Traditional Japanese Modes in Video Game Soundtracks NACVGM 2020-06-20 | Traditional Japanese Modes in Video Game Soundtracks, Liam Hynes TawaNACVGM 7 (Ithaca College)Traditional Japanese Modes in Video Game SoundtracksGame music composers in Japan are, like most other musicians in Japan, trained primarily in the use of Western tonality, just as musicians in the West are. But growing up in Japan does nevertheless expose one to various traditional musics as well, and so some of the scales that predate the arrival of Western tonality in Japan end up being available as compositional resources to Japanese composers of nearly all genres.These are not resources that are called upon very often in most video games, though they are worth learning to recognize because of the affective meanings they often encode. I begin this paper with a brief introduction to Japanese tetrachordal theory, which has been acknowledged as the most productive way to analyze Japanese traditional music since the 1950s,1 and then demonstrate some examples from Sakai Shōgo’s score to Mother 3, because its uses of traditional scales are quite obviously deliberate, and in one case even parodic. From there I proceed to less obvious cases from Pokemon and Yume Nikki, and eventually a few edge cases in which a traditional scale cannot be said to be in use literally, though having it in our analytical toolbox will allow us a fuller understanding of the many forces acting on the music in question.
Chris Hatala NACVGM Concert NACVGM 2025-08-20 | CastleVania III (1989) OvertureHouse of the Dead (1996) MagicianNinja Gaiden II (2008) Irene & RyuLufia & the Fortress of Doom (1995) Priphea FlowersStreet Fighter II (1991) Ryu EndingThe Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1991) Staff RollChristopher Hatala, pianoTokuhiko UwaboTetsuya KawauchiTatsuyuki Maeda Motoi SakurabaChiho KobayashiIzuho Numata Arr. Christopher Hatala
Final Fantasy VI (1994) Dancing Mad NACVGM NACVGM 2025-08-20 | Gregg Rossetti (guitar), Rich Anatone (keyboard), James Heazlewood-Dale (bass), and John MacDonald (drums) perform a prog rock arrangement of 'Dancing Mad,' from Final Fantasy VI. First performing a medley of NES music at NACVGM 2024, their project was spawned from their scholarship interests as well as their love of this style of music.Nobuo Uematsu
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth (2024) - No Promises to Keep NACVGM NACVGM 2025-08-20 | Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth (2024) No Promises to KeepMadison Drace, voice Dana Plank, violinAbigail McGreehan, violaHannah Benjamin, celloRich Anatone, pianoNobuo Uemtasu
The Sound of Falling Giants: Hedonic and Eudaimonic Tensions in the Music of Shadow of the Colossus NACVGM 2021-06-24 | Andrés Almirall NievesNACVGM 8June 13, 2021Abstract:The field of media studies has grappled with the seemingly paradoxical enjoyment of media that evokes a mixture of both positive and negative emotional responses. Put simply: Why do we enjoy engaging with media that makes us feel “bad”? Mary Beth Oliver and media scholars after her have identified the desire to engage with such material as part of a binary framework between hedonic and eudaimonic motivations. In this framework hedonic experiences are those which produce positive, primarily sensory pleasure, while eudaimonic experiences inspire deeper contemplation, posing weighty questions about the human condition. Though some work on this topic has engaged with video games (Solomon 2017, Isbister 2017, Oliver and Ferchaud 2019), research on its application to their music is lacking. The 2001 game Shadow of the Colossus provides a particularly insightful case study for the role of music in shaping a eudaimonic gameplay experience. This critically acclaimed game, often held up as an example of video games as art, centers around the tension between hedonic enjoyment (the fun and thrilling experience of battling a colossus) and the more complicated eudaimonic impact of realizing that killing these colossi is morally wrong. The moral implications of the player’s actions are communicated primarily through the game’s music, specifically the contrast between exciting, heroic in-battle music and the mournful music heard after a colossus is defeated. Through my analysis, I show that the soundtrack’s intersections with the gameplay experience establish and intensify the game’s eudaimonic effect.
Playback (Only?) As Intended: Reflections on Research into the Music of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm R NACVGM 2021-06-24 | Stephen TatlowNACVGM 8June 13, 2021Abstract:How do the ludic and social aspects of play interact during research into multiplayer games and how might this alter analyses of the game? This paper reflects on the specific difficulties of engaging with research into Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) and explores several different methods for research-play in a multiplayer environment based on research undertaken between 2018 and 2020 into the music of the MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Music in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn changes during collaborative play experiences, which alters the social experience of the game. As the research had a specifically multiplayer focus, questions surrounding methodology arose: how can the same play event be observed from multiple perspectives simultaneously? A variety of approaches were tried: utilisation of international gaming communities, participation in game-specific communities, “multi-boxing”, LAN-style multiplayer experiences and others. These led to sufficient success required for the completion of the research, but each method had implications for how the game music was received. Players of MMORPGs engage with the game in substantially different ways and are not always conscious of how this affects the musical experience of the game: in what ways could this research be considered ethnographic, or considered hermeneutical? Do these terms have specific value within the study of multiplayer games, where community involvement may be essential to understanding how players perceive and interpret the game-text?
Face-Melting Counterpoint and Chiptunes: Composing the Score for Mystiqa: The Trials of Time NACVGM 2021-06-24 | Brent FergusonNACVGM 8June 13, 2021Abstract:Composing a soundtrack for a game that fits retro specifications requires both technical knowledge as well as compositional techniques linked to both counterpoint and popular music. I recently completed the score for Mystiqa: The Trials of Time, a roguelike dungeon crawler made using the specifications for Game Boy that will be released for the Nintendo Switch in 2021. I worked with the sole creator, Julian Creutz, through an 8-bit game jam. Creating a soundtrack within the limited specifications of the Game Boy was a challenge. Rather than programming through OpenMPT, I utilized the PAPU plugin in Finale. For the game jam version, Tower of Time (2020), I relied heavily on three tracks of two square waves and a noise channel for percussive effects. This quickly became an exercise in two-voice counterpoint, and many of my compositions for this game are either in styles of neo-classical or progressive rock. For the full game, Julian proposed that I could alter the music slightly by adding effects or having more than the two square waves. While all but two cues utilize the three track texture, I do add effects as the player progresses through the game, such as reverb and delay. The penultimate boss features a minor mode arrangement of the “Queen of the Night” aria from The Magic Flute by Mozart, but the other 22 cues are original. In this presentation, I describe the process and the technical aspects of creating the music for this game.
Remaking Music for Modern Sensibilities: A Case Study in Music Design and Implementation Across FF7 NACVGM 2021-06-24 | Kyle WorrallNACVGM 8June 13, 2021In 1997 SquareSoft (later Square Enix) released the critically acclaimed Final Fantasy VII, with a soundtrack consisting of 85 MIDI tracks making use of the PlayStation’s internal sound chip1and a proprietary engine2. These reactive tracks responded to player behaviour by transitioning between pieces to match gamestate/location (i.e. combat, world map). Comparatively, the remake has 156 audio tracks which make use of many contemporary music integration principles (Stevens & Raybould, 2016; Phillips, 2014; Sweet, 2015). Arguably, the most prevalent problem arising in video game music in Japanese Role Playing Games (J-RPG’s) is that of excessive repetition resulting in listener fatigue (Berlyne, 1976). The effects of listener fatigue are brought about by a combination of three factors; non-linear gameplay, long form storytelling and limited data allowance for music (Collins, 2009; Marks, 2009; Stevens & Raybould, 2016). This case study compares and contrasts these soundtracks to understand how a classic has been re-imagined and implemented for the modern audience, whose tastes in and expectations of game music have developed markedly in the intervening twenty three years. We suggest that the application of these techniques diminishes the likelihood of listener fatigue, by making the most of each song and leitmotif in inventive ways. This case study suggests that the methods used in Final Fantasy VII Remake soundtrack are a potential framework to follow for composers who are updating classic soundtracks and who are conscious of reducing listener fatigue, while maintaining the integrity and listenability of the original music3 4 5. 1 Information taken from an online translation of a 1997 interview with the Square Enix development team, available online: http://shmuplations.com/ff7/.2 A full breakdown of this game engine is available online: http://qears.sourceforge.net/gears.pdf. 3 The Final Fantasy VII Remake soundtrack is being performed in concert now, showing the listenability of this revamped soundtrack: ffvii-remakeconcerts.com/.4 Listenability of this soundtrack is supported by Final Fantasy VII Remake winning the Music and Score award at The Game Awards 2020. 5 Numerous positive reviews are available online discussing the Final Fantasy VII Remake soundtrack: techraptor.net/gaming/features/best-game-music-2020-final-fantasy-vii-remake.
