Understanding Video Game Music 9781107116870, 2016014926, 9781107539679

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Understanding Video Game Music

Understanding Video Game Music develops a musicology of video game music by providing methods and concepts for understanding music in this medium. From the practicalities of investigating the video game as a musical source to the critical perspectives on game music – using examples including Final Fantasy VII, Monkey Island 2, SSX Tricky and Silent Hill – these explorations not only illuminate aspects of game music, but also provide conceptual ideas valuable for future analysis. Music is not a redundant echo of other textual levels of the game, but central to the experience of interacting with video games. As the author likes to describe it, this book is about music for racing a rally car, music for evading zombies, music for dancing, music for solving puzzles, music for saving the Earth from aliens, music for managing a city, music for being a hero; in short, it is about music for playing. tim summers is Teaching Fellow in Music at Royal Holloway, University of London and has previously taught music at Oxford and Bristol Universities. As Centenary Research Scholar at Bristol, he wrote one of the first PhDs on video game music. He is a co-founder of the UK Ludomusicology Research Group on video game music. He has written for journals including the Journal of the Royal Musical Association, the Journal of Film Music and Music, Sound, and the Moving Image. He has edited both a collection of essays on video game music, Ludomusicology: Approaches to Video Game Music, and a special issue of The Soundtrack on game audio.

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Understanding Video Game Music tim summers

University of London

Foreword by james hannigan

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University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107116870 © Tim Summers 2016 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2016 Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd. Padstow Cornwall A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Summers, Tim, 1987– author. Title: Understanding video game music / Tim Summers ; foreword by James Hannigan. Description: Cambridge, UK : New York : Cambridge University Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016014926| ISBN 9781107116870 (Hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781107539679 (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Video game music–History and criticism. Classification: LCC ML3540.7 .S86 2016 | DDC 781.5/4–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016014926 ISBN 978-1-107-11687-0 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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For Adam.

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Contents

List of Figures, Musical Examples and Tables Foreword by James Hannigan [xi] Acknowledgements [xiii]

Introduction: Beyond the Candelabrum

[page viii]

[1]

part i analysing v ideo game music

[11]

1 The Video Game as a Source [13] 2 Methods of Analysis [33] part ii critical perspectives

[55]

3 Texturing and the Aesthetics of Immersion 4 Music and Virtual Game Worlds 5 Communication for Play

[57]

[85]

[116]

6 Hollywood Film Music and Game Music 7 Musical Play and Video Games Epilogue: Fun, Play and Music

[143]

[178] [201]

Appendix: How to Hear a Video Game: An Outline Bibliography [215] Ludography [231] Index of Games [237] General Index [240]

[208]

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Figures, Musical Examples and Tables

Introduction Figure 0.1 Cartoon: ‘The Ultimate Combo’ by David Soames. Used by kind permission of the artist. www.davidsoames.com [2] Chapter 1 Figure 1.1 Outline of the typical musical architecture of a video game. [14] Table 1.1 Text of Super Smash Bros. Brawl’s opening cue. [18] Chapter 2 Figure 2.1 An excerpt of code from Rome: Total War, descr_sounds_music.txt. [38] Figure 2.2 Top-down map of music implementation in the first level of Alone in the Dark [4]: The New Nightmare for the Carnby character. Used by permission of the composer. [47] Figure 2.3 Diagrammatic representation of the final part of the ‘Pillar of Autumn’ level of Halo: Combat Evolved. [51] Table 2.1 Sources, data and analysis in game music sources. [52] Chapter 3 Elite – Approaching a space station. [61] Diagram of music, context and player interaction in an FPS with epic texturing. [69] Example 3.1 Largo’s Theme from Monkey Island 2. Used by kind permission of LucasFilm. [74] Figure 3.1 Figure 3.2

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List of Figures, Musical Examples and Tables

Figure 3.3 Guybrush’s approach to the Voodoo Lady in Monkey Island 2. [76] Figure 3.4a A screenshot of Loom, showing the player’s character, the distaff and the motif pitch interface. [81] Figure 3.4b An excerpt from the instruction booklet for Loom, showing the distaff and the keyboard controls for the pitches. Used by kind permission of LucasFilm. [81]

Chapter 4 Table 4.1 Table 4.2 Table 4.3 Example 4.1

Racing game subgenres. [88] Music trends in racing game subgenres. [89] Art music used in Civilization IV. [98] SimCity 2000, ‘1002’ – Improvisatory trumpet with an ostinato string accompaniment. [106] Example 4.2 SimCity 2000, ‘1009’ – Ground ‘walking’ bass example, with improvisation in flute. [107] Example 4.3 SimCity 2000, ‘1001’ (Excerpt only) – 12-bar blues format (here rendered as 24 bars). [108]

Chapter 5 Table 5.1 Speech act theory in application to musical narration in a game. [125]

Chapter 6 Example 6.1 Space Quest main theme. [147] Example 6.2 The Legend of Zelda theme as heard in A Link to the Past. [148] Example 6.3 ‘Robin’s Theme’ from The Adventures of Robin Hood by Korngold. [149] Example 6.4 Title theme from The Sea Hawk by Korngold. [149] Table 6.1 Excerpts from reviews of Advent Rising. [151] Figure 6.1 Exploration Mode (Top) and Battle Mode (Bottom) in Final Fantasy VII. [165] Figure 6.2 Identification of intervallic relationships in the main themes of Final Fantasy VII. [171]

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ix

x

List of Figures, Musical Examples and Tables

Table 6.2 Hollywood film music and game music. [175] Every effort has been made to secure necessary permissions to reproduce copyright material in this work, though in some cases it has proved impossible to trace copyright holders or ascertain ownership. If any omissions are brought to our notice, we will be happy to include appropriate acknowledgments on reprinting (in any subsequent edition).

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Foreword james hannigan

My first encounter with Tim Summers dates back to Ludomusicology in 2013, to which composer and University of Chichester academic Dr Stephen Baysted had invited me as a speaker. During my session, which took the form of a relaxed conversation, I was afforded an opportunity to discuss my work on a wide variety of game types and projects ranging from simulations and strategy titles such as Theme Park World, Freelancer and Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 through to (at the time) recently completed projects such as Dead Space 3, and film tie-ins including the Harry Potter series. For someone who had spent a large part of his waking life sitting in a darkened studio scrambling to meet deadlines – finding occasional respite in the creation of fun themes such as Soviet March, jazzy ditties for games like Evil Genius and high-octane electronica for EA Sports titles – attending Ludomusicology and encountering so many academics with an avid interest in games music I found to be enjoyable and validating in equal measure. At the very least, getting out to discuss the relationship between sound and music in games and some of the philosophical issues I care most about – such as the varying roles music can take in filmic, first- and thirdperson games – sure beats ‘slaving over a hot stave’, as my good friend the conductor Allan Wilson often quips when under the cosh. Several conferences on games music I had attended before Ludomusicology I had found to be technically informative but rather inward-looking, industry-focused affairs devoted mostly to ‘how to’ presentations on integrating music in games, business arrangements, or the ‘novelty value’ of recording orchestras and musicians in ways that are, frankly, pretty familiar to any composers worth their salt or to practitioners peering in from other industries. Such a focus on production, tools and technology, rather than on the function and aesthetic details of music and what motivates it beyond simple visual cues and one-dimensional ‘game states’, is a longterm games industry bugbear for me. I can only explain this tendency away by pointing to gaming’s initial emergence from Silicon Valley several decades ago, which must have entailed, I imagine, the carrying over of software industry values and computer terminology into the realm of

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entertainment as we now think of it. (As far as I know, no other creative industry uses terms such as ‘implementation’ for the task of editing and applying music.) Ludomusicology signified a couple of important things for me: first, that it was facilitating a meaningful dialogue on the aesthetics of games music between industry and academia and, second, that the mere existence of the conference, with its global network of ardent academics, reaffirmed for me something I’ve always believed to be true: games music can be unique and is eminently worthy of study and analysis. This in itself may not have much bearing on the day-to-day operation of the games industry – yet – but such serious investigation by Ludomusicology and, indeed, within the pages of Understanding Video Game Music, I believe to be important for future generations seeking to evaluate and make sense of games music during its first forty years. It helps also to establish more widely the idea that games in general are a distinct art form – and that’s something all humanity can surely benefit from. During my time working in music, the mainstream media has shown increasing interest in games, offering some form of external validation for composers. Yet, as far as I am able to tell, for these pundits the most interesting aspect of games music currently appears to be its similarity to everything else out there. Games music, it seems, is only granted legitimacy as ‘real music’ when it succeeds in resembling (and functioning as, mostly for narrative support) music existing for other forms such as film and television, or when it is presented as a linear, radio-ready soundtrack. Everything else from games, I can only assume, continues to be thought of as a series of meaningless bleeps and bloops. Such increasingly widespread recognition is, however, most welcome, if a little one-sided, but I look forward to the day when the music of games, in all its splendour and diversity, is more widely understood in its original ‘interactive’ context by the public, gamers and industry alike. Understanding Video Game Music I firmly believe will become an important work in helping to bring about this kind of awareness and appreciation. When Tim asked me to pen a foreword for Understanding Video Game Music, I felt not only honoured at being asked but also thrilled at the mere prospect of his book’s existence. Having thoroughly enjoyed reading it, I was especially delighted to see that even I had a mention in it. (Way to go, Tim – your cheque is in the post.)

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Acknowledgements

The story of this book begins with three people whom I had the great fortune to meet in 2005 as undergraduates at St Catherine’s College, Oxford: Nicholas Cowle, Chris Greening and Rob Piggott. Each of them passionate about video game music in very different ways, these friends challenged me to bring game music into my academic life. They asked me, ‘If you study film music, why not game music?’ Indeed. Many fruitful conversations and arguments with Nick, Chris and Rob about game music helped to formulate my ideas and develop my appetite and subsequent advocacy for the study of game music. Much of the research presented here has its origins in my PhD research. This was conducted at Bristol University and would not have been possible without the generosity of the University of Bristol Centenary Campaign which funded the project. My supervisor at Bristol was Guido Heldt. Far more than simply a ‘supervisor’, Guido’s complete dedication to this research was coupled with unfaltering enthusiasm, great humour, insightful advice and limitless patience. Both guide and collaborator, working with Guido made the foundational research for this project a happy and exciting experience. When Justin Williams arrived at Bristol, he never expected to become my academic ‘agony uncle’, nevertheless, I have mercilessly pestered him for guidance and he has proved to be an unfailing source of sage advice. As a wonderful friend and guru, I shan’t be leaving him alone any time soon. At Bristol, thanks are also due to Emma Hornby and John Pickard, who read early drafts of my ideas and offered helpful comments, and to Cecilia Quaintrell for always looking out for me. I must thank my dear colleagues and friends at the Ludomusicology video game music research group, Michiel Kamp and Mark Sweeney. The influence of both Michiel and Mark’s thinking is everywhere in this volume. Working with Mark and Michiel on the Ludo conferences and projects has been one of the great joys of my academic life and I am extraordinarily privileged to share a platform with these kind and brilliant scholars whom I respect immensely. Thank you for your help, friendship, support and always being available to offer an honest, considered opinion. And yes, Mark, I even discuss games made after 1999.

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Many others in the Ludomusicology circle have also inspired this book. In particular, I have had exceptionally valuable conversations with Melanie Fritsch and James Barnaby about how they understand music in games and this volume would be much poorer without their input. I hope that I have done you both, and the wider European Ludomusicology cluster, proud. Peter Franklin deserves extra special thanks. Peter has not only provided enthusiasm for game music studies, he is also the model of a compassionate, joyful musicologist. Thanks go to Peter for being both a mentor and close friend. At Oxford, I also wish to express my gratitude to the late Stephen Jordan, formerly of the Oxford Music Faculty Library (you will be sorely missed), and my students at Oxford, especially Alice Angliss, Dan Baboulene, Josh Hagley, Nathan Klein, Makoto Nakata, Tomos Nicholls, Chloë Scott, Hannah Scott, Dan Shao, Sophie Strudwick and Heather Young. At ThinkSpace in Chichester, I want to thank Guy Michelmore, Blake Troise and Tim Johnson for allowing me the opportunity to be part of their continuing work of media music education. Chris Greening and Brian Conrad helped considerably with helping to track down composers of certain pieces of game music. In the course of my work, I have been fortunate to meet many great scholars with whom I have had the opportunity to share ideas. I would specifically like to thank Isabella van Elferen, William Gibbons, Stephen Baysted, Anahid Kassabian and Kevin Donnelly. These individuals, with their enthusiasm for game music, dazzling ideas and exceptionally generous spirits, remind me how lucky I am to be studying game music, and to do so within their company is a privilege. Particular thanks are also due to Richard Stevens (for insights into game programming), Miguel Mera (for the encouragement and discussions about television music), Will Cheng (for the brilliant model of your work, as well as conversations about Rayman) and Ben Winters (for the advice and words of wisdom). This book also benefited from specific help from three individuals concerning language. Lyman Gamberton provided Latin translations, Matthew Fletcher helped me with Japanese and Will Beharrell gave me advice about performativity and linguistics. My personal thanks also go to Lewys and Mayra Jones, Craig Williams for his friendship, cinema trips and the loan of his XBOX, Chris Chan for the evening hours chatting about games, David Roesner for involving me in the AHRC research network on music and video games, Jo Cheetham and Sarah Mapplebeck at Presdales for guiding me, Merry and Flora for providing perspective, Gareth and Kath Whitcombe for providing my first steps into music-making, Paul Cook for a lifetime’s worth of

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Acknowledgements

encouragement and passion for all kinds of music, and Karen Collins and Kiri Miller for brilliant writings on game music. At Cambridge University Press, I am indebted to Vicki Cooper for commissioning this unusual volume and to her successor Kate Brett who, along with Fleur Jones and Lorenza Toffolon, guided me through the process of publication with good humour and professionalism. Thank you for your patience, your help and your enthusiasm for this rather unorthodox project. Drafts of the entire manuscript were read by Melanie Fritch, William Gibbons and Ben Winters. I am enormously grateful for their time and their perceptive comments which helped to improve this book. Chapters were read by Stephen Baysted, Michiel Kamp and Mark Sweeney, who also provided insightful advice and asked pertinent questions. Along with the anonymous readers assigned by Cambridge University Press, all of these individuals have helped to enhance and develop this manuscript. I consider myself very fortunate to be able to draw upon their expertise and good will. James Hannigan, a composer whose music I adore and whose sentiments about game music I wholeheartedly agree with, took time out of his busy schedule and very kindly agreed to write a foreword to this volume. I hope readers will find his contribution as insightful as I do. I owe a great debt to my family – to my ‘in-laws’ Sarah and Andy (thank you for the MIDI wisdom), Sophie and Chris, and my parents Anne and Huw, and grandmother Mary. It was my wonderful father, Huw, who first introduced me to computers and the technology and artistry within them. My fondest, earliest childhood memories are ‘playing computers’ with my Dad. Thank you for the sense of wonder about technology that you gave me. You will always be my ultimate computer genius. The final thanks goes to the one who shares my passion for music, games and life, Adam. My companion, my ‘Player 2’, my partner. I can’t thank you enough for the unfailing support and belief you have in my work. With all the love I have, this book is for you.

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u Introduction Beyond the Candelabrum

It is traditional for books about music to begin with a pithy quotation or an endearingly humorous anecdote to elucidate the central thesis of the volume. There will be a few anecdotes and many more quotations to come, but for this book on a non-traditional popular music, it is appropriate that I buck the trend and instead offer something in the modern aphoristic vernacular: an internet cartoon (Figure 0.1). David Soames’s ‘The Ultimate Combo’ still brings a smile to my face, even after years of familiarity with the cartoon, since, like all of the best jokes, it mischievously suggests more than it explicitly states. Soames’s illustration satirizes the ‘combo’ – a phenomenon (particularly prevalent in fighting games) whereby players may deploy a particular sequence of commands in quick succession to increase the cumulative effect of the avatar’s attacks. The fighter in the cartoon is thus able to produce progressively more elaborate assaults upon the unseen opponent, to the point of conjuring a fireball. In the fourth and final line of the cartoon, however, this complexity, comically ad absurdum, has been translated into a rather more benign manifestation. Why should the last line of the cartoon link music and video games? And, furthermore, why is this funny? It might be the case that part of the humour comes from an implied linguistic pun. In English, amongst other languages, the word ‘play’ is used both when describing the action of performing using a musical instrument and for engaging with video games. Perhaps ‘The Ultimate Combo’ is linking the two senses of the word ‘play’ through deploying a pun – what Arthur Koestler described as ‘two strings of thought tied together by an acoustic [or homographic] knot’.1 But maybe these are not actually quite so separate meanings of the word ‘play’. Unlike, for example, the famous pun-based exchange in Airplane! (1980), ‘Can you fly this plane and land it?’/‘Surely you can’t be serious?’/‘I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley,’ this case of ‘play’ is not a homograph or homophone, but the same word, common to two different but related

1

Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation (London: Hutchinson, 1964): 65.

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Figure 0.1 Cartoon: ‘The Ultimate Combo’ by David Soames. Used by kind permission of the artist. www.davidsoames.com

activities. ‘The Ultimate Combo’ suggests that there are not hard and fast constitutional differences between the play of music and the play of video games as we might imagine. If the fighter were to be shown acting on a stage in the final iteration, the humour would be pun-based, but with the invocation of musical performance, the pun of ‘play’ is ultimately a red herring – the humour lies at a more fundamental level of juxtaposition and similarity between playing games and playing musical instruments.

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Introduction

‘The Ultimate Combo’ connects the pressing of game controller buttons in a quick, carefully timed and precise manner with the manipulation of the piano keyboard by a virtuoso performer that exhibits these same qualities. Johan Huizinga suggested much the same in 1938, when he wrote (remarkably presciently) that ‘[I]t seems probable that the connecting link between play and instrumental skill is to be sought in the nimble and orderly movements of the fingers.’2 Soames shows the similarity between the combinations of moves in fighting games and musical proficiency. This illustrates the notion of the ‘virtuoso gamer’ perfectly: Fighting game players will have invested significant amounts of time in playing particular games to learn the most effective combinations of attacks to deploy in any one situation. With no random commands, these players will know exactly when to press the buttons to initiate the assaults and deflect incoming attacks. The mode of play in fighting games seems closest to jazz musical improvisation, where members of a band will respond to each other and extemporize using complex chains of patterns within established modes of interaction. In the particular case represented by the cartoon, the button interface of the game is placed in parallel with the key interface of the piano. The cartoon equates the play and performance of video games with the play and performance of music. It implies that these are not so distant incarnations of a similar phenomenon of play. They exhibit the same playful impulse, despite the incongruous image of the martial artist at the keyboard of a grand piano (complete with candelabrum, a symbol of nineteenth-century civility). We smile because we recognize the underlying symmetry between the activities of playing video games and playing music, despite the superficial difference between their physical and digital incarnations. In synthesizing music and gameplay together, this black-belt Liberace claims that there is a musical quality to the playing of video games and perhaps a mechanistic quality to performance. If we look beyond the candelabrum, we see the commonality of play.

Goals and Agendas This book is about video game music. It is about music for fighting, music for racing a car, music for evading zombies, music for dancing, music for spying, music for solving puzzles, music for saving the Earth from aliens, 2

Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture, trans. R.F.C. Hull (London, Boston and Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1949 [1938]): 42.

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music for managing a city, music for being a hero; in short, it is about music for playing. It is concerned with ways of understanding this music. Music has been accompanying games for over thirty-five years (since at least Space Invaders (1978)), but it was only in the middle years of the 2000s that academic research began to discuss sound in games. As both a gamer and a musician, I find such scholarship enlightening and enjoyable. However, game audio research all too often avoids deep engagement with the specifically musical substance of games. Some headway has been made, particularly in relation to so-called music games like Guitar Hero (2005)3 and Dance Dance Revolution (1998–2009),4 and popular music in games (particularly in the Grand Theft Auto (1997–2013) series).5 Despite the work of scholars such as William Cheng, Karen Collins, Isabella van Elferen, William Gibbons and Kiri Miller, there remains a dearth of detailed, explicit investigation of music in games.6

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Dominic Arsenault, ‘Guitar Hero: “Not like playing guitar at all”?’, Loading. . ., 2/2 (2008); Melanie Fritsch and Stefan Strötgen, ‘Relatively Live: How to Identify Live Music Performances’, Music and the Moving Image, 5/1 (2012), 47–66; Kiri Miller, ‘Schizophonic Performance: Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and Virtual Virtuosity’, Journal of the Society for American Music, 3/4 (2009), 395–429; Kiri Miller, Playing Along: Digital Games, YouTube, and Virtual Performance (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); Roger Moseley, ‘Playing Games with Music, and Vice Versa: Performance and Recreation in Guitar Hero and Rock Band’, in Nicholas Cook and Richard Pettengill (eds.), Taking it to the Bridge: Music as Performance (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013), 279 318; David Roesner, ‘The Guitar Hero’s Performance’, Contemporary Theatre Review, 21/3 (2011), 276–85; Peter Shultz, ‘Music Theory in Music Games’, in Karen Collins (ed.), From Pac-Man to Pop Music: Interactive Audio in Games and New Media (Aldershot, Hampshire and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008), 177–88; Henry Svec, ‘Becoming Machinic Virtuosos: Guitar Hero, Rez, and Multitudinous Aesthetics’, Loading. . ., 2/2 (2008). Joanna Demers, ‘Dancing Machines: ‘Dance Dance Revolution’, Cybernetic Dance, and Musical Taste’, Popular Music, 25/3 (2006), 401–414; Jacob Smith, ‘I Can See Tomorrow In Your Dance: A Study of Dance Dance Revolution and Music Video Games’, Journal of Popular Music Studies, 16/1 (2004), 58–84. Karen Collins, ‘Grand Theft Audio?: Popular Music and Interactive Games’, Music and the Moving Image, 1/1 (2008a), 15–20; Kiri Miller, ‘Jacking the Dial: Radio, Race, and Place in “Grand Theft Auto”’, Ethnomusicology, 51/3 (2007), 402–38; Kiri Miller, ‘Grove Street Grimm: Grand Theft Auto and Digital Folklore’, Journal of American Folklore, 121 No. 481 (2008a), 255–85; Kiri Miller, ‘The Accidental Carjack: Ethnography, Gameworld Tourism, and Grand Theft Auto’, Game Studies, 8/1 (2008b). The work of Karen Collins forms the foundation for this field of study, see her volumes Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design (Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 2008b) and Playing with Sound: A Theory of Interacting with Sound and Music in Games (Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 2013). William Cheng’s virtuosic volume Sound Play: Video Games and the Musical Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014) is the first book-length academic research monograph that specifically deals with video game music from a musicological-critical disciplinary perspective.

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Introduction

Unlike well-established areas of study, game music scholarship has yet to formulate a body of approaches to the music under consideration. For those seeking to find out more about game music, there is very little guidance on how to go about doing so, whether in the form of an outline of the practical techniques and methods of analysis, or concepts that may be used to interrogate the music. I here use the term ‘analysis’ in its widest possible sense, to refer to the concentrated study and investigation of music that includes, but is certainly not limited to, score-based examination. This broad understanding of analysis embraces critical hermeneutics alongside motivic dissection – it is appropriate that the diversity of analytical approaches reflects the similar diversity and multifaceted potential of the musical materials with which it deals. I also do not consider analysis as the exclusive domain of the academic; in internet blogs, forums and comments on websites, players engage with musical criticism, discussing and arguing about their experiences of the music. Game music analysis is already embedded in modern media culture, albeit in a form that has very different techniques and systems of appraisal to traditional musicology. Scholars working in a young field have a responsibility to open up the domain, making it accessible to wider audiences and equipping those who would follow with appropriate tools. This way, those who are seeking to understand the topic may avoid the mistakes of, and improve upon the successes of, those who have come before them. The aim of this volume is to empower the study of video game music through providing tools, techniques and concepts for understanding music in games. Like any kind of music, there is no single method of analysing game music, but in discussing the video game as a musically significant medium and exploring the ways that the music can be appreciated, we can begin to make this music available for investigation. It is very much my intention that the critical observations and analyses in this book are not ends in themselves, but rather, that they act as prompts and precedents that can be replicated, emulated, criticized and refined to develop the

Shorter individual articles and chapters have also contributed to the discussion. See, for example, essays in K.J. Donnelly, William Gibbons and Neil Lerner (eds.), Video Game Music: Studying Play (New York and London: Routledge, 2014), Karen Collins, Bill Kapralos and Holly Tessler (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Interactive Audio (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014) and Peter Moormann (ed.), Music and Games: Perspectives on a Popular Alliance (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2013), as well as influential articles like Isabella van Elferen, ‘¡Un Forastero! Issues of Virtuality and Diegesis in Videogame Music’, Music and the Moving Image, 4/2 (2011), 30–39 and William Gibbons, ‘Blip, Bloop, Bach? Some Uses of Classical Music on the Nintendo Entertainment System’, Music and the Moving Image, 2/1 (2009), 50–52.

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discourse about game music further. This book, then, is a toolkit and a starting point for a continuing project of understanding game music. It is important that I am clear about my own disciplinary bias – my background is in musicology and so it comes as no surprise that much of the discussion within this book takes on the flavour of musicological discourse. I recognize that the art music material for which most of these concepts were devised is very different from the music to which they are applied here (an issue discussed further in Chapter 2). The rich disciplinary tradition of musicology has much to offer game music: the varied apparatus and theoretical resources that musicology has cultivated can be applied to game music with rewarding results – that is to say, they produce insights that I find to be useful, enlightening and valid. This book is ambitious in discussing a wide range of games – from puzzle games to first-person shooters and from strategy games to management games. Not only do the types of gameplay considered here vary significantly, but the book covers a broad historical range: I examine games from the earliest periods of game music in the 1970s to games created during the second decade of the twenty-first century. This diversity reflects the broad landscape of games and the playful nature of its interrogation, where ideas and methods for understanding game music may operate over the entire domain represented by this media music. Throughout the book I highlight music’s contribution to games – music is not a redundant echo of other aspects of the game, but is a central part of the audio-visual experience of interacting with video game. This undercurrent was made explicit in ‘The Ultimate Combo’ through the multifaceted notion of ‘playing’ that the cartoon presented: as the music and gameplay come together in games, these simultaneous synchronous domains of play converge to create a complex nexus. Huizinga notes, It is quite natural that we should tend to conceive music as lying within the sphere of play. . .[since it] bears at the outset all the formal characteristics of play. . . [music] transports audience and performers alike out of ‘ordinary’ life into a sphere of gladness. . . In other words, it ‘enchants’ and ‘enraptures’ them. . .7

But we are here concerned with an even more integrated understanding of play. Beyond music being playful in itself,8 multifaceted relationships are 7 8

Huizinga, Homo Ludens: 42. Huizinga claims that ‘music never leaves the play-sphere’. Huizinga, Homo Ludens: 158. Huizinga seems to conceive of music existing within the domain of play, but that play also encompasses that beyond music. He writes: ‘In itself, it would be perfectly understandable, therefore, to comprise all music under the heading of play. Yet we know that play is something

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Introduction

formed between the music and the playing of the video games. One informs the other, whether or not we have a candelabrum to hand. *** This book is split into two parts. The first, ‘Analysing Video Game Music’, consists of two chapters that consider the practicalities of discussing the music of video games. Chapter 1 focuses on the video game as a musical source. In this chapter, we will explore the musical components of a typical game and how these fit together. The chapter then considers the rather more conceptually thorny issue of the textuality of the game as a musical source. I suggest that by embracing the subjective and human involvement in the play of games, we can make peace with some of the difficulties that the game presents us and that this lesson is also valuable for art music scholarship. Chapter 2 deals with the activity of analysing game music, outlining a range of methods for engaging with the music. Alongside rather more traditional analytic techniques, the chapter shows how progam code and satellite sources (such as production documents) are useful when investigating game music. Together these two chapters provide an understanding of the materials under discussion and the ways in which the identified subject of study may be interrogated and represented. While the first part of the book deals with exploring the musical content of games and how it can be investigated, the second part (Chapters 3 to 7) is instead concerned with researching the roles, functions and effects of music in games. It does this by developing critical perspectives on video game music. In the process, these chapters build up a ‘critical toolkit’ of ideas and investigative questions for understanding video game music. Each chapter’s main conceptual ideas are summarized at the end of the chapter in question. The chapters of Part II are organized around particular themes in game music and use the investigative techniques outlined in the first part of the book. Chapter 3 explores music and immersion in games, creating the idea of musical ‘texturing’ to refer to the ways in which music extrapolates beyond the visual aspects of games. Musical ‘texturing’ is further developed in reference to an epic construct (using Wolfenstein 3D (1992) and GoldenEye 007 (1997)) and used as a way into understanding music and perception in games – how music expands the limits of human perception in different, standing on its own.’ (42). Huizinga ultimately seeks to rehabilitate the explicitly playful aspects of music (especially musical performance) into the general conception of music (167–68). We will examine the literature on play more extensively in the epilogue.

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a game construct. Chapter 4 deals with the creation of virtual worlds, particularly music’s role in articulating realism and how it negotiates the relationship between the concrete ‘real world’ and virtual universes of a game. To illustrate this investigation, I use examples of racing games across the spectrum of realism: from simulation-style games like F-1 World Grand Prix (1998) to arcade racing games like Daytona USA (1994). The end of the chapter uses sports games to broaden the discussion further. As well as music being part of the construction of a virtual world, game music may also impact upon the universe outside the game. Chapter 5 is an exploration of communication and music. I examine the way that the musical score conveys gameplay-relevant information to gamers. Some games use music as a kind of strategist or coach to advise the player (as in Bejeweled (2001)), while in horror games like Silent Hill (1999) and Dead Space (2008), musical communication is part of the way that the games manipulate players in the cause of horror thrills. As players are taught how to listen to music, complex power relationships may be developed. In a case study of Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell (2002), I suggest that music in games can be understood as a performative agency that has distinct effects upon the players. Chapter 6, on Hollywood film music and game music, places a traditional film scoring paradigm in dialogue with game music practice to highlight both the similarities and divergences between the two media. In this chapter, as well as examining the reception of the music in Advent Rising (2005), I pick up the thread of music and communication to describe how the musicalnarrative processes from Hollywood scoring are carefully adapted for games such as Final Fantasy VII (1997). Building upon arguments from Chapter 3, I make a polemic claim that music in games (particularly early games) routinely has a greater aesthetic priority, narrative agency and informational content in games than in film. Chapter 7 makes explicit a recurring theme of the preceding chapters – music and playfulness. By investigating straightforward examples of games in which musical instruments are played by avatars (such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)) and ‘music games’ such as Guitar Hero, I show how game players and music players may become one and the same. Music play through game play does not require an instrument to be shown – in the SSX snowboarding games (2001, 2003), players use their agency to alter the musical output in real time. I explore this aesthetic effect of music dynamizing the gameplay and gameplay dynamizing the music. Finally, through an examination of the playfully interactive score of Super Mario Galaxy (2007), I show how responsive musical scores emphasize the performative dimension of the game and highlight the musicality of the video game itself. The critical perspectives

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developed throughout the second part of the book are supported by an appendix, based upon Royal S. Brown’s guide to analysing film music, which provides a framework for investigating game music. The final pages of the volume form an epilogue that develops an idea of ‘playful negotiation’ to refer to the way that game music reveals the playfulness of the human-music interaction more generally. Music has the power to create domains of meaning, which are ‘playful’ because of the flexibility of interpretation. The word ‘play’ is not only applicable to the game context, but conjures images of an improvisatory, explorative, investigative and dynamic negotiation. By investigating ‘play’ and ‘fun’, I suggest that a shared sense of fun is part of what connects gaming and engaging with music, and furthermore, that music has the potential to increase the fun of video games through the combination of the two playful activities. As we explore, we remember that we also enjoy and play, which might just be the fundamental component of music itself.

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part i

Analysing Video Game Music

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1 The Video Game as a Source

As soon as we begin to engage with the task of learning more about video game music, it becomes apparent that this medium brings with it a certain set of challenges. Some of the issues are methodological, such as the analytical approaches we use to investigate the musical substance of the game, while others speak to more fundamental questions – for example, how do we use the video game as a musical source? The first part of this book is dedicated to dealing with some of the most significant practical concerns about studying game music, while the second part focuses on critical ideas and perspectives that are useful for (and have arisen from) such investigations. Chapter 2 will consider the methods of analysis, but before we can begin to decide how we are going to interrogate the sources, we must first establish the nature of the materials under discussion. To begin we must start with a very basic question – ‘What music is in a video game?’, or, more particularly, ‘What music can we examine when we discuss music in a video game?’

Music in Games Perhaps the most straightforward way to outline the kinds of musical cue typically found in games is by considering the expected musical content of a game. Figure 1.1 is a generalized model of a mass audience PC/console video game. This figure of the musical architecture of a level-based video game has been informed both by my own experience as a gamer and by instructional texts that have been written for aspiring game composers by industry professionals.1 Not every type of musical cue identified in the 1

This diagram has been informed by how-to-texts on game composition, particularly Alexander Brandon, Audio for Games: Planning, Process, and Production (Berkeley, CA: New Riders Games, 2005); Rob Bridgett, From the Shadows of Film Sound: Cinematic Production & Creative Process in Video Game Audio. Collected Publications 2000–2010 (Self Published, 2010); G.W. Childs IV, Creating Music and Sound for Games (Boston, MA: Thompson Course Technology, 2007); Paul Hoffert, Music for New Media: Composing for Videogames, Web Sites, Presentations, and other Interactive Media (Boston, MA: Berklee Press, 2007); Aaron Marks, The Complete

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Play Pathway System start cue Developer/publisher logos and accompanying cues Finale sequence (plus end credits)

Introduction sequence (possibly including opening credits) Menus Loading screen Cutscene: level introduction

Cutscene: level end

Gameplay Music

Starting and introduction cues

Loops

Branches, layers and varients

Other set-pieces and cues

Stingers

Stingers

Stingers

End cues: success, var 1, var 2, var X, fail

Pause menus, activated throughout

Figure 1.1 Outline of the typical musical architecture of a video game.

diagram will be evident in every game and this figure does not showcase more unusual musical programming or game structures. Nevertheless, this abstracted model represents a standardized practice and it is useful for identifying the most common musical elements of games, since it shows the types of cue normally included in games. Even if the figure does not accurately match all games (casual handheld games are particularly likely to depart from this model), it distils the archetypal grammar of the mainstream video game. The longitudinal axis of the diagram represents the player’s journey through the text, but it is not to scale, since the music accompanying gameplay is the longest musical state of the gaming session. Guide to Game Audio for Composers, Musicians, Sound Designers, and Game Developers 2nd Edition (Burlington, MA and Oxford: Focal Press, 2009); Aaron Marks and Jeannie Novak, Game Development Essentials: Game Audio Development (New York: Delmar, 2009); Winifred Phillips, A Composer’s Guide to Game Music (Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 2014); George Sanger, The Fat Man on Game Audio: Tasty Morsels of Sonic Goodness (Indianapolis, IN: New Riders, 2003); Richard Stevens and Dave Raybould, The Game Audio Tutorial: A Practical Guide to Sound and Music for Interactive Games (London and Amsterdam: Focal, 2011); Martin D. Wilde, Audio Programming for Interactive Games (Oxford and Burlington, MA: Focal Press, 2004).

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The Video Game as a Source

The ‘gameplay music’ box identifies some of the most common types of musical modules heard during gameplay and outlines the basic musical shape of most game rounds. The ‘gameplay music’ box will, of course, be repeated as players re-play levels. Music that is dynamic (of which more below) is generally more evident lower down the diagram and is perceived as more closely bound to the central gameplay activity (the ‘in-game’ mode). While it may appear prosaic to detail these different types of musical cue, this is an important part of establishing the vocabulary that is used to discuss game music. Furthermore, it highlights those cues that are usually ignored in analyses of game music (such as cues for developer logos, or menu music), but that are nevertheless significant components of the game as a musical source. Using the diagram, we can chart the musical journey that players typically take when playing the archetypal video game.

Before the Gameplay The video game is necessarily a technological medium. The computer technology used for playing games usually takes the form of a PC, a dedicated games console/arcade machine, or in more recent years, smartphones and tablets. Many of these devices (with the notable exception of the handheld platforms) produce mechanical sound as part of their operation. Mostly, such sound comprises the soft whirr of fans within the casing of the console or PC. While I am concerned with music in this book, such noise forms a sonic backdrop against which all other audio, including music, is heard. In the louder examples of fan sound, the murmuring may help to insulate the player’s ears from quiet peripheral sound that might distract from the playing activity. Some PCs, smartphones and consoles emit single pitches or short musical fragments upon activation to let the user know that the system is functioning even if, for example, the visual output has failed. Later models of the XBOX 360 (2005), for example, greet the player with a two-note rising fifth interval as soon as the power button is triggered by the player (mine sounds as a G to D). It further produces a bell-like ‘ding’ when the disc tray is opened. Even before the game software has been loaded, the experience of merely interacting with the hardware is quasi-musicalized. Now that the console has been switched on, a short cue to herald the loading of the user interface is heard by the player. Again, this serves a practical function of indicating that the speakers are successfully connected to the computer/console, but while these cues are often very brief, they are still significant. They accompany every play session, like a fanfare

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precursor to performance: when the PlayStation 3 (2006) is started, players hear an orchestra tuning up, which invokes semiotic associations of anticipation before play (music play and gaming play here again equated) and posits the console as an orchestra, ready to play whatever ‘art work’ its owner may select. Because these cues are so frequently heard by players, they gain significant nostalgic capital. When the hip-hop artist Frank Ocean uses the system start cue from the first PlayStation console (1994) to begin his critically acclaimed Channel Orange album (2012), it is remarkably evocative for those of us who spent time in our childhood playing games on that platform. System start cues are an excellent case in point of cues that are short and easily overlooked, but become very meaningful for gamers, representing an important part of the musical experience of gaming. When a game is triggered by the player, the corporate logos of the developers and publishers responsible for the game are displayed, much in the way that the animated logos of film studios such as Universal or Twentieth Century Fox are familiar preludes to movies. While the producer logos are usually accompanied by a sonically striking musical cue, unlike their cinematic siblings, in games, the music and presentation of the logo is more likely to be individualized for each game, revised as sound technology develops from year to year. Rather than a static musical identity for a company, an evolving one is often created. Surveying the logo cues for Capcom over the decades of its operation since 1983, for example, reveals a rapidly changing logo cue, incrementally developing with each iteration. Such development results in later incarnations bearing little resemblance to the earliest cues. Other major game companies, however, such as Sega, have never invested in retaining a particularly distinct musical logo. Whether musical identities are retained or not, these developer/publisher logos draw the player’s attention to the producers of the game with the goal of encouraging future brand allegiance: in gaming culture, auteur status is as commonly afforded to game companies as it is to individuals, so the highlighted producers double as authorial branding. Furthermore, the logo cues obviously invoke cinematic practice and imply an equivalent significance between video game and film media (see Chapter 6). The logos fade and the game fiction begins. The player may be confronted with a menu of game options, or thrust straight into the narrative world with an introductory non-interactive video (which may or may not include production credits). As well as generating anticipation and excitement for the gameplay, these opening sequences usually establish the characters, setting and narrative genre of the game, in which music plays

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no small part. It is typical for these videos to be accompanied by the primary musical-thematic materials of the game that will be sounded and varied throughout the rest of the game text. Opening sequences are of high priority for the game producers and are allocated significant audio budgets in order to provide musical spectacles that seek to encourage the player’s engagement with the game and entice a potential buyer who may be watching a shop demonstration. The opening video for the fighting game Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008) is accompanied by an extravagant cue that features a large orchestra, choir, and operatic tenor and soprano soloists. The vocalists sing a Latin text (Table 1.1), while images of the playable characters are shown on the screen. The fighters in Super Smash Bros. games are pre-existing characters drawn from previous games, which is one of the main attractions of this particular series. The sung text in Brawl alludes to this aspect: rivals becoming companions, glory through fighting and the fame of the heroes (in this case, well-known from earlier games). The operatic-dramatic cue also seeks to invoke heroic topics and equate the characters with classical heroes, perhaps not even ironically. Such introductory videos have counterparts at the end of the game, with concluding video clips that may reprise thematic material heard earlier in the game. Super Smash Bros. Brawl sounds the opening cue again once the game has been completed, but now with a translation of the sung text displayed on-screen. These later celebrations of the player’s success are triumphant; this music has accompanied players through many hours of gameplay and an ostentatious reprise of familiar themes helps to monumentalize that journey in a retrospective manner that implies closure. A list of credits for the game usually follows the ending video, much like a film. Many games, however, also include the option to view the game’s credits by selecting an option from the main menu. Music for credits which are viewable without the player completing the game do not always fulfil the function of exultant conclusion, since they are displaced from the temporal/structural position that the credit roll occupies in a film. Credit sequences provide the opportunity to showcase music in a game since the score does not compete with other sonic elements or narrative action for the gamer’s attention. The credits, opening and ending videos often contain some of the most well-known music of games. In the case of the opening clips, this is music that players concretely associate with the particular game in question, accompanying their introduction to the virtual elements of the game in which they will (hopefully) invest heavily. Now that the players have been teased with a glimpse of the fictional and musical worlds with which they will shortly engage, they are ready to begin

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Table 1.1 Text of Super Smash Bros. Brawl’s opening cue. Latin Text

English Translation Provided in Game End Credits

Audi famam illius. Solus in hostes ruit

I’ve heard legends of that person How he plunged into enemy territory

et patriam servavit. Audi famam illius. Cucurrit quaeque tetigit destruens.

How he saved his homeland I’ve heard legends of that person How he traveled the breadth of the land, reducing all he touched to rubble

Audi famam illius. Audi famam illius. Spes omnibus, mihi quoque. Terror omnibus, mihi quoque.

I’ve heard legends of that person I’ve heard legends of that person Revered by many – I too, revere him

Ille iuxta me. Ille iuxta me. Socii sunt mihi, qui olim viri fortes

Now, that person Stands at my side Now that person stands at my side Now my friends are with me Some of them were once heroes

rivalesque erant. Saeve certando pugnandoque splendor crescit.

Some, my mortal enemies And as we face each other in battle, locked in combat We shine ever brighter

1

Feared by many – I too, fear him

Literal English Translation1 Hear of his fame. He rushed alone into the enemies and saved his fatherland. Hear of his fame. He ran in, destroying indeed everything he touched. Hear of his fame. Hear of his fame. The hope of everyone, myself included. The terror of everyone, myself included. Him, joined with me. Him, joined with me. They are my companions, who once were strong (or brave) men and rivals. His splendour grows savagely in contest and by fighting.

Translation by Lyman Gamberton for this book.

play. Eager and returning players may interrupt the opening video if they are impatient to start. Before this, however, the parameters for that play must be established in a menu. Games usually include two types of menu – those encountered before the central gameplay has begun and returned to after the game round or level has finished, and those that are accessed by pausing the in-game action. Menus have an unusual relationship with the game’s universe, since they necessarily foreground the constructedness of the world – options such as those to change the appearance and difficulty of the game make its artificiality obvious. But by virtue of this power, menus are closely connected to the main gameplay. The in-game ‘paused’ menus and those that flank the play rounds exhibit different musical agendas. The pre-game

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menu music continues the accumulation of excitement that the opening video began. Sports games made since the late 1990s almost unfailingly use pre-existing pop music in the opening menus (in a looped playlist) to assert the pop culture, contemporary and ‘new’ credentials of the game, while others, such as Halo: Combat Evolved (2001), prefer to showcase the main motivic material of the game in order to establish the musical themes in the player’s mind. With the goal of encouraging players to start the game, pre-game menu music can be rhythmically active, propulsive and mixed at a loud volume, while in-game pause menu music operates differently. Pause menus are usually triggered by gamers in response to an interruption to the playing activity (the telephone rings, a visitor arrives, etc.). The game must ‘wait its turn’, until the play time can be resumed. Consequently, pause music may not be musically extroversive like the earlier menus. Instead of music that pushes the gamer to play, pause menu music must wait patiently. For this reason, in-game menu music is usually in an ambient style and, in an effort to retain a link to the game world, sometimes uses a downtempo or rhythmically augmented variation on a known theme (the in-game pause menu music for GoldenEye 007 uses the James Bond theme in this way). Thus a sonic reminder that the game is still running is emitted, but not in a way that is potentially annoying. For composers, the primary challenge of both menus is the difficulty of predicting how long a player will spend using a menu or leaving the game paused. Because of this ambiguity of time, either a playlist of songs is used for a menu, or the same cue is heard repeatedly. However, efforts must be made to ensure that the cues are not nagging or insistent during the time that the menu is shown. Given this delicate balance between encouragement and pestering, it is unsurprising that some games do not use music during menus (particularly pause menus), but most utilize musical material, even if it is only sounded quietly, to encourage at least some sonic engagement with the game while the player is not playing. Similar musical priorities are evident when modern consoles, such as the XBOX 360 or the Nintendo Wii U (2012), show an elaborate menu system as soon as the console is started. These operating systems may include musical cues and have the same agenda as in-game menu music: i) music should not risk being annoying for the listeners, even when it sounds for an extended period of time and ii) it should encourage the player to engage further with the game and proceed to the main gameplay. After the player selects ‘start game’ from the menu, the game may not begin immediately. Many games, at several points throughout the play session, will need time to process the data required to create the game

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construct. Interstitial ‘loading screens’ are usually still images with some visual indication that the game has not broken, but the program is simply working to prepare the game for play. When loading screens are scored, short music loops are normally used because of the limited processing resources available for music while the game world is created. The same holds true for music that sounds during game installation or program updating processes. The continuing musical output of the game not only avoids an odd sonic rupture of musical silence between the menus and the gameplay, but also further implies that the technology has not malfunctioned, even if the visual image remains unchanged. Some well-known examples of scored loading screens are those produced by Ocean Software in the late 1980s for games on the Commodore 64 (1982). The long loading times for games produced on tape cassette threatened to cause frustration and impatience on the part of the player, compromising the enjoyment of the playing experience. Ocean produced music to entertain the player during this time. The ‘Ocean Loader’ software by Paul Hughes allowed about three minutes of music to play while the game loaded from the cassette tape.2 This innovation was made possible by a reconfigured loading process that freed computer power to play music. The loading screens were an opportunity to display the musical-technological prowess of the programmers. Sometimes music was composed for particular games, but frequently the same music was loaded into many different games from the same company.3 These Ocean loading cues use rhythmically insistent ostinati (often alternating octave pitches or repeated notes), a harmonically consonant middleground and a main melody, which is usually of a slower rhythmic pace and higher pitch. The synth-pop style helps to sustain the player’s interest during the loading sequence, particularly through creating an evolving structure, similar in form to club dance music and analogous to the cumulative process of loading the game. These attractive cues perfectly fulfil the function of loading music in relieving player boredom and maintaining the momentum of the game experience. After the loading screen, the gamer may be thrust directly into the action, but it is more common for the level to be introduced with a short non-interactive video clip that provides context for play, much like the 2

3

The ‘Ocean Loader’ was also sometimes known as the ‘Freeload’, and written/first used by Paul Hughes in 1985. See webpage Paul Hughes, ‘Freeload’, pauliehughes.com (2009), retrieved from www.pauliehughes.com/page3/page3.html, accessed 6 March 2014. The generic loading music was written by in-house composers such as Martin Galway, Peter Clarke and Jonathan Dunn. For detailed information on the loader, see Hughes’s website (previous note).

