Patrick Suiter - Minecraft Soudtrack

Unlimited creative freedom, exploration, survival, where the only limit is your imagination.. But how can we show that through music?

That's right, we're doing a video game soundtrack today.

The soundtrack of Minecraft, composed by Daniel Rosenfeld or C418 has grown to become extremely popular in the Minecraft community. The entire essence of the game relies on this soundtrack which manages to subtly narrate your gameplay and provide undertones that convey the heart and soul of Minecraft into each and every player.

To most Minecraft players, it seems like the Minecraft soundtrack reeks of nostalgia, which it does. I see comments all the time about Minecraft music saying 'you never knew you were in the old days until they were gone' or something along those lines, especially under slowed down versions of the music (which are oddly interesting to listen to). I personally associate a lot of the old memories I have playing the game with this music. Without the music, Minecraft just.. doesn't feel like Minecraft. It manages to create an atmosphere out of a game that doesn't have one. It's such an integral part of the game, and I feel like despite its popularity, it still deserves some deeper analysis as to why it is so great.

So, without further ado, let's begin to explore the magic of Minecraft's soundtrack.

First of all, let's define what C418's sound is. His music often features a small amount of instruments, and little sprinkles of percussion here and there, though this is very minimal in the Minecraft soundtrack. Strings and synthesizers often fill in the background, bass tones fill out the lover levels, and pianos, synth or similar instruments often carry the melody. Effects are often used to build ambience and subtly distort.

These effects are very effective in my opinion. C418 gives the soundtrack a lo-fi aspect, with a muffled, degraded tone, along with an artificial quality that fits the game perfectly, because look at the Minecraft world. Everything is low definition renders of real life structures, just like the music appears to be low definition renders of real instruments, yet both still turn out to be beautiful and stunning. For an example of this, take a listen to Wet Hands.

C418.

Most video game music that exists nowadays is very scripted. When you play a boss battle, boss music plays, when you enter a certain area, the composer wants you to feel a certain way about something. Or, composers try and adapt their style to the context of the game, for example, the epic cinematic music of Skyrim or adventurous music of Zelda. So for a game that is all about exploring, building towns and killing monsters etc., you would expect one of these cinematic soundtracks right? Or perhaps since Minecraft is so pixelated perhaps we would expect a chiptune or 8-bit style (though I think that that would be fairly cringe worthy). Yet, C418's soundtrack adapts neither of those styles. What we got was a chilled out, ambient, often melancholic soundtrack. And let me explain why that's perfect.

C418, in interviews, has mentioned the difficulty of composing music for a video game such as Minecraft where the story is almost completely different for every player. He tried composing music for every biome to convey that certain mood, but player's move too fast for that music to play long enough to hold real meaning, it would feel stupid. Also, mob interactions within Minecraft are way too short for a 'battle' type theme music. Still, C418 would have no idea what would happen in your Minecraft world and how to convey that through music. It would be like writing a score for a film without reading the script.

How would you go about showing an aquatic biome with music?

So, C418 went for music that fits any possible event that could happen, ambient music, which creates a very neutral mood. This isn't the kind of ambient music that you listen to while studying (though I do recommend Minecraft music for studying) that lacks a sense of melody or any sense of meaning and it's not generic background filler. Ambient music is characterised by its ability to stay in the background, and for its non-intrusiveness (is that a word?). It can emphasise without adding any obvious narrative elements, like video game music should.

Looking at C418's work, it is definitely non-intrusive, very homogenous in dynamics, and often has simple, repeating harmony. The music is environmental music in the fact that it is intended to enhance your environment without you noticing. It's repetition makes you forget that it's there, but when it's finished, you perhaps realise the power of the moment, and perhaps makes building that dirt house more emotionally impactful. The 'creator' of ambient music, Brian Eno, says that ambient music is supposed to be as 'ignorable as it is interesting' which I think fits the Minecraft soundtrack perfectly.

Let's look at some moments from the Minecraft Soundtrack together. As I was doing some research for this review, I came across a fairly popular video by youtuber Meraki, who gave his take on the narrative meaning of different pieces of the Minecraft soundtrack, and I think I might share them with you.

Looking at Clark, Minecraft and Sweden, some of the first tracks composed for Minecraft, they all share a similar instrumentation, combinations of piano and synth strings. They're quite simple, and have a sense of melancholy. The strings give a sense of loneliness, and Meraki points out that the piano even feels like footsteps wandering through a vast emptiness, relating to how playing Minecraft alone feels like, especially since these tracks were composed before multiplayer was introduced. It's a beautiful world, yet you're isolated, even if you've met villagers, and dogs.

Looking at Sweden specifically, it utilises a lot of repetition, it's 4 chord progression repeated again and again with a melody developed over the top. The repetition helps you to forget what is being repeated, contributing to the ambient nature of the track. It also utilises a lot of Major 6th and 9th chords, which hark back to the first ambient music ever created by French composer Erik Satie, in particular his most famous, Gymnopedie No. 1.