Otogarden: Exploring Musical Improvisation in Digital Games NACVGM 2021-06-24 | Costantino OlivaNACVGM 8June 13, 2021Abstract:This paper presents the ludomusicological research associated with the development of a digital game: Otogarden (Oliva, 2021). If “making an actual game [...] is useful to materialize the design question [or] aesthetic issues [...] that are being addressed” (Khaled, Lessard, & Barr, 2018), Otogarden is intended as a playable support to research on musical participation in digital games, focusing on musical improvisation. While digital games afford a remarkable variety of possible musicking (Oliva, 2017; 2019a; 2019b), examples related to musical improvisation remain few and underexplored, with most games favoring rigid, score-based interactions, as made popular by titles such Guitar Hero (Harmonix, 2005) or Rock Band (Harmonix, 2007). In similar examples, music is presented as “a task to be achieved, a disciplinary activity in which the player should “play” again and again until the game (and thereby music) is mastered” (Kassabian & Jarman, 2016). Crucially, in these examples “music” is understood as pre-recorded compositions performed with the aid of simplified notation (Biamonte, 2011). Otogarden challenges this understanding of “music game”, by focusing on musical improvisation, "an activity of enormous complexity and sophistication, or the simplest and most direct expression” (Bailey, 1993, p. 83, 84). Players of Otogarden are able to repeat short phrases through the use of a “loop” mechanic, musicalizing potentially extra-musical (Kahn, 1999, p. 103) acoustic juxtapositions. While retaining the “intimate and reactive musical bond” (Grimshaw, Tan, & Lipscomb, 2013) typical of the music game genre, Otogarden does not feature canonic game characteristics, such as a winning condition, compatibly with recent understandings of game definitions (Juul, 2019, p. 224). The conclusions show that it is possible to deliberately stimulate the players’ perspective (Aarseth & Calleja, 2015) on the game towards a musical direction, rendering manifest the musical possibilities connected with digital game engagement (Oliva, 2019c). Bibliography Aarseth, E., & Calleja, G. (2015). The Word Game: The ontology of an indefinable object. The Philosophy of Computer Games Conference. Bailey, D. (1993). Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music. Da Capo Press.Biamonte, N. (2011). Musical Representation in the Video Games Guitar Hero and Rock Band. In N. (. Biamonte, Pop-Culture Pedagogy in the Music Classroom: Teaching Tools from American Idol to YouTube. Scarecrow Press.Blacking, J. (1973). How Musical Is Man? University of Washington Press. Blacking, J. (1987). A Common Sense View of All Music. Cambridge University Press.Collins, K. (2007). An Introduction to The Participatory and Non-Linear Aspects of Video Games Audio. In J. Richardson, & S. Hawkins, Essays on Sound and Vision (pp. 263-298). Helsinki University Press.Collins, K. (2013). Playing With Sound: A Theory of Interacting with Sound and Music in Video Games. MIT Press.Grimshaw, M., Tan, S.-L., & Lipscomb, S. D. (2013). Playing with sound: the role of music and sound effects in gaming. In S.-L. Tan, A. J. Cohen, S. D.Lipscomb, & R. A. Kendall (Eds.), The Psychology of Music in Multimedia (pp. 289-314). Harmonix. (2007). Rock Band. MTV Games.Harmonix/RedOctane . (2005). Guitar Hero. Harmonix/RedOctane.House House. (2019). Untitled Goose Game. Panic.Juul, J. (2019). Handmade Pixels: Independent Video Games and the Quest for Authenticity. MIT Press. Kaae, J. (2008). Theoretical Approaches to Composing Dynamic Music for Video Games. In K. Collins, & K. Collins (Ed.), From Pac-Man to Pop Music: Interactive Audio in Games and New Media (pp. 75–92). Ashgate.Kahn, D. (1999). Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts. MIT Press.Kassabian, A., & Jarman, F. (2016). Game and Play in Music Video Games. In M. Kamp, T. Summers, & M. Sweeney (Eds.), Ludomusicology: Approaches to Video Game Music (pp. 116- 132). Equinox Publishing Ltd.Khaled, R., Lessard, J.; Barr, P. (2018). Documenting Trajectories in Design Space: a Methodology for Applied Game Design Research. Foundations of Digital Games Conference.Nintendo. (2020). Animal Crosing: New Horizons. Nintendo.Oliva, C. (2017). On the Ontological Status of Musical Actions in Digital Games. 11th International Philosophy of Computer Games Conference.Oliva, C. (2019a). Ergodic Musicking. Ludomusicology.Oliva, C. (2019b). Musicking with Digital Games. DiGRA 2019: Game, Play and the Emerging Ludo Mix.Oliva, C. (2019c). Musicking with Digital Games [PhD dissertation]. Msida: University of Malta. Oliva, C. (2019). Taiko no Tatsujin: Musical literacy in the Media Mix. DiGRA 2019: Game, Play and the Emerging Ludo Mix.Oliva, C. (2019). The Musicking of Electroplankton. Replaying Japan. Kyoto: Ritsumeikan University. Oliva, C. (2021). Otogarden [digital game, browser/Mac/PC]. http://otogarden.com. See program for complete biblio
Seeing Musical Rhythm: Audiovisual Disruption in Thumper NACVGM 2021-06-24 | Sara BowdenNACVGM 8June 13, 2021Abstract:Through rich use of formal and semantic audiovisual (in)congruence, Thumper (2016) presents a complicated task to its players: see the rhythm, play the rhythm, and don’t look back. Entrusted with guiding a beetle at the center of the screen along a track filled with light up musically articulated “notes” in the form of obstacles, curved walls, and spikes, players navigate each level by visually identifying notes and aurally placing them within their correct location in the metrical context (and on the controller). Rhythm games typically highlight missed notes and combinations aurally (Miller 2009; Kerins 2013; Costello 2016; Shultz 2016). In Thumper, disruption is both a singular musical/ visual/tactile event as well as a process: the immediate visual area lights up with red debris, the controller buzzes angrily, and the soundtrack skips a beat. If players miss more than two notes, the soundtrack changes to repeat the section until players score well enough to move on. Disruption thus constitutes a ludonarrative process reliant on players’ ability to hear and look ahead. Drawing on Battey’s spatial metaphors to describe music in terms of its agreement/ disagreement, consonance/dissonance, and fusion/independence, I argue that the use of audiovisual (in)congruence encourages players to see, hear, and feel audiovisual disruptions as musical disruptions (Battey 2015). An audiovisual analytical approach foregrounds the experience of disruption as both event-based and generative while capturing the viscerally felt disruptive dimension of the procedural programming used in the game’s visual design and soundtrack (Iwamiya 2013).
This is for my fellow Monster Hunters! A Monster Hunter Rise Medley NACVGM 2021-06-24 | NACVGM 8 ConcertJune 12, 2021Satoshi Hori (b. 1989) arr. Adam Campbell, Cortney Morley, Andres Almirall- NievesMedia Musicians Conglomerate Caroline Sullivan, piccolo Andres Almirall-Nieves, flute Cortney Morley, flute Samuel Plato, flute Jessica Hackman, fluteNick Powell, oboeSteven Lease, clarinetAllen Zhang, clarinetKyle Presley, alto saxophone Sophia Pons, alto saxophone Kelsey Parsons, tenor saxophone Brandon Lu, baritone saxophone Andrew Hicks, hornSeline Pons, horn and trumpet Josh Fesmire, trumpet Adam Campbell, trombone Cameron Collar, trombone Austin Vogelsang, trombone Josie Franklin, bass trombone Zack Litty, bass trombone Lindsey Wilson, euphonium Cody Chessor, tuba Christopher Seay, tubaEric Luke, pianoWyatt Bradford, percussion Sam Lyall, percussion Michael Cortz, percussion Evan Stahl, percussion Rachel Oglesby, percussion
NACVGM 8 Performance, Matthew Thompson, Piano Duet NACVGM 2021-06-24 | NACVGM 8 ConcertJune 12, 2021(Recorded May 10, May 12th, and May 25th 2021)Adventure (Dragon Quest III) - Koichi Sugiyama - arr. Yasushi ImamuraPrelude (Final Fantasy) - Nobuo Uematsu - arr. Taro Makido Easter egg: If your eye wanders to the gameplay footage, you may be curious about the names of my characters. I often name myself as the warrior character at the head of the party and love a hack and slash play style. The martial artist in each game is named after my Japanese translator and long time oboe collaborator, Alex Hayashi. I always name white mages in my parties after my husband because, let’s face it, he makes everything better. The wizard class is either an abbreviation for our two cats, Piramo and Cherubino, or a tip of the hat to the NACVGM conference.