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opening film described earlier.4 These videos are usually referred to as cutscenes or cinematics (a term that betrays the filmic aesthetic that the clips often seek to adopt). Cutscenes may also interrupt the middle of levels at particularly significant moments. These film clips advance the game’s plot, contextualize the gameplay activity and cultivate the player’s excitement and emotional involvement in the game. Music may act in the service of each of these goals, usually in a tandem strategy with the music accompanying the main gameplay.

Gameplay Music The player is now playing the game and the core gameplay mechanism is in full swing. It is sometimes the case that the entirety of the play session is accompanied by the same unchanging loop of musical material until the end of the round (see, for perhaps the most famous example of this, Tetris (1989)), but most games attempt to deploy music that reacts in some way to the player’s actions. Music is stored by games as sound files of one kind or another. While the sound technology has developed considerably since the earliest days of game audio, one fundamental mechanism has remained constant: these music files are initiated by the game’s programming in response to certain conditions or states from the game. These conditions can be as simple (as in the case of Tetris) as ‘the game has started’, or rather more complex. During the game, a player’s actions may trigger an event, or an alteration in the game state may occur. Games may accompany or mark such moments with particular musical change, such as beginning, stopping or modifying a cue. Triggered cues are particularly observable when the game aims to change the player’s mood and/or an important in-game event occurs – perhaps an attack by a group of enemies might begin, which would require music to match the new situation (Portal (2007) uses music in precisely this way). Such music often includes a communicative function, such as warning the player of an impending attack or that the avatar’s presence has been detected (see Chapter 5 for more on this kind of musical communication). These cues mark an alteration in the game state, and thus are often written to segue into, and from, other gameplay cues.

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The term ‘cutscene’ is sometimes applied to the opening and ending videos. Because of the distinct positions of the bookending videos, and their relative textual significant, I prefer to keep ‘cutscene’ distinct from these other film clips.

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Karen Collins has established a useful schema of terminology for music integration during gameplay in games. Under her classifications, ‘dynamic music’ is a generic term for ‘changeable music’; ‘adaptive music’ changes in reaction to the game state, not directly in response to the player’s actions (such as music that increases in tempo once an in-game countdown timer reaches a certain value); but ‘interactive music’ does change as a direct result of the player’s actions.5 When, for example, I direct my snowboarding avatar in SSX 3 (2003) to jump and a musical change is heard, this is what Collins would call interactive music. In the case of procedural scores,6 rather than playing a pre-written piece of music, the computer is programmed to ‘create’ or ‘assemble’ music on the fly, using algorithms and programming rules. Procedural music is, according to Collins, a ‘composition that evolves in real time according to a specific set of rules or control logics’.7 A notable example of procedural music may be found in Spore (2008), whose music programming generates musical content by stringing together sounds from a sample library. Despite a randomized selection process of musical elements (pitches, sounds, phrase structure, pulse, timbres, filters, rhythms, countermelodies), the musicality of the generated output in Spore is ensured by the assignment of probability values weighted by rules derived from traditional music theory.8 By layering probability rules, without explicitly dictating the content, an ever-changing, musically cohesive dynamic soundtrack is created. While much effort in technological innovation has been expended on procedural music, it remains tricky to implement in games and is not usually suited to musical strategies that involve strong thematic identities. With the exception of procedural music, most dynamic music systems still rely on looped material to a certain extent. Loops often provide the base structure from which dynamic music deviates. While I will argue later that the repetitiousness of looped material is well-matched to the

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Collins, Game Sound: 183–87. It is worth noting that Collins’s definition of ‘interactive music’ is far more specific than that used by a number of other scholars and practitioners. ‘Procedural music’ is a term that has no concrete definition. I here adopt the definition used by Rene Wooller, et al., (‘A Framework for Comparison of Process in Algorithmic Music Systems’, in Ernest Edmonds, Paul Brown and Dave Burraston (eds.), Generative Arts Practice (Sydney: Creativity and Cognition Studios Press, 2005), 109–24) and subsequently used by Collins in her later articles concerning procedural music. Karen Collins, ‘An Introduction to Procedural Audio in Video Games’, Contemporary Music Review, 28/1 (2009a), 5–15: 13, following Wooller et al., ‘Framework’. Kent Jolly and Aaron McLeran, ‘Procedural Music in SPORE’, Paper given at Game Developers Conference, San Francisco, (20 February 2008). Audio recording available at https:// store.cmpgame.com/product/2753/Procedural-Music-in-spore, accessed 3 July 2010.

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inherently repetitive video game medium, loops can also be designed to change at any number of points within the loop. They may be varied in any number of ways, such as introducing or removing additional musical parts from the cue, and activating other musical passages (branching). Loops need not be simple or tedious if implemented carefully. Similarly, multiple streams of music or musical ‘stems’ (cue fragments) may be layered to achieve dynamic music functionality. Musical ‘stingers’, extremely short musical cues, usually designed to be perceptually impactful and synchronized to in-game events, punctuate the gameplay at important moments. Stingers are most often heard when collecting a bonus, or achieving a minor victory. Stingers can act as musical signals to the player and frequently challenge the distinction between sound effect and music by retaining a musical quality, but being deployed with an immediacy and anchor in the game world that is similar to a sound effect. Often, stinger cues are created to be overlaid upon other music cues, so they may be triggered at any time (stingers and similar musical features are discussed further in Chapter 5). The player has been playing the game for some time now. They have heard loops, activated stingers and prompted changes in the interactive music systems. Near the end of the level, a cutscene was triggered before a battle with a particularly challenging puzzle or enemy (a boss). The player is now at the end of this level. Will they be successful? Will the avatar prevail, or will the gamer lose and be forced to try again? Whether the player wins or loses, they will hear music that is complementary to the outcome of the play round. Cues that end the play round are typically anchored to the player’s level of success, such as ‘win’/’lose’ cues, or the music may be tailored to the degree of the player’s victory or defeat – a resounding triumph may be musically distinguished from a marginal win. Fail cues, such as those for the avatar’s demise, interrupt whatever background musical processes may otherwise be active. As soon as players fail, they must immediately be made to reflect briefly upon their failure, before being encouraged to play again, lest the negativity of losing a game round spoil the fun of playing the game as a whole. ‘Win’ cues do not usually require the knee-jerk reaction of a ‘lose’ cue. However they sound, these cues must congratulate players on their achievement, usually relative to the magnitude of the accomplishment (much like the aforementioned tailored degrees of winning): completion of a level subsection would not have as triumphant a cue as victoriously finishing an entire group of levels. It is appropriate that the ‘victory’ is celebrated. While ‘win’ cues are significant in games with distinct narrative progressions,

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part of the reward for success often comes in the form of an end-of-level cutscene. Gamers often express their frustration when these cutscenes, are interrupted (‘spoiled’) by other noise, since, as one game journalist puts it, these ‘special moment[s]’ should be ‘savoured’.9 It is understandable why non-players feel that cutscenes are an appropriate moment to begin a conversation – after all, the ‘playing’ seems to have stopped. But cutscenes are integral to the play experience and form an essential balance with the interactive mode. This outline of the music typically included in a game has focused primarily on film-style ‘underscore’, rather than game mechanics based upon playing music. Further, I have deliberately emphasized the music that is often overlooked in discussions of game music, in order to illustrate how the game is a music-saturated medium and a rich, multifaceted source for the analyst. We might take the perspective that the central ‘text’ is the gameplay and that other aspects of the game are instead ‘peritexts’. This term, coined by literary theorist Gérard Genette, refers to textual accompaniments that are attached to a main text and influence the understanding of that text by a reader, but are not strictly part of the central text itself.10 In a game, musically significant peritexts could include the system start cues, producer logos and credits. This perspective, similar to one adopted in some film studies,11 seems sensible but it implies a distinction between different parts of the text that do not reflect the integrated and continuous musical experience of the play session. Furthermore, it risks demoting peritexts to a lesser status, suggesting a disconnectedness to the music in games, rather than the connectedness I have tried to promote here. The organization of music within games impacts significantly upon the purpose and effect of any one cue. A holistic awareness of the game context of musical cues and the implementation strategies commonly used by games is essential to appreciate how music is encountered by players as they play the games. Before we can move to analysing this music, it is first necessary to make 9

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Henry Gilbert, ‘The 7 . . . Unspoken rules of gaming: 2. No one is allowed to talk during a cutscene’, gamesradar.com (24 February 2014), retrieved from www.gamesradar.com/top-7unspoken-rules-gaming-finally-explained/?utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral& utm_campaign=zergnet_143788, accessed 7 March 2014. Gérard Genette, Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation, trans. Jane E Lewin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 4–5. See Guido Heldt, Music and Levels of Narration in Film: Steps Across the Border (Bristol, UK and Chicago: Intellect, 2013), 26. Like me, Heldt, discussing film music, comes to the conclusion that the differentiation between epitext and text is far more complex than Genette’s perspective would allow.

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ourselves aware of certain issues relating to the game as a musical source, including how the music is accessed and experienced by the analyst.

The Challenges of the Text The field of music studies no longer accepts the model of a piece of music as a single, stable, unchanging work.12 We have recognized that performance practices change through time, editorial choices are made in representing a piece in published form and it is common to find multiple divergent manuscript ‘versions’ of the same piece (let alone situations where music is explicitly revised by the composer). Popular music scholarship has done much to highlight the problematic notion of a single ‘work’ by a single ‘author’ by emphasizing the collaborative nature of music production and the importance of the listener’s experience of music, and by avoiding focusing on musical scores as primary objects of study.13 At the same time, however, popular music studies have too often uncritically dealt with recordings as ultimate incarnations of ‘works’. The game music analyst unavoidably confronts the complex text represented by the game medium. Many of the challenges presented by the game text also serve to highlight difficult aspects of the treatment of musical texts in more traditional music studies. The most obvious contrast between game music and music encountered in (and through) other media is the issue of interactivity. In most cases, the musical output of the game is dependent upon the player’s engagement with the gameplay. Since each play round will be slightly different, the particular sonic form of the music as sounded will be similarly individual as a ‘play event’.14 The totality of the game’s music is therefore not encompassed by one instance of the game being played. While this aspect of the text’s multidimensionality is obvious, others are less immediately apparent. Most mainstream popular games are produced for consumption all over the globe. The same title, however, may be sonically tailored for each 12

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The most well-known critique of the so-called work concept is Lydia Goehr, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992). Much of what follows is based upon Goehr’s arguments. See Richard Middleton, ‘Work-in-(g) Practice: Configuration of the Popular Music Intertext’, in Michael Talbot (ed.), The Musical Work: Reality or Invention? (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000), 59–87. I am grateful to Ben Winters for suggesting this phrasing.

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territory in ways beyond simply translating the game. In the case of Gran Turismo (1997), the game includes very different music in the Japanese version to that heard in the edition for the rest of the world. In Japan, the game features a newly commissioned score in a generic rock style, while the game heard in North America, Australasia and Europe includes preexisting rock, electronica and pop songs from well-known artists. A definitive reason for this difference is elusive, but plausible factors include the commercial potential for Western pop music in those regions and that the original Japanese soundtrack, in a 1980s rock style, sounded unfashionably dated for a Western audience. Examples such as Gran Turismo also imply that there are variations in video game musicalaesthetic values across different gaming regions. Particularly for games in earlier decades, it was not even necessary for a game to be released in a different version for the musical output to vary dramatically. The wide variety of sound technology available for PCs during the 1980s and early 1990s meant that code-based compositions might not be heard by the player as the composer had intended, especially if the sound card in the player’s computer was not a model that the programmers had considered when designing the sound. It was not uncommon for instruments to be wrongly assigned to parts and odd timbral combinations to be heard. This difference between computer systems resulted in a variety of musical experiences for what was ostensibly the same music on the same platform. For the modern analyst of game music, accessing older texts can prove to be difficult. While some technology has survived in working condition from the earliest decades of gaming and a thriving second-hand market in video games is a very useful resource, many of what we might cheekily term ‘period instruments’, such as old sound cards, are not available in a practical way to players and researchers. The survival of arcade machines, for example, is sporadic, though private enthusiasts and museum collections (including Musée Mécanique in San Francisco) selectively preserve and restore particular examples of arcade games, and other enthusiasts create replicas of arcade machines.15 The most readily accessible form of 15

Beginning in the early 2000s, some game manufacturers began to produce emulations of older consoles for the home market as nostalgic novelty toys. The most well-known of these products are the Atari Flashback games (2004–12, various versions). These devices are not replicas. These are software emulations with a fixed number of built-in games, and a controller based on the original input device. As such, these products suffer the same problems for the analyst as any other emulation. As one reviewer noted, ‘The Atari Flashback looks like the original 7800. It has joysticks that are based on the controllers. But the games? It’s absolutely clear that the hardware

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examining earlier games is through software emulators: programs that run on modern computers and simulate older technology. MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) is one such emulation project and most major consoles also have software emulators. Emulation systems are collaborative projects, but the accuracy of the replication of the audio experience differs from emulator to emulator. While emulation culture is distinctly non-commercial, game companies will sometimes produce compilations of older games, such as the Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection (2010) which presents forty games for the earlier console adapted for the XBOX 360 and PlayStation 3, or Intellivision Lives! (2003) for XBOX and PlayStation 2, which allows gamers to play games produced for the Intellivision (1979) console. Even if these ‘official emulations’ are generally accurate in sound and vision replication, the game experience may not be replicated with such fidelity, as one reviewer of Intellivision Lives! wrote, ‘[T]he PlayStation 2’s controller absolutely cannot represent the complex Intellivision controller, and many games in this compilation are absolutely unplayable because the [PlayStation] controller[s] are no substitute for the real thing.’16 This problem, found in most emulation situations, raises the question of to what degree these emulations represent a true replication of the experience of the games. Aside from these examples of games that have been adapted for use on modern consoles, certain titles have been remade or heavily revised – the compositions in the original version of Resident Evil (1996) are different pieces of music to the cues featured in the same situations in the remake, Resident Evil (2002). Similarly a whole new score was created for the GoldenEye remake in 2010. Other remakes simply seek to ‘update’ the music, while retaining the core musical material, as in Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge – Special Edition (2009) and Halo: Combat Evolved – Anniversary Edition (2011), both of which re-create the musical material from the original games on which they are based. Games do not have to be ‘remade’ to have alterations in the music. When games are adapted from one platform (computer system) to another, music may change considerably. Regularly music is deliberately changed or replaced between platforms,

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is not an Atari 7800. Every game in the package . . . have [sic] been reprogrammed to run on completely different system hardware . . . the ridiculous flicker, horrid collision detection, and missing sound and music, is a result of a terrible conversion from other programmers.’ Craig Harris, ‘Atari Flashback’, ign.com (2004), retrieved from http://uk.ign.com/articles/2004/12/15/ atari-flashback, accessed 1 April 2014. Craig Harris, ‘Intellivision Lives!’, ign.com (2003), retrieved from http://uk.ign.com/articles/ 2003/12/11/intellivision-lives, accessed 8 March 2014.

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such as in the adaptation of Quake (1996) from the PC to the Nintendo 64 (1998). Composer Aubrey Hodges was hired for the Nintendo version and was challenged to write new music similar to the Trent Reznor original score. This is a case of a conscious change between platforms, but often music fares badly in the porting process: music may be removed or replaced and it is not uncommon for ports to end up inappropriately repositioning music in adaptations (in the PC port of Rayman (1995), for example, the music changes to a new cue when it should loop, resulting in the music accompanying the ‘wrong’ levels). Sometimes direct adaptation of the music is distinctly unsuccessful: Mega Man X (1993), for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), was ported to the PC in 1995. While the musical material remains unchanged between versions, the mismatched assignment of instruments to parts in the PC version makes the score bewilderingly incoherent, particularly when drum parts are sounded as tuned pitches. Though Mega Man X is an obvious example of sonic divergence in porting, it is nevertheless tricky for analysts to generally decide which version of a game has priority – which version should be used for research? The ‘earliest’ version may be an easy metric to use, but instead, might this choice be based on the popularity and sales of games (i.e. the version heard by most players)? Should the choice come down to the analyst’s belief in the most aesthetically successful version, or the incarnation that a composer, or other authorial agent, considers most representative of their intentions? Or perhaps the scholar should simply select the version that will be most valuable and interesting for academic study. Even once a particular version of a game is selected, the analyst may have to contend with glitches in the game. Alone in the Dark [4]: The New Nightmare (2001) has a fascinating score with a complex method of implementation (see Chapter 2), but, particularly in the PC version, the player of Alone in the Dark often encounters glitches, which cause cues not to play when they should.17 Likewise, cues in the PC version of Halo (2003) sometimes do not deploy at the appropriate moments. How should these glitches be incorporated into analysis? Might they be written out as ‘wrong’ 17

Eliot Bates has discussed the genre of ‘glitch music’ and how glitches in music playback threaten the autonomy of the musical work. While Bates deals with different subject matter, his notion of the glitch as a critique of the way that musicology has traditionally dealt with pieces of music is common to both of our arguments. See ‘Glitches, Bugs, and Hisses: The Degeneration of Musical Recordings and the Contemporary Musical Work’, in Christopher Washburne and Maiken Derno (eds.), Bad Music: The Music We Love to Hate (New York and London: Routledge, 2004), 212–25.

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versions that represent the minority of gameplay sessions, or should they be embraced as yet another aspect of the wide and unstable variety that is the experience of playing games? The past few paragraphs may make for rather depressing reading, particularly since I have offered very few definite solutions to the many questions and problematic issues. But perhaps these uncertainties are only dispiriting in that they challenge certain inherited assumptions about what we ‘do’ when we study music more generally. After all, most of the issues discussed here are replicated in some way in traditional musicological study, though they may not be so obviously incarnated. While a particular play-through of a game level is only one possible sounding version of a musical output, this is the same situation for traditional music – a performance of a piano sonata represents only one possible sounding version of that piece. A game, or a piece of music, exists as a domain of performative possibilities. Just as performances of music vary upon repetition of the same piece, so do performances of games, often with implications for the music as sounded during play. Similarly, whether in recorded or live performance of music, mistakes and errors arise – these are human ‘glitches’ inherent in the very nature of the performances. Just as I can bypass cutscenes in a game, or interrupt a musical cue by pressing pause, so I can skip tracks on a CD recording, or perform excerpts of music in a manner of my choice. Variations over geography and history are as evident in art music practice as in game music. The re-dubbing of songs in games between regions is similar to the creation of translated singing editions of vocal works. Liszt’s solo piano transcriptions and his fantasies of music from earlier operas might be seen as akin to the adaptations of video game music for live performance in events such as the Video Games Live or Zelda orchestral concerts. While the wholesale replacement of a game score between editions may represent an extreme manifestation of adaptation, certain performance traditions regularly adapt musical works in a significant way, such as the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Italian practice of inserting, or substituting, arias of the singer’s own choosing into an opera (these substitute songs were known as ‘arie di baule’/‘suitcase arias’).18 The variety of musical outcomes when the same musical material is ported between platforms is similar to the way that different schools of performance can result in highly contrasting interpretations of the same pieces, or 18

See Thomas Bauman, ‘The Eighteenth Century: Serious Opera’, in Roger Parker (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 47–83: 61.

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the variation in modern performances of early music (especially regarding repetition, the number and type of performers, and the role of instrumentalists in vocal pieces). In my comments above, I suggested the similarity between historical gaming equipment and historical musical instruments. The parallels are obvious in the restoration and replication practices common to both game technology and musical technology. Furthermore, we tend to assume that art music is naturally performed on perfect, pristine instruments and ignore the variety of instruments, and conditions of these instruments, in performance (both contemporary and historical). We should not make the same mistake in game music and recognize the variety of instrumental soundings that one piece can encompass. Even if we decide to replicate sound chips accurately, in order to approach a more historically informed performance, should they also be sounded on the kind of booming, lowquality speakers that would have most commonly been used for playing games? These are similar questions to those faced by practitioners of historically informed performance and it is perhaps ironic that within the lifetime of the modern historical performance movement certain aspects of game music technology have faded into the realm of ‘historical instruments’. The instrumental aspect of game music, then, is subject to the same forces of variety and development as art music. The same is true of authoritative editions. Composers revise pieces of music, produce multiple editions and arrangements of pieces, and whether by the original composer’s hand or another, music is routinely adapted from one ensemble to another. While value has traditionally been ascribed to ‘Urtext’ editions of musical scores that claim to represent the work as closely as possible to the composer’s intentions, even these editions involve editorial invention. Though the idea of a stable unchanging work has been deconstructed by musicologists, the idea is still pervasive in the landscape of academic discourse. Game music seems well-positioned not to inherit this problematic concept and may even be able to serve as a meaningful example of musical analysis in a post-work-concept environment. Not all of these issues of textuality will be equally pertinent to every inquiry into game music, depending on the particular parameters and aims of the investigation at hand, but an awareness of these issues is essential to understanding the nature of the musical materials we deal with and ensuring the validity of our conclusions. The fundamental lesson that the ambiguous game text teaches us is straightforward: we cannot deal with the abstracted case. In a situation where the analyst is intrinsically linked to the

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sounded incarnation of the text, it is impossible to differentiate the listener, analyst and gamer. Pretence at objectivity of musical experience is obviously untenable, and we are forced to invest in the particular and subjective. This is frightening for an academic practice that has traditionally held fast to the safe certainties of the musical score, but it forces us to be honest about the nature of musical analysis. The good news is that it is such subjective experiences that are the whole point of engaging with music. It is here that the emotion, fun and pleasure of music (and of play) lie. Gamer/analyst and performer are united by the verb ‘play’, which highlights the importance of human involvement in both activities. The possibilities of play throughout the game text are part of the joy of engaging with music and games. When seeking to understand game music, we are asked to confront our fears of the postmodern and deal with the personal experience of play. Just as the text is unconstrainable, so objectivities are useless (and unavailable in any case). By being open about our analytical and interrogative processes, by recognizing the personal dimension to our play of both game and the analytical adventure, we not only circumvent inappropriate claims of objectivity, we make it easier for others to engage with our readings and analyses. We put the play into analysis and recognize the human dimension of listening to, playing with, and understanding music. Video game music comes with particular challenges, as is the case with any medium-specific study. While these issues may give us a certain amount of angst concerning the lack of neatly constrained objects of study, the absences of such certainties are perhaps useful. For all of their technological clothing, the problems we face are not new and are also manifested in the study of art music. Here, however, the issues present themselves in such an obvious way that they are less easy to dismiss. Games simply highlight issues of textuality common in other music studies – most particularly, the necessity of human interaction with the activity of music. This human agency is also clearly significant in the way that the musical material is accessed by players. Now that we have found what music there is to investigate within the video game, the next task is to consider how we can go about accessing and analysing this music. Chapter 2 picks up this thread by outlining some of the most useful and practical ways to encounter the musical substance of the game and the methods of analysis that accompany these incarnations of a game’s music. Later we will deal with some of the additional satellite sources that are useful for the study of game music, such as soundtrack recordings and production documents. These form what Genette would

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call ‘epitexts’ – documents that inform understanding of the main text, but are not attached to the primary text under examination.19 These, too, come with particular analytical approaches. Before we head hungrily into the business of ‘doing analysis’, it is worth pausing briefly to note the performative dimension of this activity. In analysing game music, we are playing with games and complicating the divisions of roles that have traditionally held sway in musical thought – unlike the image of music in the concert hall, here we become the performers, listeners and analysts of the music, all at once. In causing the assembly of the musical material, we also gain authorial agency, if not becoming composers in the strictest sense of the term. Music necessarily requires human interaction, otherwise its meanings remain unread, the music unvoiced and the sounds unheard. This human agency is writ large in games through the performative nature of play and musical investigation.

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Genette, Paratexts: 4–5.

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2 Methods of Analysis

The previous chapter explored some of the knotty conceptual issues surrounding video game music, specifically with respect to the complex textuality of the game source. While the multidimensionality of the game text is challenging, it also allows for a plethora of different approaches to game music. Part of the rewarding joy of investigating game music comes from the variety of different modes and methods for studying music in games. Like the player-empowered texts themselves, games allow us to experiment, test and explore different analytical approaches. The second part of this book deals with conceptual perspectives on video game music, but first, this chapter will discuss some of the materials and methods for analysing game music. I certainly do not wish to prescribe a single approach to investigating game music – such an attitude would be entirely antithetical to the aim of this volume to open up video games for musical exploration. Instead, I hope to point the way towards some of the sources and modes of analysis that I have found to be most useful and rewarding, and in particular, those that will be utilized in coming chapters to underpin the conceptual perspectives outlined in Part II of this book. The motivations for analysing game music are similarly many and varied. Whether we want to trace a technological history of music for games, work out how music contributes to the gameplay experience, consider the musical educations that games provide, or conduct any number of other investigations into game music, careful examination of the games, and their music, is necessary. Many of the ‘uses’ of the kinds of analyses outlined here are demonstrated later in the volume, since the conclusions and perspectives that I draw are founded, at least in part, upon the close analysis of the game music such as I advocate here. The conclusions of analysis are not limited to retrospective explanations, they may also usefully inform future musical creation by providing models and case studies of different musical practices with a variety of outcomes. Any analysis will be tailored to the investigative questions at hand, whether they are as specific as seeking to understand the form of a musical cue, examining musical precedents for a particular type of game, or as general

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as using music to help answer the question of why people enjoy video games. In any case, detailed investigations into game music can yield conclusions that are applicable both within the specific musical domain of video game music and to more general issues of the medium’s place in wider culture. Games facilitate a variety of ways in which to interrogate a game and a diverse range of sources through which to do so. Such sources can be considered to fall into one of two categories – those which extend from the game entity (in-game sources) and satellite sources outside the game. Video game code and music data belong to the former category, interviews and production documents to the latter. Each type of source is able to provide different insights into the game’s music, as defined by its particular nature and the investigative approaches to which it is subject.

In-Game Sources I reported on potential divergences between different versions of what is ostensibly the same game in the previous chapter. The in-game sources presented to the analyst vary depending on the edition and platform used, so it is worth considering which particular version(s) of a game are being used as the basis for the discussion. If there is scope for choosing the edition of the game, this selection should be made carefully. I earlier suggested some of the criteria by which one might make such a decision (earliest/most popular/most representative of authorial goals). Furthermore, depending on the resources available, certain platforms and versions may be more easily investigated than others. The ludography at the end of this book specifies which version of each game I used in my own analysis. In the absence of other motivating factors, I have tended to use PC editions of games where available because of the relative ease with which PC gameplay can be recorded and dissected. Whatever the edition of the game that is used, it is important to remember that not all of the conclusions might hold true for the same game on other platforms.

Analytical Play I have already stressed the game medium’s reliance on interactivity. Just as those studying film must engage with films as critical viewers, so we must engage with video games as critical players. We need to be both players and analysts of the games we discuss; it is through playing, listening and

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interacting that we come to know and understand the music we research. Nevertheless, it can be tricky to divide one’s attention between progressing through the game and carefully interrogating the music. Recording gaming sessions is a useful way to help document play many freely available screen recording applications are well suited to this purpose. Since multiple play sessions are necessary in order to investigate the different possibilities of play, using recording software aids in the analysis and comparison of different instances of playing the game. By noticing the fundamental ways that the game’s musical output alters with the gameplay (i.e. when music starts, stops and obviously changes), the basic programming of the music usually becomes clear. Specifically where and how these dynamic musical changes and transitions are anchored often requires more investigation. While playing the game as the programmers expected is a representative way of experiencing the game, it is common (even usual) that gamers also sometimes play ‘against the grain’ by deliberately subverting the game’s expectations of the player’s actions. Gamers test the game construct in an exploratory way: ‘What happens if I go the “wrong” way?’; ‘Will the game let me do the opposite of my task?’; ‘Can I put my avatar where it is clearly not supposed to be?’; ‘When I am urged to move quickly, what happens if I don’t move?’ In the context of game analysis, this kind of ‘reactionary play’ is useful since it has the potential to reveal much about the game construction that is otherwise less obvious – at moments when game rules are tested, the architecture is often clearest. By playing experimentally (or using ‘analytical play’) to investigate the musical system in the game and comparing multiple play sessions, the musical mechanics of the game programming can be divined.1 When, for example, I start playing the first level of third-person survival horror game Alone in the Dark [4]: The New Nightmare using the Carnby character, it becomes quickly apparent that the musical score reacts to my avatar’s geographical journey through the level and the contextual in-game events caused by my actions. The music heard during play seems to be 1

YouTube videos may be useful sources for a great variety of game music analysis, such as, for example, documentation of different types of play and musical reaction, players’ reception of the music, and so on. Relying only on player-uploaded videos as evidence of a game’s musical mechanics may be dangerous, since, to cite just one reason, these videos do not afford the ability to experiment and test musical reactivity with the same precision as playing the game oneself, opening up the possibility of erroneous conclusions such as mis-interpreting co-incidental musical changes as casual events. For a different treatment of some of the same issues presented here, using the case study of Halo: Combat Evolved, please see my chapter, ‘How to Analyse Video Game Music’, in Michiel Kamp, Tim Summers and Mark Sweeney (eds.), Ludomusicology: Approaches to Video Game Music (Sheffield: Equinox, Forthcoming).

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formed of short looping cues that are triggered or altered depending on the action/location parameters. Defeating enemies can prompt a musical change, as can moving into a new area of the environment. Having ascertained the kinds of events that produce musical reactions, by progressing through the level slowly and listening to the audio output, it is possible to isolate the game activity that causes changes in the music. By playing the game and listening attentively, a basic understanding of the core musical material and its relationship to the gameplay can be formulated. Playing through a level repeatedly not only allows me to note the places and conditions of musical changes, it can also provide the opportunity to observe musical glitches. In Alone in the Dark, it becomes apparent through repeated play sessions that certain musical passages do not always trigger each time the game is played. Similarly, in some parts of the level the music is programmed to fade out if there is minimal (or no) avatar movement within given time limit (c.30 seconds), but at other times, the music continues looping indefinitely. It is difficult to know if this variation is deliberate or a by-product of a complex musical system. By using analytical play across versions – here, comparing the PC version of Alone in the Dark with the PlayStation edition – I can investigate whether apparent glitches and variations are also evident in other versions of the game and begin to draw conclusions about their causes and results. In any case, glitches like these form part of the player’s experience of the game’s music. Through analytical play, a foundational model of the game’s musical processes is usually easily made. After spending some time with the game, players become familiar enough with the music and its programming to be able to predict when music will sound and the moments of musical change. However, playing the game can often do little to reveal the specifics of the music programming in very complex systems. In these situations, it can be helpful to investigate ‘behind the scenes’ in the game’s programming.

Programming and Music Data Video games are programmed using machine-interpretable code of one kind or another, but rather than programming every game from scratch, developers produce ‘engines’, which create the architecture of the gameplay – effectively a program for controlling the game construct. While types of engine vary greatly, a typical engine might contain components for generating 3D/2D graphics and textures, calculating in-game physics and formulating artificial intelligence. Engines may include, or be exclusively

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concerned with, controls for sound and music. The engine does not create the content of sounds or art, but provides the framework for these to be used in the game. Just as a game artist can design a texture that the engine will apply to a surface, so a musician can create music the engine will control. The (music) engine starts, stops and changes this music, as and when appropriate, depending on the gameplay. Some games have music programming that constructs music on the fly (procedural music), rather than playing back pre-written music.2 Game engines create particular gameplay conditions and similarly, each sound engine presents different possibilities for game music, often customized to achieve particular musical-interactive functionality for the game at hand. Engines dedicated only to music are more properly called ‘middleware’. Certain music middleware systems have become particularly widely used, such as the Miles Sound System, Microsoft DirectMusic, FMOD and Wwise. These tools allow great flexibility in the way in which the music is formed and deployed within the game. For the analyst, understanding the music middleware/game engine or the programming of the game can be essential to the work of predicting the musical outputs. Rather than working from play instance to play instance and attempting to differentiate out the processes behind the musical output in each example, the rules that govern the deployment and sound of music can be discovered by investigating the game engine and music code. The difficulty of interrogating the music code of a game can vary significantly, depending on the programming of the game. In Rome: Total War (2004), a Roman-themed strategy game which uses the Miles Sound System, for instance, the music code is stored in a text file, ‘descr_sounds_music.txt’, and one can plainly read the coded instructions, a short excerpt of which is shown in Figure 2.1. The code from Rome in Figure 2.1 refers to the ‘battle map’ game mode and details each battle stage (such as ‘state MUSIC_BATTLE_MOBILIZE’ for the beginning of an engagement) along with the .mp3 sound files that should be played during that game state (e.g. Mobilize2-Warrior_March.mp3). Not all games have such clear and accessible code. Nevertheless, the widespread culture of modding games (the practice of modifying commercially released software) has resulted in a large number of fan-made tools for deconstructing games. For the analyst, these might allow the extraction of music data and programming. The legal status of modding, however, is ambiguous. Most

2

See Collins, ‘An Introduction to Procedural Audio’.

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Figure 2.1 An excerpt of code from Rome: Total War, descr_sounds_music.txt.

games demand that the user does not decompile or disassemble the game as part of the licence agreement. While this contract clause is less concerned with modding activity than with pirating and the replication of proprietary software, nevertheless, this kind of investigation is legally unclear. Often, no decompiling or disassembly is needed to locate the music files of a game, which can then be matched to the gameplay, so that the specific musical cueing in the game/level can be accurately understood. To give one example amongst many, the strategy game Civilization IV (2005) copies a significant amount of music to the player’s computer in .mp3 format. The music is readily available and easy to play outside the game. The naming conventions of such sound files may help to indicate not only their position in the game, but also their intended signification – so, for example, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (2002) also stores .mp3 files on the user’s computer, with names such as ‘mus_03b_success’, ‘mus_04f_suspense’, ‘mus_17a_mystery’, ‘mus_17d_failure’ and ‘mus_14a_action’. When

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matched to gameplay, the planned ambience and the musical accentuation of that mood become obvious. By charting where and how these cues sound, the analyst can understand and assess the intended role of music in the game. Isolated music files are also helpful for producing transcriptions by ear and can even be converted directly to notation (see, for example, my rendering of SimCity 2000’s music files (1995) in Chapter 4). Whether through gameplay or other methods, once the game musical material has been accessed, detailed musical examination can begin.

Musical Material So far, I have discussed issues surrounding music implementation more than the sonic contents of the game. Having heard the game’s music, and perhaps recorded and/or transcribed passages of the soundtrack, there are many potential approaches to analysing a game’s musical material in the game. The most notable of those used in this volume and in other studies include: • Mapping motivic relationships and thematic development Examining the formulation and connections between themes is particularly useful for understanding the creation of unity and contrast in a game’s score. In Chapter 6, I conduct an intervallic analysis of the main themes from Final Fantasy VII to explore the score’s strategy for musical unity. Such motivic investigation does not need to be limited to one game: Andrew Fisher has traced the use, re-use and development of the unusual ‘Totaka’s Song’ melody which appears in several Nintendo games,3 while Jason Brame has conducted an analysis of thematic unity across the Legend of Zelda games.4 • Harmonic analysis Because game music cues are often looped, or layered with other musical fragments, harmonic construction is a challenge for composers. Different solutions to this issue are in evidence: In the Western action game Red Dead Redemption (2010) the interactive score is written all in the same key, to facilitate easy musical layering,5 while, as Neil 3

4

5

Andrew Fisher, ‘Hidden Secrets of Kazumi Totaka: Totaka’s Song and its Variations Analyzed’, Ludomusicology 2014 International Conference, University of Chichester, UK, 10 12 April 2014. Jason Brame, ‘Thematic Unity Across a Video Game Series’, Act – Zeitschrift für Musik & Performance, 2 (2011), 16pp. ‘Red Dead Redemption: The Soundtrack’, Rockstar Games (c.2010), retrieved from www.rockstargames.com/reddeadredemption/features/soundtrack, accessed 30 June 2015.

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Lerner has explained, the Super Mario Bros. overworld theme is constructed in self-contained harmonic units.6 More complex harmonic processes are heard in Spore, as alluded to in Chapter 1: the procedurally generated melody is harmonized by additional parts through code that randomizes the selection of consonant pitches in accordance with Johann Fux’s eighteenth-century counterpoint treatise.7 The music game Chime (2010, see Chapter 7) uses a similar system to ensure that the player’s musical decoration of pre-existing songs is harmonically coherent. The harmonic strategy of the games reflects broader gameplay concerns, whether aping a cinematic style, as in Red Dead Redemption, producing playful randomization, as in Spore, or delivering musical empowerment to the player, as in Chime. • Topic analysis, semiotics and intertextuality Game music does not exist in a musically sealed world, but draws upon a common musical lexicon from broader culture. Analysing the musical-rhetorical gestures and musical signs in games helps to understand the ways in which musical meanings are configured and re-configured in games. Mark Sweeney has discussed the use of a style derived from mid-twentieth-century modernist art music in Dead Space as part of a complex cultural history of the modernist style,8 Stephen Baysted has reported on adapting music between different musical genres as part of a negotiation between aesthetic style and demographic appeal in Need for Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed (2011),9 while William Gibbons has investigated the complex ironic signification of pre-existing songs in the dystopian world of the first-person shooter BioShock (2007).10 There is significant potential for research on music topoi specific to games, perhaps linked to game types and particular game structures (such as ‘boss music’). I discuss intertextuality in Chapter 6, as part of the relationship between film music and video game music. Musical signification is a recurring theme 6

7 8 9

10

Neil Lerner, ‘Mario’s Dynamic Leaps: Musical Innovations (and the Specter of Early Cinema) in Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros.’, in K.J. Donnelly, William Gibbons and Neil Lerner (eds.), Music in Video Games: Studying Play (New York and London: Routledge), 1 29: 15. Jolly and McLeran, ‘Procedural Music in SPORE’. Mark Sweeney, ‘The Aesthetics of Videogame Music’, DPhil thesis (Oxford University, 2015). Stephen Baysted, ‘Palimpsest, Pragmatism and the Aesthetics of Genre Transformation: Composing the Hybrid Score to Electronic Arts’s Need for Speed Shift 2: Unleashed’, in Michiel Kamp, Tim Summers and Mark Sweeney (eds.), Ludomusicology: Approaches to Video Game Music (Sheffield: Equinox, Forthcoming). William Gibbons, ‘Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams: Popular Music, Narrative, and Dystopia in Bioshock’, Game Studies, 11/3 (2011).

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throughout this volume because of the critical role it plays in communicating with the player, which is of distinct importance in an interactive medium (see Chapter 5 in particular). Psychological effects • Approaches to game music based on psychology have often demonstrated that music has a significant impact upon the game experience and player performance.11 Research is developing that examines the musical specifics of the music and its resultant effects;12 Warren Brodsky, for example, found that faster-tempo music in a driving game increased the player’s perception of speed and prompted faster, less accurate driving.13 Hans-Peter Gasselseder’s investigation into players’ emotional response to music in games has concentrated on dynamic music systems.14 This general area is ripe for development as advances in music perception and cognition can be applied to the gaming situation. Hermeneutic • Musical interpretation (hermeneutics) is particularly important in game music analysis because it is similar to the way that players listen to the game. Players actively seek meaning from the game’s music as a result of the interactivity of the medium. In doing so, they become hermeneutic interpreters, understanding the music in terms of the gameplay, and vice versa. William Cheng’s volume on musical meanings in

11

12

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14

See research by Gianna Cassidy and Raymond MacDonald, ‘The Effects of Music Choice on Task Performance: A Study of the Impact of Self-Selected and Experimenter-Selected Music on Driving Game Performance and Experience’, Musicae Scientiae, 21/13 (2009), 357–86 (plus subsequent publications); Siu-Lan Tan, John Baxa and Matthew P. Spackman, ‘Effects of BuiltIn Audio Versus Unrelated Background Music on Performance in an Adventure Role-Playing Game’, International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations, 2/3 (2010), 1–23; Sean Zehnder, and Scott Lipscomb, ‘Immersion in the Virtual Environment: The Effect of a Musical Score on the Video Gaming Experience’, Journal of Physiological Anthropology and Applied Human Sciences, 23/6 (2004), 337–43. For an excellent summary of psychological research into music and sound in video games, see Mark Grimshaw, Siu-Lan Tan and Scott D. Lipscomb, ‘Playing with Sound: The Role of Music and Sound Effects in Gaming’, in Siu-Lan Tan, Annabel J. Cohen, Scott D. Lipscomb and Roger A. Kendall (eds.), The Psychology of Music in Multimedia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 289–314. Warren Brodsky, ‘The Effects of Music Tempo on Simulated Driving Performance and Vehicular Control’, Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour`, 4/4 (2001): 219–41. Hans-Peter Gasselseder, ‘Advances in Ludomusical Experience Profiling: Interindividual Differences in the Immersive Experience of Music in Video Games’, in Carsten Busch and Jürgen Sieck (eds.), Kultur und Informatik: Cross Media (Glückstadt: Verlag Werner Hülsbusch, 2015), 241 54.

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games discusses how players negotiate such musical meanings, with a particular concern for the issues of feminism and violence.15 • Form analysis Musical-formal considerations in video games are often complicated by the uncertain duration of player-dependent events. Games may be non-linear and usually include a large amount of musical repetition matching repetitious gameplay. Elizabeth Medina-Gray has examined modular structures in game music, drawing comparisons and contrasts with aleatoric music of the early twentieth century.16 Michiel Kamp’s work has dealt with musical structures and their interrelationship with game structures through a phenomenological approach.17 This is not to say that traditional formal analysis is not also possible and valuable – James Tate has applied Schenkerian analysis to music from Final Fantasy VII as part of a critical evaluation of note-based analysis of game music,18 while Jessica Kizzire has produced musical-formal analyses of cues from Final Fantasy IX (2000) to show the techniques and results of musical-stylistic influences in the game.19 • Ethnomusicological study Musical cultures exist within, and surround, video games. Joanna Demers and Jacob Smith have reported on the music and fandom of Dance Dance Revolution,20 while Kiri Miller’s ethnomusicological approach to Guitar Hero has shed light on the players’ experiences of their gaming and musical activity. William Cheng, Iain Hart and Mark Sweeney have all investigated music in online multiplayer games, documenting the musical creations and music-making activities in these virtual cultures.21 15 16

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20 21

Cheng, Sound Play. Elizabeth Medina-Gray, ‘Modular Structure and Function in Early 21st-Century Video Game Music’, PhD thesis (Yale University, 2014). Michiel Kamp, ‘Four Ways of Hearing Video Game Music’, PhD thesis (Cambridge University: 2015). James Tate, ‘Analysing Nobuo Uematsu’s ‘One Winged Angel’, paper delivered at Ludomusicology 2015, Utrecht, 10 April 2015. Jessica Kizzire, ‘“The Place I’ll Return to Someday”: Musical Nostalgia in Final Fantasy IX’, in K.J. Donnelly, William Gibbons and Neil Lerner (eds.), Music in Video Games: Studying Play (New York and London: Routledge, 2014), 183 98. Demers, ‘Dancing Machines’; Smith, ‘I Can See Tomorrow in Your Dance’. Cheng, Sound Play; Iain Hart, ‘Massively Multi-Musical: The Diverse Musical Experience of EVE Online’, paper delivered at Ludomusicology 2014, 12 April 2014; Mark Sweeney, ‘Songs of Skyrim: Diegetic Folk Music and Identity in The Elder Scrolls V’, paper delivered at Ludomusicology 2014, 12 April 2014.

