration of the minds of Rapture's citizens that led to their inability to withstand the charms of the first game's villain, Frank Fontaine. Lamb has convinced the already deranged minds of Rapture's remaining inhabitants that they must kill your character for the common good. You stand for the individual, which makes you necessarily a threat to her socialist society. As would be expected from a socialist society, there has been virtually no growth in infrastructure, but a mere patching up. Balconies are rebuilt out of the rubble of explosions or fires, scrap metal and boards nailed down without logical direction. Power still lights rooms and vending machines, but water flows unchecked like streams down corridors and even over ledges and rails. Some rooms, or even entire buildings, are still flooded, with debris and dead bodies left floating in them. The city lives . . . barely. In truth, it continues to literally fall apart and remain a dangerous civil war zone. In this installment of the story, you represent the individual fighting against the mass to rescue your daughter, (also Lamb's daughter) who Lamb has decided shall be transformed into a biologically true altruist.

Again, Schyman enriches the damp atmosphere of this game and becomes the tipping point that makes it a remarkable experience. He recorded the music for this installment with the L.A. Philharmonic Orchestra, and the production quality shines brightly with Bioshock 2's makeover. Schyman retains many of the themes from the first score, but has backed everything up with more dense instrumentation, more driving force, and heavier steps in congruence with the player's Big Daddy boots. He also adds on occasion more low winds, some Miles-ish muted trumpet, some gospel singing, upright bass, vibraphone and harp. More dissonance also appears frequently in the brass section. But the principal violin still takes on the spotlight, and the rushing, fluid motion of the string section, now more heavily manned, is more prominent than ever. Bioshock 2's score proves to be even more enjoyable to listen to without the game than the first. After the first couple of tracks, the rest of the score is still episodic, but there is enough consistency between tracks that a cohesion tends to form. Though none of the tracks on this score stand out as well as those in the first, there seems to be more experimenting with instrumentation and texture than melody. The end result is a highly organic, sizable amount of music that uses sound to create an environment around the listener rather than identifying itself as music at all. After several listens without the game, and one intense experience playing through, I think this work could be considered just as important and impressive as a masterful symphony in Schyman's career. It may not have the same application, but in scope and accomplishment, I think the Bioshock scores are unrivaled by any video game.

The world of video games is expanding into every medium. Cutscenes introducing the story, ending the game, and linking one level to the next are short films. The puppeteering of the in-game characters is animation. The voices of the characters that you play as and interact with is voice acting. The creation of the environments in which you play is architecture, art design, set design, staging, lighting, prop making, photography, costume design, engineering, and sculpting. And creating a score to connect these new massive works of art to the players is composing. Video games are a new market for musicians, and composers like Garry Schyman are now setting the bar high, not only in quality, but in proliferation. 

The score for Dante's Inferno has forty-one tracks, each about a minute and a half. Schyman had less to work with in terms of finding an original place to start, given that Hell is a place in theater, film, and even video games that has been "done." Many times over. He must have busted his ass to come up with that much material while simultaneously working on Bioshock 2, and still managing to execute his task brilliantly. Though listening to it may get a bit tortuous and cyclical on its own, (and I expect if exposed to enough of it in its pure form it might start convincing you to murder babies) it acts as a high-octane violence missile of shameless hate to boost your character into the ridonkulous makes-God-of-War-look-mild pulp, carnage, and all out deliciously inappropriate gaming experience. The choir chants in a sort of bastardized Native American madrigal, while the low brass, winds, and big deep percussion pound the crap out of the player. This score is absolutely perfect for frantically swinging an anime-sized scythe in every direction imaginable and shredding through hordes of typical goat-legged demons, lost tortured rotting zombie souls, and crab walking naked women with huge slimy toothed tongues lashing out of their vaginas. 

Schyman has established himself with Bioshock and an impressive portfolio of other work as a forerunner of the video game composer's market. His work has introduced a new level of quality to compare against, and he is churning out more material as you read this. We should now expect more great music to come out of video games as composers try to keep up.

Published Tuesday, 1st March 2010 - Written by Jeff Benjamin