Gusty Garden Galaxy for Four Violas arr. Joshua Dieringer (Mahito Yokota) NACVGM 2021-06-24 | NACVGM 8 ConcertJune 12, 2021Gusty Garden GalaxySuper Mario GalaxyJoshua Dieringer, viola Kelsey Farr, viola Abby McGreehan, viola Mounir Nessim, violaMahito Yokota (b. 1947) arr. Joshua Dieringer
A Succession of Pitches and Witches: Musical Constructions of Madness in Final Fantasy VIII NACVGM 2021-06-24 | Tanner JobesNACVGM 8June 12, 2021Abstract:There are many things about Final Fantasy VIII that make it seem strange. Final Fantasy VIII (hereafter FF8,) challenged and reinvented many conventional elements of the Final Fantasy series. Deviations from established norms are noticeable in the gameplay, setting, narrative, graphics, and of course, music. It is also the first series title to feature not the electronic synthesized voice, but the recorded human voice in its music. However, the recorded voice is used sparingly, only appearing in seven out of the seventy-four tracks from the official soundtrack. These tracks often share a recurring vocal motif: the sounding of the phrase “Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec.”The motif takes on an association with madwomen (realized in-game as sorceresses,) and therefore, the narrative meaning attributed to the motif can be understood through Susan McClary’s essay “Excess and Frame: The Musical Representation of Madwomen.” Additionally, William Gibbons’ article “Song and The Transition to ‘Part-Talkie’ Japanese Role-Playing Games” argues that early recorded voice in video games is significant because it draws attention to the narrative. Using both McClary and Gibbons’ writings as a theoretical lens, I will examine two instances of the motif. By taking a closer look at how narrative meaning is attributed to these instances, I aim to demonstrate that FF8 relied on gendered music conventions in order to chart unfamiliar territory into the realm of recorded voice.
Evoking the Past: (Historical) Authenticity vs. (Gameplay) Authenticity in Ancient Greece NACVGM 2021-06-24 | Stephanie LindNACVGM 8June 12-13, 2021Abstract:In his book Unlimited Replays, William Gibbons identifies that game designers “often will appeal to what players think they know about music history. In other words, they find a sweet spot between, on the one hand, conforming slavishly to historical fact and, on the other, alienating players by stretching reality too far”.1 Such practice is common in historical games, and can even create new intertextual frames of reference that are brought forward into players’ new gaming experiences. The Assassin’s Creed series is one particular example of this phenomenon. With each game situated in a particular historical time and place, the music helps to create authenticity for the player – but this is authenticity to the expected gaming experience, not to the historical reality being emulated. For Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, the composers have acknowledged that they use modern-day instruments to imitate instruments that might have been available at the time.2 However, the resultant music in many ways leans more towards evoking the typical sounds of action games with its continuous fast rhythmic pulse, dramatic dynamic swells, and underlay of digital glissando effects (see, for example, youtu.be/fwthw9Sy_RU). This presentation will include soundscape analyses of examples from Odyssey and Hades, two games evoking Ancient Greece, that identify how musical cues both evoke players’ expectations of ‘authenticity’ but also actively communicate information significant to gameplay (modelled on Summers).3 Analyses will be presented alongside video from the game to show how these two components build immersion for the player. 1 William Gibbons, Unlimited Replays: Video Games and Classical Music, New York: Oxford University Press, 2018, p. 31.2 viralbpm.com/2018/10/07/the-flight-share-thoughts-on-their-assassins-creed-odyssey soundtrack/ 3 Tim Summers, Understanding Video Game Music, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017, p. 117.
The Plains The Pathless Scott Penick (Austin Wintory) NACVGM 2021-06-24 | NACVGM 8 ConcertJune 12, 2021Scott Penick, guitarsThe PlainsThe PathlessAustin Wintory (b. 1984)
ShadowBringers Sarah Chang (Masayoshi Soken) NACVGM 2021-06-24 | NACVGM 8 Concert June 12, 2021Sarah (Seoin) Chang, pianoShadowbringersFinal Fantasy XIV: ShadowbringersMasayoshi Soken (b. 1975) arr. Sarah (Seoin) Chang
Who’s the Boss? Differentiating Battle Theme Types in Japanese Role- Playing Games NACVGM 2021-06-24 | Alan ElkinsNACVGM 8June 12, 2021Abstract:Recent scholarship concerning the battle music of Japanese role-playing games (jRPGs) has tended to focus on individual soundtracks: the treatment of temporality in Final Fantasy XII (Greenfield-Casas 2017) and Heroes of Might and Magic (Kinne 2017), the depiction of Kefka’s character arc in Final Fantasy VI (Plank 2017), and the usage of rock and sacred music topics in Xenoblade Chronicles (Yee 2020). While these studies offer valuable insights into specific works, attempts to theorize about this repertoire more broadly have been less often explored. In this paper, I demonstrate the ways in which composers differentiate between standard jRPG battle themes and music reserved for encounters against tougher enemies (“boss fights”) through the use of semiotically marked musical characteristics associated almost exclusively with the latter category. I begin with a brief summary of salient characteristics that differentiate battle music from other jRPG theme types. Then, I discuss several ways in which boss music is aurally distinguishable from standard battle themes: longer introductory passages, a slower tempo, specific changes in orchestration, and an increased use of chromatic harmony (with a focus on a handful of common paradigms). While not every boss theme uses all of these techniques, my survey of over 100 jRPG soundtracks written between 1986 and the present day suggests that the features in question are almost non-existent in standard battle themes, while the vast majority of boss themes employ one or more of these techniques to create the sense of gravitas associated with encounters against more difficult foes.
Identity Crisis: Trauma, Memory Error, and Thematic Disassociation in the Final Fantasy Series NACVGM 2021-06-24 | Richard AnatoneNACVGM 8June 12, 2021Abstract:Trauma and memory error are both crucial narrative devices in JRPGs. The Eastern Kishōtenketsu approach to story-telling helps to slowly reveal the protagonists’ motivations and backstories, which are often rooted in memory-altering traumatic experiences (Kowert 2020). This is perhaps best exemplified in the Final Fantasy franchise: many of the stories involve protagonists that experience significant memory error and crisis of identity due to some tragic event from their past (Kelly 2020; Hughes and Orme 2020). Unsurprisingly, Nobuo Uematsu’s leitmotivic scoring highlights these traumatic experiences by blurring the rhetorical boundaries among character themes, main themes, and idée fixes, resulting in a form of thematic disassociation, resulting in significant—and often unaddressed—interpretive questions regarding the symbolism between the game’s narrative and its soundtrack. Here, I identify four compositional techniques that lead to such thematic disassociation: eponymous omission, associative troping, motivic networking, and the double idée fixe. These techniques are present in all of Uematsu’s soundtracks from the SNES and PlayStation era, and are crucial in shaping the musico-ludic narrative of their games. Pairing each technique with different games, I show how purposely obfuscating musical identity leads to a stronger understanding of the game’s narrative. Through careful manipulation of musical topics, tropes, motivic development, and harmonic complexes, these techniques reflect the psychological trauma that their respective protagonists experience while slowly revealing the true “intangible aspect” of the game’s narrative over its game-long trajectory (Phillips 2014). I conclude by advocating for more integrated approaches to leitmotivic analysis that includes psychological character analysis, demonstrating the power of both association and disassociation.
The Pulse of Combat: Rethinking Diatonic Rhythm through RPG Battle Music NACVGM 2021-06-24 | Ross MitchellNACVGM 8June 12, 2021Abstract:RPG battle themes are some of the most beloved tracks from their respective games, and not simply out of the player’s sheer exposure to them over the course of a game. Battle themes are designed to be thrilling accompaniments to tense gameplay, and one of the key musical parameters with which many of them generate this tension is rhythm. In my survey of RPG battle themes from the 80’s and 90’s, I find a preponderance of rhythms that belong to Jay Rahn’s category of “diatonic rhythm” (Rahn, 1996). Mark Butler’s study of Electronic Dance Music demonstrates the “energetic quality” of a certain subset of diatonic rhythms that also appear with great frequency in RPG battle themes, and describes them as “a particular strategy for creating rhythmic interest” (Butler, 2006). However, while diatonic rhythm provides a useful way for conceptualizing these particular rhythms, the repertory of RPG battle themes also contains many rhythms that are phenomenologically similar to their diatonic cousins, and are used in near identical ways, but do not meet Rahn’s strict mathematical criteria to belong in the category. By drawing on examples from Secret of Mana, Suikoden II, and especially the Final Fantasy franchise, I propose a new category called “propulsive rhythm,” partially overlapping with Rahn’s diatonic category, in order to bring theory and practice closer together. Works Cited Butler, Mark J (2006), Unlocking the Groove: Rhythm, Meter, and Musical Design in Electronic Dance Music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Rahn, Jay (1996), ‘Turning the Analysis around: Africa-Derived Rhythms and Europe-Derived Music Theory.’ Black Music Research Journal 16:1, pp. 71-89.
