Laura Shigihara - Grasswalk from Plants vs. Zombies

Mwaksy:

How do you play a video game using only the power of plants?

In the game, Plants vs. Zombies, plants are the heroes. The player has to defend their house by using different plants. Some plants can throw things at zombies to stop them from coming, and other flowers and fruit and veg are planted for the zombies to eat.

Composer Laura Shigihara created the music for the game. There are almost 30 different pieces of music that make up the soundtrack. All that for just one game! Some composers don't compose that many pieces in their whole lifetime.

Laura Shigihara uses lots of different styles to reflect different stages of the game.

This piece is called Grasswalk and it's used at the start of the game. Laura Shigihara uses short melodies repeated by different instruments. They are catchy and make you want to hum along, but don't distract you from playing the game.

What a fun game and a brilliant soundtrack. What sort of things did you have to think about when you were writing the music?

Laura:

Well, I knew from the beginning it was going to be a really fun and crazy game, and I was actually really excited to get to compose music in my own style. You see, normally you have a producer or a director that's telling you what instruments you can use, and they're sending you examples of music they want you to make your music sound like. But with this project, I actually had a lot of flexibility.

Mwaksy:

Are there any special techniques you have to use to compose for video games?

Laura:

Because I was making video game music, I really had to make sure that the music could be listened to on repeat for long periods of time because unlike with a regular song where you can, you know, listen to it once or twice and be finished, with video game music, a lot of times the player may hear this track over and over and over again.

So, you want to be really careful that you don't make something that would be kind of annoying to the player. I also really like to think about the style of the game when composing music. So, in this case it was really interesting, right? Because we have zombies that are a little bit creepy, we have plants that were kind of cute, and there's also a lot of parts in the game that I think are really funny. So, I had to ask myself, okay, how do I make music that is creepy and cute and funny at the same time? So, for the kind of creepy part, I used a lot of instruments and music styles and stuff like that that are kind of associated with, like, more dark things. For the cute part, I made sure to have a lot of kind of simple but catchy melodies. And for the funny aspect, I changed things up by mixing in beats from different genres.

Mwaksy:

Do you think that video game music is something that anybody could try?

Laura:

Sure, basically you just have to find a game that you like, maybe one of your favourite ones, and you play it with the audio muted. That way you can kind of imagine what music might fit. You can ask yourself, what's the feel of the game and how do you want players to react when they listen to your composition?

Mwaksy:

The music you compose is usually electronic. How does it feel to have an orchestra perform and play your music?

Laura:

Ah, It's such an honour and really exciting for me to get to hear my music played by an orchestra. I feel like it really brings new life to it. I just love it, it's so cool.