Video Games are constantly evolving, and the music that makes them come to life is no different. Each track has the ability to transport its audience into the world of the game itself. Video games first introduced music in the year 1980, though to call it true 'music' would be a slight overstatement. The technology that produced sounds in arcades or consoles was archaic by today's standards -- acoustic instruments were not used. The way in which music and sound in video games are created is with the use of sound chips; these sound chips create the 'beeps' and 'boops' that many of us are accustomed to hearing.

Bryan Mosley and Gene Dreyband of the video game music podcast "Pixelated Audio" explain in a Youtube video published by the Library of Congress that video game arcades and consoles use different 'channels' and 'voices', which is essentially how many melodies and rhythms can be played at once. There were many different types of voices, such as the 'pulse wave', which usually produced the melody of a song in the traditional computerized style, the 'triangle wave', which was used to create a bass line for a song, and the 'noise wave', which was often used for percussion in a given composition. (1)

Very early games could only effectively utilize one or two of these 'channels' and 'voices' at a time, but as time continues to progress, the technology that allows video game music to exist grows more and more superior at its job. Within this website, a timeline containing several different audio clips will be presented. Each excerpt will provide a key piece in the evolution of video game music as a whole. To view them, click on the 'Audio Samples' tab.