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• Performance I will explore the performativity of music in games in some depth later (Chapter 5), but this perspective on gameplay (especially music-based gameplay) as performance has particular significance for focusing attention on player-driven musical activity. Melanie Fritsch has advocated for a performance-centred approach that connects player inputs to musical outputs, providing a foundation for discussing creativity and musical play in games,22 while Roger Moseley has investigated Rock Band’s complex construction of musical performance.23 These analytical perspectives are only some of the ways in which the musical material in games can be investigated. Alongside the required development of new analytical techniques specific to the game medium and digital music (such as models of music-play relationships, timbral analysis and so on), I also advocate for the careful deployment of rather more traditional musical-theoretical approaches. When popular music scholarship came of age in the late 1980s and early 1990s, some scholars asserted that to apply conventional academic approaches to music outside the art music tradition was unhelpful and inappropriate.24 As John Covach wrote, however: [R]ejecting the applicability of current analytical approaches to rock music is premature, and unnecessarily limiting . . . [O]ne must be wary of rejecting too quickly an entire approach to musical analysis, with all the sophisticated techniques that theorists have developed for accounting for the musical text, on the assumption that because such techniques were developed to study art music they could never produce anything but a distorted reading of popular music.25

The situation is not precisely the same in game music, but I similarly argue for using both newly created, medium-specific approaches and traditional analytical techniques in application to game music. Further, I would use the same reasoning to justify the study of video game music more generally: video games habitually blur the boundary between sound and music, 22

23 24

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Fritsch and Strötgen, ‘Relatively Live’ and Melanie Fritsch, ‘Worlds of Music: Strategies for Creating Music-Based Experiences in Video Games’, in Karen Collins, Bill Kapralos, and Holly Tessler (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Interactive Audio (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 167 77. Moseley, ‘Playing Games with Music’. See, for example, Allan F. Moore, Rock: The Primary Text 2nd Edition (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001): 5. John Covach, ‘We Won’t Get Fooled Again: Rock Music and Musical Analysis’, in David Schwarz, Anahid Kassabian and Lawrence Siegel (eds.), Keeping Score: Music, Disciplinarity, Culture (Charlottesville, VA and London: University of Virginia Press, 1997), 75–89: 83, 86.

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and scholars should certainly be aware of the wider audio mix in which a game’s music sits, but to insist on the irreducible treatment of game audio as ‘sound’ is to deny that players, producers and composers understand a component of the game as music, and vetoes any insight that dedicated musical study may provide. It is on these grounds that I argue for a musicology of video games.26

Satellite Sources Production Documents, Reports and Interviews Beyond using the kinds of approaches mentioned earlier in application to the musical substance of the game, there are other sources outside the game that may inform our understanding of a game’s music. Just as traditional studies of music have drawn upon a variety of sources beyond the sonic component of music, so a plethora of secondary sources are available for the game music researcher. While corporate confidentiality agreements typically limit the detail with which game technologies can be discussed or demonstrated, some composers and audio producers make available materials and documents about a game’s music. It is common for individuals involved with a game’s music to give interviews to journalists or self-report their experiences working on the game (usually in production blogs or through presentations at industry conferences). Such interviews can be found through internet searches or on composers’/game developers’ websites. It is important to retain critical awareness and not to let the composer’s intentions and aspirations for the score unduly overshadow the evidence from the game source, but nevertheless, these kinds of sources can be very valuable for analysts, especially where technological aspects of the game are inaccessible. If we had found that we had misinterpreted the music programming from analytical play or investigating the programming, these kinds of documents can help to set us right. Interviews and presentations allow insight into the influences upon the composition and may help to provide interesting stimuli for criticalinterpretive investigations into a game’s music, what Lawrence Kramer calls ‘hermeneutic windows’.27 26

27

This passage is partly inspired by K.J. Donnelly’s keynote address at Ludomusicology 2014, titled ‘Play Is Purposeless Art: Theorizing Video Game Music’, 12 April 2014. Lawrence Kramer, Music as Cultural Practice, 1800–1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990): 6.

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For some games, sources from outside the game text provide particularly significant information. Spore, as mentioned both earlier in this chapter and in Chapter 1, uses a complex generative music system. Without the detailed explanations of the music programming provided by the developers in presentations, it would be very tricky to ascertain how the melody generation system worked: because of the randomization in the process, the properties of the musical assembly are obscured (by design) from the player.28 A similar situation is found in the ‘point-and-click’ adventure game The Dig (1995). Music plays almost continuously in this game, primarily cued as loops that are selected according to the player-avatar’s location in the game world. These cues are sometimes interrupted or changed depending on particular gameplay events. While the music is sonically striking and played at a high volume, precisely how it is constructed is not immediately apparent. Interviews with the game’s composer, Michael Z. Land, are useful, probably essential, in divining the process of The Dig’s creation. In an interview, Land describes that he went through two hours of Wagner orchestral music and isolated about 300 little segments, ranging from 2 to 10 seconds, where a nicely orchestrated chord is played without too much melodic activity on top. I then took these chord snippets, adjusting their pitch as needed, and added them one measure at a time to compositions that I had performed on a midi keyboard.29

Added to this sonic mix are synthesized sound and newly recorded solo instruments.30 Since the atomized samples are not immediately identifiable as Wagnerian excerpts, without this information from Land, it would be very challenging to understand how the score was composed. This kind of detail is not only helpful in generally investigating a game’s music, it also opens up a world of interpretive possibilities – What are Land’s motivations for this method? Why Wagner? What is the intended result of this laborious process? I have analysed The Dig elsewhere and interviews with Land were essential in facilitating this analytical process.31 28 29

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Jolly and McLeran, ‘Procedural Music in SPORE’. Santiago Mendez, ‘Music in the Air: Exclusive Interview with Michael Land’, The Dig Museum (2005), retrieved from http://dig.mixnmojo.com/museum/interview_land.html, accessed 5 August 2010. The Dig’s credits list additional instrumental performers alongside the copyright information for the Wagner recordings utilized in the score. The instruments include violin, viola, guitar and digeridoo [sic]. Tim Summers, ‘From Parsifal to the Playstation: Wagner and Video Game Music’, in K.J. Donnelly, William Gibbons and Neil Lerner (eds.), Music in Video Games: Studying Play (New York and London: Routledge, 2014), 199 216.

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Game production documents are sometimes made publicly available. The music production process for Command & Conquer 4 (2010) was chronicled in blogs written by the audio director, which included some planning documents,32 while the composers for Alone in the Dark [4]: The New Nightmare have released level maps detailing the music implementation on their website (example shown in Figure 2.2). The kinds of conclusions that can be drawn from production documents vary considerably depending on the nature of the materials, but typically, such evidence reveals the producers’ underlying conception of how the music should function in the game as well as the technical details of how they intended this to be accomplished. From the mindmaps from Command & Conquer 4, I can learn how the initial plans differ from the music that sounds in the final game, while from the Alone in the Dark map in Figure 2.2, I can ascertain to what extent the music system in the game accurately deploys the music as intended by the composers (it quickly becomes apparent that the PlayStation edition more closely and reliably represents the composers’ designs than the PC version). While such documents are generally rarely accessible by those outside the industry, they provide valuable insight into the process of game design.

Recordings, Liner Notes, Scores, Associated Music Game soundtracks are a significant part of the promotion and marketing of a game. Audio CDs are still produced for high-budget games, but digital music platforms even more readily disseminate game music recordings for consumption outside the game. Many soundtrack albums include liner notes written by composers and offer other pieces of information about the production of the game’s music. The usefulness of game music soundtrack recordings varies on a caseby-case basis. The ‘score’ as presented on the soundtrack albums lacks one of its central properties – dynamic response. At the same time, recordings represent a significant mode of encounter with the game’s music: the music as formulated on the album is the main way that players 32

Nick Laviers, ‘Inside the Music of Tiberian Twilight’ (Blog Post 1), commandandconquer.com (9 March 2010), retrieved from www.commandandconquer.com/news/inside-musictiberian-twilight; ‘Finding Jason Graves’ (Blog Post 2), (25 March 2010), retrieved from www.commandandconquer.com/news/finding-jason-graves; ‘The Sound of -NOD- Music’ (Blog Post 3), (5 May 2010), retrieved from www.commandandconquer.com/news/sound-nodmusic, all accessed 13 July 2010. The website is now defunct, but most of the material has been archived at https://web.archive.org.

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Figure 2.2 Top-down map of music implementation in the first level of Alone in the Dark [4]: The New Nightmare for the Carnby character. Used by permission of the composer.

hear the music outside the game; it is usually the case that YouTube videos of game music are taken from soundtrack albums, where available. Game players reflect and reminisce about their time playing the game with these recordings, which may come to stand for the game soundtrack

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in a concrete way. As we are here primarily concerned with the music in the game (as opposed to the broader cultural life of this music), it is important that the soundtrack CD does not serve as a substitute for the entire musical representation of the game. Soundtrack recordings normally arrange the music from the game into suites or long cues for pleasurable listening. Explaining this situation, composer Martin O’Donnell writes in the Halo: Original Soundtrack CD liner notes, Themes, moods and even the duration of these pieces will change and adapt with each player’s Halo experience . . . I took the liberty of remixing and rearranging all the music in order to make listening to the soundtrack more enjoyable. Perhaps a piece of music that you remember hearing won’t be found here [on the CD]. That might be because you played Halo in a way I never anticipated.33

Using the playthrough recordings and extracted data, we could use this comment to identify the themes that are included, and those that are not, in the CD recording. This would not only reveal the themes and motivic material that O’Donnell deems to be most significant, but also tell us about the way that the game was anticipated to be played by the majority of players. Analysing game music (both soundtracks and music heard in the game), therefore, may inform understanding of more general aspects of the game’s design. Fans in the game music community sometimes extract (and distribute) the music from the game in its raw, unarranged format. This music data is shared between fans over the internet. Despite its ubiquity, this activity represents copyright infringement, even if taking steps to inhibit this action seems to be a low priority for games companies. Apart from the recordings of music from games, it is sometimes possible to access musical scores. Occasionally, sketches and scores may be provided by game composers; Garry Schyman has published excerpts of his scores for the BioShock series on his website.34 More commonly, however, printed scores are either produced by music publishers or by the everindustrious fan communities. A range of game music has been commercially published, arranged for amateur performance, while video game fans routinely spend considerable time and effort transcribing the game’s music. These latter sources must be treated very carefully: both are usually

33 34

Martin O’Donnell Liner Notes, Halo: Original Soundtrack. SE-2000-2 Microsoft (2002). Garry Schyman, ‘Sheet Music’, Composer’s personal website. http://garryschyman.com/sheetmusic/, accessed 27 July 2015.

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Methods of Analysis

second-degree derivatives from the soundtrack records of the game music, rather than from the primary source of the game, and both may deviate from the music heard in the game without any indication. We might, however, wish to consciously draw upon music associated with the game, but not directly taken from the video game in question. We might find it useful to examine promotional materials for the game, such as game trailers and advertisements. How does the use of Gary Jules’s version of the song ‘Mad World’ in the cinema trailer for Gears of War (2006) reflect upon the game? What is the relationship between the newly written score of the Halo 3 (2007) announcement trailer and the musical material of the game? These questions help to situate the games (and their music) within a wider socio-cultural setting, as well as highlighting prior musical associations the gamer might have forged before playing the game.

Reviews and Player Comments Reception studies have had a long tradition in musicology and with the proliferation of game review websites and blogs, a huge wealth of popular criticism created by professional and amateur reviewers is available for those investigating game music.35 Beyond reviews specifically concerned with the music of a game, it can also be valuable to notice when general game reviews make special mention of the music and the terms in which these do so. Reviews and comments left on forums and YouTube videos reveal much about players’ experiences of game music. In Chapter 6, we will examine the critical reception of Advent Rising to investigate the assumptions that players hold about the conventions of game music. Aside from formal reviews, fan discourse about game music takes place in forums, blogs and video comments. As arguments and discussions rage, players passionate about music describe their relationship with game music, reporting how music from games can gain deeply personal significance for them. In Chapter 6, I use Final Fantasy VII as an opportunity to investigate some of the reasons how and why this should be the case. This type of player-focused analysis feeds into a broader understanding of the player’s relationship with music. Like the musicologist Nicholas 35

Websites can be notoriously volatile with content changing and evaporating without warning, though projects like The Internet Archive https://archive.org/web/ have helped to preserve some websites. Music4games.net, one of the premier game music criticism sites, ceased to function in 2009, but much of the content (including valuable composer interviews) was saved by the Internet Archive project.

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Cook and game theorist James Paul Gee, I consider media consumers as actively investigative media consumers, ‘reading’ the game and creating musical meanings as they encounter the multimedia text.36 Gamers are encouraged to undertake this kind of interpretation even more than in film, because of the interactive dimension of the medium which demands players actively engage with the game.

Representing Game Music Representing video game music is tricky. While written descriptions may be vivid and notated examples precise, the media format also provides the opportunity for experimentation with new forms of reporting game music analysis outside traditional academic forms, particularly through using digital technologies. As both a way of reporting music-game interactions and as an analytical tool itself, I offer here a representation of game music. Below is a diagram representing the music and gameplay at the end of the first level of the original Halo game, inspired by the diagrammatic film music analyses of John Huntley and Roger Manvell.37 This diagram (Figure 2.3) attempts to connect the game action with the musical changes and the description of the music in a way that is flexible enough to accommodate notes about unusual or interesting musical features. I found that this diagram was a useful way to structure my self-reporting of the game experience, record notes about the music of the level and force myself to be specific in the analytical dissection. This architecture could easily be adapted to include written notation, or in an interactive format, video clips and samples. I have also utilized this format as a way to direct readers of my analyses to specific sections of a cue or level without requiring long descriptions. My agenda in offering Figure 2.3 here is not to argue for the wider adoption of this format. It is, rather, to illustrate more generally the possibilities that the game medium provides for creating new ways of presenting and investigating music in media. We can use, adapt, or entirely depart from traditional modes of representing music. Game music accommodates a spectrum of possibilities, from formal motivic diagrams (of 36

37

Nicholas Cook, Analysing Musical Multimedia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); James Paul Gee, What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy (New York and Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003): 23ff. John Huntley and Roger Manvell, The Technique of Film Music (London: Focal Press, 1957).

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Methods of Analysis

After a section of the level set in the spaceship’s access corridors, the player must exit into the main hallway of the ship to trigger the final battle of the level. Opening the shown door prompts the cue to accompany this last firefight.

Moving towards the archway triggers the variation set to be cued and start playing at the next musically appropriate juncture.

To trigger the level’s final cutscene, the player must walk towards the remaining escape pod. The music may continue into the cutscene if the ‘end tag’ has not finished sounding before the cutscene begins.

During the cutscene, music begins when the escape pod’s doors close. Master Chief and the marines depart the ship and aim to land on Halo.

This cue helps to create the climax to the level and clearly punctuates the beginning of the ‘action sequence’ with which it concludes. The cue consists of low strings playing rhythmic repeated figures on a single pitch, with timpani, an untuned drum, and a snare drum. This musical material is borrowed from the cue that follows the Captain’s line, ‘Report!’ in an earlier cutscene.

The variation fragment set introduces string interjections of fast, angular fragments and an organ part. The organ and string parts provide antiphonal interplay over the ostinato from the first fragment set. This muscial material is directly reprised from the earlier cutscene, unifying the game between modes of interaction, through the music.

A definitive end is provided to the loop, finishing with an extended low string pedal pitch and cymbal crash. This not only provides a sense of finality but prepares the game rhythm for the end-of-level cutscene. If there is insufficient time for the end tag to sound, the score is simply faded out.

The music is triggered midway through the sequence, allowing the ‘end’ music tag from the previous cue to be played uninterrupted. Timpani and snare drum play militaristic rhythms in 6/8. Lower strings sound tonic and dominant homorhythmically with the snare. Quickly added to this music are, initially, a solo oboe and choral elements, before an orchestral texture is built that culminates in a spectacular tutti.

Figure 2.3 Diagrammatic representation of the final part of the ‘Pillar of Autumn’ level of Halo: Combat Evolved.

which more in later chapters), to personal reflections and reports on game music in blogs. The latter highlights a growing aspect of game music discourse. Using blogs and social media, we can share and discuss our understanding of game music. These kinds of digital networks are also an opportunity to democratize musical investigations. Rather than sealing game music into a scholarly suburb, internet forums allow popular and academic discourse to intersect, each benefiting from the other’s insights and experiences. Just as the video game as a medium transcends apparent boundaries between high and low art, musicians and non-musicians, and artistic and technical, so game music investigations must similarly share beyond traditional normal confines of discipline and audience. *** By way of conclusion, Table 2.1 summarizes the main sources and data types for analysing game music that this chapter has touched upon. At the end of the book, I have included an appendix based upon Royal S. Brown’s ‘How to Hear a Movie’. This appendix outlines questions and issues with the aim of supporting and prompting investigations into game music.

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Table 2.1 Sources, data and analysis in game music sources. Source

Raw Data Format

Analysis Methods

Analytical Play

Experience of play; captured play recordings of self or others Music deployment code; programming tools; technical data

Playing with and against grain; critical listening of musical material Find trends of musical material and game deployment; consider rationale of musical-dynamic processes Comparison with deployment in captured play; survey of musical material used in game; traditional musical-analytic techniques (see also below) Raft of traditional musical-analytic techniques (motivic, harmonic, topic analysis, etc.) Psychological investigative techniques, such as monitoring relationship of player response to altered game audio parameters Identify composers’ intentions (compositional ideology); extract technical information about game; integrate historical information Comparison of recordings with music as heard in game; trace after-game life of music; identification of main themes Interpretive prompts; identification of important factual information Raft of traditional musical-analytic techniques (motivic, harmonic, etc.); comparisons with transcriptions; identification of significant themes/ cues All kinds of musical analytical/critical approaches, perhaps in comparison with music from the gamer proper Reception (meta-)analysis; identification of trends in responses; major interpretive tropes; positive and negative criticism; reporting of how players’ interpretations match composers’ intentions

Code and Engine

Music Data

Audio wave files; note-data files; samples

Notated Transcriptions

Staff notation (via transcription of audio material, perhaps converted directly from music data) Self-reporting; physiological measurements, etc.

Psychological Gamer Response Interviews/ Presentations/ Documents Recordings

Liner Notes Scores

Transcriptions; presentation files; other documentation; audio/video recordings (autobiographical, historical, technical information) Audio data (often assembled into cues, rather than as heard in game) Written prose (technical information; historical-biographical information) Staff notation or other representation

Satellite Music

Music associated with the game (trailers, etc.)

Reviews/ Comments

Written prose

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Methods of Analysis

There are a near limitless number of analytical avenues in this domain; as the corpus of scholarship in the new area of study develops, further ways of examining game music will be proposed and refined. The main body of this volume uses the kinds of investigative techniques described earlier to explore different critical approaches to game music. These offer perspectives on aspects of game music to further enhance our understanding of how game music functions in games and the complex roles it plays in the game experience. The diversity of ways in which game music can be understood and conceptualized offers opportunities for all to investigate and play with game music. Anyone may construct ideas and readings of a game’s music inflected by whatever personal experience and interests they have. This is something that most game players do as a matter of course, without being explicitly conscious of the process. But by joining in the discussions of game music, we play with the games and we play with the music.

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part ii

Critical Perspectives

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3 Texturing and the Aesthetics of Immersion

The first part of this book discussed the practical aspects of analysing video game music. Now that we have examined the ways in which we can access and begin to investigate the musical material, we are in a position to consider critical and conceptual approaches to the music of games. Over the following chapters, we will visit some of the most pertinent and prominent features in the critical landscape of video game music. Some of these sites of inquiry present themselves readily: the border of game music with film music, for instance, is an almost inescapable aspect of engaging with game music. Others, however, such as the notion of playfulness, require a little more theoretical legwork to access. As we traverse the conceptual topology of game music (in itself a playful exploration), we will remain grounded in the texts of video games. The games are at the heart of these discussions and rather than engaging in theoretical abstractions we will always be concerned, fundamentally, with how we can use these concepts to further understand video game music. These chapters are, of course, a tour of the favourite sites, views, texts and obsessions of your guide-cum-narrator. But to admit my bias and forfeit any pretence at objectivity is not to discredit my arguments or choices. In fact, it bolsters them. These are the ideas and texts that have been most convincing, rewarding and useful to me, in my continuing project of understanding game music. These are the concepts that ring true for my experience of games and it would be disingenuous to claim that subjective fun, play and enjoyment should have no part in the study and discussion of game music. This is, after all, the primary reason why we engage with games. I submit my gaming/musical experience as evidence and offer these discussions as new ways to understand, and play with, our games. Disclaimers dispensed with, we begin our exploration with a concept and experience familiar to all gamers: immersion. 57

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Immersion and Texturing As players, we want games to be more than simply interactive. We long for those times when a game is so utterly absorbing, we lose track of time and our surroundings – we prize games that give us that rewarding sense of deep involvement in a fictional construct and gameplay mechanism. The term usually given to this experience is ‘immersion’, a ‘gradual, time-based, progressive experience that includes the suppression of all surroundings (spatial, audio-visual and temporal perception), together with attention and involvement’ in the game.1 Game journalists, players, producers and 1

Lennart E. Nacke and Mark Grimshaw, ‘Player-Game Interaction through Affective Sound’, in Mark Grimshaw (ed.), Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments (Hershey, NY: Information Science Reference, 2011), 264–85: 270. There has been great terminological confusion concerning ‘immersion’ both within and between disciplines involved with games, technology and other media. Debate stems from the distinctions between the interrelated notions of a) the technological properties of the medium and/or text, b) the sense of being ‘in a place’ and c) emotional responses to this experience. Mel Slater, for example, argues for ‘immersion’ to be used only to refer to ‘what the technology delivers from an objective point of view’ – i.e. display technology and the like, whereas ‘presence’ should describe the ‘human reaction to [the] immersion’ induced by the technology, but this is a formal property, distinct from ideas of ‘involvement, interest or emotional response’. Mel Slater, ‘A Note on Presence Terminology’, Presence Connect, 3 (2003), 5pp.: 1. Gordon Calleja summarizes two ways in which ‘immersion’ has been used: to refer to ‘immersion as absorption’ (i.e. the ‘general involvement in a medium’) and ‘immersion as transportation’ (‘which refers to the idea of being present in another place’). Gordon Calleja, In-Game: From Immersion to Incorporation (Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 2011): 27, 32. My use of the term ‘immersion’ is closer to the former tradition and is similar to the sense used by game designer Allen Varney, who simply writes ‘Immersion: intense focus, loss of self, distorted time sense, effortless action.’ (Allen Varney, ‘Immersion Unexplained’, The Escapist (2006) www.escapistmagazine.com/ articles/view/video-games/issues/issue_57/341-Immersion-Unexplained; www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/issues/issue_57/341-ImmersionUnexplained.2; www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/issues/issue_57/ 341-Immersion-Unexplained.3, accessed 23 July 2015) Immersion is the rewarding experience of being joyfully lost, enveloped in the game, to use Winifred Phillips’s words, ‘sinking completely within’ it (Composer’s Guide: 38). As Richard Stevens and Dave Raybould put it, ‘Immersion in a game is when the player loses sense of the outside world and is, for a moment, “lost in the flow.”’ (Game Audio Tutorial: 277). Kiri Miller uses the term ‘immersive engagement’ to refer to ‘being “in the zone,” “in the groove,” or in a flow state’ (Playing Along: 113), drawing upon Huizinga’s description of games that ‘absorb the player intensely and utterly’ (Homo Ludens: 13) ‘structuring the participants’ sensory experience and altering their sense of the passage of time’ (Playing Along: 5). While ‘immersive engagement’ may be an unwelcome concatenation of terms for Slater, it highlights, as Karen Collins writes, that while ‘[w]e often talk of the player’s immersion in the game, but rather than view the game strictly as a separate space into which players may become immersed, we may more accurately speak of the player being immersed in the gameplay. The act of play . . . leads to the immersive experience’ (Playing With Sound: 141, emphasis original). Some of the ideas in this chapter were presented in a different way in my article ‘Epic Texturing in the First-Person Shooter: The Aesthetics of Video Game Music’, The Soundtrack, 5/2 (2012), 131–51.

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Texturing and the Aesthetics of Immersion

scholars have traditionally valued immersion, and cultivating immersion is often described as one of the central functions of game music.2 The consensus of both players and many scholars is that music is ‘generally known to enhance the immersion in a gaming situation’,3 and psychologists Sean Zehnder and Scott Lipscomb argue that ‘music plays a significant part in creating a sense of immersion in the game’,4 specifically through making the player ‘feel involved in or engaged with stimuli from the virtual environment’.5 In games, sound, including music, is used (writes Mats Liljedahl) to convey information about events, creatures and things that are not visible [to players, and thus] adds yet another dimension to the game experience . . . To invite the players to use their imagination, fantasy, and associations to fill out the gaps in this way and complement what they see on the screen is one way to make the players emotionally and viscerally immersed in the game.6

This concept of music that immerses the player through complementing and extending what is seen on-screen is evident throughout academic discussion of game music and has also been referred to as ‘imaginative immersion’.7 To understand this aspect of music’s immersive function, it is helpful to consider a phenomenon evident in much game music, what I call ‘musical texturing’. Music in games often obviously deploys strategically chosen musical signifiers in order to furnish the game’s fictional construct. Musical 2

3 4

5 6

7

Rod Munday, ‘Music in Video Games’, in Jamie Sexton (ed.), Music, Sound and Multimedia: From the Live to the Virtual (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), 51–67: 56; van Elferen, ‘¡Un Forastero!’: 30. Nacke and Grimshaw, 2011: 265. Sean Zehnder, and Scott Lipscomb, ‘The Role of Music in Video Games’, in Peter Vorderer and Jennings Bryant (eds.), Playing Video Games: Motives, Responses and Consequences (Mahwah, NJ and London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 2006), 241–58: 243. Zehnder and Lipscomb, ‘The Role of Music in Video Games’: 249. Mats Liljedahl, ‘Sound for Fantasy and Freedom’, in Mark Grimshaw (ed.), Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments (Hershey, NY: Information Science Reference, 2011), 22–43: 35. Game analysts Laura Ermi and Frans Mäyrä proposed a tripartite model of immersion, which consists of three components: ‘sensory, challenge-based and imaginative immersion’. Laura Ermi and Frans Mäyrä, ‘Fundamental Components of the Gameplay Experience: Analysing Immersion’, paper presented at Digital Games Research Conference 2005, Changing Views: Worlds in Play, 16–20 June 2005, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Collected in Proceedings of DiGRA 2005 Conference: Changing Views – Worlds in Play, retrieved from www.digra.org/dl/db/06276.41516.pdf, accessed 19 February 2014: 1. Here, we are primarily concerned with the third of these: the way music acts in terms of imaginative immersion, the ‘dimension of game experience in which one becomes absorbed with the stories and the world’ (8).

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references support signification on the visual level and fill in gaps left on the other textual levels of the game. This is a very powerful way of employing music in games: even where graphics and gameplay are technologically limited, music can use general musical signs and/or references to other media and cultural touchstones that are already well-established to enhance the game experience. This effect can be called ‘texturing’,8 since it has the result of creating depth, implied detail and rounded context to the surface level of gameplay activity, elaborating beyond the basic frames of the gameplay mechanism. A straightforward illustration of musical texturing is found in Elite (1984). In this science-fiction game, the player acts as an interplanetary trader, travelling from world to world and docking at space stations to sell and buy goods. The game uses 3D wireframe graphics, which are showcased during the sequences when the player’s ship docks at a space station. The approach to the station is viewed from the perspective of the docking ship (Figure 3.1). Very little music is heard in Elite, but, in most versions of the game, a long musical cue begins when the player engages the docking autopilot to enter the space station. When activating the docking sequence, the game begins to play Johann Strauss II’s The Blue Danube waltz, crudely but charmingly rendered in the techno-aesthetic of the 8-bit era of console technology. The Blue Danube has evidently been carefully programmed – it includes rallentandi, appropriate timbral changes and the pitch of the digital incarnation closely approximates the orchestral version. Of course, the intertextual reference here is to the film 2001: A Space Odyssey (dir. Kubrick, 1968), in which the same waltz was famously used to accompany scenes of a ship docking at a space station. Elite’s visual perspective (Figure 3.1) even approximates the head-on view of the docking used in the film as the ship aligns with the rectangular aperture. The music connects Elite’s universe to that of 2001. It imports the icons and imagery of the film, creating explicit and implied depth to the game universe through the association with both the particular moment in 2001 and the wider world of the film. In Elite, music summons a repository of known images to interpolate beyond the basic visuals. By using even a simplified version of this famous piece, the fully orchestrated version of the Danube is brought to mind. The digitized version of the waltz stands as a wireframe model of The Blue Danube, just as the ships and space stations 8

‘Texturing’ in the sense outlined here is distinct from the musical property known as ‘musical texture’, though both deal with the aesthetic perception of density and verticality.

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Texturing and the Aesthetics of Immersion

Figure 3.1 Elite – Approaching a space station.

are wireframe models. The game’s visuals are fleshed out by invoking the memory of the fully orchestrated version of The Blue Danube, applying the same elaborative imagination to the models and game world as the music and enriching the game through musical semiotic reference. Elite is a very straightforward (and quite literal) example of musical ‘texturing’. The game coats the wireframe models with the textures from the cinematic text through the Blue Danube. 2001 was notable for its vivid depiction of a futuristic universe. By extension, Elite also invokes this broader world of the film, which tags along with the visual aspect of texturing. 2001’s fictional universe is conjured and fused into Elite’s world through the music. Aside from the text-enriching aspect of the reference, perhaps Elite also wants to claim a similar cultural reception to the film: that of an influential ‘great work’ of modern popular art. Games do not need to have a graphical style as visually unadorned as that of Elite to exhibit musical texturing. Furthermore, musical texturing is usually deployed in such a way so as to clearly support the particular priorities of the game. To illustrate this effect, let us consider a different type of game: a fighting game. Fighting games have a simple premise – characters attack each other, until either one fighter’s health meter reaches zero, or a time limit expires. In fighting games, the characters are the main focus of interest. The game will present a variety of avatars and players may choose which character they control. These characters are distinguished through the different abilities, strengths and weaknesses they have, alongside signature fight moves and (occasionally) superpowers. As we explored in the introduction to this book, expert players will have spent enough time with the game to know the appropriate attacks to initiate in any given

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situation. With precise commands, the virtuoso player will rhythmically block assaults, create powerful combinations of attacks, reverse/counter incoming blows and understand the strengths and weaknesses of both characters in the fight. One need only consult the online fan cultures surrounding these games, populated with home-made drawings of the characters, dressing-up costumes and ‘fanfic’ stories about the fighters to confirm that it is the characters that represent the main focus of player investment in the games. Music usually plays its part in texturing these characters. Street Fighter II (1991), like many fighting games, differentiates its characters through assigning each a national identity. The individualization of the characters occurs through supplying every fighter with a distinct visual appearance and an associated musical theme. Characters are given cues that are melodically memorable and often rely on musical stereotypes: the Spanish Bullfighter’s theme uses castanet sounds, flamenco rhythms and a melody that evokes the ornamented trumpet of traditional Spanish music, while the Chinese martial artist (Chun-Li) has a wooden-timbred parallel fourth motif in the Orientalist tradition and the Indian character is accompanied by music that imitates bhangra. The themes do not undergo development in any traditional motivic sense – they simply repeat in looped cues. Music is used to characterize the fighters beyond the limited visual aspect in a perceptually salient and cognitively impactful way: music is mixed at a high volume and draws the player’s aural attention through the clear, distinct timbres and utilizes striking musical semiotics to engage the listener/player. These musical signifiers serve to texture the characters, elaborating upon their basic pixelated appearances. Street Fighter II’ s use of character-associated music is very obvious, both in its musical function and the communicative dimension of the musical material. When individualization is important and graphical technology limited, music and musical stereotypes are a useful, if morally questionable, method of texturing characters. The musical themes are so much a part of the characters’ identities that when the fighters from Street Fighter II return in sequel games, such as Street Fighter IV (2008), the musical material is also reprised.9

9

In Street Fighter IV (2008), characters from prequels recur with their attendant themes. Technological advances result in characters appearing considerably different from their original incarnations. The themes assert that these are the same fighters, while articulating the evolution of the character. The newer game does not employ musical clichés as blatantly stereotypically as the 1991 soundtrack, perhaps because this is now recognized as culturally problematic.

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Texturing and the Aesthetics of Immersion

The practice of using character themes is no new innovation for music that accompanies moving-image media. In the context of Street Fighter, however, these are not merely signifying motifs to accompany the fighters. The audibility, crudity of semiotic reference and lack of musical development of the themes seem to serve as a fundamentally constitutional part of the way that characters are perceived and understood by players. We have already seen that musical texturing can be manifest in different ways, but to develop this idea beyond that of a localized ‘in the moment’ description, we can consider how it might interact with broader issues of narrative. Of particular interest is how music seems to somehow connect the mechanics of gameplay to a wider sense of significance. For this, however, we will need to tailor the texturing concept to a rather more specific formulation. A useful case study for immersion is the first-person shooter (FPS) game.10 When playing an FPS, players view the game world through the eyes of a character and complete the game’s objectives primarily through firearm-based combat. In an FPS, the issue of immersion is highlighted because the player’s view is restricted to a first-person perspective and the repetitive gameplay mechanic requires that these games obviously deploy strategies for involving and engaging the player. Texturing is particularly valuable for the FPS, where the blasting of enemies needs to be constructed as somehow significant or special, in order to encourage player engagement with the game. To this end, FPSs attempt to establish distinct situations and settings. A term from literary criticism can help to investigate this particular articulation of musical texturing that provides context and meaning to the play activity.

Epic Texturing The word ‘epic’ is used frequently in casual discourse about games. It can sometimes be invoked as a catch-all term of praise, simply as a synonym for ‘great’ or ‘amazing’, but it is distinctly associated with a positive experience of gameplay – something which ‘feels epic’. Games that have overarching narratives, such as role-playing games and FPSs, are particularly likely to be deemed ‘epic’. The term is not limited to use by players and reviewers, but 10

Mark Grimshaw also uses the FPS for investigating immersion from a game sound perspective in ‘The Acoustic Ecology of the First-Person Shooter’, PhD thesis (University of Waikato, 2007).

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game audio practitioners for whom the term refers to a particular soughtafter effect or aesthetic model.11 Aside from denoting the appropriation of elements (plots, settings, musical styles, etc.) from epic Hollywood film,12 the use of the term may reveal an important aspect of game music. In interrogating a notion of ‘epic’, we need to consider the sense(s) in which the term is applicable to games. While some games have drawn inspiration from classical mythology (such as the God of War series (2005–2013) and Age of Mythology (2002)), it is clear that the term ‘epic’ in the context of games and game music is not limited to the canon of classical epics. Instead, it is closer to the wider sense of the word, referring to an artistic genre that stems from classical epic poetry through to modern epic novels and epic film.13 This broader definition of ‘epic’ may lack clearcut specificity, but nevertheless, as literature analyst Masaki Mori has described, even in the wider sense of epic texts, there are some essential elements thematically intrinsic to the experience of reading an epic. Th[ese] thematic essentials include coping with one’s mortality, communal responsibility, and the double extension of time and space.14

Mori’s description reveals a concept essential to the epic: what can be described as the ‘narrative vertigo’ between the intensely personal (‘one’s

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See, for example, Andrew Boyd, ‘When Worlds Collide: Sound and Music in Film and Games’, gamasutra.com (2003), retrieved from www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2901/when_worlds_ collide_sound_and_.php?print=1, accessed 23 July 2015; Music4games.net [Anonymous], ‘Interview with New Medal of Honor Composer Christopher Lennertz’, music4games.net (2003), retrieved from http://web.archive.org/web/20030401172849/www.music4games.net/f_ moh_christopherlennertz.html, accessed 23 July 2015; and Martin O’Donnell, ‘Producing Audio for Halo’, gamasutra.com (20 May 2002), retrieved from www.gamasutra.com/resource_ guide/20020520/odonnell_01.htm; www.gamasutra.com/resource_guide/20020520/odonnell_ 02.htm; www.gamasutra.com/resource_guide/20020520/odonnell_03.htm. From a paper presented at the Game Developers Conference, San Jose, 21–23 March 2002. Slides from http:// halo.bungie.org/misc/gdc.2002.music/talk.html; text document of paper from http://halo .bungie.org/misc/gdc.2002.music/. All accessed 23 July 2015. Constantine Santas, discussing epic film, details seven ‘formal qualities of the epic film’ (The Epic in Film: From Myth to Blockbuster (Plymouth, UK: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008): 29–34), which are length, unified action, multiple plots, a hero, pity and fear, happy resolutions and spectacle. All of these qualities can be seen to be in play during the typical first-person shooter. Respectively, these are: a long playing time and expansive environments, coherency of viewpoint and gameplay type, different plot elements that the player’s character discovers and becomes involved in through the playing of the game, the player’s ‘heroic’ character, a range of emotional involvement with the environments, a successful completion of the game, and the sonic and visual set-pieces that a FPS must supply. Paul Merchant, The Epic (The Critical Idiom) (London: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1971): vii. Masaki Mori, Epic Grandeur: Toward a Comparative Poetics of the Epic (New York: State University of New York Press, 1997): x.

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mortality’) and the broader spatio-temporal and societal/contextual considerations. Epic functioning comes into play as part of this narrative vertigo between an intimate personal level of narrative (a love story, a hero, a group of friends) and a very broad ‘backdrop’ (an historical event, a disaster, interaction with a notable historical figure, macro plot structures), which acts as a motivation or plot device for the manipulation of the personal story. This epic architecture is obvious in the narratives of classic epic books and films: Scarlett and Rhett’s intimate relationship is set against the background of, and tied up with, the American Civil War in Gone with the Wind (dir. Fleming, 1939), while Jack and Rose’s romantic tragedy is similarly entwined with the fate of the Titanic (dir. Cameron, 1997) aboard which the story unfolds. Even the current epic de jour, the Game of Thrones television series and novels (2011–), are essentially familial domestic dramas played out over a large expanse of space and time. We find a similar epic experience in many games, but it is especially apparent in the FPS:15 from a single character’s point of view, the macro events (the backdrops/settings) are not of immediate importance, but they provide a context for the gameplay – the sense of being part of a larger story or world, bigger in scope than that seen by a single individual. Armyset FPS games are a particularly clear example of this architecture, wherein the player participates in missions set against the larger narrative of a war. These broader narratives do not need to be defined in great detail, they may be only loosely sketched; the implicit definition of such backgrounds is sufficient to create a narrative hierarchy that bestows significance upon the player-directed action of the gameplay. The hero of the FPS also holds similarity to that of the classical epic. The epic details the ‘various adventures of a closely observed hero’16 who faces insurmountable odds, yet triumphs. We may re-play levels until we are successful; at once, the hero is immortal (another re-play is always available), yet we are very aware of the hero’s mortality (death is frequent). When the nineteenth-century philosopher Hegel discusses the epic’s emphasis on processes and travel over the hero’s destination and narrative conclusion, this concept transposes to the video game as the truism that it

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For more on the traditions and connections between the historical virtual worlds and modern digital virtual worlds, see Maria Beatrice Bittarello, ‘Mythologies of Virtuality: “Other Space” and “Shared Dimension” from Ancient Myths to Cyberspace’, in Mark Grimshaw (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Virtuality (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 88–110. Merchant, The Epic: 72.

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is the playing of the game that is the point of the activity and source of fun, rather than achieving the ‘win state’ goal in itself.17 We might also find parallels between games and antecedent literary epics: the episodic form of the classical epic’s narrative is part of its structural nature,18 which is mirrored in games by the segmented gameplay and individual levels. The FPS, then, has general similarities to the epic – a player controls an epic-like hero through episodic segments that take place in a large world that is discovered and understood primarily through the eyes of one character. In this situation, the opportunity is presented for music to engage texturing that enhances the epic qualities of the game. This particular kind of musical texturing, epic texturing, uses music to accentuate a sense of narrative vertigo through connecting the player’s first-person interaction to an explicit or implied broader narrative construct. Epic texturing provides a way of understanding how game music relates to the oft-invoked term ‘epic’, as used to refer to an immersive sensation or aesthetic quality of both game music and gameplay more generally.19 An obvious place to begin examining specific examples of epic texturing is in FPS games with an historical setting, for which the broader weave of history serves as a backdrop.

Bodies, Nations and Musical Links In Western popular culture, the Second World War has been mined more than any other conflict to provide settings for works of film, television 17

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Hegel writes that ‘the chief thing is not the devotion of [the heroes’] activity to their own end but what meets them in their pursuit of it. The circumstances are just as effective as their activity’ (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art – Volume II, trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975): 1069). Mori notes, ‘Hegel thinks that the central, heroic figure should be bound to many constraints that are beyond his control, which can be called fate’. Mori, Epic Grandeur: 31. Would these ‘constraints beyond [the hero’s] control’ constitute the constructed game world, particularly the restrictions that the programmer will place on the player? Mori, Epic Grandeur: 21; Georg Lukács, The Theory of the Novel: A Historico-Philosophical Essay on the Forms of Great Epic Literature, trans. Anna Bostock (London: Merlin Press, 1971): 58. Media analyst Rod Munday uses the term ‘mythic immersion’ to describe how the player, through the avatar mechanism, acts as the hero of the game. (‘Music in Video Games’: 56.) This mythic immersion is assisted, even facilitated, by epic texturing. The closeness of the terms ‘mythic’ and ‘epic’ demonstrate the compatibility of my own hypothesis with that of Munday, though, for reasons outlined earlier, the term ‘epic’ is here preferred to describe this immersive phenomenon.

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and game fiction.20 The security provided by an historical war in which the defeated parties may be (largely) unproblematically aligned with antagonists promises a positive ultimate resolution and, most importantly, justifies depictions of violence and combat. In other words, it supplies an already-established narrative frame for gameplay. One of the first FPS games, Wolfenstein 3D (1992), makes full use of the moral high-ground made available by the historical premise the Second World War presents. In this game, the player controls an American GI who, having been captured by German forces, must escape a Nazi stronghold (the titular Castle Wolfenstein). The gameplay consists of shooting Nazi soldiers while traversing the maze-like interior of the castle. As with most early FPS games, for each level, a single musical cue is looped, though the same cue sometimes recurs for more than one level. Wolfenstein 3D not only established the conventions of the FPS game genre but also exemplifies the use of music as a device for epic texturing often found in this type of game. Upon loading the Wolfenstein game application, the player is immediately in sonic enemy territory – the pre-game menu is accompanied by a minor-mode version of the Nazi party anthem ‘Das Horst-Wessel-Lied’. These kind of national and military musical references continue in the music that accompanies the main gameplay. The cues draw stylistic influence from military band music and quote patriotic melodies. While synthesized snare drums play march rhythms and piccolos play trilling ornamentation, national melodies are sounded. In particular, American marching songs are quoted extensively: One level cue, ‘The March to War’, for example, is a patchwork of melodies from American songs, including ‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home’, ‘Yankee Doodle’, ‘America’ and ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’. Another in-game cue (‘Nazi Anthem’) is a further variation on the ‘Horst-Wessel-Lied’. A more unusual musical reference to the context of warfare is heard when the distinct pulse of a Morse code message is integrated into the score: in the ‘Kill the S.O.B.’ cue, the message ‘To Big Bad Wolf de [sic] Little Red Riding Hood Eliminate Hitler Imperative Complete Mission Within 24 Hours OUT’ is spelled

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The war film genre has typically focused on the two World Wars, Vietnam and Korea, with the Second World War understood as the original site of the genre parameters. See generic summary in Robert Eberwein, The Hollywood War Film (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010): 42–5. The International Movie Database’s keyword search reveals considerably more results for films, television and games tagged with ‘World War II’ than the other major conflicts common in the ‘war’ fictional genre.