Worldbuilding through preexisting music and remediation in the Kingdom Hearts Series NACVGM 2021-06-24 | Stefan Greenfield-CasasNACVGM 8June 12, 2021Abstract:The now-classic PlayStation 2 game Kingdom Hearts (2002) was the result of a synergetic collaboration between two media powerhouses: Walt Disney Studios and SquareSoft. In the game, characters from both franchises cohabitate the many in-game “worlds” players must save from evil. These worlds are largely built upon the settings of Disney movies (e.g., the “Halloween Town” world based on Disney’s Nightmare Before Christmas (1997), with Kingdom Hearts composer Yoko Shimomura oftentimes arranging the original music from these films to be incorporated into the game. Here, then, preexisting music literally contributes to the process of worldbuilding.In this paper, I draw on the Kingdom Hearts series (2002—present) to show how arrangements of preexisting music can be used as worldbuilding devices across and between franchises. I accomplish this by expanding upon James Buhler’s (2017; cf. Godsall 2019) notion of musically “branding” the franchise, considering the politics of what happens when two media franchises are merged. Drawing on the writings of Robert Hatten (1994, 2014) and David Neumeyer (2015), I analyze this dialogic relationship between preexisting and newly composed music through the lenses of markedness and audiovisual troping, expanding these theories to the level of the franchise. I conclude the paper by considering how “Dearly Beloved”—Kingdom Hearts’ main theme—has similarly been arranged for the concert hall, thus bridging our “real” world with the virtual world(s) of the game series through an asymmetrical and marked process of remediation.
Currencies, Values, and Exchanges of Game Sounds NACVGM 2021-02-04 | NACVGM 7 (Ithaca College)June 13-14, 2020Peter Smucker (Stetson University)Antonio Gramsci’s critique of Verdi’s operas “recognized that the popular classes picked up certain ‘melodramatic tones and attitudes’ with passion and sincerity, to the point that they became incorporated into the language” (Salvagni 2013, 264). Similar attitudes may be expressed today regarding the appropriation of video game sounds and music into mainstream media. Borrowing from Gramsci’s concept of “hegemony” (Gramsci 1926; Ramos 1982), and Pierre Bourdieu’s cultural capital (1986), this paper examines game sounds in terms of currencies, values, and their effects on class. I pose three questions in order to investigate these aspects. First, how might game sounds acquire value within games or in real life? Second, can these sounds serve as a currency and be exchanged in some manner? Third, is there a way to compare and measure the relative worth of game sounds against each other during gameplay? In order to answer this final question, I develop the concept of “ludic value of game sound currencies.” Figure 1 demonstrates one example of this concept in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (2011). Link’s harp playing can have little ludic value during most of the game. Certain moments, however, have increased value, such as when Link must pay off a debt musically, rather than with the monetary currency of the game. This and other examples demonstrate how games sounds might carry different types of values, either within a game or in real life, and potentially affect the relationship between the “gamer class” and other societal classes.
Gaming Sober, Playing Drunk: Sound Effects of Alcohol in Video Games NACVGM 2021-02-03 | Peter Smucker, Stetson UniversityThis paper develops a framework for associations between sounds, video games, and alcohol. Some recent studies (Kowert and Quandt 2015; Cranwell et al. 2016) examine concerns regarding representations of drugs and alcohol in video games, while others (Montgomery 2006; Schultheis and Mourant, 2001) use Virtual Reality to simulate intoxication. These studiesprimarily focus on the presence and stereotypical use of alcohol, but offer little attention to related sounds and music, or the increased integration between sound design and game-play.This paper lays historical, cultural, and music-theoretical groundwork for associative sounds of alcohol in multimedia experiences, particularly video games.I first define four primary areas of inquiry into sonic representations of alcohol in multimedia: 1) Sound Iconography, which highlights representative sounds of objects and personal behaviors; 2) Sound Environments, or unique sonic locations and settings; 3) Musical Depictions of Drunkenness, such as the use of specific orchestrations and cultural influences; and 4) Simulationof Intoxication, which looks specifically at altered sonic perceptions and experiences. I then demonstrate attributes of these four features through examples from the following videogames (and other media): Bioshock; Red Dead Redemption; the Final Fantasy franchise; Warner Brothers’ cartoon High Note; World of Warcraft; a 2017 advertisement series for Busch beer; andothers. I conclude the paper by considering a larger context of sound and music studies related to alcohol, drugs, and addiction.
Idols of Mass Destruction: Music as a Weaponizing force in Omega Quintet (2014) NACVGM 2020-07-07 | NACVGM 7 (Ithaca College)June 13-14, 2020Brent Ferguson (University of Kansas) and TJ Laws-Nicola (Texas State University)Idols of Mass Destruction: Music as a Weaponizing force in Omega Quintet (2014)Omega Quintet (2014), an idol simulation and role playing video game released for the Sony Playstation 4, centers around the concept of weaponizing musical entities and apparatuses. In this presentation, we analyze the hyper-weaponization of music in Omega Quintet as an allegory for the commodification and consumption of popular music. We draw from the research of other ludomusicologists, such as William Cheng and Tim Summers, that have previously examined the weaponization of music in other games. The story of Omega Quintet is set in a dystopian Japan overrun by monsters known as the Beep. Protagonist Takuto and his childhood friend, Otoha, join an organization that develops special idols to fight the Beep known as Verse Maidens. Idols are highly produced and marketed young Japanese entertainment personalities. Surviving members of humanity provide the fan base for the Verse Maidens. The Verse Maidens depend on fan support to fuel their powers. Battles in Omega Quintet feature an assortment of musical weaponization. Examples include Sound Weapons as the main conduit for physical attacks, each Verse Maiden possessing equippable songs to play during extended attack sequences known as Live Mode, and special joint attacks known as Harmonic Chains. The battles intrinsically connect to the Verse Maiden’s music, taking the commodification of idols to such an extreme that they are simultaneously consumed and used as weapons. Presented as a duality of fragility and strength, beauty and brutality, art and war— the Verse Maidens are consumed in a complex system of cultural and narrative implications.
Collaboration, Communication, Cancellation: Sound and Music Development in Atari’s Film-to-Arcade NACVGM 2020-06-22 | NACVGM 7 (Ithaca College)June 13-14, 2020William O’Hara (Gettysburg College) Collaboration, Communication, Cancellation: Sound and Music Development in Atari’s Film-to-Arcade Adaptations In the early 1980s, the Atari corporation collaborated with several major studios to create games based on popular franchises, resulting in both commercial successes (like Star Wars, 1983) and infamous failures (E.T. the Extraterrestial, 1982). Drawing on archival research conducted at the Strong Museum of Play, this paper examines the process of soundtrack development in three Atari arcade titles: Return of the Jedi (1983-84), Gremlins (1984- 85), and The Last Starfighter (1984-86). Development documents from each project reveal the challenges of creating blockbuster adaptations, including the need for secrecy and the competing interests of the engineers, marketing executives, and studios. Sound and music posed a particular challenge, since film scores are often one of the last elements added during production, leaving a tie-in game’s soundtrack full of placeholder assets; sound designers were often shared among projects, or left to speculate about the sounds and dialogue that might appear in the finished movie (as in Gremlins, which went into production before the movie was filmed). The developers of ROTJ, meanwhile, compiled detailed wishlists of sounds and dialogue samples, drawn from a film that had already been released; the featured speech samples taken from prominent action scenes, but its sound effects were created by Atari. And some adaptations failed: The Last Starfighter was re-developed as Star Raiders II (1986) after its movie tie-in flopped. Gremlins was cancelled before reaching production. From these three case studies, we gain insight into the inter-organizational collaborations behind multimedia franchises, and the uncertainties that often plagued their development.
