Can I be a programmer and a game music composer at the same time?

[StanleyCraft]

Hi!

I really interested in programming, but for a long time I hold back my enthusiasm in it because I spent much time with music production and I spend it for now.

I already know PHP, but it is not quite what I need. I want to know C++ or maybe C# or Java.

How learning to program will reflect on music composition process?Do C++ eat all my time?

How do you think?

[SonicThHedgog]

Hi!

I really interested in programming, but for a long time I hold back my enthusiasm in it because I spent much time with music production and I spend it for now.

I already know PHP, but it is not quite what I need. I want to know C++ or maybe C# or Java.

How learning to program will reflect on music composition process?Do C++ eat all my time?

How do you think?

i know java and a bit of c++ (with extremely tiny assembly knowlege) and i produce music, its all about finding time to do one thing or another,and enjoying the best of both, sounds like to me your a independant developer.

what i day is type a puedo code to plan the main coding/program , then make music after.

[Rozovian]

IIRC, this guy is both. I sure there are lots of others. It's easier to find composers than programmers, so if you can do both, you have a lot more options.

[Gario]

A good friend of mine is a composer/programmer, and it seems that the two cross over nicely. Music is a construct that encourages organized thought (which is great for programming), while the programming language is great for improving syntax in music (syntax is handy, when it comes to music). He's gone as far as to make a program that fills in context-sensitive music when you provide a couple of numbers to generate it from (not sure if he finished it, but he was working on it 3+ years ago)... not sure if you'll do THAT, but hey - you never know.

Yeah, it's possible for you to accomplish those two things at the same time, don't worry.

[Onslaught Six]

Simon Viklund of GRIN was the music composer and also project director on Bionic Commando: Rearmed. I know that's not the same thing, but it's there.

[lazygecko]

In smaller developers it is probably more common with composers who can also take care of programming/technical audio-related stuff. And back in the 8/16-bit days it was actually the norm.

[beckett007]

Okay, lets clarify here.

You can be a programmer and a sound guy at a game company.. the position is officially called an Audio Programmer. Just totally remove any ideas in your head of being a full time composer for a game company... doesn't really exist outside of a few exceptions (like Bungie).

Composing for games is EXTREMELY competitive and is outsourced about 99% of the time...and is currently being outsourced for the most part to established film / game composers making it that much difficult to break into it. That said the safer bet would be to go with programming and then learn audio design on the side. After that, you might be able to weasel your way into composing a handful of tracks on a project if you have the chops to do so. Thats exactly how I got into composing for games.. I was the lone audio guy for a THQ company and then kept pressing them to let me compose music for our current game... which at the time was Stuntman Ignition. Our hired composer was exceptionally slow, so I picked up his slack and ended up composing half the music heard in the game. Crazy.

I'd suggest checking out my now dead blog about being a composer in the game industry... lots of good info there to answer tons of questions, I just don't have the time to keep it updated.

http://richvgi.blogspot.com/

Best of luck!

Rich

[SenPi]

I'm both. Im just finishing up my computer science degree this term, and I also compose. Helps a lot for the company me and some friends have in making games. We all code, I do music, and my other friend who also programs does art. Makes it easy for everything to be in house

But yeah, you really just need to find a good balance.

[AMT]

Another programmer / musician checking in! I do code / music / sound design and sometimes art, but usually I try to get outside help there. Check out the link in my sig for some of my work.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Another programmer / musician checking in! I do code / music / sound design and sometimes art, but usually I try to get outside help there. Check out the link in my sig for some of my work.

Pretty much echo everything here for me except the sig thing. I don't have one of those newfangled signawhoozits.

[AMT]

You're behind the times, man. Sigs are all the rage nowadays, you're practically nobody without one.

[Nabeel Ansari]

You're behind the times, man. Sigs are all the rage nowadays, you're practically nobody without one.

It's called waiting on your photoshopping friend who is also a pianist for a nice website banner image.

[Esker]

It heavily depends on your music composition skills, programming is time consuming, you can do no miracle.

