Classical music is staging a comeback, and in an unexpected field. Video games are the new medium for classical music. Game companies have learned that a game has to be an entire experience for the gamer. Graphics and plot are not enough. The sound track of the game must be of equal quality.

In some cases, video games have simply taken classical music and directly incorporated it into the game. They might have done some minor changes to the arrangement, but the basic music has not changed.

People who write music for video games are not merely composing music that is intended to be played by an orchestra. They are writing using the same music forms and structures that are the very basics of classical music. Classical music has a number of different formats in the same way that poetry has certain guidelines. You undoubtedly would not confuse a limerick with a sonnet by Shakespeare.

Among the most popular video games in the past couple of years are those that directly connect to music. Rock band and similar games have enjoyed huge commercial success. The gaming industry, never one to let an opportunity slip past, is expanding on this concept in an attempt to appeal to a wider range of people and maintain interest in their games. The industry now has games where the focal point is classical music.

There is a very positive off-spin to all of this exposure and that is a heightened interest among young people to listen and learn from the masters. One of the clearest examples of this is of one classical music site that decided to join Facebook and as a result, they have had an unexpected surge of interest. This fact is in itself is not surprising. What did flabbergast the site administration is that 45% of the visitors to the site are now between the ages of 13 and 18.

Orchestra and symphonies are also benefiting from this surge in interest. To produce the quality of music that they need, gaming companies are hiring the services of real orchestras. Most have simply stopped using computer versions of the instruments.

Video games are also bringing people back to the orchestra. There can be no denying that over the past forty years all over the nation orchestra and symphonies have been suffering from a decline in interest. Video Game Live is one concert tour that has people coming out in droves. It is selling out wherever it is been played and is getting rave reviews from audiences and critics alike. There are a number of other similar tours that feature the soundtracks from other popular games that are achieving the same results, and it is not just hard-core gamers that are attending these events. People of all ages and backgrounds are heading out to the concert halls to see these shows.

It would be interesting to know what Beethoven would think if he knew that his piece was being used as the background for a sword-wielding elf, or how Mozart would appreciate his music as being associated with man eating mushrooms and attacking plants.