The One Body Problem NACVGM 2020-06-22 | NACVGM 7 (Ithaca College)June 13-14, 2020A recording of Isaac Schankler's piece, The One Body Problem, performed at the NACVGM concert. Isaac Schankler, electronics
Beeps, Boops, and Boyz: Sonic Representations of Gay Men in Video Games NACVGM 2020-06-22 | NACVGM 7 (Ithaca College)June 13-14, 2020Michael Austin (Louisiana Tech University)Beeps, Boops, and Boyz: Sonic Representations of Gay Men in Video GamesIn his 2014 documentary film, Do I Sound Gay?, director David Thorpe examines the stereotypes surrounding the speech patterns of gay men, investigating what it means to have a “gay voice” or to “sound gay.” While the vocal stereotypes explored in the film seem to be a fixture in popular culture, they also remain a subject for derision and a trigger for bullying and harassment, often causing gay men to internalize homophobia and resort to hyper-masculine sonic expressions of their own identity. These vocal stereotypes are often exploited in the aural representations of LGBTQIA+ characters in video games, where sometimes clichéd, and/or hackneyed voice acting, sound effects, and stereotypically “gay” music serve as sonic shorthand for the gay community.In this paper, I consider the presence or absences of these vocal and musical stereotypes in video games with overtly gay themes, such as My Ex-Boyfriend the Space Tyrant (Up Multimedia 2013), Coming Out on Top (Obscurasoft, 2014), Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator (Game Grumps, 2017), and The Tea Room (Robert Yang, 2017), and Gaydorado (Moga Studios, 2018), and discuss their value as camp and as a vehicle for positive representations of gay men in videogames. I will also discuss the importance of these games for the exploration of identity and self- expression for the “gay-mers” that play them, and the ways in which fans of these games participate sonically in and beyond the community.
Rhythmcremental NACVGM 2020-06-22 | NACVGM 7 (Ithaca College)June 13-14, 2020A recording of Simon Hutchinson and Paul Turowski's piece, Rhythmcremental, played at the NACVGM concert.Simon Hutchinson, electronics
Musical Form and Gameplay Context in the Japanese Role-Playing Game NACVGM 2020-06-22 | NACVGM 7June 13-14, 2020 (Ithaca College)Alan Elkins (Florida State University)Musical Form and Gameplay Context in the Japanese Role-Playing GameThe music of role-playing games (RPGs) has been a frequent site of exploration for scholars of video game music in recent years—especially Nobuo Uematsu’s soundtracks for the Final Fantasy series. Many authors have addressed the ways that polyphonic development (Greenfield-Casas 2016), thematic/motivic recall (Kizzire 2014, Atkinson 2019), and musical topic (Gallagher 2018) may inform interpretation of musical meaning in RPGs; relatively little attention has been paid, however, to the means by which musical form may create or reinforce these interpretations.Building upon recent expansions to Formenlehre theory (Richards 2011, Vande Moortele 2011) and their application to video game music (Schartmann 2018), I argue that musical form aids in differentiating musical spaces in the early Final Fantasy entries and other Japanese RPGs. The bulk of music in early role-playing titles can be divided into four categories: town music, overworld exploration music, dungeon music, and battle music. Town music tends to be the most likely site for period structures and authentic cadential closure, which provide a sense of musical balance and rest largely absent from other theme types. Overworld themes, on the other hand, are more likely to consist of sentential structures, which are inherently characterized by what Vande Moortele calls a “forward orient and dynamic character”; this is especially true of Uematsu’s airship themes. Dungeon themes are often characterized by tonally static or ambiguous harmonies and a lack of functional harmony, as well a significant amount of internal repetition; battle themes retain some, but not all, of these characteristics.
Jun Chikumas Soundtrack for Faxanadu 1987 NACVGM 2020-06-18 | NACVGM 7, Ithaca CollegeJune 13-14, 2020Karen Cook (University of Hartford)Jun Chikuma’s Soundtrack for Faxanadu (1987)Faxanadu is an action-adventure role-playing game released by Hudson Soft in 1987. It was well received, ranking #6 in Nintendo Power’s top 30 games, but was soon forgotten (except by its die-hard fans) until its port to the Wii virtual console in 2010. Its soundtrack was composed by Jun Chikuma, whose work for the Bomberman series often appears in “hidden video game music gems” lists but, like Faxanadu itself, has also been overlooked.In this presentation, I discuss how Chikuma’s soundtrack both aligns with and pivots away from then-burgeoning sonic expectations for action RPGs, and video games writ large. (Gibbons & Reale 2019) Like other contemporary composers, she utilizes familiar fantasy and medievalist musical tropes. (Cook 2019) But she makes heavier use of mode mixture and chromatic melodies, and she avoids stasis in looped themes by layering new melodic or contrapuntal material. More unusual are her treatments of the triangle channel, which occasionaly has the melody, and the noise channel, which contains a surprising variety of rhythmic patterns and fills. Whereas an RPG town theme is often simple, calm, pastoral, and melodic, Chikuma’s is syncopated, angular, and energetic. (Gibbons 2017) Lastly, her final boss theme inverts musical material heard earlier in the game, shaping the soundtrack into a giant arch form. Her soundtrack is thus not only a fascinating case study in its own right, but also an alternative approach to scoring video games at a time when recognizable game music tropes were beginning to coalesce. (Plank 2019)
What Does Early Video Game Dialogue Sound Like? NACVGM 2020-06-16 | NACVGM 7, Ithaca College (virtual)Elizabeth Medina-Gray (Ithaca College)June 13-14, 2020“What Does Early Video Game Dialogue Sound Like?”With highly restrictive technological limitations, early video games typically were not able to include realistic recordings of human voices. Yet a significant minority of early games do include some aural component of in-game dialogue. Some of these aural components sound like voices, albeit voices heavily mediated by technology; speech synthesis appeared in some arcade games beginning in the 1980s, and brief, low-resolution speech samples became increasingly prevalent in certain 16-bit games, for example. Some aural dialogue components sound like purely mechanical output, without a vocal element; such sounds can be either pitched or un-pitched, and they accompany the appearance of on-screen dialogue text. Some aural dialogue components—either vocal or non-vocal—can begin to sound like music.This talk shares the results of a corpus study that examines the sounds of dialogue in early video games. Based on a corpus of over 200 titles—comprised of “best selling” and “most popular” games lists for early arcade, early home computer, and 8- and 16-bit home consoles, supplemented with additional examples—this study considers the following questions: (1) Approximately what proportion of highly successful early games include aural components for in-game dialogue? (2) What types of aural dialogue components appear in early games? (3) What trends or tendencies emerge from those sounds, for example in pitch range, rhythm, timbre, etc.? (4) In what ways might some of these sounds be considered musical? This study provides a foundational context in which to examine these sounds that occupy ambiguous, liminal spaces between voice, sound effect, and music, and between human and machine.
‘The Things I Do For Lust …’: Humor and Subversion in ‘The Bard’s Tale’ (2004) NACVGM 2020-06-16 | ‘The Things I Do For Lust ...’: Humor and Subversion in ‘The Bard’s Tale’ (2004)Karen Cook, University of HartfordThe trope of the bard dates back centuries. As early as the eighteenth century, antiquarians revived the bard as an emblem of nationalism in the face of tyranny and cultural suppression. In poetry, literature, and even musical scholarship, the bard symbolized defiance, liberty, and a heightened affinity with nature. This mystical connection to nature, combined with the bard’s traditional role as lore-keeper, found a welcome home in fantasy literature, where music often had magical agency. Such concepts were perpetuated in Dungeons & Dragons, where the bard was a storyteller but also a fighter, thief, and mage, who cast spells via music. Later video games capitalized on the D&D-style bard, creating characters that did everything from praising the game’s hero or narrating the game to improving morale to musically attacking enemies.This archetypal conception of the bard is turned on its head in “The Bard’s Tale” (2004), an action-based RPG. Here, the Bard acts purely in his own self-interest, a boorish, sarcastic antihero. He sings no one’s praises; he narrates nothing; he improves no one’s morale; and his tunes, rather than attacking his foes directly, instead summon a variety of creatures to do his dirty work for him. In this respect, music is central to the formation of the Bard’s RPG “party.” Unusual for the genre, though, the game has no real soundtrack aside from the Bard’s tunes. I argue in this paper that the typical traits of both the bard and the RPG are thus subverted, at the heart of which subversion lies music.