[Kanthos]

Can you be both professionally? Probably not.

Everyone who's mentioning being an audio programmer has got it right, except perhaps that there's not enough emphasis on this one fact: outside of tiny indie companies, you probably won't be writing any music. Having in-house people designing your sound effects and doing the necessary audio programming is important, because it's much easier to slap some music into the game at the last minute (moreso if you're in a genre like sports games where all you need is some rock/pop tracks for menu screens that don't really tie into the game that much). I was working on MVP 2004 at EA, and when I left the company (I was on a 4-month co-op term) two months before the game went to mass production, I don't remember there being much, if any, music in the game, but the sound effects were mostly there already. Audio programming is probably going to be a full-time job with little or no opportunities for getting paid to compose. If you really have put in enough time and have enough raw talent to be good enough to compose for games, there's still the matter of it being fiercely competitive, and even then, if you make it, knowing much about programming won't be a huge asset to you and you'll spend almost all your time composing, not splitting between music and coding.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but unless you're one of the very rare people who's exceptionally gifted both at writing software and at music, your chances of finding a job that'll let you do both to your liking is almost zero. Based on your first post, where the only language you know is PHP and the only comment you make about your music is that you spend a lot of time on it, this probably isn't you; at least, you haven't done much to show people that you've got serious skills in both areas. Real programming isn't just about knowing a language and doing some basic stuff in it; there's a lot you have to learn about software architecture, algorithm design, and a host of other topics. Game programming is particularly intense since everything has to be done efficiently, in real-time, and often on budgets (eg. EA decided that in MVP 2004, we'd have 20% of the CPU time being spent on AI, 50% on graphics, 5% on music, 5% on audio, something like that). Personality aside, not every programmer has the aptitude to be doing something as intense as game programming.

Your best chance is to do a computer science program at a school that will let you take a lot of electives in music. Going the other way (music degree with CS electives) probably won't help you as much; music is a field where credentials aren't as useful as talent (though there's still a ton you can learn at a university above and beyond what you'd pick up or develop on your own); game programming, on the other hand, requires you to take a lot of upper-level CS or CompEng courses which your school will probably not admit you to unless you're in CS or CompEng, even if you're smart enough to take them and have the right prerequisites.

Doing one for fun and the other professionally is much more likely, and pretty much everyone here who says that they do both means just that. You might find it easier (and probably more financially rewarding) to have a programming day job and do music for fun. The other consideration is that unless you're exceptionally motivated, you may not want to pursue the hobby some nights after work, and as life gets busier (girlfriend, wife, kids), you won't have nearly as much time or motivation. Music is probably easier to get motivated on as a hobby since what you do can have more impact, whether it's being in a band or making remixes and being able to share them. If you write some code, no one really cares unless you've come up with an idea that they'd actually want to use, which means it either has to be unique or better than competing products - no one needs two password managers, for example. You can't have too much music, though, so even if someone else's song is better, as long as yours is good enough, people will still listen.

[PROTO·DOME]

Don't listen to them! Don’t listen to the man! Stick it to them! Stick it to him! Live your dreams! Change the world!

And when you do I'll be famous for posting this encouragement.

[Nabeel Ansari]

What I'm shaking my head at is that people keep saying "Don't count it" because they think he means as a job.

He never specified "as a job/profession". He just wanted to know if he as a human being can do both, and the answer is yes because I and a lot of other people are proof.

EDIT: So the title says "game music composer" which could mean as a profession. But really, who ever gets EMPLOYED as a composer? I thought being a composer meant you freelance and compose music for whatever you're asked for. He can get a programming job and compose music for people that ask him (like a certain someone)

[dannthr]

The industry needs more Audio Programmers.

Composers and sound designers need more Audio Programmers.

Audio implementation on the programming side is an extremely important skill and you will be welcomed open armed by composers and sound designers in this industry.

[Arcana]

Go download csound and go pew-pew a bit!

Keep in mind that C and C++ are quite different from PHP, they're tougher because you have to manage more stuff that PHP can largely ignore.