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out.21 These national melodies and military signifiers accompany the gameplay to make obvious reference to the contextual premise. Even if the players do not identify the ‘Horst-Wessel-Lied’ or decode the Morse code message, the style, topic and melodic citations of the American songs make the signification obvious. The cues in Wolfenstein do more than simply remind the player of the narrative backdrop by accompanying the gameplay. They deploy an epic architecture through linking the context to the gameplay and, further, to the player’s avatar. It accomplishes this through using another strand of signification that operates alongside the national-military aspect of the cues. Wolfenstein’ s second dimension of musical signification is that of bodily references. Heartbeats and pulses permeate the soundscape: one cue is even titled ‘Pounding Headache’. As Ben Winters writes, composers for music in moving-image media ‘can use the sound of a heartbeat, or a musical representation thereof, to realize their narrative aims . . . by encouraging us to equate a fictional character’s endangered corporeality with an awareness of our own sense of bodily precariousness.’22 In the case of Wolfenstein, these corporeal musical features are heard simultaneously with, and sometimes in alteration with, the military musical material and topics. Thus the music connects the first-person incarnation of the avatar’s body to the character’s role and position within the wider context. Put another way, it highlights and links the levels of the epic construct – the personal ‘foreground’ level (the bodily references) and the wider ‘background’ context level (the military and national signification). Music seems to act as a medium for relating the player both to the avatar’s subjectivity and broader world in which the player’s character is placed (represented diagrammatically in Figure 3.2). Wolfenstein’s semiotic strategy makes use of music to situate the player’s agency within an epic construct. It faces both inward (through the corporeal rhythms to the bodily incarnation) and outward (through the patriotic music to the national factors). Rather than negating the gamer’s power as irrelevant within the larger narrative sweep, like all good epics, it becomes of 21

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Several online message boards have suggested this translation of the message (for example, see Adam Williamson and ‘Parafriction’, ‘Wolfenstein-3D and Spear of Destiny FAQ’, Wolfenstin 3D Dome (c.2001), www.wolfenstein3d.co.uk/faq.htm, accessed 1 March 2014). By slowing down a recording of the cue and using a Morse Code translator http://morsecode.scphillips .com/jtranslator.html, one can verify this translation of the message. Ben Winters, ‘Corporeality, Musical Heartbeats, and Cinematic Emotion’, Music, Sound, and the Moving Image, 2/1 (2008), 3–25: 4.

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Context Music Character

Player

Figure 3.2 Diagram of music, context and player interaction in an FPS with epic texturing. The music (here represented by the arrow) relates the player both inward to the body of the character they control and outward to the context of the game world.

paramount importance: Scarlett’s emotional life is seen to be just, if not more significant than the Civil War in Gone with the Wind, Jack and Rose are more important to us than any of the other Titanic passengers, and so on. In the same way, our first-person action remains the most prominent feature of the game, but the national signifiers are a straightforward way to enrich the game experience by making audible a broad-level contextual significance (with the aim of implying narrative vertigo). Furthermore, music is wellsuited to this function, since it creates the context during the play action and without relying on presenting the player with paragraphs of dense text that build a complex storyline. In Wolfenstein, the two domains needed for the epic (the personal agency and the wider context) are invoked and related to each other by musical texturing. Music is in the service of immersion here – as quoted earlier, Mats Liljedahl describes audio that creates immersion by ‘convey[ing] information about events, creatures and things that are not visible [to players, thus] add[ing] yet another dimension to the game experience’ and Wolfenstein’s music does just this by linking the player, the character/avatar and the contextual significance.

Your Name Is Bond, James Bond Wolfenstein exemplifies the kind of game where the player’s character is left largely undefined, as an absent centre. While this is effective in creating

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an everyperson (through a no-person), it is not suitable for all games and neither is it a precondition for creating an epic construct. Wolfenstein’s player character is left un-textured – only the broader-level narrative context and body of that character are musically dealt with. In a contrasting method, some games use musical intertextuality (i.e. references to other games/films/books, etc.) to make far more specific reference to particular characters and the narratives in which they are placed. While the relationship between film music and game music is discussed more extensively later in this book (Chapter 6), it is here worth considering a particular aspect of the intersection between games and films – the situation where direct musical references to particular films secure both the context of the game activity and the character that the player controls. Rather than the localized and very specific texturing aims of Elite’s citation of the music used in 2001, this kind of project is more extensive and uses a specific preexisting film text to anchor the elements of the epic construct. A particularly clear example of this kind of process is GoldenEye 007 (1997), an FPS game for the Nintendo 64, based on the similarly titled James Bond film (dir. Campbell, 1995). In GoldenEye 007, as any player would legitimately expect, the firstperson perspective adopted is that of James Bond himself. While the broad narrative of the film is copied into the game, the game experience is not that of simply ‘playing through’ or somehow ‘acting out’ the film. Instead, the game elaborates on moments in the film’s plot that occur off-screen and extends sections of the film that are only briefly depicted. Thus a complex relationship between the game and the film is created – the game’s plot is obviously closely linked to that of the film, and they are implied to converge at certain points, but the two media retain distinct identities with their own versions of the same narrative. The same ambiguity is at the heart of the James Bond franchise – ostensibly the same character inherits friends and belongings from earlier films, but his age is replenished with each new actor and the characterization alters in each incarnation. In this situation, Bond receives another actor to play the role: the player. In a game with a closely related other media text, it is expected that the game should make reference to its sibling. Just as the game programmers extrapolated upon scenes from the film and created new environments in keeping with the movie’s production design, so the composers for GoldenEye 007 (Graeme Norgate and Grant Kirkhope) wrote a score that stylistically and melodically copies that of the film, but does not attempt to re-create it precisely. The game music’s fidelity to the film is assisted by the fact that Éric Serra’s film score relied heavily on synthesized electronic

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sounds. Serra’s soundworld allows the synthesized game score to easily and closely resemble that of the film. The game uses similar musical timbres to the film score (particularly synthesized percussion), similar musical cue components (a preponderance of metallic-timbred ostinati) and similar musical materials (variations on the ‘James Bond Theme’ permeate both scores). Thus while the game does not directly reproduce the film’s score, the game is sonically linked to the film. The game’s score is, like the game more generally, positioned as separate, but intersecting with the original film text. As players perform the role of James Bond in GoldenEye 007, they are accompanied by music that refers to the character and its tradition. Part of the fun of a ‘game of the film’ is to adopt the narrative formulation of the film in a player-empowered interactive context. The broader narrative contexts (the basic plot and supporting characters of GoldenEye) have already been established by the film. They are brought to bear here by the game’s musical similarity to the film. At the same time, however, the film invokes the James Bond hero – the particular heroic role that the player adopts. In this case, the hero even transcends the particular text, operating across multiple films. The all-important James Bond theme reminds players of the character whose first-person viewpoint they experience the game, even if some of the locations and activities are not included in the film on which the game is based. It is necessary for the music to be similar to the movie, since the player must feel that the game world is part of the same universe as that of the film – through this, the context of the film is conjured and players may insert themselves into the film’s narrative (which serves as a higher-level epic backdrop) and adopt the character of a hero.23 But even further than that, the similar but not identical music asserts a ‘new incarnation’ of James Bond, now ‘played’ (literally) by the gamer. Just as the film series uses the recurrence of themes to assert the constancy of the character over changing actors, films, contexts and even musical styles, so the music of the GoldenEye game summons the spectre of the Bond hero in a new incarnation. The idea of ‘epic texturing’ again reveals the mechanics at play here. Music, in stylistic similarity to the GoldenEye film, invokes the broader narrative context from the cinema (the higher-level narrative into which the game levels fit), while the James Bond character (incarnate in the avatar that the player adopts) is summoned through the variations on the Bond 23

See also Miguel Mera’s discussion of James Bond games in ‘Invention/Re-invention’, Music, Sound, and the Moving Image, 3/1 (2009), 1–20.

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theme. The gamer gets to play James Bond as part of both the film series as a whole and the GoldenEye film in particular. The game musically articulates the complex ‘similar but different’ middleground of intertextuality of the game, at once aligned with, but distinct from, the cinematic text. Musical texturing provides this sense of position within a wider franchise mega-text, drawing on musical histories to import significance to the interactive activity and encourage investment and immersion in the game.

Music and Virtual Perception: Variations and Voodoo We will return to some of these ideas in a later chapter, when we consider how the cinematic aesthetic of some games dovetails with ideas of epic texturing (Chapter 6), but for now, I wish to consider how texturing plays into another aspect of the aesthetics of game music, and one that deals with the way that games construct virtual sensory perception when playing games. In the examples of texturing that we have discussed (epic or otherwise), the music has acted as a medium to accentuate or develop our understanding of the game beyond the other communicative layers of the text. Music seems to add something to the understanding of what we see and play with. In Elite, music adds the textures to the space station, to the fighters of Street Fighter it supplies additional characterization, the bland and plain rooms in Wolfenstein gain history and geography through the music and to the performance of James Bond, music provides a sense of character biography and a context for the action. In these moments of texturing, music acts as another sense, providing access to that which is not otherwise available for detection, or accentuating, enhancing and making salient ideas, information and concepts unmarked and only at the fringes of awareness. To keep our discussion grounded, let us anchor this issue in an example. The Monkey Island series of ‘point-and-click’ adventure games have not only become well-loved within the gaming community, but have also been frequently discussed by commentators and historians of game audio.24 As scholarship begins to build a canon of game music (as 24

Collins, Game Sound: 51–7; and Willem Strank, ‘The Legacy of iMuse: Interactive Music in the 1990s’, in Peter Moormann (ed.), Music and Game: Perspectives on a Popular Alliance (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2013), 81–92. At the 2013 Ludomusicology Conference, held at

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problematic as such activity is) Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge (1991) has been mentioned so often in research papers and books that it has become an established ‘great work’ of video game music. The focus of most writing about Monkey Island 2 is concerned with iMUSE, a dynamic music engine that was fully implemented for the first time in Monkey Island 2. The goals for iMUSE are clear in the patent of the system, which states that, as yet, ‘there has been little technological advancement in the intelligent control needed to provide automated music composition which changes gracefully and naturally in response to dynamic and unpredictable actions’.25 iMUSE uses MIDI data with ‘decision points’ marked in the scores. As the creators Michael Land and Peter McConnell describe, ‘The decision points . . . comprise a composing decision tree, with the decision points marking places where branches in the performance of the musical sequences may occur.’26 Whether or not a branch is played, or other musical changes are made, depends on the action in the game. Most significantly, iMUSE allows smooth musical changes. It facilitates the addition or removal of musical parts, transposition, looping, the omission of sections of score and the deployment of transition sequences, each in a seamless fashion, and all in relation to the game state. It is even possible to delay game action to allow synchronization with the music. Befitting a debut, iMUSE was very ostentatiously used in Monkey Island 2. The Monkey Island games are set on and around fictional Caribbean islands, during the so-called golden age of piracy. These comedic games are filled with outlandish characters and irreverent humour. The stories concern would-be pirate Guybrush Threepwood and his arch-enemy ‘ghost pirate’ LeChuck. The game injects the historical setting with modern-day elements, such as vending machines, printed t-shirts and rubber chickens. Much of the games’ comedy derives from juxtaposition and self-conscious humour. Like Street Fighter II, Monkey Island includes character themes to enhance the characterizations beyond the other textual levels of the game. Even more explicitly than Street Fighter, or the examples of epic texturing,

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Liverpool University, several papers, including my own, independently made reference to the iMUSE system and presented examples from Monkey Island 2. With this young subdiscipline, Monkey Island 2 has become a primary inductee to the canon of video game music. Michael Land and Peter N. McConnell, ‘Method and Apparatus for Dynamically Composing Music and Sound Effects Using a Computer’, United States Patent Number 5,315,057 (24 May 1994): 21. Land and McConnell, ‘Method and Apparatus for Dynamically Composing Music’: 1.

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Example 3.1 Largo’s Theme from Monkey Island 2. Used by kind permission of LucasFilm.

this music seems to act like another ‘sense’ that the player has at their disposal. At the start of Monkey Island 2, Guybrush is ambushed and robbed by a petty criminal called Largo. Largo arrives with his theme. At the moment that his dialogue text appears on-screen, and even before his character is seen, his music sounds (Example 3.1). It is a lurching minor melody with chromatic inflections, played in a bassoon-like timbre at a low pitch.27 The message is clear: ‘here comes trouble’. The player needs no more introduction to the character to realize that this is a slimy antagonist who spells nothing but strife for our hapless hero. Particularly since there is no recorded dialogue in Monkey Island to provide any other form of sonic characterization, musical themes constitute a significant component of the depiction of a given character. As Largo approaches, we sense him through the music, almost like as though he emits the theme personally. We learn about Largo, understanding aspects of his character, because of the music, which seems more rich and characterful than the low-resolution pixelated image we see on the screen. While the example of Largo, for all its potency and obviousness, may be written off simply as a ‘character theme’ entirely in keeping with in a tradition of scoring for film and stage, the deployment of thematic material in Monkey Island 2 betrays a rather more nuanced understanding of the aesthetic effect. While music is often anchored to characters (like Largo), music is also frequently attached to particular locations. Rather than using just one cue for an environment or several sections of connected areas, iMUSE allows the creation of a coherent set of variations for an environment. One of the towns in Monkey Island 2, Woodtick, consists of a main street and several sub-areas (shops, a hotel, etc.), all accessed from the central thoroughfare. 27

Monkey Island 2 varies considerably with different soundcards. I am here playing the version of Monkey Island 2 included in the Monkey Island Bounty Pack (1997) through DosBox 0.74 emulating a Creative Sound Blaster 16 card.

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The street is accompanied by a looping cue, but when Threepwood enters one of the sub-locations, without a pause in the musical fabric, at the next musical junction (decision point), iMUSE segues into one of several variations. Each of the locations has a variation on a common melody. Upon entering the carpenter’s shop, a nasal timbre is added to the score and plays a hornpipe variation, and when meeting the cartographer, an arpeggiated harp version of the same melody is heard. A rondo form is created as the main street is revisited between each sub-location. A game structure and a musical structure here concatenate. Some of these variations are even more elaborate: upon visiting Largo’s hotel room, his theme is added to the hotel variation, even though he is absent, and when sleeping pirates are awakened in the pub location, an accordion part is introduced (a further thematic variation), only to be silenced when they return to slumber. The music seems to be emanating from the locations and characters within this world, closely synchronized to Threepwood’s experience of the universe. The iMUSE transitions make clear that Woodtick’s sub-locations are not separate environments, but a continuation of one another (even if the visual stream ‘cuts’). These variations create a musical-virtual geography, and one that is specifically tied to Threepwood’s exploration and experience of his world. As Threepwood leaves Woodtick and explores other islands in the game, each of the discrete islands is given a distinct central theme. (This musical accompaniment individualizes the locations and helps the player to keep track of each island’s geography and inhabitants.) Thus musical difference is equated with greater distance in this musical-geographic model. Once again, it seems like our music is not simply denotative of places, objects and characters, but constitutive in as much as it is part of these ‘things’ of the world. Music is thus well-placed to depict supernatural elements of the universe that are invisible and otherwise unvoiced. Voodoo is a recurring theme within the Monkey Island games. Threepwood is assisted on his adventures by a helpful voodoo queen, known only as the Voodoo Lady. In the first Monkey Island game (1990), the Voodoo Lady is given a memorable musical theme. To meet her in the second game, Guybrush must row to the middle of a swamp (several continuous screens in distance) to enter the building in which the Voodoo Lady resides (Figure 3.3). As Guybrush traverses the swamp, different instruments are added in turn to the background ‘swamp’ cue.28

28

Karen Collins discusses this sequence in a different way in Game Sound: 56.

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Figure 3.3 Guybrush’s approach to the Voodoo Lady in Monkey Island 2.

MIDI elements are activated based on the player’s proximity to the hut, so the composition gradually becomes complete. The final parts are added when the player enters the Voodoo Lady’s hut. To access this area, a lift raises Guybrush’s makeshift raft into the carved skull. This moment is synchronized with a brief one-off ascending panpipe arpeggio and the game will pause before activating the elevator so that this arpeggio fits with the rest of the cue. The music that is gradually assembled as Guybrush gets closer to the Voodoo Lady is that of her theme, reprised in a more elaborate form from

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the first Monkey Island game. Just like Largo seemed to come with his theme, so does the Voodoo Lady. Her power, however, is greater than Largo’s – she emits this theme from far away and the player may ‘sense’ her presence through the aggregating musical material. It seems apt that, as a character with great supernatural ability, she is able to have such an impact on the score. Her voodoo ability is incarnated in the score, making audible her invisible powers. This sequence illustrates a unity of the musical-geographical concerns and the more object-theme aspect of the score. The power of voodoo is musically accentuated at other moments in the game: when a dead chef is reanimated through the power of voodoo, rising melodic sequences accompany his progressive resurrection, and when LeChuck attacks Guybrush using voodoo magic, extremely high and low pitches, glissandi, abrasive timbres and angular melodies synchronize with his spells. The attack upon Guybrush is made perceptually significant for the player – LeChuck’s physical assault on Threepwood is made into an aural assault upon the listener, as his power extends beyond the limitations of the visual elements of the game, through the channel of the musical component of the medium. As we have already observed, the music in Monkey Island 2 is specifically linked to Guybrush. It is through the frame of this character that the world is articulated for the player. Characters appear with themes that are a core part of their portrayal, musical geographies are created and supernatural powers are made incarnate. The music textures the game. While this may not be as literal a form of texturing as the Elite example with which we began, it nevertheless is part of a similar aesthetic role of music in the game medium. What Monkey Island 2 makes clear, however, is that this kind of music for play contributes to our perception of the game world in a very distinct way. Music, through texturing the game, represents a core part of how the game (its characters, worlds and actions) are understood by players. Music does not simply ‘underscore’ games, but it is part and parcel of the actions in, and worlds of, games.

Kant and the Metaphysical Loom In describing music as having a ‘texturing’ function, we deal with the notion of making obviously perceptible that which was either imperceptible, inconspicuous or implicit in the game. While there is debate about the

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use of the term ‘perception’ in music studies,29 I here refer not to the perception of music as such (though I have just described several examples of perceptually salient music), but instead to how listening and interpreting the game music facilitates the gamer’s greater awareness and discernment of (or particular ways of discerning) elements of the game. I am not discussing the perception of music, but the perception of the game world through the music. My suggestion of music as involved with perception brings to mind a somewhat older conception of music’s ability to extend beyond the boundaries of normal reality. The eighteenth-century philosopher Immanuel Kant made a distinction between the ‘appearances’ (visual et al.) of objects and ‘things in themselves’.30 As philosopher Bryan Magee concisely explains: Kant made the observation . . . that what we can apprehend or experience must necessarily depend not only on what there is to apprehend or experience but also on the apparatus we have for apprehending and experiencing . . . The sum total of everything we can conceivably apprehend in any way at all is the sum total of what the apparatus at our disposal can do or mediate . . . [T]otal reality is comprised of a part which can be experienced by us and a part which can not [sic]. Kant’s term for the part of reality that we can experience, the world of actual or possible phenomena, is simply ‘the phenomenal’, while his expression for the part which we cannot experience is ‘the noumenal’.31

So Kant writes, ‘all objects that are given to us can be interpreted in two ways: on the one hand, as appearances; on the other hand, as things in themselves.’32 A video game necessarily complicates a Kantian understanding of perception. This is not a ‘real world’ and there is no reason why the limits of perception that exist in reality should match that of the player’s experience of a game. Players have no real eyes, ears, or other perceptual apparatus in the game world, so why should the same perceptual limits apply? Players 29

30

31

32

See David Bashwiner, ‘Musical Analysis for Multimedia: A Perspective from Music Theory’, in Siu-Lan Tan, Annabel J. Cohen, Scott D. Lipscomb and Roger A. Kendall (eds.), The Psychology of Music in Multimedia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 213), 89–117; Ian Cross, ‘Music Analysis and Music Perception’, Music Analysis, 17/1 (1998), 3–20 and Nicola Dibben, ‘What Do We Hear, When We Hear Music?: Music Perception and Musical Material’, Musicae Scientiae, 5 (2001), 161–94. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. J.M.D. Meiklejohn (London: Bohn, 1855): 178–89. Bryan Magee, The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy (New York: Owl Books, 2000): 152–54. Immanuel Kant, Philosophical Correspondence: 1759–99, trans. and ed. Arnulf Zweig (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1967), 103.

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only have three sensory channels (audio, visual and sometimes a limited sense of touch) to use when interacting with the game,33 but within the perceptual frame constructed by these three channels, the game may present to players information that would be inaccessible to them in the real world. As is borne out with the examples of musical texturing, the players’ perception of the game’s objects/places/character is, through the music, more extensive than the perception of objects in the real world. In providing greater understanding (informational or emotional) of ingame elements, be they characters, objects, puzzles, events, environments, dramatic undercurrents, etc., or even by adding aesthetic weight to these ‘things’ (in the Kantian sense), the score extends human perceptual apparatus in a simulated way beyond the ability to perceive mere ‘appearances’. The normally noumenal is made sensual. Music does not give access to the entirety of a noumenal world, but it does seem to redraw the perceptual boundaries between the phenomenal and the noumenal in the simulation of the game. In doing so, it constructs the player as having superhuman abilities of perception. Music that illuminates, describes and makes more vibrant the worlds of games (including characters, events, etc.) simulates a heightened ability of perception. This further denotes the player, and the avatar/character, as significant and the (sometimes epic) hero of the game. The smooth musical changes and transitions of iMUSE are particularly useful for this project of renegotiating perceptual limits in the game fantasy. Music may be closely synchronized to in-game events and this reactivity may be deployed in a way that does not risk jeopardizing immersion. Inappropriately hard cuts or disjunctive, un-musical breaks in the music can endanger the connectedness of the aural and visual tracks. Smooth dynamic systems, like iMUSE, allow composers to avoid exposing the cracks in the fabric of the constructed world: the universe remains stable, interactive and immersive. iMUSE’s creators, McConnell and Land, describe how moments of musical discontinuity destroy ‘[a]ny musical momentum and flow which had been established’ and the changes ‘soun[d] abrupt and unnatural.’34 Like a glitch in the game, such breakages (or, put another way, tears in the texture) rupture the integrity of the medium, forcibly reminding the player in an unwanted fashion of the 33

34

Modern games have begun to use ‘touch’ as a further sense for interacting with a game, particularly with vibration control, though this is still a limited sensory channel in its infancy of development for games. With the exception of gun recoil vibration in GoldenEye (if the player has the appropriate game accessory), the examples in this chapter did not use tactile communication. Land and McConnell, ‘Method and Apparatus for Dynamically Composing Music’: 21.

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constructed nature of the game, and, in this disengaging effect, represent a threat to immersion. In their patent, McConnell and Land argue for the need for iMUSE by commenting that ‘music and sound effects are an important part of [a] game’s “feel”’.35 Their invocation of a tactile sense to describe part of music’s significance in games entirely concords with both the idea of music as a ‘texturing’ agent and as providing a new perceptual domain to the game experience. In doing so, music facilitates engagement with the game to assist with the project of immersion, by ‘add[ing] yet another dimension to the game experience’, as Mats Liljedahl described in the quotation that I presented at the start of this chapter. My discussion of this nexus of game music aesthetics has explored how music is not a passive or submissive accompaniment to a visual track, but is instead a constitutive part of the game experience. Nowhere is this clearer than in games where music forms a central part of the interactive mechanism of the game. While many examples of such games abound (not least among those categorized as ‘music games’), it is also evident in games that would not immediately demand special treatment as exceptional ‘music games’. The final example in this chapter represents an extreme manifestation of this more generally held aesthetic principle. Loom (1990), another ‘point-and-click’ adventure like Monkey Island 2¸ is set in a medieval fantasy world and follows the exploits of Bobbin Threadbare, a junior member of a mysterious and magical Guild of Weavers. The player directs Bobbin in much the same way as Guybrush Threepwood, with basic movement and manipulation instructions, but Threadbare also has the ability to direct and deploy magic, through the power of a special wand. Bobbin carries a distaff (a magical weaving tool), which, when properly controlled, can manipulate objects in the game’s universe. The distaff is also a musical instrument as well as a magic wand; the spells take the form of four-note melodic motifs. To cast a spell, the player selects pitches to be played on the distaff by clicking pitch icons on the interface or pressing particular keyboard commands (Figure 3.4a and 3.4b). It is only the pitched properties of the motifs that define their identities and supernatural powers: the rhythm with which the player selects the notes does not impact upon the motif’s effect, probably because the requirement for accurate rhythms would represent a frustrating impediment to players and an unnecessary challenge for programmers. These melodies/spells

35

Ibid.

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Figure 3.4a A screenshot of Loom, showing the player’s character, the distaff and the motif pitch interface. At this early stage in the game, only three pitches are available to the player.

Figure 3.4b An excerpt from the instruction booklet for Loom, showing the distaff and the keyboard controls for the pitches. Used by kind permission of LucasFilm.36

36

LucasArts [Anon.], Loom Game Manual (np: LucasArts, 1990): 9.

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are known as ‘drafts’ and each draft has a particular effect within the game world. For example, one of the first motifs that the player learns in the game is ‘open’ (E-C-E-D), which is deployed to open doors, part curtains and so on. While this is similar to the way that players will click on the verb ‘open’ in Monkey Island 2’s interface to direct Guybrush to open a door, the magical spells in Loom are shown to have greater power than that of the hero character’s regular agency. As the players progress through the game, they learn new drafts and new pitches become available on the interface, which helps to widen the distaff’s repertoire and provide a sense of progression within the game. The melodic motifs in Loom are not explicitly defined in the game.37 The player discovers new motifs by observing an event which is accompanied by a short motif that sounds from the ether. The player may then integrate this new spell into their repertoire by repeating this melody in a new context, with the hope of musically prompting a similar effect. These melodies are not random assortments of pitches. Some include wordpainting (the ‘reflection’ draft, for example is palindromic) and the game encourages lateral thinking in the form of user-driven melodic development: players can retrograde the motifs to cause the inverse effect. Playing the pitches of the ‘open’ draft in reverse order acts as a ‘close’ motif (D-EC-E). In this world, events and forces find musical expression, and music can even be harnessed as an active agent. Players appropriate this power through the hero’s musical performance. The use of motifs in Loom is similar to the way that Richard Wagner, inspired by both Kant directly and the legacy of Kantian thought in Arthur Schopenhauer’s philosophy, sought to represent aspects of the otherwise imperceptible in his later operas, not least through the manipulation of motifs. This enactment of the metaphysical role of music in games is exactly the kind of critical perspective this chapter has sought to investigate. Loom foregrounds musical texturing to the point of a critical reversal of the aesthetic mechanism, where the music gains primacy and players come to understand and perceive the world (and the events within) in terms of the musical materials. The game almost seems to texture the music. Perhaps 37

The drafts are defined in the game’s accompanying manual. This is similar to Hans von Wolzogen’s pamphlet guides to Wagner’s operas, which were written and produced for the audiences at the first Bayreuth festivals. These documents included the explicit identification and naming of the major leitmotifs in the works. A more modern analogue is Rudolph Sabor’s five-volume guidebook for the Ring, which also includes the illustration and naming of the Ring’s motifs (Richard Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen Translation and Commentary (London: Phaidon, 1997)).

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Loom even acts as a lesson in the interpretation of video game music, asserting the constitutive link between music on the sonic channels of the game and the constructed worlds and gameplay. It teaches players to understand one in terms of the other. By engaging with the music, we are further involved with, and further immersed in, the game experience. As we have seen, the links between immersive aesthetics and perception have been significant for the construction of the player as superhuman and heroic. In games that engage readily and obviously with the fantastic and heroic narrative traditions, concerns about realism are not of primary musical importance. In the next chapter, however, we shall explore other games that use music to carefully negotiate aspects of realism. Not all games wish to engage with the phantasmagorical musically conjured worlds in the same way as our metaphysically charged weaving tools. Those woven textures may not fit so comfortably on other games.

Conceptual Toolkit: Texturing – musical signifiers ‘fill out’ or ‘apply a texture’ to the visual and other textual aspects of the game. Games use music to elaborate beyond the aspects of the text. Music may introduce entirely new associations to the game, or accentuate less prominent features of the text to a position of significance and distinction. The game is enriched and allows greater engagement on the part of the player. Elite uses music to supply textures to the wireframe models and invoke a wider science-fiction universe through The Blue Danube. Street Fighter II’s music individualizes characters using national stereotypes, making them more distinct beyond the limited visual appearance of the sprites. Epic texturing – music (through texturing processes) connects the player both to the subjectivity of the avatar and to the higher-level background narrative in which the avatar is placed. This effect immerses players through hero-izing them. It asserts both their adoption of the hero-role and their agency within a wider narrative, even though both of these are only visually implicit during most of the play time. Wolfenstein 3D deploys patriotic songs alongside signifiers of bodily rhythms to sonically unite the avatar’s body with the historical setting within which it is placed.

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GoldenEye 007 musically asserts that players adopt the role of James Bond hero and connects the game to the cinematic sibling text (along with the meta-narrative of the Bond franchise). Perception – music simulates the extension of human perceptual abilities beyond those of the real world to construct the player as superhuman and the world (and gameplay) as fantastic. Music becomes another tool for understanding the game world, encouraging further engagement with the text and cultivating immersion. Monkey Island 2 uses the smooth transitions of iMUSE to enhance a sense of musical geographies and as a sonic incarnation of the supernatural power of voodoo. Loom encourages players to understand the game world in terms of musical material. The player appropriates the power of this music as they manipulate the world through sounding musical motifs.

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4 Music and Virtual Game Worlds

I am not a murderer. At least, I do not think that I am a murderer. After all, video games are not the same as real life. When I shoot an enemy henchman in Tomb Raider II (1997), no-one actually dies. There is no funeral for the dedicated employee, no sympathy cards are written and no-one reminisces with humorous anecdotes about the good times had in the sparkling company of ‘Goon A’. I am not responsible for a death, I do not have to stand trial and justify my self-defence, because my name is not Lara Croft and the enemy is fictional. My murderous actions are not real. But, as game theorist Jesper Juul found out, once we start to investigate games in detail, the boundary between the ‘real’ and ‘not real’ becomes a little more difficult to determine.1 Evidently, games are real things that exist in the world. Winning a game is also a real event. Juul concludes that the rules that serve as parameters of the game are real, though they are invented and virtual. Physical manifestation is not a criterion for being real – ideas and prejudices are real, even if they are not concretely incarnate. T.L. Taylor has described how real cultures can be created and real friendships forged inside multiplayer online video games.2 Such games blur together offline and online ‘spheres’, since ‘[w]hat happens in virtual worlds often is just as real, just as meaningful to participants’ as experiences outside them.3 Rather than considering the rules of a game (the mechanics of gameplay, such as how players win the game and the modes of interaction) and the fiction of the game (the worlds and stories presented by the game) as separate, Juul emphasizes the link between rules and fictions, not least because it is through the fictions that the player comes to understand the rules of the game: A game cues a player into imagining a fictional world. Games can do this in a number of different ways: using graphics, sound, text, cut-scenes, the game title, box,

1

2

3

Jesper Juul, Half-Real: Video Games Between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2005). T.L. Taylor, Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006): 3, 18. Taylor, Play Between Worlds: 19.

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Critical Perspectives or manual, haptics, and rules . . . [T]he representation and fictional world presented by the game cue the player into making assumptions about the rules of the game.4

Music is part of how the game ‘projects’ its world (to use Juul’s term), ‘cueing’ the player’s understanding of the universe and the game’s rules.5 Video games create virtual worlds of many different types. The fictional land of Hyrule in the Legend of Zelda games is different in tone and content from the version of 1940s Los Angeles presented in L.A. Noire (2011), while both contrast with the zany universe of the Super Mario Galaxy games. While terms like ‘fictional universe’ bring to mind large virtual spaces that the player is free to explore, like the sprawling cities of Grand Theft Auto games, or the apocalyptic barren Capital Wasteland of Fallout 3 (2008), nearly all games, including puzzle games and racing games, create virtual worlds, even if they are not interacted with in quite the same way as ‘open world’ games. Games create worlds for us to play in and with. Music is part of how we come to know and understand these virtual universes. As Rob Shields reminds us, the opposite of virtual is not ‘real’, but ‘concrete’.6 Similarly, Marcel Proust, the French novelist, defined virtual as something that is ‘real without being actual, ideal without being abstract’.7 Proust’s definition has had a long influence in the tradition of critical theory, most particularly with Henri Bergson, Gilles Deleuze and, more recently, Brian Massumi, who conceives of the virtual as a ‘nonsensuous’ (i.e. not directly ‘sensed’) ‘dimension of reality’.8 In games, the nonsensuous virtual is created through the sensuous sounds, images, etc. that are presented to the player. Music is part of this sensuous arsenal used by games to realize, render or project the virtual universes. The game medium consists of distinct, separate components (visual, sonic, haptic) which conspire together in the player’s reception of them to conjure the virtual realities.9

4

5 6 7

8

9

Juul, Half-Real: 133; 176. ‘Fiction’ might fit poorly with games that present virtual worlds based on actual world places and historical events, but I would argue that the specifically game and gameplay-inflected representation of even factually grounded worlds are fictionalized in their being forged in a game context. Precise computer modelling simulations and straightforward accurate virtual recreations of actual world places are not games – these are the history textbooks to the historical fiction novels of games ‘set’ in actual world places. Juul, Half-Real: 121. Rob Shields, ‘Virtualities’, Theory, Culture & Society, 23/2–3 (2006), 284–86: 284. Marcel Proust, quoted in Gilles Deleuze, Bergsonism, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberiam (New York: Zone Books, 1988): 96. Brian Massumi, ‘Envisioning the Virtual’, in Mark Grimshaw (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Virtuality (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 55–70: 55; 57. This passage is inspired by Massumi’s formulation of the way that the virtual is created. Massumi, ‘Envisioning’: 62.

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That these worlds are virtual does not make them ‘not real’ and neither is fictional a simple antonym for real. Fiction is instead another mode of projected reality, one that is usually, perhaps always, virtual.10 Virtual fictional game worlds are governed by rules that are virtual, invented and real. Music is part of how games cue the virtual rules and worlds to the player: a real sounding sonic entity connecting rules, worlds and fictions. We will return to critical theory later, but for now, examining particular games will help to elucidate some of this theoretical discussion. Racing games provide a clear example of how music is used to articulate the projected worlds and realities created by games, particularly with respect to realism.

Realism, Realities and the Racing Game Racing games, a staple of video gaming, have been continually popular since the 1970s. Distinct subgenres of the racing game can be easily identified, sharing common features and characteristics. Within these subgenres, the use of music is generally consistent and each game type is distinguished primarily by the nature of the virtual universe that the game projects. There are five readily identifiable racing game subgenres (Table 4.1). Simulation racing games are based on actual world motorsports and strive to imply the highest degree of realism in the virtual world.11 The player will control cars that are used in that sport and the game will often represent the specific vehicles featured in a certain season, with appropriate driver statistics and car decorations. Semi-simulation racing games, in contrast, contain a significant degree of verisimilitude, but do not just replicate reallife motorsports. Perhaps the cars, though accurately rendered, will not normally be associated with formal racing, or the racing will not take place on traditional racetracks. Unlike semi-simulation games, arcade racing games use unrealistic physics and fictional settings, with the aim of fast, easily accessible, spectacular play. Street racing games are set in the illegal, underground world of competitive street racing. These games are often similar in presentation to arcade racing games, but typically involve some 10

11

Grant Tavinor implies the same when he describes fiction and the virtual as ‘overlapping’. The Art of Videogames (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009): 49–50. In this chapter, I use ‘actual world’ rather than ‘real world’ in contrast to ‘virtual world’ to respect the complicated negotiation of real and not-real in virtual domains.

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Table 4.1 Racing game subgenres. Game Type

Examples

Simulation

Indianapolis 500: The Simulation (1989); Indycar Racing (1993); F-1 World Grand Prix (1998), NASCAR Racing 2002 Season (2002); ToCA Race Driver 2 (2004); Formula 1 05 (2005); Shift 2: Unleashed (2011) Test Drive series (1990–2012); Gran Turismo series (1997–); Project Gotham Racing series (2001–2007); Forza Motorsport series (2005–) Ridge Racer series (1993–); Cruis’n USA (1994) and sequels; Daytona USA (1994); Sega Rally Championship (1995) Cisco Heat (1990); Need for Speed series (1994–); Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition REMIX (2005); Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights (2007) F-Zero series (1990–2004); Road Rash (1991); Mario Kart series (1992–2014); Megarace (1994); Wipeout (1995) and sequels; Diddy Kong Racing (1997); Vigilante 8 (1998)

SemiSimulation Arcade Street Racing Fantastic/ Futuristic

aspect of explicit role-playing as a character that attempts to rise to fame through a series of races against rival drivers. What I categorize as futuristic and fantastic racing games are subsets of arcade racing games, sharing the far end of the realism spectrum, but taking place in settings remote from present-day Earth. Each subgenre of the racing game creates a different sort of virtual reality that presents the racing activity in a certain way. This has implications for how players understand the tenor of their play with the game – from the ‘serious’ precision of the motorsports games to the gung-ho silliness of racing games set in cartoon worlds. The articulation of realism is an important aspect of this tone of play and the kind of reality constructed by the game, whether the high-realism simulation games or low-realism arcade games. Music in the racing game is an agent for projecting the virtual worlds (including expressing the realism) and, as such, musical deployment within these subgenres is largely consistent. Table 4.2 summarizes the musical trends associated with each subgenre. Even if the main goal of these racing games is the same (finish first in the race), the universes that are projected around this game mechanic vary. There are two particular dimensions of how music cues the virtual worlds of racing game – the way that the music is ‘sourced’ within the world of the game and the repertoire of the music in the game. Artistic realism, as defined by Terry Eagleton, is the attempt to ‘foster the illusion that we are perceiving reality’.12 For the purposes of this chapter, 12

Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983): 136.

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Table 4.2 Music trends in racing game subgenres. Game Type

Music Use

Simulation

Music not used during races, only to accompany short video clips and menu systems. Aims for ‘unmarked’ contemporary popular style, often imitating television motorsports coverage. Music sometimes featured for non-interactive ‘replay’ mode. Modern games use recent pop songs for introduction sequences. Usually includes music during races. Different genres of music typically present (pop, classical, rock, electronic dance music, etc.), often presented as ‘radio’ format. Player often able to customize and dictate music use and selection. Music during races. Newly written music in popular dance/rock styles. Music couched in terms of an ‘arcade aesthetic’ of sonic excess. Music during races. Inclusion of (or in earlier games, imitation of) particular popular music genres and artists associated with street racing subculture (especially hiphop, R&B, rap, dance, less commonly rock). Dynamic music systems sometimes evident. Racetrack-specific music plays continuously (often looped). Music usually emphasizes unconventional virtual worlds, often through using unusual timbres and musical styles that differ from the pop genres common in other racing subgenres. Licensed mainstream pop music rare.

SemiSimulation Arcade Street Racing

Fantastic/ Futuristic

I adopt Eagleton’s definition of realism to refer specifically to the illusion of perceiving actual world reality. Games that represent actual world motorsports often aim for a high degree of this kind of artistic realism. These games, such as F-1 World Grand Prix (1998), typically do not use music during the race, perhaps because Formula 1 drivers do not drive to music,13 but more likely because music is absent during the race in television broadcasts of motorsports. F-1 World Grand Prix precisely replicates the style of television on-screen race statistics, so to include music here would be at odds with the attempt to project a realistic world through imitating the way that factual ‘actual world’ action is commonly presented. When music is heard in these games, it is in keeping with the TV sports aesthetic, such as in introductory cutscenes modelled after montages that begin television sports programmes. These montages typically feature a pop or rock song that drums up excitement and anticipation for the sporting action. Formula 1 05, for example, uses the 2003 song ‘Butterflies and Hurricanes’ by the rock band Muse to accompany an opening montage. The song has little explicit connection with racing, but as a kinetic, popular and relatively recent piece, it is appropriate for the purpose here. This song, and several others by Muse, 13

BBC [Anon.], ‘Sebastian Vettel’, BBC Sport (2009), http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/ formula_one/drivers_and_teams/7879002.stm, accessed 11 December 2014.

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later found use in BBC sports programming, illustrating the accuracy of the game’s replication of the sports broadcasting style.14 Racing games that prioritize realism project a virtual world that draws upon television presentation of actual world events as a way of claiming a more general similarity of the virtual world and concrete world. As a result, the player is led to understand the virtual world of these games as having a close concordance with our reality, not only because of the accurate factual content of the game (statistics/car decals, etc.), or the quality of the graphics, but also because the broader aesthetic presentation of the world claims this to be the case. While the sparse use of music in simulation racing games is used as a force for aesthetic realism, in games that present racing in a less formalized context, music can articulate the careful negotiation between artistic realism and the less realistic aspects of the game. Games based around nonmotorsport racing typically include music during the race, but to assert the games’ (and, by extension, the game worlds’) verisimilitude, it is often pre-existing music and explicitly presented as emanating from an in-car entertainment system which the player can control. Though initially featuring newly written music in a pop style (see Out Run (1986)), the in-car radio format became particularly popular in semi-simulation games once technology allowed actual world pop songs to be used as part of the ‘radio’, creating a sonic link between the virtual world and our reality. The same music is heard on the radios of the virtual universe as in ours, anchoring the projected world of semi-simulation games in at least some variation on our reality, implying that the game world is not entirely fantastic. Project Gotham Racing, for example, includes a large amount of licensed music presented on a ‘radio’. Gotham blends the obviously fantastic with realism: the locations and cars are expertly rendered, but the premise of racing around the cities (in the manner presented here) is impossible. Each country in which the player races has suitably localized radio stations and DJ-chatter. However, while the songs may appear realistic, the radio framing in which they are set is far less so. Gamers do not mistake the game radio for an actual world radio, even if it plays actual world songs. This is instead a verisimilic simulation of a radio station with a limited playlist. As players seek to understand the parameters of the game’s virtual world, this music implementation that combines realism alongside the obviously inauthentic serves as an indicator (and agent for constructing) the game’s mode of reality that blends realism and fantasy. 14

BBC [Anon.], ‘Ask Us About: Music Details’, BBC Sport (2008), http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/ hi/tv_and_radio/6346199.stm, accessed 18 January 2015.

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The third Gotham racing game (2005) also includes pre-existing music but replaces the radio simulation with pre-chosen, but customizable, playlists arranged by musical genre. The playlists can be programmed with selections from the music included in the game, or from the player’s own collection, much in the way that personal music libraries have found widespread use in cars. The variety of music included in Gotham 3 is wide: from popular classical art music to modern bhangra. Such stylistic diversity is also typical of the semi-simulation game’s particular rendering of ‘realism’: (see also, in particular, the Gran Turismo series). The player is usually given a degree of control over the music selection (such as the ability to make playlists, import personal music libraries, select particular musical genres, etc.). The music is deployed so as to emulate actual world in-car entertainment, even if its constructed fictionality is obvious. The clearly fictionalized presentation of the radio and curated selections alongside the ‘actual world’ music that sounds during the race projects a middleground degree of artistic realism, between a world that is entirely fantastic and far removed from reality, and one that replicates television sports broadcast aesthetics. This music implementation implies a virtual world that has a similarly medium attitude to realism. Semi-simulation games generally include pre-existing music during the race. Racing games that do not prioritize realism (arcade games, street racing games and fantastic racing games) also use music during the race, though this race-accompanying music is of limited stylistic diversity and not given an explicit origin. The question of whether the music is sounding ‘realistically’ from the car stereo is moot when laws of physics are given only lip-service, racetracks are entirely fictional and racing occurs in high-speed hovercars from the future. For the same reason, with the exception of street racing games (of which more later), music in these genres is typically newly written for the game. To use music from the actual world in these games would imply a degree of connection with our reality that would be inappropriate. Instrumental music tends to dominate in arcade and fantastic racing games, though when vocals do feature, they often sing lyrics that foreground the game’s constructedness: the title of Daytona USA (Sega, 1994) is sung (useful in a game arcade to identify the source of the music), as are phrases such as ‘rolling start’ and ‘game over’. Arcade games use music that is unsubtle: Daytona USA’s high-tempo cues feature densely layered (though light-timbred) drum loops beneath brash electric guitar solos, accompanied by jolly synthesized brass interjections and a singer who either vocalizes or sings repeated banal lyrics. The lighthearted disposition of the music is infectious in its endearingly self-aware silliness – it sends the clear signal to the player to not take the game too seriously. Daytona USA is ostensibly

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linked to the Daytona NASCAR races, but the music helps clarify that this is no motorsports simulation game. The player seeking an accurate representation of car dynamics with careful crash modelling will be frustrated. Players certainly understood the message: as one modern reviewer recently reminisced, ‘Daytona USA’s theme tune wasn’t about the words — it was about the tone, the voice, the nonsense. “Rolling Start.” Surely Daytona USA holds the record for the noisiest game in history?’,15 while another wrote, ‘This isn’t realism – it’s joyous videogame exuberance.’16 We can clearly identify the relationship between the music and the general artistic realism of the games. This is not merely window-dressing for the gameplay. When I play a game that names real-life drivers and teams, shows me an opening montage of racing scenes like a television programme and presents racing without any music, I am inclined to take a ‘serious’ attitude to this play – carefully attending to small adjustments of my steering and applying brakes judiciously in the belief that I have to control the vehicle with precision to have any hope at finishing the lap in a competitive time. If I collide with another vehicle, or leave the main track, I expect to come last in the race. In contrast, when I play a game that presents a brightly coloured cartoon world, with fictional (perhaps physically impossible) tracks and unrealistic cars, accompanied continuously by unsubtle, unsourced music that I do not recognize, I adopt a different way of playing, because the aesthetic style of the game cues my understanding of the rules in this virtual world. I rarely bother worrying about brakes, I expect to be able to collide with other vehicles and still recover to be able to win the race, I make extreme steering decisions and I rarely lift my finger from the ‘accelerate’ button. The gameplay and the virtual worlds are intertwined and music is part and parcel of how these virtual universes are constructed.