Gamifying Classical Music and Classifying Game Music NACVGM 2018-02-26 | Dr. WILLIAM GIBBONS is Associate Professor of Musicology and Associate Dean of the College of Fine Arts at Texas Christian University, where he teaches courses in contemporarymusic history and culture. His interdisciplinary research explores topics including musical canons and repertoires, as well as the history and interpretation of music in multimedia.Gibbons’s scholarship has been published in a wide range of academic journals, as well as essay collections including Ludomusicology, The Palgrave Handbook of Sound Design and Musicin Screen Media, Debugging Game History, and The Routledge Companion to Screen Music and Sound, as well as forthcoming contributions to The Oxford Handbook of the Operatic Canon andThe Oxford Handbook of Music and Advertising.He is the author of the 2013 book Building the Operatic Museum: Eighteenth-Century Opera in fin-de-siècle Paris (University of Rochester Press), which explores issues of nationalism, historicism,and culture through the evolution of the modern operatic repertoire. In 2014 he co-edited the essay collection Music in Video Games: Studying Play for Routledge Press, and is currently co-editing a second volume for Routledge, tentatively titled Music in the Role-Playing Game: Heroes & Harmonies.His new book, Unlimited Replays: The Art of Classical Music in Video Games, is forthcoming in early 2018 from Oxford University Press. This study examines the complex relationship between classical music and games from a variety of perspectives, covering topics from the prominence of classical music in early game soundtracks to the rise of orchestral game music performances today.An advocate for public engagement, Gibbons frequently collaborates as guest speaker and program annotator with arts organizations in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, including the Dallas Symphony, the Dallas Winds, and the Fort Worth Opera Festival. He also performsregularly as a collaborative pianist, most recently performing concerts in the US and France as part of the Ataraxia Duo, an ensemble dedicated to commissioning and performing contemporary works for flute and piano.
120 Shrines which are Related Only with One Another: Modernist Style and Neo-Narrative NACVGM 2018-02-09 | 120 Shrines which are Related Only with One Another: Modernist Style and Neo-Narrative in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the WildWesley Bradford, University of Louisiana, Lafayette The music of the Legend of Zelda franchise is a perennial topic in video game music scholarship. The newest installment of the franchise, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (hereafter BOTW) has a significantly different musical pallet than earlier games, prompting discussions in the gaming world with varied titles ranging from “Does Breath of the Wild Have Memorable Music?” (Harr, 2017) to “The Genius Behind Breath of the Wild’s Music” (Walker, 2017). Whether gamers like or loathe the sounds of BOTW, it is clear that the music stands out from other games in the franchise.Jason Brame (2011), Elizabeth Medina-Gray (2014), and Steven Reale (2015) have explored various aspects of the series, including thematic unity, spatial/transformational relationships and modular combinations. This paper suggests a different set of relationships for the new game’s music. Drawing on work by Robert Hatten (2004) and Byron Almén (2008), I propose that the music of BOTW is situated around topical functions, stylistic idioms, and a neonarrative ideology. The game consistently contrasts the modernist past with a pastoral present, and this conflict is revealed in both themes and instrumentation throughout. Modernist idioms with weak or nonexistent tonal centers feature prominently around Link and objects of the past (shrines, guardians), while more standard, tonal/modal ‘themes’ appear around living communities (stables, villages). This organization helps players develop personalized neonarrative arcs within a broad open-world game. The musical departure showcases an evolution in both narrative gameplay and the interaction between music, environment, and gamer.
Using Music-Driven Video Games to Describe Musical Performances NACVGM 2018-02-06 | Ryan Thompson, Michigan State UniversityOften, in discussing a piece of music, notational elements (that is, elements of the piece present in the sheet music) are meticulously analyzed at the expense of performative differences that arise in the case of multiple recordings. Audiosurf and games like it turn this convention on its head, elevating differences in performance to the forefront of conversation. Unlike Guitar Hero, which asks (as Kiri Miller neatly does with the title “Playing Along”) players to conflatemusical and ludic performance, Audiosurf invites players to experience an existing performance or multiple performances of the same work in a new way, encouraging players to notice thingsabout the recording that they might not have otherwise. Similarly, it allows for an approach to research asking how understanding the game’s music-driven mechanics might facilitate a greater understanding of the music selected to accompany them.Audiosurf generates collectable elements that populate a racetrack made from a recording selected by the player. The process is not randomized at all; the game’s internal algorithms ensurethat the same recording input will result in the same racetrack output. Because gameplay elements are non-random, they can be notated, and because they line up neatly with important musical elements of the piece, they can be notated using modified musical notation. Superimposing these notated gameplay elements onto an existing score of a piece of music allows for differences in performance to be discussed on equal footing with notational elements of the piece.
Analyzing Walking Simulators NACVGM 2018-02-06 | Elizabeth Hambleton, University of California, Santa BarbaraVideo game scores are often interactive and almost always dynamic. Composers typically write in loops and modules to permit the player any timing they require during their play session. Some games do not employ such sensitivity to the player’s choices and prefer a static score instead. One genre rests in the gray area between dynamic and static. Walking simulators, also termed “visual narration” or “interactive narration,” are games without winning or losingor much in the way of mechanics. Without goals, danger, actions, or the need to react to anything, there is widespread discussion whether or not they qualify as “video games” at all. Indeed, they resemble virtual sound walks. Regardless of their name, they pose a problem tovideo game music theorists: how does one analyze a fixed score without fixed gameplay? In this paper, I will draw from soundscape and sound walk theories from Steven Feld, R. MurraySchafer, and Hildegarde Westerkamp to build a foundation of analytical techniques that apply to non-virtual sound walks. Next, I will examine video game music analytical theories from Isabella van Elferen, Mark Grimshaw, Tim Summers, and other current video game music theorists. I will apply these approaches to walking simulators like Drizzlepath series, Dear Esther, Leaving Lyndow, and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture to synthesize a method of analysis for walking simulators.
How Musical Variation Creates Expectation in Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) NACVGM 2018-02-06 | Stephanie Lind, Queens UniversitySonic the Hedgehog quickly rose to fame as the flagship game for the Sega Genesis console. Its music was composed by J-Pop musician Masato Nakamura, who stated that he composed the music with a goal of retraining the game tempo “without sounding unnatural.” Despite this fact, Sonic is interesting because of its use of irregularity. For example, the Title Theme, while stable in its initial presentation, is repeatedly varied within the game, introducing chromaticism and polytonality that disrupt the theme’s stability. One such example is the “Continue?” menu music, in which the one-bar theme of the Title Theme is repeatedly transposed up by semitone in the melody and bass, while its counter-melody remains fixed in A major. As aresult, by the end of the fourth bar three different keys occur simultaneously to create a jarring dissonance that the player can only resolve by making a choice to continue or quit the game. This presentation will discuss how variation thereby creates anticipation and expectation within the game through the disruption of harmony, phrase structure, and melodic line.
Terpsichorean Vox: Hitoshi Sakimoto’s Choral Synthesis in the 16-bit Era NACVGM 2018-02-06 | Kevin Burke, Florida Institute of TechnologyVeteran video game composer Hitoshi Sakimoto (Final Fantasy Tactics, Valkyria Chronicles) is widely regarded for cinematic soundtracks, replete with lush strings, brilliant brass, and adiverse palette of global percussion. Indeed the sonic grandeur of Sakimoto’s signature style attained critical acclaim in the 2006 blockbuster Final Fantasy XII, which featured a live studiorecording of a symphony orchestra for the game’s opening and finale.As audio technology and sound design continue to mature and diversify, natural and sampled instruments have achieved almost indistinguishable character. It is no surprise then that Sakimoto’sentry to the video game industry in the late 1980s and early 1990s is marked by timbral exceptionalism. Before achieving notoriety as a composer, Sakimoto helped game developers transition into the 16-bit era as a freelance sound programmer. His custom Terpsichorean sound driver, named for the Ancient Greek muse of dance, offered an alternative approach to advancing sound chip technology, one that leveraged additional audio channels for timbral, rather than textural, expansion. This presentation explores two examples of choral soundsynthesis in Sakimoto’s soundtrack from The Magical Chase (1993) for the TurboGrafx-16, utilizing Wavetable Synthesis. Convincing representations of vocal timbres without the use of Pulse-Code Modulation (PCM) samples are rare to games developed for the console. As video game music tilted increasingly toward sampling and Red Book audio, the Terpsichorean sound driver’s custom design surpasses expectations for 16-bit sound synthesis.
