Curriculum for Game Sound Design Degree

Game History is an integrated, cross-disciplinary hands-on history class where students actively research the evolution and history of games through the lenses of design, art, technology, business, society and culture. Working with resources from the Game History Teaching Collection, students will play, study and research historical to contemporary games. In this way, students will discover the nexus of relationships driving game development. This course fulfills the requirement for FRM-118 Knowledge Making in the Creative Arts, Media and Humanities.

Provides historical context for the music of our age, including study of the Western European musical canon, American popular music, and related global musical traditions including those from Africa, Asia, and their respective diasporas. Students develop listening skills and understand the roots, influences and cross-cultural impacts of music in their own time and place through experience with music listening, readings, discussion and comparative analysis. Particular attention will be given to students finding disparate global roots for newly emerging musical movements. This course fulfills the requirement for FRM-128 Global Contexts in the Creative Arts, Media and Humanities.

The course provides students with opportunities to develop specialized projects in art, humanities, and media production. Students will apply critical frameworks, including theories, and use interdisciplinary methods to explore how culture is shaped by popular appeal, innovation, and mechanisms of power. Students will work individually and collaboratively to bring creative work-narratives, images, multimedia forms-and rigorous scholarship to complex challenges in varied contexts.

The recording and mixing of sound requires numerous aesthetic decisions that are technically realized. This hands-on class introduces students to the use of the Sound Studio for recording, mixing, and mastering audio. Through lectures and in-studio practice, students gain a comprehensive understanding and working knowledge of the professional recording environment. There will be recording and mixing projects as well technical evaluations, all done in the CCM Sound Studio.

This course will teach students the basics of music, and how to create music on the computer. Topics include rhythm, phrasing, harmony, melody, and song construction. This is an exciting opportunity, given the virtually unlimited power of today?s Digital Audio Workstations. Music can be assembled from pre-composed elements, played live into the computer, written as notes on an electronic score, or keyed in using a midi piano keyboard. Students will use these digital tools to capture their ideas or inspiration and turn them into music. Several projects will be required, in various styles, for a number of different purposes.

After a brief history of the development of electronic synthesis, students will delve into creating sounds using current industry standard synthesizers. Types of synthesis will include virtual analog, frequency modulation and physical modeling. Digital audio workstations will be used to record and organize the sounds. The vast array of electronic effects in Logic will also be explored. Students will gain a functional knowledge of not only synthesis, but also powerful electronic effect and sequencing options.

The course starts with a critical look at interactive sound history,examining its cultural impacts, and analyzing the underlying theory of creating immersive sound environments. Following this, the course will look at techniques and design principles specific to interactivity as students begin to learn the fundamentals of the core technology. These include sound editing software for creation and editing as well as game software. The course culminates with the creating of a complete interactive audio package.

Students will deconstruct the game music from the classic, modern, and contemporary periods while learning the techniques and structures of creating sound for games. Students will use industry standard software to complete a sound package for a game. This course is required of all Game Sound Design majors.

Students will create music and special effects for game levels, menus and game environments. Working in groups, students will develop sound design concepts, create documentation, prepare and load sound and special effects into a game engine and conduct quality assurance testing. The course requires students to provide constructive criticism to individual and group work. This course is required of all Game Sound Design majors.

This is an advanced Game Sound Design course utilizing industry-standard middleware solutions. Students will design and implement event-driven adaptive audio using middleware in conjunction with industry-standard game engines.

Students will compile and finalize their sound portfolio work into a dynamic and marketable combination of materials. Students will create self-promotional materials such as a web site, business cards, resume, and cover letter, as well as research which jobs and companies for which they are most suited. The culmination of your degree is your portfolio as a Game Sound Designer, this includes a demo-reel, online visual portfolio, research and preparation for transitioning into the job market.

In EGD 420, Game Studio III, seniors successful in pitching their games during the college capstone in the Fall semester continue into full production. Forming large production teams, games are taken to the perfect polished state of gold master, ready for publication. Academic emphasis for the class is focused on working successfully in a professional studio environment, preparing for entrance into the job market, and taking personal craft to the next level.