Actual World Cultures, Virtual Worlds Aside from its role in articulating realism, racing game music works on another particularly significant axis for building the game world – the fictional cultural setting. In contrast with the diverse selection of music in semi-simulation games, a generically constrained selection of music can be 15

16

Sammy Barker, ‘Daytona USA’, Push Square (2012), www.pushsquare.com/reviews/psn/ daytona_usa, accessed 20 January 2015. Justin Towell, ‘Daytona USA Review’, Games Radar (2012), www.gamesradar.com/daytonausa-review/, accessed 20 January 2015.

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used to locate a game within a particular socio-cultural context. Street racing games, such as the Need for Speed series, do just this through a stylistically unified choice of pre-existing music that works to invoke certain associations. Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005), for example, uses 26 hip-hop and club dance songs. The Need for Speed games emphasize urban environments and it is appropriate that the game should use musical genres associated with the urban cityscape and modern American automobile culture.17 Car customization typically includes powerful sound systems, creating a sonic domain extending both inside and outside the car. Musical-stylistic features that assist with this effect (such as emphasis on bass registers) are unsurprisingly popular. These musical styles are linked with the city environment, loudly disseminated by racers through the city-space, reinforcing their association with the urban environment so crucial to hip-hop. Perhaps this is why musical sourcing in the street racing game is not a major concern: such games often do not specify where the music comes from. The music permeates inside the cars and outside in the wider environment, sonically uniting both as part of a complete soundworld.18 The urban environment in which the race is set is cued for the gamer through the use of this music, particularly when it appears to be sonically all-pervasive. The musical selections not only build a virtual world around the gameplay through music generally associated with urban spaces, but the constrained musical selection invokes a cultural context for the game universe. Many gamers would not normally choose to listen to the music styles included in games, such as, perhaps, the rap in street racing games. These genres, however, are part of the player’s induction into American street racing culture. Listening to this music is part of the fictional reality as much as evading the police or dangerous driving. In addition, with music being part of the contextual environment, the source within the game world is again irrelevant; it is attendant to the culture, whether or not it emanates from the vehicle. As such, music contributes to the ‘cueing’ of the virtual world of the game, relying on known musical signifiers to contextualize the game mechanic.

17

18

Justin Williams, ‘“Cars with the Boom”: Music, Automobility, and Hip-hop “Sub” Cultures’, in Sumanth Gopinath and Jason Stanyek (eds.), The Oxford Handbook to Mobile Music Volume 2 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 109–45. Glamorous cars often feature prominently in R&B/rap/hip-hop music videos. Saul Austerlitz, Money for Nothing: A History of the Music Video from the Beatles to the White Stripes (New York and London: Continuum, 2007): 101–107, 187) These same music genres are ubiquitous in the street racing game, illustrating another iconographical cultural link, reinforced by the music video-like display of song information on the screen in this game.

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More than simply using musical genres for signification, the producers of the Need for Speed games see the games as linked to the actual worldracing phenomenon. They believe that the potential exists for games and actual world car activities to enter dialogue with, and impact upon, one another in terms of music. Music is thought to be able not only to replicate existing musical-cultural associations, but actively forge them. A music executive at the game studio commented, concerning Need for Speed: Carbon (2006), Street racing is an international outlaw sport with a velocity all its own . . . We’ve spent close to a year working with artists and labels from around the world to ensure that not only does the music capture the true hardcore styles of the sport, it also pushes it forward with breakthrough new artists.19

The game aims to be involved in shaping the music associated with the sport, creating a feedback loop with street racing: at once emulating, yet helping to define the culture of street racing. Much like the way that friendships and relationships forged in virtual worlds spill out into the non-virtual world (as T.L. Taylor has described in the multiplayer online game culture), the music from the virtual worlds aspires to influence the actual world (musical) culture(s) it represents.20 In the semi-simulation and street racing game, popular music heard during the race, whether pre-existing or newly written, is seen to work in several directions. Such music can act as a gesture towards (knowingly simulated) realism when it is used as part of a radio or other in-car entertainment. Yet, given the usually pre-determined selection of music in the game, it locates the virtual universe within a particular socio-cultural and/or geographic context – as with the regionalized radio stations of Gotham, or the urban music of the street racing games.21 For games such as Need for Speed, the limited selection of musical genres sets the racing in

19

20

21

Electronic Arts [Anon.], ‘Need for Speed Carbon Soundtrack Announced’ [Press release], teamxbox.com (20 September 2006), retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/ 20130720165306/http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/11796/Need-for-Speed-Carbon-SoundtrackAnnounced/, accessed 17 December 2014. This is not a phenomenon solely limited to games – much the same can be said of films that both depict and influence certain actual world cultures. See, for example, the legacy of Wild Style’s representation of hip-hop culture (dir. Ahearn, 1983), or Saturday Night Fever’s influence on disco (dir. Badham, 1977). Kiri Miller has observed much the same effect in the Grand Theft Auto games, where the selection and presentation of the musical selections on the car radios implies a particular sociocultural context and even focalization through the avatar character. Playing Along (2012): Chapter 2.

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a world with which most players have no real-life contact. Does the music form part of the ‘going othering’22 element of playing as a street racer? If so, perhaps there are here uncomfortable overtones of social elitism drawn along musical lines. Are the worlds presented by these games (of which music is an important part of the substance and method of representation) problematically exoticizing a real-life culture? Even if these game worlds are virtual, they are musically connected to the world outside the game and thus hold a certain amount of power in terms of the cultural portrayals they make. As a case in point, some games that represent history do so in a way that is potentially both influential and misleading.

Virtual Histories Just as the Need for Speed games draw upon pre-existing music to supply a cultural context for the in-game action, so other games use music to provide an historical and/or geographical setting for the virtual world. Much like the ‘texturing’ discussed in the previous chapter, this is music that seeks, in any number of ways, to develop what is shown on the screen into a virtual world of substance. In many cases, the musical selections in games are chosen, or written, to imply that the fictional universe projected by the game has some connection to actual world history, adding weight to an otherwise impermanent world that normally ceases to exist whenever the game application is closed. Civilization IV (2005) is a strategy game in which the player adopts the role of a national leader (an historical figure) and shepherds a country from the pre-Bronze Age to beyond the twenty-first century. The game uses – and arguably rewrites – actual world musical history in the service of creating the virtual world. Each national leader in Civilization IV is assigned a melodic motif taken from pre-existing music that somehow resonates with their national identity. To give a few examples, Peter the Great is associated with the Song of the Volga Boatman, the British Queen Victoria’s anthem is Rule, Britannia!, while Domenico Scarlatti’s Sonata in E K.380 is attached to Louis XIV and the Mongol Internationale (the Mongolian National Anthem used in 1924–1950) is anachronistically

22

I borrow the notion of ‘going othering’ from David Krasner, Resistance, Parody, and Double Consciousness in African American Theatre, 1895–1910 (London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997): 91.

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linked to Genghis Khan.23 With each ‘era’ into which the game’s chronological span is divided, the anthem theme is heard in varying degrees of fragmentation and in different instrumentation. As the civilization grows and prospers, the associated musical theme mirrors this transformation in becoming increasingly more fully orchestrated and more melodically complete. As well as equating the evolution of civilization with greater melodic coherence, this musical development structures the game’s long duration and mirrors the player’s progression through the game. The leader’s ‘owned’ cities emit this music in the world, becoming more audible as the player’s bird’s-eye viewpoint approaches the city, allowing the player to auditorially assess the state of the game world. Players’ armies colonize the world sonically as they conquer geographically. These variations on leader-specific pieces provide a musical link to the actual world, connecting game-world and actual-world historical identities, while simultaneously articulating the chronological development of the game world and the political struggles that are played out over the landscape. Even if the original pieces are not recognized by the player, the anthems still stand for national identities: players can ‘hear’ the gameplay action develop over the virtual world as the anthems proliferate and evolve. Civilization IV also uses pre-existing music in a different way when the player’s viewpoint is zoomed out further from the cities.24 Beyond the sonic reach of the leader-specific themes, Western art music is heard when viewing the world from a greater distance. No specific source for the music is specified – it appears to simply emanate from the world in general. A large selection of music is used and each ‘era’ segment of the game has a particular playlist of music (Table 4.3). Mostly, whole movements of works are played at once, preserving a degree of musical-structural form and providing a considerable duration of music before repetition begins. Just like the anthem themes, music is used as a marker of development of the eras of civilization, linked to social and technological developments that occur in the game. A teleological and highly periodized version of music history is communicated to players. While the game uses the signification of these musical styles (if not the particular pieces) to connect the fictional and actual worlds, the inclusion of these pieces in the game creates further 23

24

Because of the large number of leader characters in the game, some leaders from the same country will share an anthem. Churchill and Victoria I, for example, share Rule, Britannia! Several scholars have commented on Civilization IV’s selections of music. See, in particular, Karen M. Cook, ‘Music, History, and Progress in Sid Meier’s Civilization IV’, in K.J. Donnelly, William Gibbons and Neil Lerner (eds.), Music in Video Games: Studying Play (New York: Routledge, 2014), 166–82.

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musical meanings. For instance, the entire ‘Modern’ period is exclusively represented by John Adams – the game argues that John Adams is the (single) living composer of equal ‘genius’ stature to the canonic composers of earlier ‘eras’. We might also criticize the game for Euro-centrism, its segregation of ‘art music’ and ‘popular music’, or the atypical periodization. The progression of the ‘eras’ is determined by the technological advancement of the civilization. Once the nation has developed sufficiently, a new era is heralded with an on-screen message that pauses gameplay to tell the player that they have entered a new period in history. This mechanic results in the ‘eras’ being normally misaligned with their typically accepted chronological periods. In addition, the musical selections do not always sit well with the era names they are given: music for the medieval period includes music usually classified as Renaissance,25 and the Renaissance is represented by baroque and Viennese classical music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Civilization games include an obvious educational dimension: they present a large amount of factual background information about the historical characters and civilizations to players. The music is stored on the player’s computer and is easily extracted from the game, perhaps tacitly encouraging players to listen to the music outside the game context. Intentionally or otherwise, in drawing on actual world history to create a virtual world, a certain amount of informal education takes place, whereby the virtual world implicitly comments on the actual world. This is particularly significant where the divergences between game world and the actual world are ambiguous for players without prior historical knowledge – such as in the less obvious anachronisms between the music and the designated ‘era’. Just as games use music to tell players about the virtual worlds, so the music for the virtual worlds tells players about the actual world in which they live. These virtual worlds may be just as apparently real to players (if not more so) than the historical events and characters they read about in history books. Games not only musically construct the virtual worlds for gamers, but they also have the potential to partly construct their understanding of the ‘real’ world, too. So far, we have examined how music can be used as part of the construction of the realism of virtual worlds, along with its ability to provide cultural and chronological contexts for those worlds. I also

25

The pieces by de la Torre and Ortiz appear to be taken from the CD Royal Songbook: Spanish Music from the Time of Columbus (Naxos 8.553325), which also contains pieces by Ockeghem. While this music is clearly anachronistic for the medieval period, the CD title nevertheless resonates with the spirit of exploration the game wishes to invoke.

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99

Table 4.3 Art music used in Civilization IV.1 Piece:

, on , subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.

Medieval Era: Miserere mei, Deus Ay Santa Maria (Spanish, Late 15th Century) La Gamba (Spanish, Late 15th Century) Missa Et ecce terrae motus, (‘The Earthquake Mass’): Gloria Versus Alleluiatici: Deus, iudex iustus Versus Alleluiatici: Laudate Deum Regem cui omnia vivunt (Invitatorium) Alma Redemptoris mater 8vv (Magn. Op. Mus. Numerus 496) Alta (dance a 3) El Grillo Intemerata Dei mater Requiem: Kyrie Recercada Tercera Missa Papae Marcelli: Credo Missa Papae Marcelli: Gloria Terpsichore: Ballet du Roy pour sonner après (CCLXIX) à 4 Terpsichore: Bransles (a. Bransle Gay Semel I à 5; b. Bransle de Montirande I à 5) Terpsichore: Voltes (a. CCXLIII à 4; b. CCXXXI à 4; c. CCXXXIV à 4) Media vita . . . Nunc dimittis, 6vv. Antiphon O mors inevitabilis (Lament on the death of Josquin) Renaissance Era: Double Violin Concerto: II. Largo ma non tanto Double Violin Concerto: III. Allegro Brandenburg Concerto No. 2: III. Allegro assai Brandenburg Concerto No. 3: I. Allegro Brandenburg Concerto No. 4: I. Allegro Brandenburg Concerto No. 6: I. Allegro Brandenburg Concerto No. 6: III. Allegro Cello Suite No. 1: II. Allemande Cello Suite No. 1: IV. Sarabande Cello Suite No. 1: V. Menuet I and II (inc. Menuet I. da Capo.) Cello Suite No. 4: V. Bourée I and II (inc. Bourée I. da Capo) Cello Suite No. 5: VI. Gigue Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor: III. Allegro Assai Symphony No. 8: II. Allegretto scherzando Symphony No. 1: II. Andante cantabile con moto Romance for Violin and Orchestra No. 1 Serenade No. 10 in Bb: III. Adagio Symphony No. 41: II. Andante cantabile Piano Concerto No. 20: II. Romanze Industrial Era: Symphony No. 5: II. Andante con moto Symphony No. 6: I. Allegro ma non troppo Symphony No. 6: II. Andante molto mosso Symphony No. 3: II. Andante Symphony No. 3: III. Poco allegretto Hungarian Dance No. 1 Hungarian Dance No. 3 Hungarian Dance No. 16 Symphony No. 9: II. Largo American Suite: I. Andante con moto

Composer: Gregorio Allegri Anonymous Anonymous Antoine Brumel Chant Chant Chant Orlande de Lassus Francisco de la Torre Josquin Desprez (?) Johannes Ockeghem Johannes Ockeghem Diego Ortiz Giovanni da Palestrina Giovanni da Palestrina Michael Praetorius Michael Praetorius Michael Praetorius John Sheppard Jheronimus Vinders Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Bach Beethoven Beethoven Beethoven Mozart Mozart Mozart Beethoven Beethoven Beethoven Brahms Brahms Brahms Brahms Brahms Dvořák Dvořák

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Table 4.3 (cont.)

, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use,

Piece:

Composer:

Slavonic Dance (Op. 46) No. 3 Slavonic Dance (Op. 46) No. 7 Slavonic Dance (Op. 72) No. 2 (10) Slavonic Dance (Op. 72) No. 4 (12) Scheherazade: III. The Young Prince and the Young Princess Cello Concerto No. 1: II. Allegretto con moto Modern Era: Christian Zeal and Activity (Excerpts) Common Tones in Simple Time Grand Pianola Music: I. (Excerpt) Grand Pianola Music: II. Harmonielehre: Movement I (Excerpt) Harmonielehre: II. Amfortas Wound (Edited) Harmonielehre: III. Meister Eckhardt and Quackie (Excerpt) Shaker Loops: I. Shaking and Trembling (Excerpt) Shaker Loops: II. Hyming Slews Shaker Loops: III. Loops and Verses (Excerpt) The Chairman Dances – Foxtrot for Orchestra ‘The People are the Heroes Now’ from Nixon in China Two Fanfares for Orchestra: Tromba Lonata Violin Concerto: II. Chaconne

Dvořák Dvořák Dvořák Dvořák Rimsky-Korsakov Saint-Saëns

1

John Adams John Adams John Adams John Adams John Adams John Adams John Adams John Adams John Adams John Adams John Adams John Adams John Adams John Adams

This table has been created from the game data and composer credits in the game manual, with additional assistance from the anonymous contributors to the Wikipedia page dedicated to the music of Civilization IV (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_in_Civilization_IV, accessed 21 July 2010), which was especially helpful in correcting misattributions in the game and suggesting the identity of some of the more obscure pieces.

Music and Virtual Game Worlds

suggested that, as part of musical connections that draw upon, and feed back into, musical cultures outside the game, game music has the potential for complicated relationships with actual-world musical cultures and histories (whether by misrepresenting musical histories, or by exoticizing and stereotyping cultures associated with particular musical styles). Beyond this kind of projection and cueing of the content of the virtual worlds, we have not yet considered how music articulates the player’s modes of interacting with them.

Modes of Interacting with Virtual Worlds A common feature of the virtual realities presented by games is the option to experience these worlds in different ways: not only may I pause the game, freezing the action within the game-space, but, particularly in simulation and strategy games, I can often choose the speed at which time in the virtual world passes, or adopt any number of perspectives on what is shown to be the same universe. When distinct modes of interacting with the virtual worlds are presented, games try to differentiate and articulate these modes and the player’s relationship with the simulated game world at any one time. Music may play a role in this project, auditorially expressing the way that the player is positioned with respect to the virtual world. The Sims (2000) is a kind of digital dollhouse. The player creates houses with virtual inhabitants (sims). Players can direct sims, controlling the overall destiny of their lives. The game has three distinct modes of interaction – ‘live mode’, ‘build mode’ and ‘buy mode’. In each of these modes, the music is different. When using ‘live mode’, time in the game world flows normally (at a ratio of about one real second to one game minute) or at a speed dictated by the player. During this mode, players hear sources of music that sound within the virtual world of the game (televisions, radios, musical instruments played by sims, etc.), but they also hear music that does not appear to come from within the virtual reality of the game, but instead from a musical narrator: semiotically obvious musical fragments impart information to the player about events in the game world, even if the action that prompts the music occurs outside the player’s view. A romantic kiss between two sims is accompanied by the ‘love theme’ from Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture, while a dangerous lack of food in the house prompts a cartoon-stereotypical three-note semitone descending phrase on a muted trumpet. Both kinds of music in ‘live mode’ help to articulate a virtual world

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that is a running, progressing simulation – in hearing the music from sources within the game world players are given an ‘audio portal’ into the simulated world in which time is passing (necessary for music to sound) and events are occurring, as accentuated by the short musical fragments. Furthermore, the short ‘stingers’ prompt the player to pay attention and sometimes take action in response – when starvation threatens the sims, intervention is needed on the part of the gamer. Players must remain active and engaged as time continues in the virtual universe. In ‘build mode’, game world time is paused to allow players to make alterations to the house’s architecture and the garden landscape. ‘Build mode’ is accompanied by solo piano music. Each ‘build mode’ piece consists of a different repetitive left-hand figuration, over which a roving improvisatory melodic line is laid, based upon small melodic fragments. With no sense of structure, harmonic direction, or thematic development, the music seems entirely ad libitum. The repeated micro gestures and variations are an appropriate analogue for the house’s construction; the player uses small units provided by the game to develop the house’s architecture, just as the music improvises on the small melodic fragments. The rubato tempo and lack of steady pulse creates a sense of stasis and timelessness which communicates that game world time is paused. There are no teleological structures in these cues: the game, like the pieces, is open-ended. The third mode is ‘buy mode’, which the player uses to furnish the interior of the house. Time does not pass in the game world while this mode is used. Unlike the musical clichés and sourced audio of the ‘live mode’, or the timeless ‘build mode’ music, ‘buy mode’ uses a different kind of semiotic association – the musical accompaniment is a stylistic pastiche of Leroy Anderson’s ‘light orchestral’ style, with upbeat melodies and witty orchestration.26 Pizzicato strings are ubiquitous here, with perky melodic lines in doubled unison woodwind instruments (two flutes or two clarinets) which often create a ‘call and response’ texture with solo string lines. The harp and glockenspiel are used to add colouristic effects, together with the trills in the woodwind and strings. The era of American history with which this ‘buy’ style is associated (late 1940s and the 1950s) saw huge economic expansion with increased suburban single-family housing. Together with nostalgia, the cues invoke the optimism and consumerist ambition of the boom years’

26

Leroy Anderson (1908–1975) was an American composer known primarily for his short orchestral pieces, which are generally tuneful, upbeat and light-hearted with inventive orchestration. He found commercial success with his instrumental singles and albums. His most well-known composition is the perennial Christmas favourite, ‘Sleigh Ride’.

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zeitgeist. The players are encouraged to chase the dream of idealized suburbia for their sims as they buy objects for the houses. Each mode’s music not only prioritizes different forms of musical communication, but is also appropriate to the player’s interaction with the game world and the activities that the gamer is expected to undertake. Music delineates the game modes and helps to articulate the player’s relationship with the simulated world in each mode. I suggested earlier that when players hear music that sounds in the virtual world, an ‘audio portal’ is created between the player and the virtual world; the player’s ears are given access to the simulated game world. This may be a rather unremarkable phenomenon, but it nevertheless provides an opportunity for the articulation of the virtual world, or even philosophies that stand behind it. The radio in the houses of The Sims is separated into genre-specific stations and, with the exception of the ‘classical’ station playlist, the radio spouts derivative, non-memorable music, which sims uncritically consume.27 Any lyrics heard on the radio are nonsense words (‘Simlish’): it is the genredefining musical features that are significant. The radio seems to be presenting a parody of popular music – claiming that it is bland and without any individuality: all the tracks sound pretty much the same. For all of the game’s consumerist posture, this could easily be read as a Marxist/Frankfurt School satire on popular music and the culture industry. For some Sims sequels, famous artists re-recorded their own songs, substituting original lyrics with Simlish words (such as Lily Allen’s ‘Smile’ and Katy Perry’s ‘Hot N Cold’). While these may be marketing gimmicks, there is a further parodic spectre to this re-recording, a sly satiric comment on the vacuousness of the songs’ lyrics. Whether we read this as critical parody or not, the use of ‘real world’ music transformed in this way at once distances the ‘sim world’ from reality (the music sounds differently to the version familiar to us) and connects the two (we clearly hear the similarity to the songs we know): thus it auditivizes the translation implicit in the simulated approximation of the world. In The Sims, music is part of the way that the player comes to know and understand the game world, whether through providing information about particular in-game events, describing the temporal properties of the universe, or suggesting the appropriate playing action. It also provides the opportunity for a critical reading of the game’s implicit discourse.

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Classical music is represented in The Sims solely by movements of Mozart piano sonatas (K282, K283, K332, K333, K545), the country music tracks are mostly covers of traditional songs, while the Latin-style songs use typical Latin Jazz instrumentation, with a prominent flute part, saxophones, salsa piano, vibraphone, backing guitars and light genre-appropriate percussion.

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The music articulates the player-game world relationship, making manifest in audio the distance and difference between the actual world and the simulated world. If music can help formulate the player’s mode of interaction with the world, maybe it can also tell us something about the underlying construction of those worlds, too.

Asserting Fairness: Disinterested Music and Game Architectures It is relatively easy to identify the ways that music in games serves to signify particular cultures, places and historical contexts with the aim of projecting a distinct virtual world. What is perhaps less obvious is the way that music cues certain aspects of the construction or architecture of the game, as opposed to the subject and register of representation. I earlier discussed racing simulation games, but the category of games that can be referred to as ‘simulation games’ extends beyond driving simulations. Simulation games, understood in the more general sense, are those that present the player with the opportunity to create and play with a simulated model of a city, business empire, or even ecosystem. At their core, such games consist of a set of programmed algorithms that govern the behaviour of the system being modelled, such as the interrelations between taxes, industrial growth and budgets in SimCity (1989). Simulation games may include competing cities/ businesses/etc., but the primary focus of play is between the gamer and the system that is being modelled, rather than the actions of any competitors. Because of this attention on the mechanics that underpin a virtual world, it is important in simulation games that players believe that they are dealing with a robust and fair virtual world. This is not to say that realism is the highest priority (indeed, the iconographical style of many of these games illustrate that aesthetic realism is not the focus), but that the virtual world runs according to distinct game rules that underpin the system being simulated. If the game world is understood as illogical and having inconsistently applied rules, players would lose faith in the simulation as an unbiased model. Music has a role to play in asserting that the game models run according to definite rules and that the game plays fair with the gamers. When simulation games use music to accompany the gameplay (many do not),28 they often do so by using a limited playlist of musical cues that 28

Many simulation games, such as, for example, Microsoft Flight Simulator 5.1 (1995), do not use music to accompany the gameplay for fear of compromising the game’s simulation credentials

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repeats, irrespective of the player’s triumphs and failures within the progression of the game round (such as in Theme Hospital (1997), Railroad Tycoon II (1998), SimCity 3000 (1999), Capitalism II (2001), Monopoly Tycoon (2001), Zoo Empire (2004), and so on), rather than employing music that reacts to the player’s triumphs and failures. For the game’s simulation credentials to remain intact, the game construct must seem impartial. Whereas music that changes with the player’s actions, or upon the progress of the game, could easily be interpreted as a judgemental and vocal musical narrator, a looping playlist appears as a consistent part of the simulation architecture and gives players the impression that they are free to do as they wish within the world, not being prompted or directed to make certain decisions by the game. In emphasizing this player freedom, the player’s empowerment is implied. Consistent music suggests the consistency of a created world (in its stable and non-reactive nature), while simultaneously implying the player’s free will. Disinterested music implementation of this type was already observed in the ‘semi-simulation’ racing games and is evident throughout the domain, including in the most famous series of simulation games, SimCity. As the title suggests, SimCity games challenge the player to build and manage a city. Unlike the warfare of Civilization, the cities in these games exist in an historically unspecific, context-less space. The music for SimCity games is newly written and tends toward musical styles that are in an unmarked generic twentieth-century idiom, rather than attempting to convey a particular city setting. In SimCity 2000 (1995), certain actions of the player trigger a cue, randomly selected from the small music library, which play to completion and finish, until the next cue is triggered. The actions that prompt these cues are not successes or failures in the game, but merely the player’s use of certain controls of the game, including the unpausing of simulation time and when the player accesses particular menus for editing, say, taxes in the city. What these musical prompts have in common is that they are moments when the artificiality of the simulation construct is most obvious. The music does not comment on the game progression: an earthquake may hit your city, a fire may break out, or floods submerge large sections of the city, but whatever happens, the jovial music carries on regardless. It remains neutral as a ‘disinterested’ entity, asserting the impartiality of the game construct.

through the inclusion of an emotionally inflected component. A similar rationale likely supports the simulation racing game’s sparse use of music.

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Example 4.1 SimCity 2000, ‘1002’. Improvisatory trumpet with an ostinato string accompaniment.

The musical score might even be read as an analogy of the technical game system. SimCity 2000’s score features jazz in a variety of styles. By using basic formal structures (such as an accompaniment ostinato – see Example 4.1, ground bass – see Example 4.2, or the 12-bar blues – see Example 4.3) and significant repetition, a logical, stable architecture is built, within which the solo improvisation provides variation. The musical architecture of these cues is anchored in the bass parts that define the musical structures (Example 4.1’s ostinato in the string part, the ground bass in the bass guitar in Example 4.2, or the blues riff in the slap bass of Example 4.3). Over the repeating bass pattern, a featured melody instrument improvises (Example 4.1, muted trumpet; Example 4.2, flute; Example 4.3, horn). Perhaps this is an analogue for the game mechanics: logical programming and rules create the simulation construct, but the elaboration, surface design and interaction with those rules is left up to the player. The impression of strict computational processes standing behind the simulation is important for the player to believe that the simulation is internally consistent, ‘playing fair’ with the gamer. While we do not learn about the context of the virtual world from this music, through its deployment and structure, it is implied that the universe is one that is underpinned by a stable, logical architecture. *** We cannot experience virtual worlds directly. They are only projected for us. These places appear through second-degree sensation, created/cued/ rendered by the images and sounds. Not only does music in games affect the players’ understanding of the virtual world with which they interact, it is part of their construction.

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Example 4.2 SimCity 2000, ‘1009’. Ground ‘walking’ bass example, with improvisation in flute.

We have explored how music relates to aesthetic realism in games, as part of articulating to what extent the game construct is a realistic or accurate simulation of reality. The traditions of racing game music each correlate to a certain relationship with realism; factors such as using music during the race and the stylistic diversity of the music serve the aesthetic of realism that the game/subgenre seeks to create. This aesthetic tradition is not an isolated phenomenon limited to racing games. Sports games also use music to define the game’s ‘tone’ and attitude to realism, that is, the register of interactive discourse that the game wishes to use. Like racing games, sports games that aim for a high degree of aesthetic realism generally avoid using music during the main gameplay, apart from

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Example 4.3 SimCity 2000, ‘1001’. 12-bar blues format (here rendered as 24 bars).

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Example 4.3 (cont.)

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occasional celebratory fanfares. Compare, for example, the cartoon-style Nintendo World Cup Soccer (1989) or Nintendo Ice Hockey (1988) that use continuous music during matches, with the contemporary but more serious-minded games, such as the soccer game Kick Off (1991) or Wayne Gretzky Hockey (1990), which confine music to cues that prepare, punctuate and demarcate the stages of matches. Sports games also emulate television broadcasting, sometimes in very obvious ways – in MLB 09: The Show (2009), sports show music and jingles are present, while NFL 2K3 (2002) even includes music from television coverage by ESPN. Such aesthetic decisions help to imply the world in which the game action takes place, and by extension, the way the player understands, and interacts with, the game. The different articulations of realism demand that the player adopts different playing styles to match the aesthetic tone of the game: music guides the ‘playing posture’ of the gamer – how they should play, and how players believe the game will react to their actions. A high degree of aesthetic realism is not the same as attempting to accurately re-create reality. For instance, the skill of a racing driver takes years to acquire, so an uncompromising simulation of reality would result in a game of such difficulty that it would leave most players frustrated. Much of the work of realism is implying that the representation is an accurate simulation of reality, while tempering the verisimilitude by allowing the player to adopt the skills of an expert. In musically and generally emulating broadcast aesthetics, the games ‘substitut[e] signs of the real for the real’ (as theorist Jean Baudrillard would put it), resulting in a simulacrum of simulation.29 In a similar way, games set in an historical time period will often shun historically appropriate music in favour of a different and more familiar point of reference – namely, Hollywood. Rome: Total War, a strategy game set in ancient Rome, and Age of Empires III (2005), which concerns the colonization of America from the turn of the sixteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, both use film music idioms to invoke the historical past, in the same way that we observed musical ‘texturing’ in the previous chapter. Even Age of Empires, for whose time periods there is plenty of appropriate and available contemporary music, elects to use a musical language that the game’s composer describes as ‘pretty Hollywood’.30 Rome, as one might expect, copies the musical

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Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, trans. Sheila Faria Glaser (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994): 2. Music4games.net [Anonymous], ‘Interview with Age of Empires III Lead Composer Stephen Rippy’, music4games.net (2 January 2006), retrieved from

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soundworld of Hans Zimmer’s Gladiator (dir. Scott, 2001) score with its cuivré brass, incisive con forza lower strings in rhythmic patterns on repeated notes and the ‘one-woman wail’ musical trope of antiquity.31 This film score is a more immediate and vivid way of invoking ancient Rome than ‘authentic music’, though the game retains some couleur locale (or couleur historique) through reference to Roman instruments in the horns and a kithara-like instruments that feature in the score. Nevertheless, the sound is closer to Gustav Holst’s twentieth-century orchestral Planets Suite than anything that could plausibly come from the first century AD. As fictional depictions come to stand for an actual world past (after all, for most of us, the cinematic Rome and the fictional history is more familiar than the ‘real’ historical Rome), it is unsurprising that games should utilize second-degree musical signification to assist in the projection of the virtual worlds. Baudrillard worries about this ‘more real than the real’ phenomenon – he calls ‘hyperreality’ the situation whereby the fictional becomes more authoritative than actual reality.32 Baudrillard’s fears are played out in the worlds of video games that deploy music as part of the sign-system of the virtual. Whereas Baudrillard reports a kind of metaphysical despair at fictions more compelling than the real, gamers embrace the fantastic inauthenticity of simulacra that, as players are well aware, often have no true actual world origin – indeed, this lack of authentic truth (despite its assertion on the part of the game) is all part of the joy of the playing experience – like the unfortunate henchman I described at the start of this chapter, no-one has to repair a car I crash in F-1 World Grand Prix and noone actually loses their job when I mis-manage my city’s finances in SimCity – the playing experience would be entirely different (and less fun) if this were the case. Game music uses a variety of techniques to birth the hyperreal simulacra. Baudrillard states that ‘TV . . . renders true’ and games are similar in their constructed realities.33 In the context of games, signs of realism come to stand for actual reality. Effects such as musical texturing, the modelling of game structures in music (SimCity), the implication of impartiality through disinterested music (Theme Hospital), the

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http://web.archive.org/web/20080217213329/www.music4games.net/Features_Display.aspx? id=64, accessed 24 January 2015. I borrow the trope name from TVtropes.org. This refers to what one journalist describes as ‘a lone female voice chanting in a nameless tongue, pouring out her melodious lament like a widow over a fresh grave’. Dave Roos, ‘Wail Watching’, Salon (2004), retrieved from www.salon.com/2004/05/25/wails/, accessed 21 December 2014. 33 Baudrillard, Simulacra: 81. Baudrillard, Simulacra: 29.

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historical revisionism and construction in Civilization IV and Rome, and the creation and articulation of game modes (The Sims) do more than simply represent hyperreal simulacra, they actually serve to create realities. The negotiation of the knowingly hyperreal is well-exemplified by the use of popular pre-existing music in the virtual worlds. This Baudrillardian sign of the real (in, for example, the Gotham games) at once creates a connection with the actual world, and may enhance the game world’s implied realism, but at the same time the inauthenticity is worn on its sleeve – the radios in Gotham are obviously fabricated, but this does not detract from them serving as a sign of the real. Similarly, audio portals into the game world can describe the distance between the actual world and the virtual reality, as in the nonsense-lyric versions of songs in The Sims. Because pieces of pre-existing music feature both in the actual world and in the game world, a sonic connection is formed between the two, which facilitates the musical agency of games beyond the game text. Games re-inscribe and create musical-cultural associations. Popular music in games can involve itself with socio-cultural sites: music related to activities such as street racing is employed for its existing signification. In the process, this connection is reinforced and games become a site to forge and develop associations (musical or otherwise). Music executives expend great effort in selecting appropriate music for games. Such selections, in turn, seek to define the musical identity of certain activities. Actual world music is particularly ubiquitous in sports games made since c.1997. Most post-2002 EA Sports games implement licensed music into the game menus via a modifiable music playlist. With each game being produced in the year before the title season, the game attempts to predict popular music fashion in the coming year. Steve Schnur is a music licensing executive for Electronic Arts. Discussing NBA Live 07 (2006), he says, Our goal was to further define the global cultural phenomenon of hip-hop – and help shape its future – via one of the hottest sports videogame franchises on the street today . . . [W]e knew we wanted the soundtrack to reflect the changing trends and bold innovations of hip hop while exposing some great new international artists that we feel will be a major part of the genre’s future.34

Schnur assumes that music, video games and basketball all exist as part of a communal cultural media soup; thus games are able to bring new music to

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Music4Games.net [Anonymous], ‘The Sounds of NBA LIVE 07’, music4games.net (25 September 2006), retrieved from http://web.archive.org/web/20070624012035/ www.music4games.net/Features_Display.aspx?id=109, accessed 24 January 2015.

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popular attention. Games have the potential for a drastic effect on the popularity of an artist’s music,35 particularly when Schnur aims for the music ‘to be part of the global landscape beyond our games’.36 Music licensing for games now extends to the opportunity for music to be bought via internet download under the game’s title, and licensed bands and songs being specifically promoted on television shows, dedicated MTV programmes and radio broadcasts. Perhaps most notably, for Madden 07 (2006), music chosen by EA for the game was planned for use at an ‘NFL kickoff concert . . . and [later] extensive play in NFL stadiums’.37 Rather than making use of an existing musical-cultural association, the game forged this link, which subsequently extended into the real-life sports arenas. In this case, the music used to populate the virtual world has made the leap to the actual world and the real-life sporting events. Baudrillard wrote about the ‘precession of simulacra’,38 and here it is quite obviously the case: the game, creating a virtual world of a sports competition yet to happen, determines some aspect of how it will be incarnate in the actual world. In some small, and musical, way, the concrete has become a derivation of the virtual. Game music attempts to make the medium more compelling and we have seen it acting in the service of drawing players to engagement with the virtual world. Music here focused on making a virtual world for the player, connecting gamers to these worlds (whether through communicating information, providing dimensions of the game construct, producing affective realism, or one of any other methods). Such music serves as a mediating entity, part of the architecture by which the virtual world reaches out to the player (and the player’s world) from beyond the flat screen upon which it is etched to become a rounded virtual universe, at its best virtually real. Perhaps, then, music can be said to quite literally represent a dimension of video games. Conceptual Toolkit:

Projection – music is part of the way that the virtual world of the game is cued, or ‘projected’, for players: the nonsensuous virtual (to use

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Schnur reports that the inclusion of a song by Maximus Dan in FIFA 06: Road to the World Cup had a significant effect on the popularity of the artist’s music. (Music4Games.net [Anonymous], ‘Madden NFL 07 interview with Steve Schnur, Worldwide Executive of Music and Marketing, Electronic Arts’, music4games.net (23 June 2006), retrieved from http://web.archive.org/web/ 20060710153749/www.music4games.net/Features_Display.aspx?id=99, accessed 24 January 2015.) 37 38 Ibid. Ibid. Baudrillard, Simulacra: 1.

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Massumi’s phrase) is created through sensuous means, including music. Projection is not limited to the game fictions, but also the player’s understanding of the rules/parameters of the virtual world. Music is part of the construction of the artistic realism of the games, which is not only a surface-level stylistic issue, but implies the way that gamers should play, and understand, their activity in the game (‘game tone’). F1 Grand Prix copies television broadcast aesthetics to assert that the game world has a high degree of realism and requires a nuanced playing style to match. Gotham games negotiate a moderate degree of realism, partly through an obviously simulated radio that sonically connects the game world to the actual world. Daytona USA’s unsourced brash music implies a game world with a low degree of realism that demands a tenor of play that is reckless and spectacular.

Relationship with actual world cultures – musical selections can draw upon actual world musical meanings to generate a cultural context for a virtual world. In using actual world music, the virtual world not only represents and constructs the actual world culture for games, but the possibility exists for the virtual world music to impact upon the real world musical culture. Need for Speed: Most Wanted uses a generically limited selection of music to situate the virtual world within the street racing cultural context. The Need for Speed game producers also wanted the game’s musical selections to help define the actual-world musical culture of street racing. Civilization IV represents Western art music history for players, creating a problematic version of music history. Madden 07 took specific steps to implement the game world’s music in the actual world’s activities (sports events) that the game represented. Music artists with music included in sports games reported an increase in popularity and sales, implying the game’s impact on actual world listening habits.

Mode of interaction with virtual world – music can imply the relationship between the player and the virtual world. The Sims uses music in different modes to help define the player’s changing relationship with the game reality.

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Audio portal – Hearing music from the game world can auditorially express the relationship (and distance) between the actual world and the virtual world. Expansions for The Sims use re-recorded popular songs with replaced lyrics that make obvious the connection and separation between the actual world and the game world.

Disinterested music – non-reactive music systems may help to imply impartiality on the part of the game, suggesting an unbiased, rationally underpinned world that plays fair with the gamer. Railroad Tycoon II uses a looped playlist that does not change with the player’s better and worse progression.

Analogy of game system – music can articulate the player’s relationship with the game world rules in an allegorical way. SimCity 2000 uses jazz structures in cues that play when the gamer exerts agency over the virtual world. This association and demonstration of improvisation within a given frame is an apt allegory for the player’s activity in the game.

More real than real – music may deploy ‘signs of the real’ to imply realism and help construct the game world, rather than using music (or musical absence) that is closer to the actual world sonic reality. Age of Empires III uses cinematic musical signifiers to conjure the historical context, rather than using historically contemporary music.

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5 Communication for Play

It is fascinating to watch first-time video game players. These initiates into the gaming world make obvious the learning processes that occur when we become familiar with the rules and conventions of the medium.1 A few years ago, I had the opportunity to observe one of my close friends undergo this education when he decided to purchase a Wii console. I had not known him to express any particular enthusiasm for video games before, but like many Wii owners, he was attracted by the unusual control interface and the accessibility of the console. One of the very first games in which he became heavily invested was Resident Evil 4 (2007). As his familiarity with the console, the ‘survival horror’ genre parameters and this particular game grew, he quickly learned how to utilize a certain aspect of the game to help him play – the music. Resident Evil 4 uses a dynamic music engine that alters the music when the player’s character is ambushed and attacked by zombie-like adversaries. In the early part of the game, this ‘danger’ music will not cease playing until the threat has been eliminated. My friend, the gaming neophyte, unimpeded by the lack of any formal musical training, recognized how to use the game’s music to his advantage. He explicitly vocalized how he knew that he had not neutralized the enemies in a given area, even if order had apparently been restored to the avatar’s immediate location, because the ‘danger’ music was still playing. With the possibility of fatal future ambush, he knew to be attentive and to seek out the enemies before continuing. He would frequently explain his process to me (watching his play), making comments to the effect that ‘The music is playing, so there must still be zombies here.’ He improved his game performance and chances of winning through using the information communicated to him by the music.2

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For more on the learning processes that occur when playing video games, see Gee, What Video Games Have to Teach Us and José Zagal, Ludoliteracy: Defining, Understanding, and Supporting Games Education (Halifax: Etc Press, 2010). For discussion of this aspect of Resident Evil 4’s music in terms of diegesis, see van Elferen, ‘¡Un Forastero!’.

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In the last chapter, we discussed how music is part of the way that the virtual world of the game is constructed for the players. We began to consider how this can inflect the way that the player engages with the game. Pursuing this idea further, in this chapter, we will focus on music that provides gameplay-relevant information which players may use to enhance their chances of winning or achieving a better score. I am specifically concerned here with music that actively communicates information that is significant for the mechanics of play, and how players, in turn, learn to listen to, and interact with, the music, just as my friend learned how to listen to the music of Resident Evil 4.

Concurrency and Communication It is unlikely that the producers of Resident Evil 4 specifically designed the music system of the game to aid the player, though the designers will have been very aware of its potential use in this way, since horror games like Resident Evil 4 have traditionally featured similar kinds of music systems to that described earlier. Furthermore, as Kristine Jørgensen has documented,3 it is well known that game players use a game’s audio to provide them with information to help them play. My concern here is with the component of game audio that can be described as musical, rather than speech, Foley or other sound effects. Throughout earlier chapters, we have seen repeatedly how music can act as a conduit of communication, particularly in terms of musical texturing and the construction of the game world. Many games use this communicative medium to tell the player information about the gameplay progression in such a way that interacting with, and listening to, the music of the game can be a significant part of the complex process of playing the game. Resident Evil 4 is by no means exceptional in this respect, and musically communicated gameplay information can be observed across many different types of games, from non-narrative abstract puzzle games like Bejeweled (2001) to story-driven action games like L.A. Noire (2011). 3

Kristine Jørgensen, ‘“What Are Those Grunts and Growls Over There?” Computer Game Audio and Player Action’, PhD thesis (Copenhagen University, 2007) and ‘Left in the Dark: Playing Computer Games with the Sound Turned Off’, in Karen Collins (ed.), From Pac-Man to Pop Music: Interactive Audio in Games and New Media (Aldershot, Hampshire and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008), 163–76.

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In L.A. Noire, the musical component of the game is so significant that attentive listening to music is one of the primary modes of interaction with the game. The player controls policeman Cole Phelps as he investigates crimes in 1940s Los Angeles. Much of the game involves scouring crime scenes, searching for clues. Steven Reale has identified how L.A. Noire ‘makes ludic use of musical cues’: During an investigation, a moody, atonal theme on piano, muted brass, string bass and vibraphone . . . plays as Cole walks through the crime scene. When he approaches a potential clue, a three-note chime sounds on the piano to attract the player’s attention . . . When the investigation is complete and Cole has found all the relevant clues, or when Cole walks too far from the crime scene, the investigation theme ceases playing, signaling to the player to either return to the area or to move on with the case.4

Reale uses L.A. Noire to illustrate the compelling concept of the ‘game world as musical score’,5 but there is another fundamental communicative issue here – the way that the ‘chime’ is a dominant part of the interactive mechanism of the game. Using the default game settings, when the chime musical motif sounds, a small magnifying glass icon appears in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen, next to a map of the area. However, in my experience, because my visual focus is on moving Phelps to survey the area efficiently, I often fail to register the magnifying glass icon’s appearance. I do not need to move my eyes from Phelps to receive the information given by the icon, because it is redundant when the same information is communicated (and through its concurrence with my focus on Phelps’s movement, more efficiently) by the music.6 My Phelps perambulates around the crime scene while I listen carefully for the all-important chime. I only find myself checking for the appearance of the magnifying glass icon when I am uncertain whether the clue motif has sounded, or whether I have mistakenly identified a melodic fragment in the underscore for the chime. If I have not noticed the magnifying glass, I manipulate Phelps to retrace his recent movements to listen again for the chime. The visual

4

5 6

Steven Beverburg Reale, ‘Transcribing Musical Worlds; or, Is L.A. Noire a Music Game?’, in K.J. Donnelly, Neil Lerner and William Gibbons (eds.), Music in Video Games: Studying Play (New York and London: Routledge, 2014), 77–103: 97. Ibid. Console versions of L.A. Noire also cause the controller to vibrate when a clue is happened upon by Phelps, adding the haptic dimension to the game’s communication. I am playing the PC version.

