Video Game Harmony

Since I started this page, there’s something I’ve been wondering quite a bit. What was the first video game soundtrack? Anyone who’s played older games knows that their soundtracks have evolved quite a bit over time. It started out as just a bunch of buzzing sounds, but evolved into full orchestras. Having music play in games wasn’t so easy at first, though. In fact, games didn’t initially have sound. The first game to have sound was Pong in 1972.
https://youtu.be/fiShX2pTz9A

It was hard for computers to include sound while the user was playing the games, however, because that was a lot for the CPU (Central Processing Unit) to handle. This is why sound in general was limited at first, and why Pong’s sounds were basically limited to the sound of the ball being hit and a goal being scored. If any music was used in games, it was either for the beginning or for game over, but not during the game. This now leads to the answer to my question. From what I’ve found, the first game to feature music during it’s gameplay was Space Invaders in 1978.
https://youtu.be/MU4psw3ccUI

You have to listen real closely to hear it since the sound is really deep. It’s just four notes, but it signals the incoming doom of invading aliens. What’s also significant about this in relation to the game is that it changes during gameplay. As the aliens get closer the music gets faster. The music even seems to resemble a heartbeat and how it’s getting faster as we know they’re getting closer! It may have been simple, but it was quite groundbreaking at the time and would eventually change our whole experience with games. I wanted to bring attention to these important games since this is what my page is all about.
Sources on the topic:
https://artsandculture.google.com/story/composing-classics-a-history-of-video-game-music-the-strong/yQVh0uNkq_X8IQ?hl=en
https://pressforsound.com/history-of-video-game-music/
https://bdcampbell.net/music/