I’ve been touching on linear vs non-linear music in earlier posts, and even if I argue that music is always linear when we here it, we also know that there is an element of non-linearity in music for games, VR and other environments where the music needs to adapt to interactions. Through my teaching at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, me and my students have talked about alternative views in music productions. One idea that seamed strong was a Music Mind Map where we could have an overview of themes, tracks and parts in a production and have musical transitions between them when we’re navigating through the music.
Said and done, I decided to create a prototype and evaluate it with my students and some professional game music composers. Henrik Lindström contributed with wonderful music and I used my interactive music javascript library iMusic to synchronise all the audio. It’s not a working tool for making music but it gives an idea about what it could be like. Please have a go and don’t hesitate to give me feedback through the evaluation form: https://goo.gl/forms/ASOUpjJDLTBVO4Y93