Reference Epic Music for Your Game

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So you know how some GMs add little gems to their posts to give ambiance and life to the scene they just wrote, and you find yourself wanting to do the same thing but have no clue where to begin? Or perhaps you do that but are having trouble finding that perfect instrumental to go with that scene? Well that's what this thread is for, to provide you with a fun way to spice up your game and here are some sample sources:

YouTube Official Channels
Two Steps from Hell
Audiomachine
Immediate Music
Ivan Torrent

Playlists


Singles


Feel free to share any instrumental, ambiance, trailer, vocal choir instrumental, soundtrack and/or game music and so on that you've used or like. No songs please. The purpose of this thread is to collect "trailer like" music for GMs to use in their games and to ask people for tracks that might fit a scene but can't quite find the right one on their own, in addition to discussing the music and other topics related to this thread.

So lets start things off with a discussion: What makes the perfect music for a/your game?

I'll try to update this post with new links and information as people provide them.

 

Well, in terms of the perfect music for the game: I believe it's music that makes you write as GM and makes your players write.

In short, I think your selection of music needs to inspire as much as possible. You want it to be the sort of track that complements what's happening in the game at that point, the sort of thing you would anticipate blaring through the speakers were the scene proceeding on screen at that moment. On that point, just to get kind of philosophical for a moment, Robert McKee says that the music on film actually has a purpose: it provides a time signature to us, a cue for how the audience is to process the scene as happening in time. Maybe the easiest example of this is the Lobby Fight Scene out of The Matrix. You will recall the juxtaposition of relatively slow -- down to slow motion -- action in that scene against the driving bass and drums of Spybreak by the Propellerheads. Without that music to make us process the scene as happening in a matter of seconds, there would be something missing - the lack of any music would confuse us as we watch, since the scene freely drops between slow motion and normal speed. But the 110+ bpm of the soundtrack keeps us firmly in mind that this is happening in a matter of heartbeats, particularly given the sound effects are muted during the slow motion camera angles in favour of roars like waves on a shore as Trinity and/or Neo fly past us. By the same token, consider the state of the soundtrack in the climax of the film as Trinity quietly monologues to Neo about how she fell in love with The One: the speech takes an inordinate amount of time in the context of the scene, enough that you'd have expected the machines to have ripped the Nebuchanezzar and everyone in it apart. But because the music is muted or even absent in that particular scene, contrasting with its banshee wail around Morpheus and Tank as the machines break in, it gives us a different cue to process the scene: although the scene is not in slow motion, we are "told" by the soundtrack to process it as such, so we ignore the fact Trinity and Neo are somehow immune to the ship getting torn apart around them. And then, of course, music gives the power to emphasise particularly dramatic moments: in the same film, imagine again the climax of The Matrix -- where we are given Neo's point-of-view and see that he can see past the illusion to the code itself -- with all the soundtrack removed. The scene would lack most of its power, but with that music, it truly is the climax of the film in emotional and dramatic terms.

We can't achieve precisely that form of synching of our games' dramatic moments with specific moments in the soundtrack, of course: asking your audience to play a particular "Dum-DUM-DAAAAAAAAA!!!!" sound effect at a particular moment in your update is going to be off because the music is not an integral part of the experience: it goes too far. I do think, though, that knowing what sort of scene you have ahead and making some interesting choices in how you write it and what track you pick for it can make using trailer music much more effective.

One point I might raise which isn't quite touched on above is leitmotifs, that is, little character themes that accompany particular characters around a film. In the SW context, the simplest version is the Imperial March. But I believe they work very, very well for your players' characters, too. On Tide of Flames I rather arrogantly went looking specifically for themes that seemed to me to capture the essence of the players' characters. Some players agreed with my choices; others preferred different tracks. Still, I found it useful as a GM tool to do that because it made those characters even more alive for me than they already were.

EDIT: Also, for track uses, I think it's not that horrible to use a slightly-less-well-known track from a film for your own game. For exploring or revelation scenes, I love Atlantean Sword from the Conan the Barbarian soundtrack. For fight scenes, I reckon the title theme from Total Recall -- all martial, driving drums -- could be something made of awesome in the right context. (Can't link to youtube from work, but these are easy enough to search up.)

For infiltration or break-in style scenes in the modern era, I like Mind Tricks by Two Steps From Hell. In fact, the three songs Nepal in May, Mind Tricks, and Scent of a Woman are off the same TSFH album and always struck me as a mini-story, one of a thief trained to the martial arts in the Himalayas who returns home, breaks into a well-guarded skyscraper one night, and encounters a beautiful woman during the course of that breakin...

As to trailer music and whatnot, aside from Two Steps From Hell, I thoroughly recommend looking up Thomas Bergensen, who worked with them for a while before striking out on his own. He has a lovely little array of his own music.

 

In fact here's Thomas Bergensen's channel.

Also, how could I forget some of our better video game tracks for these purposes. For Dungeons and Dragons-ish stuff...

Kuldahar by the great Jeremy Soule. You may also know him as the guy who wrote the music for Skyrim, and the lovely long atmospheric track from that game.

Also Baldur's Gate 2 soundtrack for these purposes.

And just because it just ****ing rocks it old school, the 3D0 version of the Hyperspace theme from Star Control 2.

 

The YouTube channel myuuji is good too, pretty creepy and ambient but good for dark scenes.

 

Came across this gorgeous little piece from Sonic Symphony: Rise of a Hero.

 

I'm partial to the Eternal/Skies of Arcadia soundtrack. Lot's of variety really.

 

Thank you for this!!.

I've found some interesting music to listen to while I plot now!!

 

Sorry to necropost, but are you kidding me? Why is this not a more popular thread?

And I'm sorry, again, but any sci-fi RPG, Star Wars or otherwise, should be using this gem, or similar. Do yourself a favor. Hit play. Instant bliss.