The next few tracks are Subwoofer Lullaby, Living Mice, Danny and Haggstrom. Instead of being elegant, these are more ethereal. Synthesizer chord progressions give a sense of space, while bouncy, plucking melodies give a sense of weightlessness. Meraki says that they represent the second world that you can get lost in, and in which you can forget about reality for a little while. They are quite mesmerising.

Subwoofer Lullaby strikes an interesting balance between calm and unease, utilising major 7th chords which are a combination of consonant intervals with dissonant ones. Major 7th chords have always sounded quite nostalgic to me. Anyway, these pieces are still quite sad, perhaps because this escape is so short.

Pieces like Oxygene and key are much more dissonant, electronic and drenched in reverb, yet are some of the most ambient parts of the soundtrack. There are hints of melodies throughout. To Melaki, they represented the breathtaking scale of Minecraft.

Wet Hands, Dry Hands and Mice on Venus are probably my personal favourites. They are all quite piano based, yet retain that Satie-esque quality, they are the most melodic and intricate, and are quite aesthetically pleasing.

People are creative..

Each Music Disc, a collectible item within the game that plays when you insert it into a jukebox, can all be representative of different emotions, yet for me they always enhanced the atmosphere of the repetitive tasks within Minecraft. 13 represents the darkest caves, mall represents the creativity within the game and so on. C418 left quite a couple of easter eggs in the music discs 13 and 11, which I found absolutely fascinating. There's a lot of information about that on the internet though.

Stal always gave me a bit of a laugh. I don't know the story behind it. It doesn't sound great but in a funny way in my opinion.

In the nether, there are two pieces, Concrete Halls and Dead Voxel. Concrete Halls demonstrates bravery with its drums and triumphant melody as well as the dangers of the nether. The sound effects of the Ghast cries throughout are quite haunting, perhaps a reminder that bravery does not cancel out foolishness. Dead Voxel is an extremely mature piece of music which is quite unsettling and often depressing. I've heard it said that it shows the psychological effect of music in the nether.

The music that plays in the End is absolutely perfect. It's about 15 minutes, and it is absolute genius, I highly recommend it. The main theme of Minecraft plays at the beginning yet it is distorted. It is followed by a bleak soundscape which drowns out all the melodies that play underneath, a permeating darkness. A hopeless piano melody - Sweden - plays over the top, before a swirl of distortion and chaos which cuts off. Afterwards, notes are played in reverse and the effects make it seem as if the picture is being put back together, which cuts to static, before a small section of the theme keeps repeating before that too is cut off.

The End perfectly conveys the End in the way that it's desolate atmosphere is perfect for the end and the events that can transpire there, the emptiness could represent the endless void, the piano could represent the lost player, and the distortion could represent the enemies overpowering the player. But, where the End's genius truly shows is in its relation to the text that appears when you complete the game. I don't know if you're familiar with this text, but in a short summary, it’s a conversation that shows how the game is a short dream that allows us to escape the repetitive cycle of the real world, encouraging us to break this cycle and face reality. Liam Triforce points out that The End soundtrack could be representative of reality pulling us out of our bubble (the main music distorted at the start), and then the inability to ward off the harsh truths becomes clearer and clearer (growing distortion), yet we still find ourselves coming back and looping over, just like the minecraft theme at the end. Therefore, the music helps to convey a very powerful message, which I think is very intriguing.

I have yet to talk about the reason that this soundtrack is truly outstanding, and that is the way in which the music is placed within the game. Tracks could play at a ten minute interval, at a sunrise, a sunset, noon, or whenever. For a game in which each player's story is different, this is absolutely perfect, because that means each player's musical journey is entirely unique. Just like the world seed, the music is tailor-made for the player. This makes it easier to associate the soundtrack with memories that you have had, and why the Minecraft music makes you feel so nostalgic, it's the soundtrack to your own life. This opens up all kinds of emotional capabilities, and that is why the game and the music are so inseparable. Each piece has a specific meaning for every person. There's no villager theme or creeper theme, the themes are what you decide for them to represent.

I will always associate Wet Hands with watching the sun set with my friends, and Alpha (probably my personal favourite track) with the immense sense of achievement I felt when I beat the game for the first time.

The Minecraft music as a video game soundtrack is perfect, and captures the essence of what it means to play Minecraft perfectly. Though on the music side of things it is far less experimental and impressive, it is still impressive in its presentation, and I can't imagine any other way it could have been made. I give the Minecraft soundtrack an 8/10.

It takes genius to be able to present music that can be appreciated in millions of different ways, and I think C418 managed to do just that.

What do you think of the Minecraft soundtrack? Let me know in the comments below. Hope you have a nice week!