On Adaptation, Ayres, and Assembly Language: Paul Webb’s Score for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves NACVGM 2018-01-29 | Dana Plank, Ohio State UniversityOne common assumption about adaptation is that it is a dilution—a paler copy of an experience. Yet, Paul Webb’s score for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) bears no resemblance toMichael Kamen’s lushly-orchestrated film score. Though Webb’s material is original, its textures and voice leading suggest Renaissance roots; anachronistic for the context of the Crusades, but alluding to Elizabethan ayres and instrumental dances in a way that echoes the identification of Robin Hood with England. As Karen Cook’s work (on Civilization IV, and chant in games)has shown, implying the Middle Ages in the ludomusical context is often about constructing a version of the past that sounds the way people think it may have sounded, rather than strivingfor historical accuracy.Beyond these tendencies to collapse the distant past musically for aesthetic ends, certain technical considerations make Renaissance music better suited to the NES: ground or lamentbass lines are easily looped, meters are regular and thus easier to encode (rather than free, as in Gregorian chant), and the limited number of sound channels on the console are moreconducive to textures found in Renaissance polyphony. However, what is most striking in the score is Webb’s innovative use of the timbral possibilities of the triangle channel to imply unpitchedpercussion, despite apparent harmonic clashing with the upper voices; this belies his deep knowledge of the sound chip’s capabilities. Webb’s score not only recognizes resonances:in translating ayres into assembly language, he created something remarkably idiomatic for the NES.
Song Forms, Rock Tropes, and Metaphors for Listening to the Mega Man Series, 1987– 1993 NACVGM 2018-01-28 | William O’Hara, Gettysburg CollegeThe orchestra plays a central role in the discourse on early chip-based video game music: as an object of imitation (Cheng 2014, Altice 2015), a locus of prestige (Collins 2008, Austin2016), and even a Platonic ideal: orchestral splendor, for some fans, is “how [the music] is meant to be heard” (Gibbons 2015). This paper explores rock music and instrumentation as an alternate metaphor through which to analyze chip music, using the “classic” Mega Man series (Mega Man I through VI, published by Capcom for the Nintendo Entertainment System, 1987—1993) as a case study. The six soundtracks— written by six different composers— develop a consistent style that borrows formal structures and harmonic schemas from rock music (Nobile 2016, Doll 2017), and uses the NES’s four synthesizer channels to imitate a rock combo’s guitar, bass, and drums. Following Summach (2012), this paper categorizes the song forms found in the fifty- eight level themes from the six games—nearly all binary or verse/chorus/ bridge forms— and briefly analyzes the techniques they use to imitate rock. The soundtracks do not only employ formal features like guitar solos and call and response passages; they also simulate performance techniques such as bent notes, “hammer-ons,” and drum breaks. While the Mega Man games are far from unique in imitating rock idioms, their substantial, closed corpus offers an alternative to game music’s contemporary appeals to orchestral prestige andplentitude, throwing into relief the varied interpretive frames through which vintage game music is heard today.
Mariachi Mario: Translating Video Game Music Transculturally in Online Cover Videos NACVGM 2018-01-28 | Michael Austin, Howard UniversityThe United States and Japan have a unique symbiotic relationship centered around entertainment,pop culture, and their associated artifacts. Markets and consumer demand from each country sustain a steady flow of fashion, music, films and television, animation, and video games across the Pacific Ocean in both directions. And while video games and their musicmake a profound impact on the dominant pop cultures of both countries, they also exert influence both on more traditional institutions (such as Western symphonic orchestras thatnow play concerts of video game music, for example) and on other minority and non-Western cultures and subcultures. Video game fans among these groups that fall outside of the dominantcultures of the US and Japan have claimed video game music as their own through the performance of this music in online cover videos on instruments and in ensembles unique to their specific culture.Taking the work of groups such as the Mariachi Entertainment System and Famikoto as examples, this paper examines the translation of video game music into non- Western and “worldmusic” idioms as a form of fan labor. I will consider some of the intersections and influences of video game music within various non-Western and “ethnic” contexts, and I will discuss theexploration and expression of these influences though multicultural participation in video game music fandom as seen in online cover videos. I will also reflect on some of the ways in which these performances call into question themes of cultural appropriation, authenticity, and ownership.
WoW Music Videos: “Classical” Machinima, Fan Production, and the World of Warcraft NACVGM 2018-01-28 | James Deaville, Carleton UniversityThe release of World of Warcraft in late 2004 and the activation of YouTube in early 2005 represented a fortuitous coincidence for gamers, for the convergence of media forms affordedplayers the opportunity to create and circulate video material based on the game. In particular, in the early years fans fashioned music videos—called Machinima— that set WoW game playto external music, often popular songs. The videos emerged at a time when the new platform YouTube was inspiring media fandom to explore remixing audio and video (Freund, 2014: 288), whether in recut trailers or Machinima. As the first MMOPRG to catch the attention of academics, WoW spawned a respectable body of scholarly literature (e.g. Corneliussen & Rettberg, 2008; Nardi, 2010; Chen, 2012), yet the fan-generated videos have eluded closer study, possibly because of their rudimentary editing technologies. (Pace et al, 2013)This paper will study the music videos from the “early” or “Classical” phase of WoW Machinima (Pace et al, 2013: 288), which extends from 2005 to about 2008. The videos appropriated complete songs from external sources in lo-fi audio to accompany edited game footage, typically in ironic or humorous interpretations. This creative fan labor resulted in such popular WoW music videos as “500 Miles” (The Impalers), “Bohemian Rhapsody” (Queen), and “Here Without You” (3 Doors Down), which adapt game characters’ actions to fit the narrative of an existing soundtrack. Through such Machinima music videos, fans could demonstrate game knowledge, technological ability, and musical taste while entertaining fellow gamers.
Strategies for Algorithmic Interactive Music Generation and Implementation in Video Games NACVGM 2018-01-28 | Alvaro Lopez, University of California, RiversideIn this paper I review the concept of algorithmic generative music and discuss the advantages and challenges of its implementation in videogames. Excessive repetition in music material during gameplay has been tackled primarily by using random or sequential containers in sound design software solutions, as can be evinced in the Dynamic Music Units in Audiokinetic’s Wwise. This approach provides a higher variety through recombinatorial properties of music tracks and also a responsive and interactive music stream. However, this methodology uses pre-recorded music sequences that reappear and are easy to recognize throughout gameplay. Game music scoring following generative principles as single-seed design, in which algorithmicprocedures generate material based on rules in real-time interaction, has had a discrete but noticeable outbreak as can be seen in No Man’ s Sky (Hello Games, 2016).While algorithmic note-by-note generation can offer interactive flexibility and infinite diversity, it poses significant challenges such as achieving performance sensibility and producing a distinctive narrative style through program design. Starting with music generation, I examine and evaluate implementation possibilities and technical challenges of algorithmic composition studies that use Markov models, a- life/evolutionary music, generative grammars, agents, and artificial neural networks/deep learning. According to those models, I outline rule-based strategies for music transformation using contextual gameplay situations such as environments,events and actions. Finally, I propose a comprehensive music engine model based in modular instances of algorithmic music generation featuring control/interaction in connection with a procedural sound rendering system.
Chiptune: Ludomusical Shaping of Identity NACVGM 2018-01-28 | George Reid, Kingston University, LondonChiptunes are musical compositions utilising the sonic qualities of microchips from 1980s and1990s video gaming systems: fannish creativity (Sandvoss 2005), which preserves chiptune audiopractices and timbral assemblages beyond ‘dead media’ (Sterling 2008) stasis. With its own sonic ‘consistent distinctiveness’ (Hodkinson 2002) in replicating the audio of specific vid-eogaming generations, creative chiptune fans do not exclusively strive for a rigid or “authentic recreation” of the past. Rather, through fannish creativity, microchip sound becomes rejuvenatedand fluidly intertextual. From Bach to Cyndi Lauper to Doctor Who creative chiptune fans re-contextualise and recreate existing pieces and given meanings beyond their original context,and into new narratives. How can chiptune identity be understood in relation to its musical creativity, which hybridises with other media outside of the “traditional” cultural sphere of videogaming? If, as Simon Frith states, music ‘produces’ identity (Frith 1996), what does such playful intertextuality reveal about musical creativity and identity narratives? How does such musical play produce chiptune identity and furthermore shape its temporary manifestation?In a posthuman approach (Braidotti 2013), my paper charts the fannish utilization of chipsound and unrelated media assemblages of musical/non-musical, human/non- human ‘actors’(Blake and Van Elferen 2015; cf. Latour 1996) to vector the becoming – in the DeleuzoGuattarian sense (1987) – of chiptune identity. Through Rosi Braidotti’s relational figuration of the nomadic subject (2012), my paper provides insight into how chiptune fans shape their fluid (sub)cultural identity through a musical play with intertextuality, time-space, and culturalboundaries to reveal chiptune identity as a ludomusical (Moseley 2017), multi-layered, complex, and largely non-unitary figuration.