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prompt is a level of communication that is very much secondary to the primary, musical mode of information delivery. Like most games, L.A. Noire offers players the ability to change gameplay settings. One may adjust the ‘crime scene cue’ (whether or not this general background cue fades out once all of the clues have been discovered) and, more significantly, the clue indications. The default setting is that the chime sounds and the icon appears when Cole is near a clue. Players may instead choose to forego the icon, or to disable both the chime and the visual clue. This stratified system (chime and icon, chime only, neither chime nor icon) serves to alter the difficulty. I find the game incredibly challenging without the chime and icon, but only slightly more difficult than the default setting without the icon, but with the musical chime. The nature of the difficulty hierarchy also indicates the importance of music to the gameplay: it is only the hardest setting that removes the musical cue – or rather, silencing the music cue makes the game hard, because of the importance of the musically communicated information. That L.A. Noire transmits this important information musically, rather than primarily or exclusively visually, allows me to watch Phelps so I may see where the clue is in the game world. Such simultaneity makes musical communication potentially very effective and attractive to game designers concerned with overloading the visual aspect of a game with so much information that it becomes bewildering (much like the experience I have watching financial television channels that display several multiple moving ticker tapes and data feeds on the same screen). It is therefore unsurprising that we should find musically communicated gameplay information particularly evident in game genres that feature a high density of information presented to the player and significant demands upon the gamer’s visual attention. One such game genre is the strategy game. In the last chapter, I mentioned Age of Empires III, which charts the colonization of America. Aside from the underscore discussed earlier, this game also includes several short musical cues, some only a few seconds in length, which provide the player with information. In a real-time strategy game like Age of Empires, the player must react quickly to the developing match. Time is a premium resource and players must be kept updated about the progression of the game. In this information-dense game, the musical communication conduit is used to provide notifications in a way that does not demand that the player check for visual prompts. For example, when I am able to obtain more resources for my colony from the European ‘home city’, a brief musical cue is played that consists of an ascending cello glissando which

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is concluded by a single tubular bell pitch. I may click the now-flashing ‘home city’ icon to select my shipments from across the Atlantic. When the ship arrives, I hear a snare drum roll and a harp arpeggiated chord. In the same way, two snare drums play a military rhythm in unison (accompanied by a brushed cymbal) when my colony enters the next stage of development, a fanfare tells me that my soldiers are under attack, and so on. As Kristine Jørgensen explains, these kinds of ‘artificial noises and music with arbitrary or symbolic relationship to its referent are often called earcons’.7 While the musical cues may not be the only way that the information is communicated to players (with the sound turned off I might notice the flashing ‘home city’ icon), the sonic communication is impactful, immediate and does not require significant distraction from other gameplay processes. As I play the game, I learn the signification of these short snippets of music, which are part of the multisensory experience of playing Age of Empires III. Some games use musical communication to allow for the removal of almost all on-screen game-status information. Black & White (2001) does just this. The player acts as a god in Black & White and seeks to gain worshippers from the tribes in the game (Aztec, Celtic, Egyptian, Greek, Indonesian, Japanese, Norse and Tibetan). The player decides whether to be benevolent or malicious, a choice which has consequences for the game’s progression. Black & White has minimal on-screen information, so the game status has to be communicated by alternate means. The music that accompanies most of the game is localized to a particular tribe (whichever is closest to the player’s viewing position) and changes depending on the ‘alignment’ of the player (good, evil, neutral). These cues are all based on the same underlying framework: a low pedal note followed by a higher major third interval, which often then pitch-bends as the note decays. Depending on the nearest tribe, specific musical elements are overlaid on this framework, such as koto and yokobue-like instruments for the Japanese tribe. The player-god’s ‘morality’ additionally determines sonic elements: the ‘evil’ pieces feature repetitive phased metallic scrapes, animal sounds, an abrasive synthesizer timbre and vocal wailings. The neutral cues use wavering pitch-bend effects (perhaps illustrating the vacillating of the player between good and evil actions). The virtuous cues emphasize religioso choral sounds and have a solidly defined harmonic structure, reflecting the peaceful stability that the good actions bring to the

7

Jørgensen, ‘What Are Those Grunts and Growls Over There?’: 65.

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world. The bright harp timbres in the ‘good’ cues invoke a heavenly ethereality, rather than the gloomy murkiness of the evil variations. The two variables of location and morality are thus clearly musically communicated to players. Black & White simultaneously perpetuates and relies upon musical signifiers of ‘good’ and ‘evil’, teaching players how to interpret musical semiotics. This is part of the less obvious musical process, that of education, which commonly operates over most music for visual media, as musical signs are used, re-used and their associative meanings reinforced. Just as films and television teach viewers how to interpret music, so games do the same. We might even argue that the interactivity of the medium (requiring players to make decisions) means musical interpretation is even more keenly and consciously attended to by gamers than viewers of a film. This notion of seeking as much information as possible from the music is particularly important in games that have a central dynamic that requires careful control of player knowledge.

Communication and Performativity Communication of gameplay-relevant information is critical in games because it directly influences the gamer’s actions, which in turn can alter the musical output. If the information is itself delivered musically, a feedback loop is created that makes the relationship of the music and player into a kind of reactive dialogue, rather than a simple one-way transmission. Other than real-time strategy games, two further genres of game are particularly notable for the way that players must quickly react to changes in game state. In both survival horror and stealth games, the player is highly attuned to receive as much information as the game is willing to provide, a significant amount of which comes from the music. With players listening carefully to, and seeking meaning from, the music of these games, the power dynamics between the narrating music and the player are highlighted.8 Stealth games are generally premised upon espionage. In order to accomplish mission goals, the player’s character must operate in a covert manner: avoiding enemies, hiding in strategic locations and so on. Music in stealth games is usually implemented so as to change with the level of 8

For more theoretical discussion of the persona implied in music for moving-image media, see my article ‘“Shirley, Bernstein Can’t Be Serious?”: Airplane! and Compositional Personas’, Journal of Film Music 6/1 (2015), 75–86.

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suspicion that the hero/heroine has aroused in the enemy (whether that refers to individual soldiers or the entire antagonist forces with a communal alert status). Players quickly learn to consciously interpret the game’s music. A representative example of this kind of scoring is found in Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell (2002). In this game, the player controls Sam Fisher, an NSA covert operative, whose missions involve infiltrating enemy-filled locations. Simon Wood has explored how, in the main gameplay of Splinter Cell, the musical underscore ‘develop[s] in sonic intensity depending . . . on the game state’.9 ‘Within each mission [composer Michael Richard] Plowman employs three distinct musical cues, each linked with one of the three game states, and corresponding to the level of danger Fisher finds himself in at any given moment.’10 The music is specifically anchored to the extent of Fisher’s detection by the enemy. The three cues match the three game states: when Fisher is undetected, when he has aroused suspicion and when he is directly engaged with the enemy. The most obvious musical changes are between the ‘undetected’ and ‘suspicion’ modes. As soon as Fisher’s actions draw an adversary’s attention, an obvious alteration in the music is heard by the player. More instruments begin playing and, in contrast to the tempo rubato of the music that accompanies undetected exploration, the nowmarked pulsating rhythms heighten the sense of urgency and danger. This mechanism serves to musically communicate that Fisher has been detected, but beyond purely informational content, the music also acts in an emotional-affective way, with the faster rhythms and louder volume signifying, and attempting to induce, a mood of tension. If the player evades detection, once the guards abandon their search for the intruder, the music resumes its previous ‘undetected’ state, but if Fisher is discovered by the enemies, a further escalation in musical tension is heard. The cues represent a spectrum articulating increasing musical ‘intensity’ through greater rhythmic density, faster tempi, more rapid harmonic movement, louder dynamics, more identifiable melodic lines, an increased ensemble of instruments, a larger number of synthesized voices and more active string parts. Like the musical semiotics of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ in Black & White, Splinter Cell’s players are taught how to interpret these musical elements though contextualization and association with

9

10

Simon Wood, ‘Video Game Music – High Scores: Making Sense of Music and Video Games’, in Graeme Harper, Ruth Doughty and Jochen Eisentraut (eds.), Sound and Music in Film and Visual Media: An Overview (New York and London: Continuum, 2009), 129–148: 142. Wood, ‘High Scores’: 143.

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increasing danger and tension in the game situation. Players learn what danger sounds like musically. The changes in game state in Splinter Cell are only communicated auditorially. In addition to the musical change, spoken comments by the guards (“What was that?”, etc.) also indicate Fisher’s detection. However, given that the voices of the guards can be difficult to hear clearly, it is the music that is the most consistent, obvious and noticeable channel of information. As Simon Wood describes, players respond to Splinter Cell’s music through their in-game action: ‘[A] player may use the music to their advantage, as it tells them when they are at risk and when that risk has passed.’ The music ‘tells [players] that there is a danger to which they must respond.’11 Wood further suggests that the electronic timbres of much of the music in Splinter Cell are signifiers of hi-tech tools Fisher uses.12 I would go one step further and draw the parallel more broadly – the player uses the music as a tool, as a barometer for the suspicion Fisher has aroused, just like Fisher (and by proxy, the player – or should that be vice versa?) uses a light meter to grade his visibility to enemies. The analogy of a tool is particularly appropriate because of the reliability of the measure – this channel of communication in Splinter Cell is always truthful for the player. It does not inaccurately report the alert states, excepting any glitches that might occur. I have suggested that Splinter Cell’s sonic communication, by virtue of its musicality, operates in a complex way that involves significant affective components as well as informational content. Many games, including sequels to Splinter Cell and other stealth-type games like Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (2014) have helped to popularize Splinter Cell’s musical template, establishing this kind of music programming as a common, even expected, mode of interactive music in stealth games. When I play Splinter Cell and games that deploy music in the same way, the statements made by the musical narrator directly alter the way that I play. If the music changes, my playing style changes. It is perhaps possible to tease apart particular components of the musical communication in games that use a similar musical mechanic like Splinter Cell. To explore this kind of musical communication further, we can borrow a concept from communication theory. Most notably expounded upon by J.L. Austin, John Searle and Jacques Derrida,13 speech 11 13

12 Wood, ‘High Scores’: 144. Wood, ‘High Scores’: 142. J.L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962); John Searle, Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970) and ‘How Performatives Work’, Linguistics and Philosophy, 12/5 (1989), 535–58; Jacques Derrida, ‘Signature Event Context’, trans. Samuel Weber and Jeffrey Mahlman, Glyph, 1 (1977), 172–97. For a general introduction to performativity theory, see James Loxley, Performativity

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act theory prompted the postmodern concern with performativity, which has found widespread application throughout cultural studies. What, then, are the dimensions of this performative impulse in the game situation described earlier?14 Austin’s ‘speech act’ theory considered the sense ‘in which to say something is to do something’.15 Further, in his book How to Do Things with Words, Austin ‘distinguished the locutionary act . . . which has a meaning; the illocutionary act which has a certain force in saying something [and] the perlocutionary act which is the achieving of certain effects by saying something’.16 Austin’s terms can be applied to music in a game like Splinter Cell, as proposed in Table 5.1. The perlocutionary force of the game’s music is not unidirectional – it has consequences for the game’s progression, which, in turn impacts on the continuing musical output of the game. The illocutionary force might be understood as having three simultaneous dimensions: local semiotics (signifiers established within the game), global semiotics (in currency beyond the immediate game text) and psychoacoustic forces (such as a startling effect).17 When first beginning Splinter Cell, the player will recognize, and

14

15 17

(London and New York: Routledge, 2007). Previous applications of speech act theory to music include Peter Kaminsky, ‘How to Do Things with Words and Music: Towards an Analysis of Selected Ensembles in Mozart’s Don Giovanni’, Theory and Practice, 21 (1996), 55–78; Justin London, ‘Music and Linguistic Speech Acts’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 54/1 (1996), 49–64, Tracie Morris, ‘Who do with Words: Rapping a Black Tongue Around J. L. Austin (Selected Hits From 1979–1989)’. PhD thesis, New York University, 2006; and Lawrence Kramer, ‘Signs Taken for Wonders: Words, Music, and Performativity’, in Suzanne M. Lodato, Suzanne Aspden and Walter Bernhart (eds.), Word and Music Studies 4: Essays in Honor of Steven Paul Scher and on Cultural Identity and the Musical Stage (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002), 35–47. This passage draws heavily on ideas first expounded in my PhD thesis Video Game Music: History, Form and Genre (University of Bristol, 2012). Iain Hart approaches the same topic using similar sources in his 2014 article ‘Meaningful Play: Performativity, Interactivity and Semiotics in Video Game Music’, Musicology Australia, 36/2 (2014), 273–90. 16 Austin, How to Do Things with Words: 120. Ibid. Emphasis original. This formulation of music as a performative utterance resonates with the tripartite understanding of musical semiotics put forward by Jean-Jacques Nattiez, in which the ‘total musical fact’ comprises the ‘poietic dimension’ (the ‘process of creation’), the ‘esthetic dimension’ (the process of construction of meaning ‘in the course of an active perceptual process’), and the ‘trace’ (the physical and material component of the symbolic form). JeanJacques Nattiez, Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music, trans. Carolyn Abbate (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990): ix, 11–12. To use Nattiez’s terminology, my concern is with the esthetic process, as it results from certain poietic and trace components: I place the receiver/reader/player at the centre of my semiotic framework, rather than the trace. Like musical semiotician Philip Tagg, I consider that listeners are ‘capable of decoding [nonverbal sound structures] in the form of adequate affective and associative response.’ Philip Tagg, ‘Analysing Popular Music: Theory, Method and Practice’, Popular Music, 2 (1982),

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Table 5.1 Speech act theory in application to musical narration in a game.

Locutionary force Illocutionary force

Perlocutionary force

Speech Act (After Austin)

Musical Utterance

Ostensible ‘surface’ meaning of text of the speech act Impulse of speech act

Musical presence (or absence), semiotic references, musical-affective techniques

Result of speech act

The ‘force applied’ by the utterance, including emotional and information factors (amongst others) via the medium and deployment of the musical material. Change in the player’s understanding of the game, emotional state, physical state, etc. Reactions might be expressed in the way the game is played.

feel the force from, the locutionary musical content in terms of the global semiotics of the cue, the psychoacoustic effects and between-mode musical contrasts. After spending time with the game, the player will come to additionally recognize the cues as single semiotic units. Splinter Cell’s musical performative acts can be modelled as follows:

a)

Locutionary Force:

i) Musical change in and of itself ii) α) Specific semiotic references, possibly as, or in addition to,

37–67: 40. The speech act framework is useful for game musical analysis because of the way it emphasizes the chronological dimension of musical sounding and allows an examination of the mechanics of power involved in musical utterances. My method is very much in the spirit of Tagg’s ‘hermenutic-semiological method’ of analysis. Tagg defines musemes as ‘minimal units of [musical] expression)’ (1982: 45) and ‘museme stacks’ as ‘several separately analysable musemes are combined to form what the listener experience as an integral sound entity’ analogous to a ‘virtual cross-section through an imaginary score.’ (53). Not only are we dealing with Tagg’s ‘musemes’ and ‘museme stacks’, this in-game musical material is inseparable from the gameplay that accompanies their sounding, resulting in what we might call museme events. The use of speech act theory is an attempt to consider the mechanics of museme events: the sounding of musemes in an interactive audio-visual context. Unlike Nattiez or Tagg, I do not use hierarchical or syntactic analysis, since my focus is limited to moment-based, stimulus assessment. I focus here upon the listener, and consider just one aspect of musical meaning – the ‘in-the-moment’ perception and understanding of music by the player in a game-playing mode, as it relates to this gameplay domain. For more on musical semiotics see David Lidov, Is Language a Music?: Writings on Musical Form and Signification (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2005); Eero Tarasti, Signs of Music: A Guide to Musical Semiotics (Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2002). On the startle effect see Robert Baird, ‘The Startle Effect: Implications for Spectator Cognition and Media Theory’, Film Quarterly, 53/3 (2000), 12–24.

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β) Significant musical changes (i.e. up-tempo, more instruments, louder dynamic, etc.) possibly as, or in addition to, γ) Musical techniques that aim to invoke an emotional response (associative/semiotic or musical-intrinsic)

b)

Illocutionary Force:

The attempted and intended effect of (impulse applied by) this music event, through its combination with the image and in-media context i) Triggering of player’s auditory attention by musical change (‘hailing’ effect) ii) α) Alerting effect (including communicating information about change in game-state) β) Describing change in playing-mode required (advising player) γ) Propulsion and defining game-rhythm δ) Inducing emotional response ...

c)

Perlocutionary Force (the result of the musical ‘utterance’):

Knowledge of change of game state (in addition to general game information), emotional response, change of playing style (as appropriate). The perspective of performativity emphasizes how, in an interactive context, the musical utterances of the game aim to have distinct effects upon the player, which then, in turn, determine the continuing musical output. This relationship virtually projects a consciousness or at least an ‘animated’ musical entity with which the player engages in a dialogic relationship. If I am playing Splinter Cell and Fisher is detected, I may play so as to perpetuate the current state of alert (the cue continues), or seek to dispel suspicion as quickly as possible (the cue segues into a different musical loop), or engage directly with the enemies, increasing the alert level. In this way, I determine the onward progression of the musical utterance, whether sustained or changed, and when such changes will occur. Thus gamers can themselves appropriate the power of the musical narration. The different game mode cues produce the rhythmic pacing of the game by indicating the appropriate in-game behaviour (‘move slowly’, ‘act quickly because your avatar has been detected’, ‘use additional caution’, ‘immediately dispatch the enemy’). Not only does the musical utterance communicate the ‘alert’ game state, but it also has the illocutionary effect of itself acting as an alert. By creating a musical spectrum, animated into

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musical utterances by the music programming, the music in Splinter Cell conditions the player how to play the game at any one moment, depending on the game mode, and further, teaches the player to actively interpret music for game-relevant meanings. The different performative aspects may seem moot during the integrated ‘in the moment’ experience of playing the game, but it helps to distinguish the levels of semiotic reference and emphasize the dimensions of the visceral impact of this music – when it sounds, I am startled, I feel a sense of tension, my avatar’s movement becomes erratic (as I indecisively waver between engaging the enemy or choosing a hiding place) and I listen for the musical change that either means it is safe to resume my exploration, or I have to eliminate my discoverer. This is music that ‘does things’ and has agency over me and my gameplay success. So far, the examples that have been discussed deal only with truthful communication: Splinter Cell does not aim to mislead its players. The same cannot be said of many other games, most notably those that fall into the category of ‘survival horror’. Indeed, canny manipulation of the mechanisms of musical communication is part of how these games unleash their scares and thrills.

Knowledge and Power – Compelling Unreliability in Horror Games The Resident Evil 4 example I described earlier illustrates how survival horror games can use music in similar way to the stealth game mechanic epitomized by Splinter Cell. Unlike the straightforward, clear and honest musical communication of most stealth games, horror games are far more likely to mislead and toy with the player’s expectations. Much of the enjoyable power of horror films comes from the careful restriction and balance of what the audience knows and does not know at any one time.18 Similarly, horror games carefully manage the information available to viewers to heighten the surprises and scares. Silent Hill (1999) has the player control Harry Mason, who is searching for his daughter in the mysterious titular town which has been infested by demonic creatures. Aside from spoken dialogue, Foley and sound effects, Silent Hill’s audio includes two other distinct sonic layers: underscore, 18

Bernard Perron, Silent Hill: The Terror Engine (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2012): 15.

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which typically consists of a looped cue linked (usually) to the local environment surrounding Harry, and a radio carried by Harry that emits sound. The radio detects the presence of enemies in the game; when an evil creature draws near to Harry, static and a pitched tone are heard, whose volume is proportional to the adversary’s proximity to the radio. In his study of the game’s audio, Zach Whalen describes the radio’s sound as musique concrète: ‘While the static itself is definitely atonal, it does demonstrate musical properties such as pitch modulation, rhythm and repetition.’19 Once the enemy is dispatched, or distant, the radio falls silent. The radio sound and underscore are specifically programmed to alternate – the score fades out to give way to the radio sound, so only one element is heard at once, and each is heard clearly. This kind of audio programming is obviously fundamentally similar to Splinter Cell: the sonic changes indicate the danger facing the avatar. The radio in Silent Hill is unspecific in the information it conveys to players – it does not communicate what kind of monster is approaching the hero, only that danger is immanent. As game scholar Bernard Perron writes, Every time [the radio] starts to transmit white noise so as to warn you that one or many monsters are nearby, you take fright at what you’ll be confronting, and this heightens awareness of the encounter. Without doubt, your heart rate will accelerate . . . [T]he pocket radio of Silent Hill signifiers a threat, but does not reveal anything regarding what is about to occur.20

Perron describes how, as a result of the ambiguity of the communication from this sonic feature, he found himself making Harry flee from lowthreat monsters and unexpectedly encountering very dangerous creatures, ultimately making him feel that the game was ‘playing with’ him. This is not the only way that audio manipulates the player.21 The underscore of Silent Hill employs a soundworld that has much in common with traditional sonic depictions of hell. When Karen Collins describes the ‘cacophanous hell-worlds of the past’ as consisting of ‘wailing souls, gnashing iron teeth, kettledrums or cauldrons, metallic percussion,

19

20 21

Zach Whalen, ‘Case Study: Film Music vs. Video-Game Music: The Case of Silent Hill’, in Jamie Sexton (ed.), Music, Sound and Multimedia: From the Live to the Virtual (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), 68–81: 76. Perron, Silent Hill: 117. William Cheng also notes the ‘anti-ludic’ music in Silent Hill’s underscore, see Cheng, Sound Play: 97–112.

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explosions, thunder and rumbling, hissing’,22 she could be describing Silent Hill’s underscore – composer Akira Yamaoka musically and sonically equates the town with hell. A second semiotic tradition is identifiable in the underscore’s ‘ripping’, ‘grating’ and ‘metallic screeching’ that James Wierzbicki has found to be associated with the presence of supernatural ghosts in Japanese horror film.23 The sonic style of the score blurs the distinction between sound effect and music, and as a result, between sounds understood as sounding within the fictional story world and those that apparently exist on the level of narration. This categorical interstitiality (a common component of ‘art-horror’),24 leads the gamer to undertake what one critic describes as ‘constant guessing as to whether the sounds have a causal connection’, putting the player in an ‘unusual insecure spot’, as they decide whether the sound does come from the avatar’s immediate surroundings and if requires a gameplay-based response.25 Beyond the ambiguity of the location of some of the score’s sound, the underscore music uses timbres similar to the radio. When playing the game, I often mistake these sounds as emanating from the radio, prompting misguided reaction and interpretation, much like a higher-stakes version of the mistaken recognition of the ‘chime’ in L.A. Noire.26 This confusion in Silent Hill, unlike L.A. Noire, is accentuated by the inconsistent musical processes of the underscore. The score routinely makes extravert musical changes and statements of the kind players would think to be meaningful (like the musical utterances in Splinter Cell described earlier), but for no apparent reason. The game’s underscore resists interpretation like the easily understandable and predictable stealth game example. Significant in-game events can prompt no discernible response from the underscore, while sudden musical changes often bear no relation to diegetic action. The player is uncertain how to interpret this layer of music. Silence is rare in Silent Hill, so its occurrence is disconcerting. It is primarily associated with safe places,

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Karen Collins, ‘“Like Razors through Flesh”: Hellraiser’s Sound Design and Music’, in Philip Hayward (ed.), Terror Tracks: Music, Sound and Horror Cinema (London: Equinox, 2009b), 198–212: 205. James Wierzbicki, ‘The Ghostly Noise of J-Horror: Roots and Ramifications’, in Philip Hayward (ed.), Terror Tracks: Music, Sound and Horror Cinema (London: Equinox Publishing, 2009), 249–67: 250. Noël Carroll, The Philosophy of Horror or Paradoxes of the Heart (New York and London: Routledge, 1990): 32. Daniel Kromand, quoted in Guillaume Roux-Girard, ‘Listening to Fear: A Study of Sound in Horror Computer Games’, in Mark Grimshaw (ed.), Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction (Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2010): 192–212: 207. Roux-Girard reports the same phenomenon – ‘Listening to Fear’.

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though this connection is again unreliable; silence occurs where demons are present (upon entering the town’s school, for example), and not all safe places are silent. Silence is thus colonized as an unsettling sonic phenomenon. The player knows that this state is impermanent, and that this silence is somehow ‘meaningful’, but the nature of this meaning remains elusive.27 Having been taught to understand sound by the radio, the underscore manipulates and betrays the player – they cannot help but pay attention to the overt musical-performative gestures and players are compelled to try to interpret the audio to seek all information possible. It is this combination of, on one hand, a set of musical sounds which appear very significant in their utterances, and remain sonically and semiotically compelling, but with an entirely inconsistent relationship with the game action (underscore) and, on the other, a straightforward sonic early warning system (the radio) that makes the entire sonic player-manipulation process so effective. Silent Hill contains two layers of performative sonic utterances: two ‘voices’ in tension with each other. In both, auditory changes are recognized and trigger a cognitive and emotional response in the player, with interactive repercussions. While the radio’s communication is object-oriented and transparent, that of the underscore is covert and unstable. The underscore also impacts on the player’s emotions, thoughts and actions (not least in sonically constructing the world of the town as hell), but the clear explicitness of the radio has been substituted with a manipulative ambiguity, made captivating through the essential sonic interpretation of the radio, that is a core component of Silent Hill. The power relationship between player and game in Silent Hill is complex; an information system is introduced and used as a tool for manipulating players. The ambiguity arises in Silent Hill due to the intersecting, overlapping domains of audio meaning – the radar-like radio, the monster sound effects in the game world that indicate the presence of another creature, and the musical underscore. Because of the timbral convergence of these domains, the player is often uncertain how to classify sounds, or, in the case of the inconsistent underscore, how it is understood to be meaningful. Other games deploy manipulative musical communication within just one of these domains, as is the case in the muchdiscussed Dead Space (EA, 2008).28

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Whalen makes this same argument in his article, ‘Case Study: Film Music vs. Video-Game Music’. Dead Space has also been discussed by Roux-Girard, ‘Listening to Fear’, Leonard J. Paul, ‘Droppin’ Science: Video Game Audio Breakdown’, in Peter Moormann (ed.), Music and

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Dead Space (2008) is a science-fiction survival horror game which places the player in control of an engineer, Isaac Clarke, who has been sent to repair a ship overrun by zombie-like aliens called Necromorphs. The general concept and aesthetic style is similar to Alien (dir. Scott, 1979) and the score finds inspiration from its cinematic sibling. Composer Jason Graves harvested extended instrumental and aleatoric techniques from twentieth-century avant-garde orchestral works (particularly those by Penderecki, Lutosławski and Górecki), with well-worn associations with horror in visual media.29 Graves recorded an orchestra performing these isolated elements in different variations to create a sonic palette from which to construct his cues. Themes and leitmotifs are rare in Dead Space. Instead, the score functions nearly exclusively through ‘global’ musical semiotics and the sheer aural abrasiveness of the timbres. Graves’s score embodies a modernist aesthetic through the orchestral material and the non-traditional musical procedures in play.30 Dead Space’s cues are separated into four layers, each an individual stereo track. These streams each represent a level of tension, introduced in turn as the ‘fear level’ increases, facilitating smooth transitions throughout the spectrum of musical intensity. With this material, the music engine assembles the cues during gameplay, arguably ‘composing’ in real time, using Graves’s units. The game developers sought a music system that would, ‘build up to the boo’, that is, re-create the cinematic effect of a ‘gradual build-up of tension through music’ up to the point of horrific encounter,31 despite the chronological indeterminacy inherent in the interactive video game. To achieve the desired effect, the producers assigned

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Game: Perspectives on a Popular Alliance (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2013): 63–80, and chapters by Mark Sweeney and Isabella van Elferen in Michiel Kamp, Tim Summers and Mark Sweeney (eds.), Ludomusicology: Approaches to Video Game Music (Sheffield, Equinox, Forthcoming). Certain avant-garde musical idioms have long been employed in film to induce (art-horror) fear, either as signifiers of horrific events/entities, or aurally uncomfortable phenomena. From King Kong (1933, dir. Cooper and Schoedsack) through Bride of Frankenstein (1935, dir. Whale), to Forbidden Planet’s electronic score (1956, dir. Wilcox) and dodecaphonism in Planet of the Apes (1968, dir. Schaffner), a ‘modernist trend’ has held forth in film music. See Mervyn Cooke, A History of Film Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008): 100. Atonal dissonance, extreme pitches, fragmented textures, extended instrumental techniques and unusual instruments are routinely part of the arsenal of the film composer as much as the concert hall composer of the twentieth century. Perhaps the closest point of contact between avant-garde art music and horror film is found in The Shining (1980, dir. Kubrick), scored primarily using pre-existing modernist concert works by the same composers from which Graves copied extended instrumental techniques. See Sweeney, ‘Isaac’s Silence’ for more detailed discussion of this point. Jayson Napolitano, ‘Dead Space Sound Design’, Original Sound Version (7 October 2008), retrieved from www.originalsoundversion.com/?p=693, accessed 22 March 2015.

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objects in the game world ‘fear emitters’. The fear emitters can be assigned to any element in the game, from zombies to task objectives or simply blind corners of the ship’s corridors. The engine calculates a fear value for any one moment based on the fear emitters within a particular radius of the avatar and adjusts the music as these values change due to in-game events and the hero’s proximity to fear sources.32 As Graves explains: For Dead Space, Don [Veca, the audio director] invented a “Fear Emitter” that the music reacts to on scalar level, from 1 to 4. Maybe there’s a Necromorph waiting just around a corner that has a Fear Emitter attached to it. As you get closer to the corner the music builds, until it’s in full frenzy mode when you’re right about to turn the corner. However, you change your mind and walk away—the music begins to calm down. But then you stop halfway down the hall and just listen— at that point the music isn’t building or getting quieter. It’s still really creepy, but it’s a stagnant creepy, a “sitting still and not moving” creepy.33

Crucially, however, this system is not implemented in the same way as a simple musical radar or a danger barometer like Splinter Cell – the music is prone to inexplicable outbursts and fear emitters are often anchored to non-threatening objects to generate false scares. Like the confusing underscore of Silent Hill, the music misleads the player. Audio director Don Veca explains the rationale for this system: The way we make simple things scary . . . is about the situation. It’s about why that sound happened: the timing . . . it’s about, what was the reason for that? And usually, it’s ‘I don’t know what the reason was’ and you’re completely mystified: why did that sound happen? . . . You look around and you know something’s out there, but you don’t know what. And it’s that ‘not knowing’ that makes you scared.34

At the same time, there is a guiding element to the implementation – one of the game’s sound designers, David Fiese, recalls that the music is also programmed to ‘sort of guide the player towards the right path’, as well as having the desired interactive functionality.35 When playing Dead Space, I cannot resist finding the music compelling and reacting to its utterances, even if I know that it may be misleading me. 32

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Paul Mac, ‘Dead Space’, Audio Media: Game Sound Special, (July 2009), 2–3, retrieved from www.jasongraves.com/press/pdfs/am_gameSpecial09small.jpg, accessed 17 April 2010. Tim Curran, ‘Filling in the Dead Space’, Film Score Monthly, 13/10 (2008), www.filmscoremonthly.com/fsmonline/story.cfm?maID=1607&issueID=44&printer=1, accessed 17 April 2010. Video: ‘Dead Space Developer Diary: Sound’ (2008), retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch? v=UTmsyOpP1FM, accessed 22 March 2015. Ibid.

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It simultaneously encourages me in a particular direction and yet warns me of the potential danger ahead. I anticipate the next moment of high tension, experiencing a sense of dread (that is, ‘art-dread’, rather than true fear).36 I have learnt to recognize the musical-performative mechanism of the game, just as with the radio in Silent Hill. The music will always synchronize to an appropriate hit-point in the gameplay, even if I decide to reverse direction, or move slowly. This ‘in the moment’ scoring method has an immediacy that accentuates the concept of a score as a performative utterance, situating the music almost as a conscious entity. But I have a complex relationship with this entity, I can exercise my power by sabotaging its climaxes: when the music layers of score fade in, I can backtrack, in which case, the approaching musical peak is postponed. However, since the climax will always be waiting for my return, the implied musical commentator cannot be completely subverted and retains the upper hand in the power construct. This relationship is particularly apparent when the fear emitters are anchored to objects or locations that hold no threat – the unreliability is facilitated through my lack of knowledge. While I can affect elements of the musical (locutionary) content, I cannot alter the overall effect of the musical utterance (the illocutionary, and hence perlocutionary, forces in play). Dead Space’s score creates fear and tension through a musical fabric that seems very communicative and meaningful through the synchronization of music with dangerous encounters and the anticipatory build-up to these moments of high action, but has false scares and unprompted outbursts. As much as I am trained to read and interpret the music and I have been given agency to impact upon the musical development, the authority ultimately rests with the musical commentating entity who provides an elliptical premonition of the immanent scare-moments, without any solid semiotically divulged information or clear forewarning. The musical voice is either not omniscient or toys with the player. The score’s knowledge, purpose and allegiances remain questioned. Perhaps, rather than a traditional omniscient narrator standing ‘outside’ the narrated text, the score is an entity within the game, haunting the game world, and with whom the player must learn to interact. K.J. Donnelly, writing about horror film music, describes that ‘Rather than merely providing an accompaniment to screen horror, film music is also able to embody horror, providing a demonic presence in itself.’37 The same compulsive effectiveness of film 36 37

On art-dread, see Carroll, ‘Philosophy of Horror’: 42. Donnelly, The Spectre of Sound: 106.

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music may be felt by the game player, but in this medium, we get to dance with the demon. In both Dead Space and Silent Hill, gameplay-relevant information is very clearly, and often unreliably, communicated to players. Yet, because of the affective power of music and the training media consumers have received in musical interpretation, we still interpret and seek meaning in these communicative gestures, even if we are all-too-aware of their potential falsity. Such manipulation of the player is, of course, all for the cause of entertainment and part of the understanding between player and text in the horror genre. Unreliable musical communication in a stealth game like Splinter Cell would not be appropriate because the genre parameters dictate a different relationship between player and music – one of trustworthy communication. While we have observed different types of power relationships in music-player communication, most of the examples discussed earlier rely on a danger-safe spectrum. Other kinds of gameplayrelevant information may also be communicated musically.

Music as Coach and Strategist Describing the situation in Resident Evil 4 that was outlined at the start of this chapter, Isabella van Elferen suggests that the music serves as ‘the player’s partner’,38 because of the way that it can assist the gamer (as my friend quickly found out). There are many other situations when a game’s music may help or advise the player, and not always in quite so musically obvious ways as in the other examples we have so far examined. In Bejeweled, players swap adjacent jewel icons in a grid, with the goal of aligning three identical jewels. When three jewels match, they evaporate, allowing more to drop from above to fill the newly vacated spaces. The game can be played in ‘normal’ mode, where the gamer plays for a high score, until no more moves can be made, or ‘timed’ mode, in which a time limit is set (the grid is re-populated if no more moves are available). A different musical cue accompanies each playing mode, though both pieces are in a minimalist electronica style with layered, slowly evolving synthesizer ostinati. The ‘normal’ mode cue is hypnotic. Repeating motoric melodic fragments fade in and out of the soundscape, which has strata of slower 38

Van Elferen, ‘¡Un Forastero!’: 33.

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and faster-moving parts. There is no percussion in this cue and the overlapping parts ebb and flow in a way that does not suggest a propulsive mood, but instead contemplative engagement. The cue is seven minutes long, but during gameplay, it is difficult to ascertain duration because of the constant repetition and absence of an easily interpreted formal structure. In contrast with the timelessness of the ‘normal’ mode cue, the ‘timed mode’ music is at a distinct fast tempo with a prominent drum track. The dense texture of the cue features a wailing synthesizer part that approximates a distorted guitar. The constant movement of the ostinati in the ‘normal’ mode has been replaced by distinct, discrete melodic fragments that are repeatedly sounded. In each situation, and especially in comparison, the music communicates to the player the appropriate way to play the game depending on the selected mode. In this respect, it is like a sports coach, hinting at gameplay strategy for the player. In the non-timed mode, to achieve the highest score, the player must carefully select the most appropriate move (weighing up all available options), whereas in the frantic timed mode, the speed at which any move is made is most important. The timed game cue emphasizes the more active, rather than contemplative, playing style that the mode demands, while the mesmerizing ‘normal’ mode implies a rather more considered attitude to play. Bejeweled implies a playing strategy based on a sense of chronological pressure. Simply implying how quickly the gamer should be making decisions is a relatively basic way of suggesting play tactics, even if it is effective. Some other games, however, aspire to use rather more elaborate ways of suggesting strategy, in one example, through musical-rhetorical formal strategies and a Splinter Cell-like spectrum of intensity. In the looped playlist of the strategy game Command & Conquer: Red Alert (1996), music accentuates the player’s role as warmonger and even suggests combat strategy. Firstly, stylistic elements of the music invoke aggressive/militaristic associations. Cue titles (visible to players in menus) are semantically related to warfare and make explicit the way in which the pieces can be read as meditations on military topics (‘Roll Out’, ‘Terminate’, ‘Face the Enemy’, etc.). The predominant musical style is heavy rock and metal; the violent and aggressive imagery linked to these genres seems appropriate for warfare.39 39

While the treatment of violence in heavy metal music is often complex, there nevertheless exists a cultural association between metal music and violence, even if it has been exaggeratedly perpetuated by the critics of metal music. Robert Walser, for example, describes the ‘meaningfulness of images of horror, madness, and violence in heavy metal’ (1993: 162). Running with the Devil: Power, Gender and Madness in Heavy Metal Music (Hanover, New England: Wesleyan University Press, 1993). Heavy metal has also been used as a military

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Jonathan Pieslak has noted that American soldiers in the Iraq war use ‘metal and rap music’ ‘to inspire them for combat missions’;40 perhaps the same combat inspiration is sought when metal music is used in Command & Conquer games. Secondly, the musical structures of the cues emulate the progress of battles. Composer Frank Klepacki describes the structure of one of the cues of Red Alert in terms that sound like a military strategy: I wanted a military voice sample to put in as well, as if [the voice] were commanding the troops while marching . . . I didn’t want to come out blazing right away. I needed it to build up, and then hit hard. I thought that just having the bass guitar slightly distorted playing segments of the riff would be a good place to start, playing to the rhythm of the marching only. After the commander gave his cue I then added in some industrial sounds in the rhythm of the marching as well for helping the build up. Then ‘Boom!’ The guitars and drums kick in loud and the onslaught begins!41

In this ‘music as warfare’, musical battle scenarios mirror the gameplay, spurring the player on, and possibly even provide tactical advice in musicalrhetoric/structural strategies – that is do not ‘come out blazing right away’, but ‘build up, and then hit hard’, rather than attack immediately with underpowered forces. Without reading the composer’s notes on the composition, it is unlikely the player would consciously interpret this music as a blueprint for war, but the structural development of the cue might nevertheless imply a general pattern for play activity, particularly when players have been taught to actively seek gameplay-meaning from the music that accompanies their play. This example also reveals the dimensions of musical meanings available for interpretation in game music – a variety of interpretive frames are available to players, beyond the simple safe-danger spectrum so often used as the basis of dynamic music systems.

The Challenge of Unusual Music When players have been carefully trained to examine the musical material of a game for its potential meanings and game relevance, it can be

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weapon. Loud rock and heavy metal music was played during Operation Just Cause as psychological warfare against Manuel Noriega (Ronald H. Coe, Operation Just Cause: The Planning and Execution of Joint Operations in Panama February 1988–January 1990 (Washington: Joint History Office, Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1995)). Jonathan R. Pieslak, ‘Sound Targets: Music and the War in Iraq’, Journal of Musicological Research, 26 (2007), 123–49: 127. Frank Klepacki, Notes on composer’s personal website. www.frankklepacki.com, accessed 13 July 2010.

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surprising when rather unexpected music accompanies the game. One instance of my own experience of this effect was prompted by James Hannigan’s music for The F.A. Premier League Football Manager 99 (1998). As the title indicates, this is not a football (soccer) game in which the player takes direct control of the footballers, but instead serves as a team’s manager. The gamer observes the matches and the results of the managerial decisions that have been taken prior to the match. The majority of the core interactive gameplay occurs in an elaborate menu system through which the strategic choices are implemented. When I began to play the game, I was startled by the music. Football management games have not traditionally underscored the menu interface. If I expected any music, it would be the licensed pop songs (or generic pop musak) often found in other sports games. Instead, my managerial activity was accompanied by cues scored primarily for strings and a female operatic vocalist singing a non-English text. The string parts are typically homophonic, moving as one, creating crescendo and diminuendo swelling chords, or as agitated arpeggios, over which the vocalist (though not always present) soars. Needless to say, this was not what I had sonically anticipated. Defying my expectations, the often-grandiose music seemed to frame my gameplay activity in a certain way – as worthy of the expressive register of art music and opera (or at least an art song). My activity was monumentalized, meaningful in a way far beyond the menu options confronting me. The emotional weightiness of opera was brought to bear, invoking an emotive passion to stand behind, and indeed support, the minutiae of the sport management action. In short, the music framed my gameplay and made it more meaningful. This game reveals an important, if straightforward, aspect of how I interact with music in a game: I engage with a game with the assumption that gameplay and music are linked in some way and that each comments upon the other. For this reason, I begin to investigate the interrelationship between the two. Music, perhaps especially unusual or distinct music, serves as an interpretive stimulus – it prompts me to engage in musical criticism as I try to understand the music in terms of the game and vice versa. While, of course, a similar kind of ‘prompt to musical interpretation’ occurs in film, the interactivity of the video game (a property that binds the player to the media) likely makes it more difficult to avoid engaging in musical interpretation: after all, if we are playing to win, we need as much information about the world and game that we can obtain. We cannot afford to opt out of musical interpretation, lest we miss some crucial information or way of understanding the game world and gameplay.

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Hannigan’s score was positively received (gaining a BAFTA award nomination), possibly precisely because it so ostentatiously prompted attention and begged for investigation. For me, it successfully influenced my impression of my activity in the game. With the music off, selecting menu options and reading fake emails seems dangerously close to administrative banality. But framed by the music, I am managing a noble team of footballers of the ‘beautiful game’, such is the romantic gloss the music applies to my activity. It might not be too much of a leap to suggest that part of the reason game music is often well-loved by players is because of the active interpretation to which it is subject. Games encourage musical interpretations and give rich, interactive contexts for players to create their readings, resulting in rewarding and meaningful understandings of the music. As a result, game and music enhance one another and both become especially significant for the gamers because of the meanings with which they are imbued. We will return to this idea in the next chapter and the Epilogue. There is one further lesson here. If gamers are, as I have argued, hungrily listening to, and interpreting, the music of the games, this serves as an argument for game music to embrace its creative role as a distinct voice in the game construct. It is no coincidence that James Hannigan has been one of the most vocal professional advocates for game music to avoid ‘safe’ derivative replications of cinematic style and to instead ‘create and apply music in meaningful ways’.42 Certainly the players seem to be up for the interpretive challenge. *** I am not very good at video games. When confronted with a difficulty option, I choose ‘easy’ mode by default. As much as I enjoy video games, it is not uncommon for me to require several attempts to complete even introductory levels. I had, however, found myself to be quite adept at playing the two-dimensional platform game Rayman Legends (Ubisoft, 2013). Nevertheless, the ‘Mariachi Madness’ level proved to be something of a stumbling point. This is one of Rayman’s so-called music levels, where, rather than the visual frame simply following the avatar’s movements, the level scrolls horizontally left to right through the level at a pre-defined pace that suits the tempo of the accompanying music.43 If the avatar (Rayman)

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James Hannigan, ‘Changing Our Tune’, Develop, April 2004 retrieved from www.jameshannigan.com/?page_id=1293, accessed 29 September 2015. I am grateful to William Cheng’s keynote address at the April 2014 Ludomusicology conference (Chichester, UK) on Rayman Legends for introducing me to this game and starting critical discussion about the role of music within it.

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is left behind by the scrolling view, the player must restart the level. As Rayman runs, he encounters obstacles to overcome, enemies to defeat and points to collect. Such is the speed of the ‘Mariachi Madness’ level, I was particularly poor at timing my attacks with the jumps required to keep up with the moving screen. ‘Mariachi Madness’ is accompanied by a mariachi version of ‘Eye of the Tiger’, the song made famous by the band Survivor in Rocky III (dir. Stallone, 1982). While it was obvious from the earlier ‘music levels’ that certain jumps and attacks were designed to synchronize with rhythmically accentuated beats in the music, I had understood this mainly as a novelty of programming – a neat musical accompaniment to playing. It was only when I began to consciously switch the game-music hierarchy in my mind that I found success at the harder level. ‘Mariachi Madness’ moves very quickly. As the upcoming jump/attack comes into view, by the time I have pinpointed where I should press ‘jump’, the time for pressing the button has already passed. Instead, by listening to the music first and watching the screen secondarily, I could predict where next moment of musical emphasis would come and press the button in musical synchronization, rather than when I thought Rayman was in the correct spatial position. Using the music, I could ‘look ahead’, or rather, ‘hear ahead’ to the next jump that had yet to appear on the screen and prepare to match my commands to the music. I was playing the game musically rather than visually. Rayman is perhaps an extreme example, but most of the time, we rely on information about the gameplay that comes from more than just the onscreen images. Most games are played simultaneously sonically and visually (and haptically). In this chapter, I have explored the musical dimension of gameplay and discussed games that emphasize that musical aspect of play to a significant extent. But even games that have less ostentatious use of musical information than, say, L.A. Noire and Black & White, use music for information as part of a holistic visual-auditory communication framework: Metal Gear Solid 2 (2001), for example, combines a Splinter Cell-like music implementation in combination with an on-screen textual indicator of the alert status, uniting visual and musical communicative conduits for combined emphasis. To reiterate to the recurring theme of this book, music is typically part of the way that we interact with, specifically play with, games. Throughout the discussion of gameplay-relevant musical communication, we have seen music to be far more than simply replacing or accentuating visual communication, though this is a useful function in information-dense games. For me, it is the performative, aesthetic

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dimension of musical communication that makes it so significant – the emotive power of the ferocious avant-garde techniques of Dead Space, the insistent ostinati of Splinter Cell and the structural musical climaxes of Red Alert that go beyond simply communicating the state of play into a performed and compelling experience. Game music cannot be written off as a ‘background’ phenomenon – it is directly a foreground component of the gameplay experience, specifically examined in this chapter through its role in communicating play-relevant information. I have elsewhere described the value of texts and media that encourage musical hermeneutic interpretation.44 Games do the same: they teach us to actively interpret music as meaningful through seeking to understand the relationship between the music and gameplay. At the same time, cases such as Dead Space and Silent Hill show the ambiguity within the interpretive act. Games can be lessons in musical hermeneutics, with fun and fear that comes with interpretation in a gameplay context.

