Dynamic music is a concept used in many video games, whereby specific events cause the background music to change. Its first use in a major video game was Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss. It has since been used in such games as Mushroom Men and Guitar Hero. It is a staple of the role-playing game genre, often being used to change the music when the player is in combat, such as in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

The music in video or computer games and certain films are meant to draw you through a storyline using two distinct techniques. Horizontal re-sequencing and Vertical re-orchestration. Horizontal re-sequencing is the method by which pre-composed segments of music can be re-shuffled according to a player’s choice of where they go in a storyline or environment. Vertical re-orchestration is the technique of changing the mix of separate parts of an ongoing loop of music in relation to a player’s movement within the narrative of a game. Recent games such as Bungie Studio’s Halo 2 (2005) employ a mixture of these techniques in the creation of their soundtracks.

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