The Sound Of The Sims
Jerry Martin, MFA ’81, isn’t a gamer, but his influence has been felt—and most certainly heard—by a generation of computer game enthusiasts.
The Center for Contemporary Music graduate was a composer and audio director for “The Sims,” a beloved computer game series that first debuted in February 2000. Created by Bay Area-based video game designer Will Wright and distributed by his company Maxis (and later, Electronic Arts), “The Sims” is an example of what the industry calls a “god game”—one in which the player controls every aspect of the game universe. There’s no end goal or mission in the world of “The Sims”; players simply control the lives of a single Sim or family of Sims as they go through a continuous series of lifelike tasks.
And, much like life, there’s music to accompany that journey. In the case of “The Sims” (as well as associated properties such as “Sim City” and “Sim Casino”), there’s music for interstitial moments, music to soundtrack specific activities such as building or buying items for your Sim home, and even a radio feature. This music is “mostly subliminal and unconscious,” Martin says. “You’re creating emotions for whatever’s happening, and you’re trying to tell the emotional story of what’s going on.”
As much as the game itself has become something of a touchstone for a generation of gamers, so too has the music from “The Sims.”
“I try to not be fake,” Martin says of his compositional technique. And while there’s often a sonic “assignment” he’s composing to, “I like to always transcend that and get to the real meat of what the music could be and should be.”
Finding Inspiration at Mills
Martin was a composition major during his undergrad years at what’s now Cal State East Bay and chose to earn his MFA at Mills College on the strength of its Center for Contemporary Music. “I had a lot of fun there,” Martin recalls of his time at Mills in the late ’70s and early ’80s, “right when computers were coming out.” The composer says he remembers learning on tape recorders and a now-collectible Moog 3C analog synthesizer.
But the real draw for a young Martin were the composition professors; “there were some just incredible guys that I really loved.” At the time, minimalist composer Terry Riley (who is often credited with making one of the first remixes in 1968) was a professor in the Music Department and offered North Indian raga singing classes alongside his guru, Pandit Pran Nath. Within the Center for Contemporary Music, composer Lou Harrison held classes on Javanese gamelan music.
Learning in those diverse styles greatly influenced Martin, who worked as a freelance composer and producer for more than a decade. In the mid-’80s, he founded Musicontrol and created music for a variety of corporate clients—from AT&T and the NBA, to Toyota.
In 1996, Jerry Martin was hired as the studio audio director and lead composer for the Maxis division of Electronic Arts, where he would make his mark on “Sims” properties. His varied background served the particular needs of “The Sims” well.
“I had a lot of background in trying to do as many different things as possible and not specialize [in a certain style of music],” Martin says. “That helped me with ‘The Sims,’ especially because there was a lot of different stuff going on—not just hard-edge techno and rock stuff, like with most of the video games at that time.”
Entering Build Mode
Martin has a particular sense of humor, and while he approaches compositions with a professional determination, he doesn’t take himself too seriously. Creating music for any “Sims” property “was just kind of tongue in cheek,” Martin remembers. “It was funny to me to hear music that was really specific to a certain genre, that was really well done, juxtaposed against these weird Sim characters and scenery.”
Occasionally, he would hire other Mills grads to support his projects. He composed jazz music to create the enlivened, hectic feel of a metropolis for “SimCity 3000,” and used the “patternistic minimalism” he learned from Terry Riley whenever he could. Martin’s minimalistic approach was almost tailor-made for gamers in the “Sim” universe—some of whom “would sit there for hours, days.”
“You want the music to be something that doesn’t get annoying really quickly. If you put too much structure in the music, then it gets more repetitive if you listen to it over and over again,” he explains. “If there’s less structure in the music, then it’s easier to listen to over and over again.”
That particular fact was essential when creating contemplative music for “The Sims” build mode, which would play any time a Sim was renovating their house or engaging in a similarly mundane task essential to the gameplay. Along with jazz pianist John R. Burr and Doobie Brothers saxophonist Marc Russo, Martin composed a series of semi-improvisational New Age jazz piano pieces that would become a hallmark of the game. Twenty-five years later, Martin still receives complimentary emails about “The Sims.”
“I got a lot of comments that they just turned the game on just to hear the music,” Martin recalls. “I think a lot of people really love it now, but when I was doing that stuff, New Age had a bad, bad rap.”
And while “The Sims” didn’t lead to a documented glut of interest in New Age music or improvisational jazz, the repetition of the build-mode music certainly opened ears and created a sound for which people are now nostalgic. A 2018 Vice article estimates that “The Sims” build-mode music is “likely one of the most widely heard album-length collections of music to be released so far this century.”
Leveling Up
Today, interest in video game music has exploded. People listen to music from games on YouTube, while independent musicians have seen games as a revenue generator and means of employment. Games have also become a means of musical exploration; a place where people can learn about new genres and artists. Celebrated musician Jon Batiste has waxed poetic about the importance of video game soundtracks and, in 2022, the Recording Academy announced it had created a new Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack For Video Games and Other Interactive Media.
When Martin first began composing for video games, the format “was this kind of bastard stepchild thing; it was considered lowly.” But over the course of his eight-year tenure at Maxis, “it became more and more revered, right along with music, along with movies.”
While this is due in part to an increasing number of titles and platforms, the medium of the game itself influences the impact of its music. “People play these things for hours and hours and hours. Usually when you’re listening to music, you don’t keep playing it over and over and over again. You’re not going to sit there and watch a movie 10 times in a row,” Martin says. “Just the repetition [of music in a game] is going to pound that stuff into your head. You’re going to be affected by it.”
Martin is mostly retired, but “The Sims” still plays a role in his life—he offers high-quality versions of his compositions for “The Sims” with transcriptions to subscribers of his website, Boombamboom.com. When asked if he’d finally consider playing “The Sims” now that he’s a retiree, Martin just chuckles. He won’t be entering build mode any time soon.