Conceptual Toolkit: Music as an equally valid alternative to visual information – music can be used as a conduit for transmitting alerts and game state information. This can act as a substitute for, or reinforcement of, visual communication. The concurrency and immediacy of musical communication can provide advantages over visual prompts. Age of Empires uses musical notifications as a significant way of providing information to players, given the amount of visually transmitted information. Black & White takes advantage of musical communication to omit an on-screen status display. Playing a game musically – so significant can the musically transmitted communication be, some games encourage predominance of the musical information over the visual. Most games are played through a confluence of visual, haptic and audio information conduits, but at times, one (or a subcategory of one) of these domains may be given dominance. Rayman and L.A. Noire both create a situation where effective playing results in musical information being given precedence over the ostensibly dominant visual medium. In music levels of Rayman, 44

I have elsewhere argued that part of the significance of music in comics is that it serves as a prompt to musical hermeneutics. ‘“Sparks of Meaning”: Comics, Music and Alan Moore’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 140/1 (2015), 121–62.

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the music tells me when to jump and attack, and in the crime scenes of L.A. Noire, it is the music that guides me around the environment and its clues. Game music as lessons in musical interpretation – game music educates in two particular dimensions: i) semiotic signification, that is, it establishes, utilizes and reinforces musical signifiers (interacting with a wider pan-media currency of musical semiotics), and ii) the unreliability of interpretation when inconsistent and deceptive musical communication is found in games. Silent Hill and Dead Space both use musical semiotics to signify particular aspects of the worlds they create, but simultaneously, both games deliberately confuse players, leading them to recognize that their interpretation (for all of its compelling nature) is potentially fallacious and that the process of musical interpretation is often unreliable. Music as performative agent – musical soundings by a game often aim to exert some agency over the player, applying a ‘force’ through their deployment in the game. This perspective accentuates both the active results and impact of the game music, and the way that an implicit dialogue is created as player and musical narrator interact with one another through play. Just as performative gestures imply an originating agency, so music in games seems to imply a simulated consciousness with which players interact. Splinter Cell’s music acts as a barometer or tool for both the player, and vicariously, the avatar character. When the music sounds, it serves as force to change both my emotional state and the way that I play. Similarly, I cannot help but be affected by the musical soundings of Dead Space, even if I know I am dealing with an unreliable entity, because of the powerful force of the musical-performative gestures. Splinter Cell is closer to the traditional conception of a musical narrator, while Dead Space’s performative agency might be situated within the narrated world as a ‘haunting’ phenomenon. Music as coach/strategist – music can offer suggestions about gameplay strategy through a variety of semiotic means. In Bejeweled and Command & Conquer: Red Alert, music implies certain advantageous ways to play through structural and affective signification. Resident Evil 4’s music helps players to know if enemies are still in the area, allowing them to remain alert for potential ambush, increasing their chances of surviving such an attack.

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Unusual music – because players seek to interpret music in terms of the game, and vice versa, music can serve as a creative agent in the game construct and may use distinct and unusual musical material to prompt interpretation and impact upon how players understand their game action. The F.A. Premier League Football Manager 99 uses an unexpected musical style which challenges players to engage in musical interpretation. The game’s music frames and gives greater significance to the action of play.

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6 Hollywood Film Music and Game Music

Ever since the inception of the video game, the medium has looked to other moving-image media for inspiration – games based upon Star Trek have been documented from the late 1960s and Atari produced a game based on Jaws (dir. Spielberg, 1975) in the same year as the film’s release.1 Films and television have influenced games in many and varied ways, from subject matter to narrative tropes and the emulation of cinematic styles in games, reaching far beyond games based on specific films. While advancing technology continues to facilitate the ever-closer replication of cinematic visuals by games, it is important to recognize the diversity of video games and not to paint a reductive picture of games simply becoming incrementally ‘more cinematic’ over time. Cinema’s influence on games is more complicated than simple imitation. Music in games is a microcosm of this cross-media interplay: game music sometimes adopts materials, processes and aesthetics of film music models, but it must still constantly attend to its medium-specific properties that provide the appeal of the video game as a distinctly different media form. It is unsurprising that there should be a close and complicated relationship between game music and music in films. After all, video games are superficially similar to the other narrative audio-visual fiction media with which nearly all Western media consumers have some experience: television episodes and films, especially those in the English-language Hollywood tradition. Game music is challenged to negotiate a balance between two factors – the particular demands of the video game medium, and the players’ interpretive framework and expectations for moving-image media that they have learnt from film and television. Noted game composer George “The Fat Man” Sanger claims that the impulse for the musical similarity of games and film is driven by two main issues, both of which he sees as negative.2 First, he believes that games

1

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On Star Trek: David H. Ahl, Basic Computer Games: Microcomputer Edition (New York, Workman, 1978): 157. On Jaws: Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost, Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2009):125 6. Sanger, The Fat Man on Game Audio: 229–37.

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emulate films in an attempt to gain the artistic legitimacy and prestige afforded film. This suggestion explains why it is cinema, rather than the historically lower-brow medium of television, that is more often emulated by games. Certainly, video games have courted and trumpeted the involvement of film composers,3 and audio practitioners have reported how a specifically cinematic style has often become a guide for their work.4 Secondly, Sanger describes how the established template of film music has the illusion of a low-risk, proven ‘what works’ model for movingimage audio. An aspiration to copy film aesthetics (he argues) reinforces the second-class status of games and results in an imitation of another medium, rather than playing to the strengths of the video game form. Larissa Hjorth, in her introduction to games, writes that ‘games differ dramatically from other media such as TV in terms of two key attributes – interactivity and simulation’,5 and Sanger urges composers to utilize these game-specific qualities: ‘Let’s make some kind of new sound . . . but let’s use that interactive engine, and that gaming mentality, and that unique vision, and that talent for invention, and let’s by-God make game audio’.6 Sanger’s advocacy for the appreciation of the distinctly game-specific aspects of the medium is illustrated by the reception of games by the studio Quantic Dream. This company has made games that aim to be as cinematic as possible, to be ‘interactive movies’, but these games, such as Beyond: Two Souls (2013) and Fahrenheit (2005), have had a mixed critical reception because of the limitations of interactivity and perceived lack of emphasis on gameplay mechanics.7 Similarly, there are technical challenges for games that attempt to emulate film music – most notably, the ambiguity of timing in an interactive medium and the musical limitations that come from technology – but even aside from the issues with production, the Quantic Dream games suggest that to simply aspire to the cinematic model is not always appropriate.8 More ‘Hollywood’ is not necessarily better. On one hand, the unaltered direct replication of film music is neither technically possible nor suitable; on the other, media consumers have been

3

4 5

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Such as, for example, the contributions of Michel Legrand to Torin’s Passage (1995), Harry Gregson-Williams to Metal Gear Solid 2 (2001) or Danny Elfman to Fable (2004). See Bridgett, From the Shadows of Film Sound. Larissa Hjorth, Games and Gaming: An Introduction to New Media (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2011): 25. Emphasis original. Sanger, The Fat Man on Game Audio: 237, emphasis added. ‘IGN AU Talks Beyond: Two Souls’ (Video), ign.com (2013) http://uk.ign.com/videos/2013/10/ 11/ign-au-talks-beyond-two-souls, accessed 15 April 2015. See Collins, Game Sound for discussions of technical challenges.

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Hollywood Film Music and Game Music

primed by the film music model and it serves as a foundational part of the media music literacy of players. Games are thus required to adapt musical materials and approaches from film (especially Hollywood film, because of its cultural pervasiveness in the West) to a game context. This process of the transformation and integration of film/television musical paradigms into the video game should take account of the distinguishing aspects of the game medium. Video games typically fuse ludic (that is, play-/rule-based) and narrative (that is, story-/event-based) elements.9 I do not here wish to dwell on the long history of these two concepts,10 but games usually seek to make narrative elements relevant to the gameplay mechanics, and the ludic components narratively relevant. Music may become directly involved with this integration of play and narrative. One way in which this musical function has been fulfilled is through the use of musical materials and tropes from film and television music (as highly narrativized media) to apply a narrative frame to the ludic gameplay.

Musical Borrowings Some of the most obvious connections between film music and game music are situations in which musical materials or styles from film and television are used in games. Video games do not exist in a sealed suburb of media experience. They are part of a broader media culture. With gamers being the same media consumers who also watch films, television and internet videos, it is unsurprising that games should musically borrow from these other media. The dimensions of such borrowings vary according to purpose. They may be specific, as in using particular motifs from other moving-image media, or more general, as in the deployment of musical topoi or genre tropes. Most often, these kinds of appropriations serve to contextualize the ludic mechanics of the game. 9

10

There has been much discussion of ludology and narratology in game analysis. For a good introduction, see James Newman, Videogames (New York and London: Routledge, 2004): Chapter 6, and Juul, Half-Real. I argue that even Tetris has a narrative component. I could easily narrate, and recount my gameplay progress in Tetris, in terms of a sequence of events, and with the ebb and flow of greater and lesser success at the game. Internet players have done just this: ‘NecroVMX’, ‘Tetris DX (Game Boy Color) with commentary’, retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHXa68QDmLM, accessed 15 April 2015. See, for example, contributions to Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan (eds.), First Person: New Media as Story, Performance and Game (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004).

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For games that are part of broader media franchises, musical material is often closely copied from other texts that constitute the franchise. In the ‘point-and-click’ adventure game Star Trek: 25th Anniversary (1992), not only is the title theme of the 1960s television series present, but the main gameplay is accompanied by MIDI recreations of underscore cues from the series’ stock music library. This is an example of very close replication of film/TV music in a game. Star Trek: 25th Anniversary presents each of its levels as a discrete ‘episode’, so it is entirely appropriate that the game should replicate the underscore to assert aesthetic fidelity to the programme. It reproduces the music of Star Trek, just as it copies the sets and characters of the series. Most games based on films/series do not duplicate pre-existing music as extensively as Star Trek, partly due to complex licensing rights and the awkwardness of adapting music from a temporally fixed medium to one in which duration of events and states is often variable. (Star Trek’s stock cues were written to facilitate easy repetition and editing, so are well-suited to procedures of adaptation.) Star Trek’s musical borrowing is part of asserting that the game exists as part of the same shared franchise universe as the television series. The direct replication of large amounts of music from another source, as in Star Trek, would not be appropriate for some games. GoldenEye 007, discussed in Chapter 3, for example, uses the ‘James Bond theme’, like the film, but does not re-create cues from the movie, even if it uses timbres and structural processes similar to those in the film. The GoldenEye game tells a distinctly different version of the film’s story, so the music is similar to, but not copied from, the movie. Some games use specific musical references to a film text for different reasons: the Space Quest games are irreverent comedy science fiction adventure games, in which the player controls Roger Wilco, a space janitor. In order for such satirical humour to be successful, the domain of reference to an original must be quickly and precisely established. Space Quest [1] (1986) features a parodic musical composition: the main theme is a caricature of the Star Wars march (see Example 6.1). Space Quest copies Star Wars in using a rising fourth interval to begin the melody, a stepwise descending triplet figure and repetition of the end of the first motif, ultimately resolving to a stable, non-tonic pitch. The second, conjunct, contrasting subject in both examples follows two statements of the first motif. Immediately, the player knows that science fiction film generally, and Star Wars in particular, is the topic of parody here. The knowingly derivative nature of the theme articulates the humorous satire in play. By aping the Star Wars theme, Space Quest’s music helps

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Example 6.1 Space Quest main theme.

to establish the frame of satirical reference and serves as a joke in itself as well as articulating the parody. The contrasting examples from Star Trek, GoldenEye 007 and Space Quest all show how the careful use of musical material from film or television series in a game can serve to link media texts in different ways – from articulating a parodic relationship, to establishing known characters, or emulating the musical format of a television episode. In each case, transmedia musical borrowing sets the stage for the player’s gameplay action within the narrative world of the game. It is not necessary to use or adapt specific musical motifs from film or television to deploy a particular cinematic model – as we observed in Chapter 4, Rome: Total War used a musical style inspired by the film Gladiator to establish its historical context. In a similar way, the Second World War FPS Call of Duty (2003), does not copy musical material from a film, but it uses musical tropes familiar from war cinema: the game’s box invites players to ‘Experience the cinematic intensity of World War II’s epic battles’. Of course, there was nothing cinematic about the war’s battles, but it is this cinematic presentation of the war that the game seeks to replicate and music is part of a filmic gloss applied over the gameplay

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action to complete the sense of participating in a cinematic universe. In the ‘Pegasus Bridge – Day’ level, the player must hold out against attackers until reinforcements arrive. In the final minutes of the struggle, the hitherto unscored level introduces music. Following a cinematic tradition of scoring battles with adagio string cues (see, amongst others, Platoon (dir. Stone, 1986)), this music takes the form of a cue for strings and horns that evokes Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’, or the slow movements of Vaughan Williams’s symphonies. Not only does this refer to the British soldier’s identity and patriotism, but it also references cinematic precedent, contextualizing the immediacy of action into a grand narrative by deploying a familiar film technique. Both Rome and Call of Duty refer to well-worn cinematic tropes as a substitute for the ‘real’ to invoke the historical setting of play (see Chapter 4). As music nearly always plays a part in a distinct cinematic aesthetic style, there is an important role for the score to play in referring to another text or genre. In a similar way, the Legend of Zelda games (1986–) link their princessrescuing, sword-wielding protagonist with the heroes of the ‘swashbuckler’ adventure films of the 1930s and 1940s by using film scores by Erich Wolfgang Korngold as a stylistic model. Korngold’s music for films like The Sea Hawk (dir. Curtiz, 1940) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (dir. Curtiz and Keighley, 1938) established the horn fanfare-led orchestral score as a signifier for the kind of heroic/action narratives that Zelda emulates. The main Zelda theme (Example 6.2) exhibits the dotted rhythm fanfares, scalic figures and chordal horn writing typical of Korngold’s title cues (Examples 6.3–6.4), such as that of The Sea Hawk. The rising gestures in the Zelda theme are reminiscent of the theme from The Sea Hawk – the same rising gesture in The Sea Hawk bb.33–41 appears in bars 5–7 in Zelda. Like ‘Robin’s Theme’ from The Adventures of Robin Hood, the Zelda theme begins with a descending tonic-dominant interval before returning to the tonic and using an ascending figure to rise first to the dominant pitch, and then subsequently to the tonic an octave above the pitch upon which the

Example 6.2 The Legend of Zelda theme as heard in A Link to the Past.

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Example 6.3 ‘Robin’s Theme’ from The Adventures of Robin Hood by Korngold.

Example 6.4 Title theme from The Sea Hawk by Korngold.

motif began. Without directly citing a Korngold theme – a direct intertextual reference would be inappropriately specific, despite the behatted, green-clothed and brown-booted heroes of both The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Adventure of Link – the emulation of Korngold’s style creates a semiotic link to these heroic adventure movies along with their associated iconography and narrative tropes, as well as the Korngoldinspired style of John Williams that has accompanied more recent films filled with derring-do (Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg, 1981), Hook (Spielberg, 1991), Star Wars (Lucas, 1977), etc.). The emulation of distinct cinematic musical styles in Zelda, Rome and Call of Duty are part of the way that the games invoke narrative genres and their associated tropes to contextualize the gameplay. These stylistic borrowings have a broader domain of reference than the games that use specific musical materials that we discussed earlier. As games blend ludic and narrative concerns, film/television musical tropes and materials are useful for narrative ends – whether establishing a parodic tone and frame (Space Quest), providing an historical context for the play (Rome), connecting the game with other pre-existing stories (GoldenEye 007) and worlds (Star Trek), or simply asserting a narrative genre in which to situate the gameplay (Zelda). For all that games draw upon film music, it is important not to cast video game music as simply replicating musical styles from film or deploying second-hand signifiers from the more traditional media. In their use, re-use and recontextualization in games, especially for the game-literate generations, these styles become more general media music tropes, rather than the exclusive domain of film. Like many players of my generation, I understand The Sea Hawk because it sounds like Zelda, since my personal familiarity and media music experiences run counter to historical chronology. Video games have their own musical traditions (from boss fight musical cues to success stingers) and neither are the musical transmissions only

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unidirectional. Films that deal extensively with video game culture, such as Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (dir. Wright, 2010) and Wreck-It Ralph (dir. Moore, 2012) musically refer to games, just as we observed earlier the vice versa. In both Pilgrim and Ralph, it is music closely linked to ludic events (victory, winning bonuses and gaining power-ups) that is most often copied or emulated by the films. These kinds of films seek to apply echoes of the ludic in games to their narratives, just as games have utilized film music to apply narrative glosses to the gameplay. Despite this neat model, the influence of film music conventions in games goes well beyond the use of particular musical styles and materials. It is also evident in the musical implementation and programming of games.

The Legacy of the Hollywood Score The use of musical material or topoi from film/TV is one dimension of cinema’s influence on game music, but perhaps more pervasive is the way that film music has conditioned our understanding of how music should be integrated into games. One game keenly illustrates how music implementation is a significant part of the music’s perceived effectiveness within the game. By analysing the game’s reception, we can formulate a set of requirements or demands that these players have of the music and examine how they relate to a traditional model of film music. The musical material of Advent Rising (2005) was highly praised by reviewers. For this futuristic science fiction third-person action game, the producers employed a large orchestra, a choir and vocal soloists. Despite the enthusiasm for the score’s material, however, the critical consensus was that the implementation almost entirely negated the score’s effectiveness. The comments from nine game journalists in Table 6.1 give an insight into assumptions that players harbour concerning music’s function in a game – at least, in a narrative action game like Advent Rising. These quotations are excerpted from reviews that evaluate the game as a whole and are written for a general game-buying audience, rather than being specifically concerned with music. That music is often discussed in detail in general reviews of this game is notable and indicates the importance of the music of Advent Rising to the players. Taken as a group, the reviews present a remarkably consistent opinion on the game’s music, but beyond the criticism of the particular game at hand, they also reveal a set of shared assumptions about how music in this kind of game should sound and function.

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Table 6.1 Excerpts from reviews of Advent Rising. 1. 2.

3. 4. 5.

6. 7.

, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use,

8.

Upon playing through the intro I was ecstatic over the soaring orchestral score, but the further I got in the game the less the soundtrack seemed to excite me, and it was constantly getting botched or cut off by poor gameplay to movie transitions.1 Advent Rising’s biggest tragedy comes from its sound design, specifically its musical score. The game features one of the best-produced musical scores ever put into a game, and then it pretty much mucks the whole thing up by screwing up the editing process. We love the big, dramatic orchestral pieces and choral lines, but we don’t love them when we’re just wandering around an empty area while not doing anything in particular. It’s especially grating when the music overpowers the dialogue, preventing you from finding out what’s going on. And in other seemingly key action sequences, the music will just cut out altogether, or it will chop up badly during a transition, effectively killing whatever usefulness the music once had.2 [T]he dramatic score is quite effective – when the sound works at all. The game has an alarming tendency to just drop the sound out, or cause the music to overpower the dialogue and sound effects.3 At random, the music will pop in and out at varying volumes.4 There’s a really impressive orchestral score throughout Advent Rising, but again clumsy implementation means it can cut out unexpectedly, as is the case with some dialogue and other sound effects . . . [T]he sound is liable to stammer during play and chop into the illusion of the game too. It’s like the jerk of parking a car when it’s still in gear.5 Sometimes the music or sound effects – or even both – will not play, either in-game or in cutscenes. At other times the music (which is probably the best part of the game) will drown out the dialogue.6 The orchestral compositions are brilliant. . . However, the implementation of the music in the game is so haphazard, inappropriate and silly that one begins to wonder if they just dropped any part of the score into any place that had a musical hole that needed filling, regardless of tempo or context. The result is a triumphant, pulse-pounding score when you’re standing in the middle of nowhere with nothing going on . . . shameful.7 [T]he music in Advent is quite good, possibly some of the best in a game to date. The problem is that the implementation is so poor that you don’t really get to appreciate it . . . You will be in the midst of a heated battle, the music is kicking it up a notch and really getting you into the moment. Then, without warning, it cuts out, and there is no music to be heard at all. On the flip side, there are times when everything for miles has been killed and you are simply trying to find out where to go next, and the music kicks in as though something huge is going on.8

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Table 6.1 (cont.) 9.

1

[T]he musical score is stupendous . . . It is extremely upsetting that a lot of the impact that the score has is interrupted by the horrific cinematic [to gameplay] transitions and inconsistent audio levels. All too often you’ll be checking the volume to make sure you didn’t turn it down, and then all of a sudden, the music will kick back in. This simply should not happen . . . One of the best musical scores to date . . . is ruined by choppy transitions and inconsistent audio levels.9

, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use,

Benjamin Turner, ‘Advent Rising’, gamespy.com (2005), retrieved from http://uk.xbox.gamespy.com/xbox/advent-rising/620476p2.html, accessed 22 March 2012. 2 Alex Navarro, ‘Advent Rising Review’, gamespot.com (2005), retrieved from http://uk.gamespot.com/advent-rising/reviews/advent-rising-review6126795/?page=1; http://uk.gamespot.com/advent-rising/reviews/advent-rising-review-6126795/?page=2, accessed 22 March 2012. 3 Jason D’Aprile, ‘Advent Rising Review’, g4tv.com (2005), retrieved from www.g4tv.com/games/xbx/20511/advent-rising/review/, accessed 22 March 2012. 4 ‘Omni’, ‘Advent Rising’, armchairempire.com (2005), retrieved from www.armchairempire.com/Reviews/XBox/advent-rising.htm, accessed 22 March 2012. 5 Matt Martin, ‘Advent Rising Review’, eurogamer.net (2006), retrieved from www.eurogamer.net/articles/r_adventrising_x, accessed 22 March 2012. 6 Troy Matsumiya, ‘Advent Rising’, gamingtarget.com (2005), retrieved from www.gamingtarget.com/article.php?artid=4521&pg=2&comments=, accessed 22 March 2012. 7 Russell Garbutt, ‘Advent Rising’, GameOver (2005), retrieved from www.game-over.net/reviews.php?page=xboxreviews&id=219, accessed 22 March 2012. Final ellipsis and emphasis original. 8 Corey Owen, ‘Xbox Review – “Advent Rising”’, worthplaying.com (2005), retrieved from http://worthplaying.com/article/2005/8/10/reviews/26444/, accessed 22 March 2012. 9 Rob Semsey, ‘Advent Rising Review (Xbox)’, teamxbox (2005), retrieved from http://reviews.teamxbox.com/xbox/944/Advent-Rising/p1/; http://reviews .teamxbox.com/xbox/944/Advent-Rising/p2/; http://reviews.teamxbox.com/xbox/944/Adven-Rising/p3/; http://reviews.teamxbox.com/xbox/944/ Advent-Rising/p4/, accessed 22 March 2012.

Hollywood Film Music and Game Music

Nearly every reviewer implies that musical compositions should, according to Western musical logic, finish to completion or transition in a ‘smooth’ fashion. (A careful ‘fade out’ would also be assumedly acceptable.) To do otherwise is seen as deficient (Review 1). So important is this ‘neatness’ that cues that do not conclude or transition in an appropriate way are said to nullify the score’s effectiveness (2). Cues should appear as whole and complete entities, with the constructed nature of the score concealed. The thwarted continuity of the score disrupts the integrity of the game world (5): musical stability and logic are linked to the stability and internal logic of the game world. Reviewer 5’s automotive analogy suggests that musical logic is specifically tied to the player’s relationship with the game construct, bolstering the conclusions of Chapter 4 about music’s role in constructing the game world. The reviewers also imply that musical incoherence and interruption threatens the player’s immersion in the game (as proposed in Chapter 3’s discussion of iMUSE). Sound mixing is significant; technological standards mean that inconsistency in sound level is no longer tolerable (4, 9). Music should give auditory deference to dialogue (2, 6) and retain the audibility of both sound effects and dialogue (3). Perhaps music that covers sound effects and dialogue becomes a barrier to hearing sources of sound in the virtual universe and thus hinders (aural) engagement with the game world. Music must also be constrained within a limited dynamic range (4). Music should be easily understood by the player to be appropriate to the gameplay activity and seem purposeful (2). The success of this aspect rests on the player’s interpretation of the music. The score must have a logic that guides its utterances and presence (6) – but be interpretable by the player and the motivations for sounding easily understood (i.e. it must not seem ‘random’) (4). Reviewer 7’s use of the terms ‘haphazard’ and ‘inappropriate’ imply a demand for a consistent music policy throughout the game and the reviewer clarifies how musical properties (referring specifically to tempo) must make sense in the gameplay context. Consistency of musical use (9) is necessary because players use past musical experience to guide their expectations of the music’s function in the game (8) and they anticipate a coherent musical policy throughout the game, based on the precedents of musical use established in the earlier stages of play. These learnt musical interpretations are not immutable, but must be carefully managed, since inconsistency is confusing and unrewarding for the player. While these musical expectations of players do not necessarily hold true for every gaming situation, the level of agreement between reviewers implies that

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they are widely held and significant enough to warrant comment. Perhaps even more notable is the degree to which the reviewers’ criticisms of Advent Rising’s score align with transgressions of Claudia Gorbman’s famous outline of what she identified as the hallmarks of classical Hollywood scoring: I. Invisibility: the technical apparatus of nondiegetic music must not be visible. II. ‘Inaudibility’: Music is not meant to be heard consciously. As such it should subordinate itself to dialogue, to visuals – i.e., to the primary vehicles of the narrative. III. Signifier of emotion: Soundtrack music may set specific moods and emphasize particular emotions suggested in the narrative . . . but first and foremost, it is a signifier of emotion itself. IV. Narrative cueing: – referential/narrative: music gives referential and narrative cues, e.g., indicating point of view, supplying formal demarcations, and establishing setting and characters. – connotative: music ‘interprets’ and ‘illustrates’ narrative events. V. Continuity: music provides formal and rhythmic continuity – between shots, in transitions between scenes, by filling ‘gaps.’ VI. Unity: via repetition and variation of musical material and instrumentation, music aids in the construction of formal and narrative unity. VII. A given film score may violate any of the principles above, providing the violation is at the service of the other principles.11 Specifically, then, Advent Rising is criticized because: the score’s technological apparatus is sonically revealed (I), the music is not inaudible (II), the music does not ‘signify emotion’ appropriately (III), the ‘narrative cueing’ does not function properly because of inconsistent implementation (IV), the music does not assist continuity of the game (V) and musical unity is jeopardized (VI). While emphasizing that Gorbman’s features are dependent upon musical ‘implementation’ as much as material, this alignment also reveals the extent to which the characteristics of the Hollywood scoring practice still underpin some of players’ expectations of, and interpretive frameworks for, music in moving-image media. The primary problem with Advent Rising’s score is that is not successful on either narrative or ludic terms. Musical changes that appear to signal important ludic or narrative events turn out to be red herrings and the 11

Claudia Gorbman, Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music (London: BFI Publishing, 1987): 73.

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musical interruptions break the impression of a consistent game construct and fictional world, while the poor mixing prohibits players from comprehending their tasks and the narrative context for the gameplay. The music mis-narrates and inhibits understanding of the gameplay.12 The reason that such musical misfiring is so significant is because music contributes to, and connects, both narrative and ludic components of the game. As such, it has the potential to enhance (or work to the detriment of) a significant proportion of the game experience. It almost seems as though even more is at risk in game music than in film – a musically mis-narrated film or television episode does not impact upon the progression of the filmic plot as a musically mis-narrated game does. If I cannot hear the particulars of Doctor Who’s plot because the music is mixed so loudly,13 the narrative of the episode continues unaffected. If I cannot hear important fictional information in a game, my avatar ends up wandering aimlessly or attacking the ‘wrong’ characters. The problems with Advent Rising’s music issues are emotionally significant for players, but the impassioned comments also demonstrate how much players actively seek to interpret game musical underscore. If game music was not attended to, if it was merely insignificant sonic wallpaper, then its perceived deficiencies would not warrant the tone of criticism we see here. Lest we take the criticism of Advent Rising merely as exhortation to conform more rigidly to a cinematic model (and an old model at that), is it worth investigating more specifically how films and video games differ as media forms.

Games and Films From the example of Advent Rising, it seems that there are two distinct impulses at play here. The game’s reception suggests that significant parts of the Hollywood scoring style still hold sway in players’ expectations of video games. While Gorbman’s ‘rules’ are derived from retrospective readings of 12

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A similar kind of mismatching between music and play has been described by Michiel Kamp as ‘musical ludonarrative dissonance’ (Four Ways of Hearing Video Game Music: 53). Kamp borrows the term ‘ludonarrative dissonance’ from Clint Hocking. (‘Ludonarrative Dissonance in Bioshock’, Click Nothing (2007), retrieved from http://clicknothing.typepad.com/click_ nothing/2007/10/ludonarrative-d.html, accessed 24 July 2015. There is not a distinct mismatch between the rules of play and the fiction in this case, but the music is nevertheless ‘dissonant’ with the narration and ludic content of the game. See Johnny Dee, ‘Does TV background music bother you?’, The Guardian (2011), retrieved from www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/mar/15/tv-background-musicwonders-of-the-universe, accessed 24 July 2015.

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film music, rather than reports from Hollywood composers, they are nevertheless useful as a distillation of a model of film scoring which is recognizable as a Hollywood norm that has become entrenched in the language of Western cinema. Simultaneously, though, the interactive medium of the video game is clearly distinctly different from film or television, and composers assert the importance of considering the particular qualities of the medium when writing music for video games. It is therefore necessary for composers and audio directors to adapt or reinterpret Hollywood stylistic tradition for it to be appropriate in the context of a game. To further understand how this might happen, we can explore the differences between games and film more generally. In the introduction to this chapter, I quoted Larissa Hjorth, who identifies simulation and interactivity as the primary qualities that distinguish games from other screen media. Taking this as our starting point, and drawing on research from other video game scholars such as Barry Atkins, Torben Grodal, Henry Jenkins, Zach Whalen and Mark J.P. Wolf,14 we can pursue more specifically the implications of these two points of divergence between games and film/television. We have already discussed some aspects of simulation in Chapter 4, when we explored how video games create simulated worlds for their players. Grodal notes that gamers must normally ‘make mental maps of the gamespace’15 and engage in ‘explorative’ activity when playing the game.16 In a film, while a virtual world may be represented, the film viewer is not compelled to create a model of the fictional space in the same way that players do. Whalen conceives of this simulation aspect of games in terms of ‘relationships between the player and the game objects’:17 games create complex fictions with dynamic systems that change depending on the player’s input, which leads us to Hjorth’s second point of difference, interactivity.18 This response to the player – what Grodal refers to as ‘active interactivity’ as opposed to the ‘passive interactivity’ of film – means that games

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15 17 18

Barry Atkins, More than a Game: The Computer Game as Fictional Form (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003); Torben Grodal, ‘Video Games and the Pleasures of Control’, in Dolf Zillman and Peter Vorderer (eds.), Media Entertainment: The Psychology of Its Appeal (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2000): 197–213; Henry Jenkins, ‘Game Design as Narrative Architecture’, Computer, 44/3 (2004); Zach Whalen, ‘Case Study: Film Music vs. Video-Game Music’ (2007); Mark J.P. Wolf, The Medium of the Video Game (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001). 16 Grodal, ‘Video Games’, 202. Grodal, ‘Video Games’, 207. Whalen, ‘Case Study: Film Music vs. Video-Game Music’: 79. This formulation is similar to that proposed by Johannes Breuer, ‘Spielen – Daddeln – Zocken. Konzepte der Mediennutzung im Kontext der Computer- und Videospiele’, Dissertation (University of Köln, 2007): 14–16.

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create a feedback loop with the player’s actions.19 The game is paying attention to the player’s actions, just as the player is paying attention to the effects of their actions in the game’s virtual world. Since continued interaction is typically necessary for game progression, games must work to encourage and maintain the player’s attention and concentration as a precondition for interactivity.20 With a degree of narrative agency given over to the player, gamers are acutely aware that the game’s progression and the success/failure outcomes are specifically related to their own capacity to deal with the ludic challenges that they are set. Even if I am controlling an avatar, I know that it is my own ability to manipulate the controller accurately and respond to the game that is the deciding factor of my winning or losing. Such a focus on the player’s own competence results in a remarkably personal emotional experience,21 as player and game are bound together in a dynamic relationship. I am personally attended to by a game, unlike the rather more depersonalized experience of film. Such a close interactive relationship between player and game requires me to react promptly to the events of the game, typically with good motor control and hand-eye co-ordination. I need no such skill or attentiveness to see a film’s plot through to the end. The skill-based interactivity also has implications for the game’s structure. I expect playing through a single game to completion to take far longer than watching one film from beginning to end, but I also anticipate far more repetition in a game than in a film. Repetition in games operates on two levels – firstly, I can re-play parts of the game, and secondly, I will encounter the same or similar challenges time and time again (with the difficulty of these tasks increasing as the game progresses). With the progression of the game as a whole articulated through the smallscale challenges in the parts of individual levels, as Grodal puts it, ‘pleasure is derived not only from the global performance, but also from a series of local achievements’.22 In the game experiences I find most fulfilling, narrative drama is combined with ludic drama, as stories and events fuse with rule-based gameplay. This combination requires articulation of both ludic information (the game rules, etc.) and the characters that are involved in those ludic machinations. It seems clear, then, that there are aspects of the game medium that are shared with film, and some important points of divergence between the two. Music in the video game must strike a careful balance between 19 20 21

Grodal, ‘Video Games’, 201–202. See also Wolf, Medium of the Video Game: 2–3. Whalen, ‘Case Study: Film Music vs. Video-Game Music’: 72 22 Grodal, ‘Video Games’, 202. Grodal, ‘Video Games’, 202

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playing an active part in supporting and articulating the aspects of the medium that are special to video games, and at the same time, conforming to players’ media music expectations in order to be compatible with ingrained modes of understanding music for the moving image. Game music can find itself caught between the weighty precedent of Hollywood film music and a medium that is distinctly different from films in many significant ways. How, then, does game music that wishes to follow a broadly cinematic model adapt such processes and values for the video game form, in light of the media differences identified earlier? To trace the negotiation between Hollywood scoring practice and the demands of the new medium in detail, the rest of this chapter takes the form of an extended case study to explore the differences and similarities of film and game music. The game I have chosen for this investigation is Final Fantasy VII (1997), a game with a very well-received musical score. By understanding how the game successfully deals with Hollywood precedent in the video game, while making the most of the properties of the interactive medium, we can elucidate some of the musical divergences between films and games.

Final Fantasy VII and the Adaptation of the Hollywood Score The music from the Final Fantasy role-playing games holds a dominant position in game music culture, received by players as both high-quality music on its own terms and as music that helps to make the game experience emotionally significant. This comment, left on a YouTube video showcasing a cue from Final Fantasy VII is typical of the hyperbolic terms that players often adopt when discussing this music: I love this game [Final Fantasy VII] too much for words! It always made me think ‘I bet there are millions of people laughing, crying, smiling, swearing . . . watching the spectacular FMV’s [sic] with the life-changing musical scores’23

This comment is by no means exceptional in its degree of veneration of the game soundtracks. It would be easy to mock the kind of faux-profound statements about Final Fantasy’s music that fill up page after page of YouTube comments and forum posts, but the sheer volume and awkward 23

‘StuartGibb’, Comment left in July 2010 on video ‘GarlandTheGreat’, ‘Garland’s Final Fantasy VII Speed Run - Segment 1’, retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1PD0jFZ1Pc, accessed 25 May 2015.

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sincerity of such personal statements make it clear that this music is obviously deeply significant for players. It is unsurprising that orchestral concerts of music from Final Fantasy games continue to be exceptionally popular across the globe. Gamers report Final Fantasy music being the accompaniment to, and guide through, existential crises and adolescent fears. Embedded in the experience of playing the game, this music has an emotional potency that speaks to players, myself included. While I do not claim to explain how the music is ‘life-changing’, I will suggest that Final Fantasy VII’s musical popularity relies upon its success on both narrative terms and on ludic terms, which is achieved through a careful adaptation of filmic practice to the requirements of a new medium. The Final Fantasy games form a long-running series of Japanese roleplaying games (JRPGs), but each main instalment uses different characters and is set in its own distinct universe. There are dramatic-thematic connections between the games and the genre parameters result in similar gameplay mechanics across the series, but the games are essentially independent from one another. The seventh Final Fantasy game was released in 1997 for the Sony PlayStation. While the PlayStation was capable of using CD-quality audio, as Karen Collins reports, ‘Final Fantasy VII . . . relied on MIDI from the on-board synth chip’,24 though some cues in the game do use recorded samples (as discussed later). Final Fantasy VII takes place in a science fiction world ruled from a futuristic industrial capital city, Midgar. The main protagonist is Cloud, a troubled mercenary, who fights for a group rebelling against a corporate dictatorship in the form of the all-powerful Shinra Energy Company that holds legal, military and economic control over the planet. Cloud’s nemesis, Sephiroth, a megalomaniac supersoldier created by Shinra, is the game’s main villain. The primary mode of gameplay involves exploring the virtual world and engaging in battles with other characters. Such battles occur in a ‘battle mode’ that is triggered when the players’ characters encounter adversaries. Final Fantasy VII’s music, composed by Nobuo Uematsu, is formed of discrete cues, typically between one and two and a half minutes in length, most of which are set to loop until a game parameter changes. The cues fall into several categories: location themes, character themes, music for particular emotional moods and music for the battle sequences. The typical implementation of music in Final Fantasy VII is programmed so that a cue

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Collins, Game Sound: 69.

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sounds, based on the avatar’s surroundings (such as the ‘Honey Bee Inn’ brothel theme, music for the quasi-religious desert retreat ‘Cosmo Canyon’, or the cues associated with the Midgar slums), but these location-determined themes are sometimes overridden by character or mood themes during moments of narrative or ludic significance. When Cloud’s group of eco-warriors sabotage a power plant, once the bomb has been set and the countdown to the explosion has started, the location music for the facility is displaced by cue with insistent ‘tick-tock’ percussion that recurs throughout the game at moments where the player must act quickly. Similarly, the power plant location theme is also interrupted when one of the game’s antagonists, President Shinra, is first revealed to the player in a dramatic ambush in the power plant. As he enters the area, so his theme comes with him. The game’s battle mode is accompanied by one of a limited number of themes, depending on the significance of the enemy at hand. Standard battles have a theme that is heard throughout the game, but boss battles have a different set of cues that denote the significance of the encounters. These, too, may be changed in the cause of drama. Just before a battle with the important boss Jenova-Life, one of the game’s heroines, Aerith, is murdered by Sephiroth. Aerith’s shocking and tragic death is accompanied by her theme. Sephiroth subsequently directs Jenova-Life to attack Cloud. During the ensuing fight, rather than using the battle theme that sounds in other Jenova-type boss encounters, the game continues to play Aerith’s lyrical, bittersweet theme, as the narrativedramatic element of vengeance for her death is applied to the ludic gameplay of the fight. It is this kind of careful deployment and repetition that is at the heart of Final Fantasy VII’s musical processes – using simple music programming and cue types, the game carefully establishes and draws upon musical meaning in such a way so as to be emotionally significant for players.

Thematicism in Final Fantasy VII As the above description betrays, the main compositional paradigm for Final Fantasy VII is thematic. In using a scoring strategy that has underpinned film composition for decades, Final Fantasy VII sits within a wider tradition of music for screen media. Viewers will be ready to interpret the music that accompanies characters as expressing aspects of that character. When President Shinra is introduced, there is no doubt of his villainy: an andante cue begins with industrial percussion, before a rising melodic minor scale is heard as a main motif, followed by a synthesized choir

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singing minor chords. He is patently not a sympathetic character. The music depicts the President, before the character speaks, even before he is clearly visible on the screen. Historical cinematic precedent and an audience trained in thematic interpretations (using a common musical lexicon) are only part of the rationale for using this approach to scoring. If, as Zach Whalen writes, ‘the underlying programming of video-game software can generally be described as object-oriented, where semi-autonomous units of code are used and re-used in a number of different contexts and the output of the system depends on the local interdependencies of these objects’,25 then object-focused scoring is apt. As relationships between elements of the system change and different game states are initiated, themes can be quickly started, silenced, adapted and combined (of which more later). Deploying small units of object-associated music accommodates the nonlinear game structures. It was for the same reason that Wagner developed his theme-based musical construction for his later operas (sometimes referred to as ‘music dramas’). To allow the musical fabric to closely mirror the dramatic action, Wagner rejected the traditional opera musical formal structures in favour of a more flexible approach based on thematic statement and transformation that followed the on-stage drama, rather than pre-existing templates of musical forms. For games, Wagner’s model lends itself well to dynamic music systems linked to game events, particularly when the precise timing and order of such events (unlike a film) are difficult to predict. A gameprompted musical change can be swiftly enacted, reacting to, or anticipating, game events, without being shackled to an independent musical structure. A musical system that is not able to closely match changes in the game state, or to only do so with obvious musical interruption, risks the kind of musical rupture and incongruity that was so negatively received in Advent Rising. The character themes in Final Fantasy VII depict the subjects of interaction and, by using a reactive unit-based music system that does not rely on fixed, extended musical structures, matches the non-linearity of interaction in the game. Borrowing from operatic and filmic precedent, but animating this tradition through a musical system that reacts to the player’s exerted agency in the game universe, a distinctly game-medium concern (interactivity) is united with an accessible mode of musical interpretation familiar from players’ experience of moving-image media such as

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Whalen, ‘Case Study: Film Music vs. Video-Game Music’: 75.

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film and television. It is no surprise that many games should use this style of theme-based scoring. Even if thematic composition is a well-established musical dramatic technique, aspects of the video game medium inflect the way that it is deployed in Final Fantasy VII. Hollywood composer Max Steiner famously commented that ‘[e]very character should have a theme’.26 Final Fantasy VII, like most JRPGs, takes this one step further by bestowing themes on not only the characters, but also locations. While there is certainly precedent for location themes in Hollywood film (such as the Tara Theme in Gone with the Wind) location musical associations are distinctly less conventional than character themes. Video games, however, will often focus just as much on location themes as character themes. This difference in emphasis ties directly to one of the contrasts between the two media identified earlier: the creation of a virtual geography in a game. As gamers play through Final Fantasy VII, visiting and re-visiting locations, they traverse a virtual world. Musical themes for particular areas not only help to characterize places in the game world and help the player to construct their understanding of the virtual geography (i.e. denoting the distinct locations), they also assist in the impression of travel. Musical difference is part of the way that a virtual journey is portrayed; as the landscapes change, so does the music. With music linked to the virtual surroundings, it is unsurprising that musical silence is rare in Final Fantasy VII. In keeping with the cinematic tradition on which it draws, Final Fantasy VII retains the invisibility of production of the music (Gorbman’s first named trait), using the same narrative register for its music as Hollywood film. While film music has traditionally been thought of in terms of diegetic and non-diegetic music – that is, respectively, music that exists in the same world as the characters, and that which emanates from a realm which is audible to the audience but not the characters – more recent film music scholarship has attempted to deconstruct this reductive binary.27 Ben Winters writes that even what has normally been termed ‘non-diegetic music’ should be thought of as ‘belonging to the same narrative space as the characters and their world’,28 and that music ‘does issue from that world’.29 While Winters’s argument might be counterintuitive with respect

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Quoted in Kathryn Kalinak, Settling the Score: Music and the Classical Hollywood Film (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1992): 113. Ben Winters, ‘The Non-Diegetic Fallacy: Film, Music, and Narrative Space’, Music and Letters, 91/2 (2010), 224–44. 29 Winters, ‘Non-Diegetic Fallacy’: 228. Winters, ‘Non-Diegetic Fallacy’: 232.

