We often talk about major artists making a big impact and standing out with their music, and for the most part that’s a positive thing. With so much competition out there, being interesting and unique is usually the goal. For some music producers, however, the goal is the opposite: get in and out without anyone noticing you’re there. Background music is a vital part of many kinds of media, and this is what makes it all tick.
The Concept
What makes background music such a tricky concept for any media is that it cannot be the star of the show. Whether it’s for a movie or an online slot game, it must support the main media without overwhelming it. After all, if a player opens up a casino pinball game for free spins on Betfair Casino or anywhere else, they are there to play the game and not just to vibe out to the music. As a kind of media, casino games must make interactivity and visuals a priority, and these can’t afford to be drowned out.
It’s the reason that background music composers are a genre in their own right, as crafting something able to support a theme or feeling while keeping it subtle is a fine balancing act. If it is too subtle, it has no effect; too overt and it draws too much attention.
The Science
Any casual lover of movies or TV shows will know that how the soundtrack and score are wielded can make or break a critical scene, even if that involves suddenly dropping the music entirely. What many do not appreciate is the science behind why the human brain can react so strongly to backing music and how the effects can be almost as strong as hearing a regular song.
As it turns out, studies on the musical effects on the brain have shown that certain music can directly cause activity spikes in the frontal lobe of the brain, mainly connected with our emotional responses. Slow, peaceful string pieces instantly generate a calm feeling in most people, while electronic music with a heavy drum line creates either drama or tension depending on tempo.
The Future
As with everything else in the modern world, the big change coming up in background music has to be AI. We’ve already seen a wealth of music tracks across the Internet which have been specifically made on platforms like Stability AI to serve as the backing to amateur productions or YouTube videos. These tracks are inherently copyright-free like all AI creations, meaning they can be used without licence.
The other interesting area for development that remains purely theoretical for now is an AI-controlled dynamic music mixer. If an AI system is capable of applying music to a live broadcast by automatically reading the content, it would mean things like live streams would suddenly have a huge new tool to take advantage of.
Regardless of how powerful AI is, however, we have no doubt that there will be many skilled background music artists working behind the scenes for years to come on some of the world’s biggest projects.
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