Music as Problem-Solving: Transcribing Tunes for the Atari 2600 NACVGM 2018-01-28 | Andrew Schartmann, Yale UniversityWhen the Atari 2600 was released in 1977, there was no such thing as a video game composer per se. Sound design was left to programmers, most of whom had little or no background inmusic. With the Atari 2600, in particular, this lack of compositional expertise created a unique challenge for developers: although they could resort to music in the public domain, they stillhad to contend with the console’s severely limited tuning set. (To visualize this limitation, imagine five full octaves on a piano. Now remove half of the notes at random, and detune eachof the remaining pitches—some sharp-ward and some flat-ward.)This being the case, programmers were often left with the awkward task of transcribing preexisting tunes for an instrument that could not truly accommodate them. This paper focuses on Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” as used in the game Mountain King (CBSElectronics, 1983), to highlight some of the unusual ways in which programmers had to conceptualize music in order to minimize the ill effects of the transcription process. In doing so, it responds to Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost’s (2009, ix) call to “[investigate]...underlyingcomputer systems and how they enable, constrain, shape, and support the creative work that is done on them.” My hope is that this paper inspires others to consider deeply how things like hardware and programming architecture influence not only the final multimedia product, but also the way in which designers perceive the creative process itself.
“There’s no question you’ll be popular after performing these in front of your friends!... NACVGM 2018-01-28 | “There’s no question you’ll be popular after performing these in front of your friends!” The Pedagogy and Performance of Piano Transcriptions of Video Game MusicMatthew Thompson, University of MichiganThere has been a practice especially in Japan as well as the US since the 1990s of publishing piano transcriptions of video game music. To date, these scores have received virtually no scholarly attention, though internet performances of them can garner millions of viewsand pianists with classical backgrounds now tour performing these pieces. This paper explores pieces from piano collections of major game series like The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario, Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, and Kingdom Hearts. The presentation will demonstrate the variety of these arrangements in a wide range of difficulties, from early-intermediate level to advanced concert repertoire, from jazzy to “original sound” versions, and from official published pieces to those found online, created by fans. The piano pedagogy of these will be discussed, many based on a piano method by Ferdinand Beyer, through newly created translations of the Japanese pedagogic and performance notes found in the scores, provided by the author courtesy of an SMTD research grant. The paper culminates with discussion of possible new arrangementsto be made addressing pedagogic gaps in the repertoire, it explores a lucrative and creative outlet for performing pianists, and further proposes the argument that these pieces are worthy of incorporation into university teaching curricula.
Tropes and Narrative Foreshadowing in Final Fantasy IV NACVGM 2018-01-27 | Sean Atkinson, Texas Christian UniversityDavid Neumeyer’s manuscript on film music considers topics and tropes along a continuum, where topics occupy a space of “cultural, stable, and familiar,” while tropes represent the “cinematic, unstable, and creative” (Neumeyer 2015). Tropes occur when previously unrelated types are juxtaposed in such a way as to provoke a new interpretation (Hatten 1994). Buildingon this conception of topics and tropes, this presentation identifies tropes in video game music that serve to enhance and support the game’s narrative. Specifically, the music of Final FantasyIV provides two examples of tropes that compliment gameplay and foreshadow narrative. Both tropes involve the specific manipulation of important topical characteristics found in the military topic and what I call the flying topic.The military topic and associated trope are used to comment on and foreshadow the transformation of Cecil, the game’s central character, as he transitions from the role of anti-hero tohero. The flying topic is presented as a trope, with most of its defining characteristics inverted. For example, music that should contain ascending musical gestures instead prominently featuresdescending gestures. These inverted figures, along with several other altered topical characteristics, create a trope that foreshadows an important narrative twist of the game in whichplayers use the game’s Airship to descend below the surface and explore a vast underground world. These tropes provide dramatic support for the game’s narrative, but more broadly demonstratethe potential of tropes in the study of video game music.
Creativity and Technology: Chocolate and Peanut Butter, or Oil and Water? NACVGM 2018-01-27 | MARTY O’DONNELL earned his Masters of Music Degree in Composition with honorsfrom USC in 1981. He then founded the Chicago-based commercial music and sound productioncompany, TotalAudio, which in 1997 produced sound design for Cyan’s Riven, theSequel to Myst, and created all of the audio for Bungie’s award winning Myth series. His bodyof work also includes numerous original scores for television, radio, and film.In the spring of 2000, ten days after Marty accepted a position as Bungie’s Audio Directorand Composer, Microsoft purchased the studio and moved them to Redmond so they couldfocus their efforts on developing Halo for the Xbox platform launch. The highly acclaimedHalo series went on to be extremely successful, with Halo 3 shattering entertainment recordsfor both single day and first week sales, and with the total number of Halo games played nowtallied in the billions.The audio and music for the Halo series has received numerous honors and awards, includingthe Game Developers Choice Award, the Edge Award, Rolling Stone Magazine’s Best GameSoundtrack, and Best Sound/Music from the AIAS, IGDA, GANG, TEC, and Spike TV. Thecritically acclaimed soundtracks are also best sellers.In July of 2007, Marty became one of the partners in the once again independent Bungie. Hisfinal project with them, Destiny, featured music in collaboration with Sir Paul McCartney. Inaddition to creating and overseeing sound design, music, and implementation, Marty also didthe casting and directing of all the voice acting for Bungie’s games. The music and audio fromDestiny have won several awards including Best Audio and Best Music from the AIAS. He wasawarded GANG’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.Marty is co-founder and co-owner of Highwire Games in Seattle. Their first title, Golem, is anexclusive title for Playstation VR and will be released later this year. He is also composed andproduced Echoes of the First Dreamer, the musical prequel to Golem, which is available now.
‘STFU, n00b!’: Barriers to Listening in World of Warcraft NACVGM 2018-01-27 | Steven Reale, Youngstown State UniversityThe lifeblood of a subscription-based game like World of Warcraft (Blizzard, 2004—) is its ability to retain its user base; what made WoW so successful, drawing at its peak 12 million concurrent subscribers, was in part a steady release of new content through patches and expansions and its careful accommodation of many different playstyles. Notably, the vast amount of game content produced to meet player demand for novel and focused gaming experiences means that only the most ardent fans will have the time or dedication to fully experience all available content. This paper, inspired by what Dana Plank has called “the silence of the circuits,” examines synchronic and diachronic barriers that prevent players from listening to the entirety of WoW’s in-game soundtrack.Diachronic barriers are the kind that emerge when Blizzard releases an expansion that renders previous end-game content obsolete. Regions lie empty as players migrate away to new zonesthat have been added elsewhere; the musical accompaniments for these older areas become unheard melodies: notes within the machine that no longer sound. Synchronic barriers existwhen a player lacks the resources required to access specific content. Raid dungeons, for example, demand the coordination of as many as forty expert players to succeed in their encounters.Few players will ever have the opportunity to fully explore the most challenging of these dungeons; their musical accompaniments will only be heard in-game by the elite.
Narrating Near-Death Experience: A Semiotic Analysis of Chopin’s Music in Eternal Sonata NACVGM 2018-01-27 | Thomas Yee, University of Texas, AustinRarely do the worlds of classical music and video games collide explicitly; when they do, as in the 2007 JRPG Eternal Sonata, the result is of marked semiotic interest. The game’s complexmetafictional plotline—involving multiple levels of narrative seeking to blend fantasy and reality—invites speculation and interpretation, particularly concerning its multivalent ending andnarrative themes. However, rigorous interpretative attention has not been directed towards the game’s music to uncover what significance it holds for the meaning of the game’s story.Though William Gibbons concludes that “nothing in Eternal Sonata’s score score hints at [Chopin’s music],” the soundscape of Chopin’s real-world oeuvre and Motoi Sakuraba’s originalsoundtrack are on occasion intricately interwoven (Gibbons, forthcoming; 201). This presentation, “Narrating Near- Death Experience: A Semiotic Analysis of Chopin’s Music in EternalSonata,” uses recently-developed analytic methods from the burgeoning field of musical semiotics to glean poignant interpretative meaning from the game’s musical surface. By invoking music-theoretic work in intertextuality (Klein 2004), musical narrative (Almén 2008), and virtual agency (Hatten, forthcoming), I argue that the resulting intertext is a meaningful semiotic unity—not a disjunction. In particular, this presentation will undertake a music-semioticanalysis of Chopin’s “Revolutionary” Étude Op. 10, No. 12 and “Raindrop” Prelude Op. 28, No. 15 as troped with tracks from Sakuraba’s original score. As in the study of film music semiotics,this score stands as a hermeneutic key for decoding artistic meaning in Eternal Sonata.
