The Imaginary Friend, Crossing over Computer Game Scoring Techniques and Musical Expression

The purpose of this paper is to provide theoretical knowledge on how the interactive music techniques usually associated with computer game music could benefit the classical music composers and performers (and vice versa). We will focuse on techniques used in procedural music. Certain interactive computer game scores and sound installations represent this genre, as well as electronic real-time-based compositions that may or may not require a human performer. In the context of interactive computer games, dynamic music systems directly react to the gamers ́ actions. The authors ́ aim was to find out how such systems could be used as part the electroacoustic composer ́s technical and expressive vocabulary. Automatisation challenges the concept of form, rhythm, and harmony in a musical work. Instead of a closed entity, a dynamic music composition is a never-ending story with infinite number of alternatives, which is why such works get created again in every performance.