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to film, in games, including Final Fantasy VII, it is easily accepted. When the player hears the looping location cues, it is as though the environment is itself the source of the sound. As the player moves from area to area within a particular location, the visual track often ‘cuts’, as the next area is loaded by the computer, but the music continues, uninterrupted (the Gold Saucer location in Final Fantasy VII is a particularly good example of this effect). Just as film music provides continuity between shots (see Gorbman, point V, earlier in this chapter), musical cues that do not pause while moving between subsections of the same general location smooth over potentially disjunctive visual rupture. This musical continuity of location-based cues also provides the impression of a continuous environment, and, furthermore, when the music does change upon loading a new area, the player keenly understands that they have entered a different distinct part of the virtual geography (for another example, see the discussion of Monkey Island 2 in Chapter 3). Character and location themes in Final Fantasy VII prioritize ‘lyrical melodies as a means of expression’,30 to use Kathryn Kalinak’s description of the Hollywood thematic process. Locations are characterized beyond mere backdrops, they are expressed in terms of their narrative significance and emotive affect: The benign Gold Saucer pleasure resort has an uptempo jovial contrapuntal theme similar to a baroque dance style. The Northern Cave – a maze-environment that leads to the game’s final enemies – has a defiantly resolute cue with a minor-mode lyrical theme accompanied by military percussion that evokes the determination of the antagonists alongside an anticipation for the final encounters of the game. The sunny Costa del Sol port has a relaxed syncopated Latin groove (Ponchando-like rhythms, similar to those heard in ‘Oye Como Va’) with acoustic guitars. More than just musical signposts (‘You are now entering . . . ’), in keeping with the medium’s emphasis on virtual geography, the locations are musically made vivid for the player. While much of the motivic practice described earlier is common to cinema, music in games often has a greater aesthetic weight than music in the average film. In Final Fantasy VII, music plays nearly constantly throughout the game, and while it is often combined with the (admittedly quasi-musical) sound effects, its audio dominance is unchallenged – no spoken dialogue is heard and the music is programmed to sound at a high volume. Given the blocky avatars, often blurry backgrounds and

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Kalinak, Settling the Score: 101.

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ambiguous, often cryptic dialogue, music distinctly depicts the locations and characters, often more than any other single element of the game text. The music does not simply ‘reflect’ what is happening on the screen – it is an integral part of the construction of the geography and characters, working as a creative, rather than simply descriptive, force.31 This musical potency is not confined to Final Fantasy games: with games typically using limited graphics and proportionally less speech than film, musical agency is routinely larger in games than in film. In serving as such an important element of characterization, the motif-based scoring in games is close to a properly Wagnerian use of the leitmotif, with all of its metaphysical weight of characterization and symbolic signification (see Chapter 3).32 Final Fantasy VII’s leitmotivic vocabulary is open to the criticism of being rather prosaic. Out of the necessity of clear communication, the musical themes are very obvious in their semiotic signalling. President Shinra’s motif relies on well-worn musical signifiers of evilness, while Tifa’s music conforms to musical stereotypes of a ‘feminine’ theme: a flute plays a gentle cantabile melody made of repetitious gestures over an arpeggiating accompaniment. The jolly Honey Bee Inn theme uses minor-second dyad chords to decorate an off-kilter ostinato, and the fast-tempo ‘Hurry’ theme puts the aforementioned ‘tick-tock’ percussion above a pulsating pedal pitch. This un-subtle kind of characterization is perhaps again due to the importance of interaction in the game medium: when players must make quick decisions that impact upon the progression of the game, there is great significance resting on the player’s interpretation of what they see, so musical signifiers must be immediately and easily interpretable. Music is part of the way that players judge their character’s role and agency within that world – so, for example, President Shinra is clearly an antagonist, while Tifa is a potential romantic partner for Cloud, the Honey Bee Inn is a safe, comedic, but rather odd location, if the ‘Hurry’ theme sounds, the player must move quickly and so on. One does not need to follow the dialogue or divine the subtext of the interactions to understand 31

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Peter Franklin has ‘revers[ed] the accepted notion that film music redundantly describes or reacts to what we see on the screen’, to instead focus on how music works as a core component of moving image media, contributing to the film on a distinct textual level. In the JRPG this critical strategy is enacted as the music forms such an aesthetically weighty part of the text. Peter Franklin, Seeing Through Music: Gender and Modernism in Classic Hollywood Scores (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011): 86. In the later Wagnerian works, musical development of the leitmotif becomes less closely bound to the immediate dramatic action. This aspect of greater autonomy of musical processes is less clearly mirrored in the typical game configuration of the leitmotif, where the played action and musical processes remain rather more united.

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Figure 6.1 Exploration Mode (Top) and Battle Mode (Bottom) in Final Fantasy VII.

these characters’ relationships or the kind of action expected in particular locations – they are musically, loudly, sounded for the player. The music provides an important understanding of context for the ludic game mechanics, and by proxy, the context of the player’s agency within the game. In terms of this interactivity, beyond the object-oriented character and location themes, the music also works to denote changing game modes and states.

Music and Modes of Play One of the transgressions of the Hollywood style that is routinely made by games, and clearly illustrated in Final Fantasy VII, is that of audibility. No ‘unheard melodies’, these cues beg for the player’s attention. The significance of the musical component of characterizations in the game is partly facilitated by, and partly a result of, the loud and ear-catching music. There

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is a further reason for such audibility, related instead to the way that music is used to signal ludic change. Much of the time spent playing Final Fantasy VII takes place in battle mode (Figure 6.1). In this gameplay mode, rather than directing the main character to roam the virtual world, the hero’s team and the opponent(s) are locked in position, facing each other. The player must select which attacks to initiate, in order to defeat the enemies. When an enemy is encountered, battle mode begins, which immediately prompts a new musical cue to begin, articulating this change in interactive mode. This knee-jerk musical reaction serves as an alert. When I am playing the game, as soon as the battle cue begins, my whole playing posture changes – I lean slightly towards the screen, I have to be ready to react quickly in order to triumph, so I pay very close attention to the detail of the action. In this mode, I have to use a different set of controls, so I must change the way I use the gamepad and I have to think of my strategy in different terms. The standard battle cue is a driving allegro-vivace piece that uses a synthesized orchestra in a heroic-military topic based primarily on brass marcato interjections and fanfare gestures (accompanied by snare drum, cymbal, tambourine and other percussion). The musical cue stimulates my psychological arousal – I am primed to react and I am aware that it is down to my personal skill whether the heroes’ party will defeat the enemy. Music helps to attract and keep my concentration on the game during these significant moments, the up-tempo propulsive rhythms encouraging me to fight the good fight and maintain stamina through the sometimes lengthy encounters. If I vanquish the foes, I am rewarded with a fanfare celebrating my victory. My success is recognized by the game’s music. If I retreat from the fight, the battle music fades out, and if I fail, a short cue commiserates me with a ‘game over’ screen, before I may restart from my last saved position. The battle mode music helps to signal these moments of challenge and success with the same kind of musical-narrative cueing as film music – just as the start of a battle scene in a film typically results in musical change. However, since it is my active agency that has prompted these game events and the musical changes, the music (operating on the game system level, articulating the change of play mode) is paying attention to me as the gamer. The ‘reflecting back’ attention on the player discussed earlier as a characteristic of the medium is here musicalized. This effect helps to give me a sense of achievement and power when my actions and, particularly my successes, are musically voiced. Musical reactivity to the player’s actions highlights and accentuates the active interactivity that is a particular characteristic of the medium.

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Games balance small-scale challenges against the overall progression of the narrative. Final Fantasy VII uses music to help develop this structure by using different cues to denote the significance of the battle. Commonplace battles share the same cue throughout the game, but a hierarchy of cues is used whereby more challenging and more significant enemies use increasingly rarely heard pieces of music. The final battle with Sephiroth at the climax of the game is accompanied by a piece of music only heard on this occasion, known as ‘One-Winged Angel’. This final boss cue is a moment of great musical spectacle, monumentalizing the challenge facing the player and the ludic and narrative zenith that this battle represents. Alongside the synthesized orchestra, this bombastic piece of music includes a recorded choir singing snippets of text from the medieval Carmina Burana manuscript, interspersed with the name of the villain. The cue obviously takes influence from the Rite of Spring (Stravinsky) and Carl Orff’s own Carmina Burana, and leaves the player in no doubt of the significance of this moment as the game’s narrative apex and highest point of ludic challenge. In the battle modes, and the boss battles especially, the narrative development of the game is fused with the ludic challenge as the musical journey mirrors the increasing difficulty and dramatic ebb and flow of the story. This articulation of structure is particularly important in a game which has a very long anticipated duration.

Unity and Repetition Playing a game to completion typically takes much longer than watching a whole film. Final Fantasy VII is particularly lengthy – website IGN estimates that it contains over forty hours of play.33 Such a chronological span presents challenges to composers; as Gorbman highlighted for film, the creation of unity is an important function of music for the moving image. Musical unity in Final Fantasy VII occurs through multilayered repetition processes. There are five distinct ways in which musical repetition is used in Final Fantasy VII. Firstly, most cues are programmed to loop, so it is often the case that a whole piece of music will be heard more than once, without changing to a different cue. This repetition is linked to the indeterminacy of timing in the interactive format – by looping a cue, music can be made to continue for the duration of an event, however long it might take to occur. Second, cues 33

IGN [Anon.], ‘Final Fantasy VII’ (nd.), retrieved from http://uk.ign.com/games/final-fantasyvii/ps-494, accessed 29 May 2014.

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may reprise thematic material within the same piece. The cue for Tifa’s theme, for example, involves two statements of the main thematic material in different orchestrations before the cue loops. Within one cue, musical gestures are repeated and developed. In creating a musical structure that provides different soundings of the theme, perhaps with a contrasting section to alleviate monotony, variation is created while still cementing a musical association. The third dimension of repetition involves the player hearing the same cue multiple times. This may be because the player re-triggers particular events, re-plays parts of the game, or backtracks to previously visited areas. Aside from player-driven repetition, many cues are heard time and time again. Character-specific themes recur, as do battle cues and the ‘mood cues’ mentioned earlier; the latter are used to dramatically articulate the emotional tone of in-game events. The piece known as ‘Anxious Heart’ is associated with unease, ‘On That Day, 5 Years Ago’ with reminiscence and melancholia, ‘Trail of Blood’ with fear, and ‘If You Open Your Heart’ with interpersonal relationships.34 These cues ‘set specific moods and emphasize particular emotions suggested in the narrative’ (Gorbman’s point III), accentuating and defining the emotional content of the game’s plot, ‘interpret[ing]’ and ‘signify[ing]’ narrative events (Gorbman IV). Kathryn Kalinak writes that film music typically provides an audible definition of the emotion . . . Music’s dual function as both articulator of screen expression and imitator of spectator response binds the spectator to the screen by resonating affect between them.35

Kalinak’s ‘binding’ and ‘resonating’ effect is strong in games, partly because of the great reliance on music for emotional cueing (given the limited expressive capabilities of the avatars) and partly because of the closely bound relationship between active interactivity and the focus on the player’s own capability. Game music is apparently able (even more than film music) to move from fictional context to personal significance. This comment, left on a video of ‘Anxious Heart’, connects the game context with the player’s real-life situation. This is a song reflecting true sadness. This is the ultimate ‘I’m up at three o’clock in the morning because I’m going nowhere in life’ song. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a song that epitomizes isolation and depression like this one. It fits so well

34 35

Here and elsewhere in this chapter, I use the cue names from the soundtrack CD. Kalinak, Settling the Score: 87.

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with the atmosphere and context of the game, and easily extends to provoke thought and reflections about certain aspects of real-life. This is a powerful song.36

It is worth reiterating that such a comment is not atypical; players readily link music for game emotions with music for real-life emotions.37 The ‘reflecting back’ emotional focus of games likely fosters this transmission of the music’s significance beyond the game context. Some gamers report that the musical-emotional aspects of the music facilitate ludic success, too: one gamer describes how listening to ‘Anxious Heart’ allowed them to ‘grind’ (that is, repeatedly engage in monotonous battles with the same sets of enemies without progressing with the game’s storyline in order to increase the avatars’ abilities) and achieve success later in the game: Grinding at the train graveyard so that I had all available limit breaks before storming the sector 5 reactor. Yes, I did it, thanks partly to this theme.38

The player implies that the repetitious task of grinding is made more easily bearable through listening to the same cue repeatedly (albeit punctuated by the battle mode music). The looped cue apparently makes a task that is arduous because of its unvaried repetition, more, rather than less, easily completed. This paradox reveals a crucial aspect of game music repetition. Direct repetition is not so much of a problem in game music as in other musical forms, partly because of the repetitious qualities of the medium. It is common for game music to be criticized for being somehow annoying, but more rarely for repetition alone, apart from in extreme cases.39 36

37

38 39

Comment left by ‘PlainOlJoe’ on ‘Cloud183’, ‘Final Fantasy VII - Anxious Heart [HQ]’, retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMvHTlWyxH0, accessed 30 May 2015. Ben Winters advances a similar argument concerning the binding of spectator to medium through music when he writes that film music has the ‘ability to create shared experiences with characters’, that is, ‘musical experiences . . . shared not only with the potential fellow spectators in the cinema or at home, but also (and crucially) with the film’s characters themselves.’ He uses this as a way to claim that music ‘may allow us to feel what other characters feel in a way that is particularly affecting . . . based on a shared experience of music’. Ben Winters, Music, Performance, and the Realities of Film (New York and London: Routledge, 2014): 173, 188. I would suggest that the interactivity of the game, as described earlier, enhances this kind of musical empathy. Comment left by ‘Diamhea’ on ‘Cloud183’, ‘Final Fantasy VII - Anxious Heart [HQ]’. An example of criticism of repetition is found in the game Morrowind (Bethesda, 2002), a game with a similarly long anticipated playing time to Final Fantasy VII. This game only had a total of 40 minutes of music, whereas Final Fantasy VII, for all of its repetition, has over 150 minutes. A typical comment about Morrowind’s music was made by critic Greg Kasavin: ‘The very first time you boot up Morrowind, you’ll be treated to a memorable, stirring theme filled with soaring strings and booming percussion. You’ll proceed to hear it literally every five minutes or so during play. How such a short soundtrack can befit a game as big as Morrowind is anyone’s guess’ Greg Kasavin, ‘The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Review’, gamespot.com (11 May 2002),

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The re-use of musical cues is closer to the musical model of television than film. Television is more likely to repeat music – the mood cues in Final Fantasy VII are similar to a series library of stock musical cues. Perhaps repetition is a significant, even inherent, part of game music aesthetics.40 This would also explain why the impetus for developing generative, non-repetitious music has been slow, because eliminating repetition is not a core priority for a medium that is based upon unit-level repetition and (re)play. The fourth type of repetition concerns the recurrence of musical themes between cues. In this game, it may be tens of hours before a significant theme is reprised; Uematsu’s motifs are sufficiently distinct to be easily identified and remembered by players. While thematic development does occur in the game,41 direct repetition and the re-use of cues are emphasized because leitmotif identification is generally easier with a reprise than with a variation. For example, the motif for President Shinra is not only heard multiple times when his ‘character theme’ cue is re-used, the same ascending scale is reprised throughout the game, including in a location cue for the Shinra Tower, another location cue for a Shinra-controlled military base and music for a cutscene in which the Shinra Tower is destroyed. Repetition works as a unifying device across different elements of the game. Sephiroth’s theme is heard when he is encountered in the normal gameplay mode, during cutscenes and in battle against him. Other repetition connects characters and locations: the lion-like Red XIII’s character motif is also heard as part of the location cue for his birthplace, Cosmo Canyon. Such thematic recurrence aims to bring unity to the long experience of Final Fantasy VII. The final mode of musical repetition in Final Fantasy VII is the way that certain melodic intervals (minor thirds and perfect fourths) are

40

41

retrieved from www.gamespot.com/reviews/the-elder-scrolls-iii-morrowind-review/1900– 2865084/, accessed 30 May 2015. Some fans have even composed their own score for the game: Brandyn H. Siegler, ‘Efin’s Music for Morrowind’ (2005), https://web.archive.org/web/ 20081224124830/http://efin.silgrad.com/, accessed 30 May 2015. This passage is informed by discussions with James Barnaby about his research into repetition in game music. The main theme used to explore the world map is particularly prolific, as one would expect for a theme that aims to represent the game’s universe at large. The theme is introduced initially as a secondary theme in ‘On That Day, 5 Years Ago’, before it is given its full statement for the world map. Unlike most of the themes, it is developed by distinct compositional techniques – the motif is treated to rhythmic diminution in ‘Highwind Takes to the Skies’ (a location cue), slightly rhythmically augmented in ‘Who Am I?’ (used when Cloud has traumatic flashbacks), fragmented in ‘Words Drowned By Fireworks’ (a romantic cutscene cue), varied and combined with the Shinra theme in ‘Judgement Day’ (the approach to the final boss) and combined with Tifa’s theme in ‘World Crisis’ (the end of the game before the credits).

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Figure 6.2 Identification of intervallic relationships in the main themes of Final Fantasy VII.42

prioritized in the most frequently heard cues in the game, particularly those associated with the protagonists (see Figure 6.2). The intervals of the minor third (especially descending) and the perfect fourth are

42

Figure 6.2 was created by aural transcription and reference to Nobuo Uematsu, Final Fantasy VII Original Sound Track [arr. for piano Asako Niwa] (Tokyo: Doremi Music Publishing, 1998).

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Figure 6.2 (cont.)

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Figure 6.2 (cont.)

frequently used intervals that provide a ‘family resemblance’ among the cues of the game, without relying only on the re-use of cues or explicit melodic development. While not all of the perfect fourths and minor thirds identified in Figure 6.2 may be immediately auditorially obvious, the preponderance of the intervals suggests coherence across the score. The game opens and closes with the ‘Life Stream’ motif, referring to the ethereal, metaphysical energy supply of the planet. As the ‘Life Stream’ sounds a descending fourth, it is appropriate that this representation of the life-force of the universe should voice a similarly fundamental musical element underpinning the game’s

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Figure 6.2 (cont.)

score. The antagonist/protagonist opposition is also musically expressed: the Shinra scale contrasts with the fourth and third intervals associated with the heroes. The themes for Aerith and Tifa have intervallic similarity, which is apt, given that both characters are romantically linked with the hero, Cloud. These kinds of musical contrasts and connections may seem esoteric, but when it is remembered that these cues and themes will be heard repeatedly by players, musical similarity and difference is all the more significant. Final Fantasy VII’s carefully layered repetition schemes unite the text across its diverse spaces, modes and narrative moods, balancing difference and unity, while creating a meaningful musical fabric. I have suggested that Final Fantasy VII’s musical success lies in the way that it is able to negotiate between the legacy of cinema and the particular demands of the video game medium. It does so in a way that accentuates and unites ludic properties (game mechanics) and narrative concerns (characters/ locations/events) in what players report as emotionally potent music. While there are also other candidates for filmic musical influence on Final Fantasy VII, such as music in Japanese anime films, the long and pervasive legacy of the

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Table 6.2 Hollywood film music and game music. Hollywood Film Music (after Franklin, Gorbman, Kalinak, Winters, etc.) I. Invisibility/non-diegetic register

II. Inaudibility: ‘unheard’ score

III. Signifier of emotion

IV. Narrative cueing i) referential/narrative (esp. character themes) ii) connotative

V. Continuity VI. Unity Little direct re-use of cues

Passive interactivity

Game Music (after Grodal, Hjorth, Wolf, etc.) Musical sources typically invisible, but often closely linked to diegesis because of environment-anchored cues and musicalization of player agency, because of active interactivity of medium. Very ‘heard’ music, because of focus on communicative clarity and articulation of change of game mode. Music becomes a primary agent of the narrative and the communication of the ludic framework. Musical signifiers of emotion tend to be obvious and ripe for transfer to real-life context, because of focus on player’s personal ability and interactive agency during ludic challenge. i) Great emphasis on location themes, just as much as characters because of importance of building virtual worlds in games. ii) Obvious signifiers because of necessity of correct interpretation to understand ludic and narrative context/parameters, and successfully contextualize player agency. Musical continuity, especially over geography, because of music as linked to the construction of the virtual world. Variety of unifying strategies because of long duration and discrete game modes. Looped cues, cues re-used because of inherent repetition of medium and as solution to uncertain timing due to interactivity. Music works to attract and retain player attention, because of necessity of active interactivity to continue game.

Hollywood model makes it useful as a site for considering the difference between approaches to film music and game music. By way of summary, Table 6.2 attempts to express how typical Hollywood filmic musical characteristics are reconfigured by Final Fantasy VII in the frame of the game medium. I earlier made the polemic claim that music in games often makes a more significant contribution to the playing/viewing experience than in film. Music routinely has a greater aesthetic priority, descriptive power and significant informational content in games than in film, primarily because of the graphical and sonic limitations of the rest of the media components, resulting in a proportionally larger role for the music. If there seems to be

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more ‘at stake’ in game music due to the interactivity of the medium, it is because music plays a significant part in the player’s connection with, and understanding of, the game world, the narrative and the ludic constructs. It is therefore easy to say in a generalized way that gamers thus play with the music when they play the game, but in the next chapter, we will investigate in much more detail the senses in which to play games is to play music.

Conceptual Toolkit: Musical borrowing from film/television – Game music can use and/or adapt musical themes or tropes from cinema for a variety of different ends. These can include forging textual connections, defining parody or as a reference to a particular cinematic-narrative style. Most often, this is to apply a narrative frame for ludic mechanics. Star Trek 25th Anniversary copies cues from the television series to maintain fictional continuity and stylistic coherence. Space Quest parodies the Star Wars theme to establish the frame of satirical reference. The Legend of Zelda games have a main heroic theme that is similar to swashbuckling adventure films as part of a narrative topic of derring-do. The legacy of Hollywood scoring logic – Because media consumers’ understanding of music for the moving image still relies heavily on traditions established in the classic Hollywood score, these scoring conventions have to be carefully negotiated in the new medium of the video game. The way that a Hollywood scoring paradigm is conformed to, or transgressed, can impact upon the aesthetic experience of the game. The complicated reception of Advent Rising’s music can partly be explained by the way that Hollywood musical principles are broken in a way that is not easily interpreted as otherwise meaningful. Final Fantasy VII adapts the Hollywood scoring style in such a way that the transgressions are obviously meaningful in a game context. Aesthetic dominance of music – music in games (particularly in older games) often appears to have greater priority than in film. As a result it has the potential to contribute proportionally more to the player’s aesthetic experience. Final Fantasy VII’s music is semiotically obvious and dominates the audio output of the game. It plays a large part in depicting

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characters and locations, as well as communicating emotional moods. Combined with the medium’s focus on the player, these cues become significant for players. Repetition and unity – a whole game typically lasts much longer than a whole film. As a result, composers are challenged to unite this long game experience while also taking account of the repetition inherent in the medium’s makeup. Final Fantasy VII uses a multilayered strategy of repetition in order to take account of the indeterminacy of chronology in the interactive medium, the construction of the game from small-scale challenges set with in a larger narrative trajectory, the object-oriented nature of game programming, the duration of the entire game and the different modes of play within the game.

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7 Musical Play and Video Games

In the last chapter, we discussed interaction as a quality that distinguishes video games from sibling moving-image fiction media such as film and television. Games share this interactivity with musical performance, for which it is a prerequisite for musical output; as schoolteachers are fond of saying when reprimanding unruly students, ‘instruments don’t make sounds on their own’. We will deal with theories about play more generally in the epilogue, but first, this chapter explores the intersection of musical play and game play. I here consider the senses and situations in which to play video games is to play music.

Musical Interfaces and Musical Performance

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As we saw with Loom (1990) in Chapter 3, it is not uncommon for games to involve virtual musical (especially instrumental) performance. In Loom, the players’ musical activity is part of their interface with the game world and it is an unavoidable part of the gameplay. One cannot play Loom without playing music. Throughout the video game landscape, there are many more examples of such musical interaction. Perhaps one of the most famous incarnations of musical performance as a game interface is in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998). The hero, Link, plays the titular instrument, directed by the player using pitch-assigned buttons on the gamepad. Much like Loom, the player learns particular melodies from other characters throughout the game, which, when played by Link, have certain effects, such as calling the hero’s horse, changing day to night, prompting rain and so on. To play the song in question, the player does not need accurate rhythms – it is only the order of pitches that is required – nevertheless, once a recognized pitch sequence is input (representing the first part of the melody), almost like an auto-correction system in a word processor, Link will subsequently play the melody with the correct timing and complete the tune that the player began. One might cynically view the musicality of the Zelda ocarina as entirely irrelevant to the game mechanic – it might as well be a random string of

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button-presses. Two aspects of the game counteract this perspective. First, the gamer may play freely on the ocarina, musically improvising as much as they wish and the game includes the facility for pitch-bending, which is not required for the ocarina’s role in the gameplay. Indeed, gamers are explicitly asked to exert their own musical agency where the player is challenged to compose a new eight-note melody which becomes part of the game’s song repertoire (for a song used to summon a scarecrow). Second, players are encouraged to remember the melodies as songs, with their musical qualities, rather than simply as codes. The memorable melodies are far easier to recall when thought of musically, as opposed to an unremarkable code. As I write this paragraph, I can remember the ‘Zelda’s Lullaby’ song, not primarily as a sequence of buttons, but as a melody, secondarily as a learnt physical gesture for manipulating the gamepad and only tertiarily as a sequence of buttons; this is the same hierarchy I experience when performing art music in piano recitals. Particularly taken with the scarecrow song, when the player must remember their own composition, the game tries to encourage a properly musical understanding of the instrumental interface. In doing so, in some small way, the game provides a musical educational experience by developing musical memory and asking players to become performers, listeners and composers. While musical performances are important in Ocarina and Loom, they are not the main focus of the gameplay. Video games that place a musical play dynamic front and centre have often been referred to as ‘music games’.1 At the core of this loosely defined interactive genre are rhythm and dancing games (like Dance Dance Revolution (1998)), karaoke games (like SingStar (2004)) and instrument performance games (like Guitar Hero (2005)). Each of these different types of game produces a distinct form of interaction with music. Dancing games may seem to be among the least musically involving types of music game. Flourishing in game arcades during the late 1990s, games like Dance Dance Revolution require the player to stand on a small stage in front of a video unit and press buttons on a floor pad in time with the music. Four arrows point in each compass-direction on the stage. The screen displays arrowheads scrolling vertically up the screen to a horizontal line of shape outlines at the top of the monitor. Upon reaching this line, the player must press the arrow(s) indicated. The stage has bright lights and a powerful

1

I here follow the taxonomy and definitions of Anahid Kassabian and Freya Jarman, as outlined in their chapter ‘Game and Play in Music Video Games’, in Michiel Kamp, Tim Summers and Mark Sweeey (eds.), Ludomusicology: Approches to Video Game Music (Sheffield: Equinox, Forthcoming).

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sound system, creating a miniaturized/localized disco. As the short songs play, the gamers listen to the rhythms and synchronize their actions to the song, so that they dance in time. Besides the song stopping midway through as a result of poor performance, the player does not have agency over the music and musical engagement appears minimal. However, Dance Dance Revolution includes a social dimension that turns game playing into public performance. Gamers enjoy not only playing the game themselves, but also the spectacle of the performance of others. The simplicity of the game is not constrictive. As Bill Loguidice and Matt Barton put it, ‘Because players are penalized only for not hitting correct dance steps and can add in their own, many Dance Dance Revolution aficionados create intricate flourishes and routines that are intended more for fun and the audience’s delight than for winning the game.’2 Dance Dance Revolution’s programming gives some degree of interpretive freedom to the players: it opens up the possibility for improvisation and performance authorship by the player.3 More recent dance games, like the Dance Central series (2010–14) and the Just Dance games (2009–14) demand that the player replicate whole body movements dictated by the game and thus restrict the player’s freedom to improvise. Nevertheless, in both games, dancing to the music provides the opportunity for cognitive-rhythmic engagement with the songs and an expressive performance as a response to the music. Karaoke singing games, however, offer far more musical agency to the player. In games like SingStar (2004–14) and Karaoke Revolution (2003–9), the player is shown a horizontal scrolling screen segment which displays the vocal ‘notes’ alongside the matching lyrics; latitudinal bars represent the pitch and duration of each note. The Karaoke Revolution engine features a small arrow that indicates whether the singer is sharp or flat in pitch (diagonally up or down to represent the adjustment needed) and changes colour depending on their precision. At the end of phrases, the game issues an on-screen judgement of the player’s singing (‘weak’, ‘great’, etc.). These games use audio analysis technology to assess the player’s vocal

2

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Bill Loguidice and Matt Barton, Vintage Games: An Insider Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the Most Influential Games of All Time (Burlington, MA and Oxford: Focal Press, 2009): 28. See also Demers, ‘Dancing Machines’ and Smith, ‘I Can See Tomorrow in Your Dance’. Subsequent games that used the Dance Dance Revolution model include Pump it Up (Andamiro, 1999), In the Groove (Roxor Games, 2004) and Dance Factory (Broadsword Interactive/ Codemasters, 2006). In the case of the open source PC version of Dance Dance Revolution, Stepmania (Open source, 2005), players are able to import their own songs and create the steps to accompany them.

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accuracy, which facilitates the point-scoring system that fuels the competition dimension of the game. Karaoke games have found a sizeable audience, but they have not achieved the sales success of games like Guitar Hero (of which more later). Karaoke has some popularity with adults in Western culture, but while dancing is easily performed in public or amongst larger groups of friends, singing is still tied up with performance inhibitions. In the particular case of the games that use pre-existing songs, self-consciousness about the voice is exacerbated where the player’s voice is easily compared to the standard set by the original artist’s well-known performance. Dance Dance Revolution’s constrained dance framing and the limited gestures of Just Dance/ Dance Central are less easily comparable to a well-known model. This is not to say that the karaoke games are intrinsically harder than dance games, merely that the nature of bodily output is exposed in a way more easily compared to a professional standard, thus making more obvious the amateur nature of the performance.4 This situation in the karaoke games at once inducts the player into the musical text and yet distances them from the ‘authentic’ version. The Guitar Hero/Rock Band games found a solution to this problem, which may explain their significantly wider appeal. Guitar Hero, and its many sequels (including Rock Band, the multiinstrument variation (2007)) sit within a long tradition of games in which the focus of the game is on playing an instrument, particularly when a model of the instrument is used as a controller. These games were initially featured in game arcades; the famous examples of which are BeatMania (1997) (DJ turntable), Samba de Amigo (1999) (maracas), Mambo a Go Go (2001) (bongo drums), Taiko no Tatsujin (2001) (taiko drum) and KeyboardMania (2000) (24-note keyboards). These games use a rhythmic button-pressing style, similar to that of Dance Dance Revolution, in an instrumental context.5 In Guitar Hero, the player, using a three-quarter size guitar-shaped controller, presses buttons on the guitar’s neck and flicks a flipper in the centre of the body to ‘strum’ each note. These ‘notes’

4

5

An additional reason for the different reception of dancing and singing activity may relate to the social reception of the musical activities. Dancing is popularly understood to be an activity performed by amateurs for the dancer’s own enjoyment, while singing is seen more as a performance for an audience of others, rather than for the performer’s own reward. This concept of singing as an audience-directed performance invites critique more readily than dancing, and thus provides a source of inhibition less pronounced in dance. The style of game that involves timed button presses has ancestry beyond Dance Dance Revolution, including PaRappa the Rapper (1996) and Dance Aerobics (1987), the latter of which used a floor pad for the NES. I am grateful to Melanie Fritsch for alerting me to Dance Aerobics.

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stream towards the player along a track styled like a guitar neck. When the markers reach the front of the screen, the player must strum with the appropriate neck buttons depressed. Guitar Hero uses pre-existing rock songs and the music system isolates the guitar part from the rest of the ensemble. If the player is performing correctly, strumming rhythmically accurately with the correct buttons depressed, the guitar track is audible and mixed appropriately with the band. If the player misses notes, or plays notes incorrectly, the part is muted (or replaced with a ‘plunking’ sound for significant errors). This effect is achieved by using the master tapes of the original recording of the song in order to manipulate the guitar part independently of the rest of the recording. Where such tapes were not available, authentic-sounding covers were created. Stretches of correct notes are rewarded with bonuses and certain power-ups can be activated by turning the guitar to point the neck vertically upwards in a suitably ‘rock’ pose. The gamer plays as a guitarist in a band, covering famous rock songs. While it is possible to play individual songs, the career mode allows progression through the stereotypical, quasi-legendary ‘rise of the rock band’ narrative, beginning with sets at minor local venues, working up to stadium shows, earning money at each concert. As players advance through the game, they unlock additional songs. The game works hard to represent and promote an appropriately rock aesthetic. The game’s tongue-in-cheek and excessively theatrical style is perfectly in tune with the rock mythology that it perpetuates. One of the ways in which this expression of rock culture is achieved is through the loading screens: a curious piece of trivia about a rock performer is displayed, or rockphilosophy aphorisms are shown, such as, ‘If the police aren’t complaining, you aren’t playing loud enough.’ This aesthetic direction is reflected in the choice of songs and bands: guitar/rock icons such as Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Cream and Deep Purple dominate, but the game also includes more recent artists such as Franz Ferdinand and Queens of the Stone Age. More than simply choosing popular and demographically appropriate songs, Guitar Hero is a participatory education in rock, something of which the producers were keenly aware. Designer Greg LoPiccolo commented, concerning the Ramones song ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’, We were like, ‘It’s morally obligated to be in the game. Lots of 10- and 12-year-old kids are going to buy this game. It’s our mission to make sure they learn about music they might not otherwise hear about.’6 6

Stephen Totilo, ‘“Guitar Hero”: The Video Game That Literally Rocks’, mtv.com (14 December 2005), retrieved from www.mtv.com/news/articles/1518159/20051214/story.jhtml, accessed 17 June 2015.

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Guitar Hero again illustrates the musical education that video games provide – here an induction into rock culture. Guitar Hero has also affected the reception of certain music genres and music purchasing among those who play the game.7 The songs are chosen to define rock for a new generation of listeners, in a medium that can present not only the audio texts, but situate them in their wider semiotic context. Guitar Hero and Rock Band branded sheet music books have been produced, containing songs from the games, developing the pathway for game players to become instrumental players, extending the musical education of the game into a new dimension. Much has been written about Guitar Hero and Rock Band as social phenomena and as culturally significant media texts, often exploring how musical creativity is at once limited and yet facilitated in these games.8 Arguments have typically been couched in terms of liberation (by simulating virtuoso guitar performance ability),9 or constraint, because, as Henry Svec writes, [The] player can either conform to the game’s logic by reproducing the requisite hits, which are presented as measurable, stable, complete, and eternal (structural), or not play at all . . . 10 [The player] works to recreate the compositions of others in a ‘live’ setting.11

The game rules out any musical creativity not in the original track: it cannot be heard at all. Svec continues, ‘Guitar Hero ironically enacts the grim realities of cultural production under capitalism – where richly creative bodies and minds struggle to perform in the narrow way that the logic of the game understands.’12 This description of unchangeable 7

8 9 11

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Jacobs Media research group report that ‘music-based video games are having a significant impact on music sales [and] are positively influencing music buying habits . . . [P]laying Rock Band and Guitar Hero directly leads to music sales. Of those who played them, nearly one-third say they’ve purchased songs featured on these games . . . Guitar Hero and Rock Band are having an impact on the way that music is being discovered and sold.’ Jacobs Media, ‘Tech Survey IV Rock-Based Video Games’, jacobsmedia.com (2008), retrieved from www.jacobsmedia.com/ articles/tech4rockgames.asp, accessed 27 January 2012. Both Demers, ‘Dancing Machines’: 410 and Smith, ‘I Can See Tomorrow in Your Dance’: 66 note how Dance Dance Revolution also influences players’ listening habits outside the gameplay time, where fans will play and listen to music from the game in everyday life. See Miller, ‘Schizophonic Performance’ and Moseley, ‘Playing Games with Music’. 10 Arsenault, ‘Guitar Hero’: 6–7. Svec, ‘Becoming Machinic Virtuosos’: 6. Svec, ‘Becoming Machinic Virtuosos’: 5. This description of fidelious performance is vaguely reminiscent of the accepted non-improvisatory practice of classical music performance. In Guitar Hero, however, even the limited expressive interpretative license afforded the classical performer is unavailable. Here, the romanticized hero is the ‘rock god’, whereas in classical music it is the composer (see also note 16). Svec, ‘Becoming Machinic Virtuosos’: 7.

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musical material fits into the larger cultural project of the historicization and canonization of popular music, for which Guitar Hero is an agent – ‘fixing’ popular music texts in the same way that classical art music pieces of the canon have similarly been enshrined and preserved in immutable states. While other music games create implied canons of popular music, it is Guitar Hero and members of the same series that stand out as would-be curators of the ‘the imaginary museum of [popular] musical works’.13 Svec’s bleak perspective does not seem to be matched by Guitar Hero players,14 whose experiences have been surveyed by Kiri Miller. According to Miller’s studies, those who feel ‘creative’ when playing the game do so because of the role-playing element, being able to somehow ‘tap into’ the music, or the illusion of creativity.15 Despite the virtual construct, the music is undoubtedly ‘real’, facilitated by the player’s interaction. Players are most often very aware that playing Guitar Hero bears very little resemblance to playing a real guitar. The important word in the game’s title, however, is not ‘guitar’, but ‘hero’ – this game is a not a simulation of playing the guitar, but of being a guitar hero – a ‘rock god’, performing rock songs to a large crowd. Thus the game requires particular music, images, language, humour, stereotypical avatars and gestures (such as the ability to deploy point-generated ‘star power’ by raising the guitar’s neck) to serve this purpose. The distance between the player and the original artist is made obvious: the rock heroes are considered superhuman because of their skill in live musical performance, guitar improvisation and song composition – the very elements unavailable to the player. The player has to remain a worshipper of this hero – a lesser being, but able to share in their greatness through role-playing as the deity. It would be heresy to attempt to change even any solo section, even if such solos were originally moments of improvisation. The player is limited to re-inscribing the solo captured on the record.16 A cover band has more freedom than the player 13 14

15 16

Goehr, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works. Svec ultimately regards Guitar Hero as satirical, criticizing the role of virtuosic production in the economy of immaterial labour, which is highlighted when ingenious players use modified Guitar Hero controllers for independent composition or as ‘real’ musical instruments (‘Becoming Machinic Virtuosos’: 7). Miller, ‘Schizophonic Performance’: 415–16. This replication of a once improvisatory, now fixed moment is not dissimilar to playing an authentic virtuosic cadenza by a composer such as Mozart. Similarly, musical biopics, even those who show the composer writing, are very unlikely to suggest any alternate possibilities to a famous composition’s final form (I am grateful to Guido Heldt for this observation). In Guitar Hero, the situation is more obvious since the solos were initially improvisations. Nevertheless, it

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who is here at the bottom of the musical hierarchy, since they do not have the ability to alter the musical text. The heroes are those that authentically create this music which has a visible effect on audiences. Only by playing such games can mere mortals harness this power. The role-playing extends to physical movement and secondary ‘performance’ in the act of playing the game and causing the music to emit, linking player and rock star. Contrasting with Guitar Hero, the Rocksmith games (2011, 2013) do not involve the same kind of role-playing: Rocksmith allows the player to connect their own ‘real’ electric guitar to the console. The game then works as a guitar tutor, teaching songs and instrumental skills. The result is similar to a combination of Guitar Hero and Karaoke Revolution, where the player’s personal musical performance is assessed. Guitar Hero and Rocksmith are superficially, even visually, similar, particularly when the technologically impressive Rocksmith teaches the player rock songs. But there are no avatars with outlandish costumes, no screaming crowds – the fantasy of the guitar hero has been exchanged for far greater player musical agency. Kiri Miller’s research into Guitar Hero players found that 74 per cent of the Guitar Hero gamers surveyed played a musical instrument.17 With Guitar Hero/Rock Band played by musically literate individuals, it seems likely that Guitar Hero and Rocksmith serve very different ends. Guitar Hero gamers are seeking something different from a game than a substitute for the experience of playing a real instrument. Virtuosity in Rocksmith has to be hard won by players through diligent practice. The two games show different sides of music performance and education in games. One deals with the fantasy of virtuoso performance and education about a musical culture, the other uses a gamified construct as an instrumental teacher. The co-existence and contrast of Guitar Hero and Rocksmith indicate the diversity of musical-interactive experiences in games. The genre of ‘music games’ has traditionally extended to include those in which there are no musical instruments represented and neither does the

17

indicates not only the primacy of the recorded/released version of the song, but also how players are not able to even suggest alternate versions of a solo passage. This dimension of the game might also represent a claim for artistic monumentality: as Adorno writes, ‘[I]n all music that deserves the name of art, every detail, even the simplest, would be itself; none would be arbitrarily interchangeable.’ (Theodor W. Adorno, Introduction to the Sociology of Music, trans. E.B. Ashton (New York: Continuum, 1976): 29). One could dialectically argue, however, that the improvisatory component itself (in all its substitutable and interchangeable glory) represents one such essential detail that should be properly preserved under Adorno’s art music construct. Thus the ‘fixing’ of improvisation, despite originating from an impulse for the canonization and historicizing of pop music, erodes some essential quality of its subject. Miller, ‘Schizophonic Performance’: 403.

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player perform in any traditional sense. While this is a very diffuse genre, games given the designation ‘music game’ are characterized by providing some kind of unusual mode of interacting with music, or making the player (at least appear) musically empowered. The particulars of the interaction rely upon the ludic mechanism of the game and the audio engine. In Audiosurf (2008), for example, player-imported music is transformed into a racetrack, providing the player with a new way of engaging with already-familiar music. Other games encourage a different listening perspective – the game Frequency (2001) presents the component layers of a song (vocals, drums, bass, etc.) separately. Here, the player triggers each part in turn, assembling the musical output by tapping the rhythm of each element, in the process training players to hear and appreciate the elements of pop songs. Rather more musically empowering are those where the player builds up a musical output from their ludic actions. Rez (2001) is a shooting game in which the player’s actions cause musical fragments to sound that form a club-dancelike soundscape as the game is played. In a similar way, as players in Chime (2010) use shapes to cover a 2D grid, they deploy snippets of music from preexisting pieces of music: players are given a variety of shapes to place to cover the area. A beat line repeatedly scrolls across the grid incrementally, left to right. When this metronomic bar meets a shape, it triggers a musical event, with the vertical axis representing pitch. As players cover the grid, individual pitches, musical phrases and whole sections of the song are ‘unlocked’.18 These games do not claim that players are ‘making’ or ‘creating’ the music, only that they are, to quote one of Chime’s designers, ‘driving the music through the gameplay’.19 Through playing the game, the player impacts on the articulation of the musical entity, propelling and releasing it, tempered by the indeterminate nature of the gameplay. In this way, the music/player interaction is more than simply unidirectional – each reacts to the other. The music is reward and propulsion in the game, in an interactive and sometimes surprising way. 18

19

Chime uses a three-level musical system: the background looping elements which change with the progression of the level, the musical phrases which are unlocked with combination bonuses, and the additional single pitches which are added by the player. These individual pitches are determined by the game’s engine, which calculates the possible and preferred harmonically consonant notes, and selects one depending on the position of the block on the grid. For more detail see the report written by Joe Hogan (Chime’s Lead Audio Engineer) on Chime’s music system. ‘Creating the Chime Music System’, chimegame.com (promotional website) (2009), retrieved from www.chimegame.com/creating-the-chime-music-system, accessed 17 June 2010. Mike Movel, ‘Designer Blog Part 2 – The Travelling Troubadour’, chimegame.com (promotional website) (2009), retrieved from www.chimegame.com/designer-blog-part-2-% E2%80%93-the-travelling-troubadour, accessed 17 June 2010.

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Music games create a relationship between the player and the musical text: one of a performer. Gamers appropriate songs, repeating performances until polished, sometimes, as in Dance Dance Revolution, adding interpretation in performance. This sharing of performance authorship is compelling, especially since it is otherwise unavailable to many players (whether due to a lack of technical knowledge, forums for performance, or any number of other reasons). Guitar Hero/Rock Band sheet music books represent an attempt to facilitate some transference between instrumental performance and game performance. The precise relationship that the player has with the music is determined by the musical-ludic mechanics of the game: in dance games, dancing is auxiliary to the song text. In Guitar Hero, the player ‘fills in’ an element of the music track by allowing the guitar line to be heard, in doing so, slotting into the role of the guitarist, appropriating the song for themselves. Karaoke games bring players closer to the musical text, but dispel some of the role-playing fantasy with the alltoo-human voice in the song, foregrounding the distance between the ‘authentic’ and the personally appropriated. As ‘correctly’ as players sing, they never re-create the original recording (unlike in Guitar Hero). The player’s own vocal self in the song is ‘too real’ to be heroic, but succeeds in providing a more personalized relationship with the song. The games that assemble a musical output through the gameplay situate the player as a composer/arranger, so that they may gain authorial agency without the need for developing composition skills. ‘Music games’ offer players a plethora of different relationships with music, most of which involve empowering and encouraging gamers to produce musically successful outcomes. When playing games that ostentatiously present an interactive connection between game mechanics and music, players seek to understand the nature of this relationship. Music will be examined for its ludic significance, while game action will be interrogated to understand its connection with the music. Players will find interrelations between the choreography of Dance Dance Revolution and the accompanying song – the steps interpret the music as choreographic response. Similarly, in Audiosurf, the track design will be assessed by players for its relationship with the song; in Chime, the shapes will be analysed for their association with parts of the musical fragments; while Rez players seek to match musical sounds to the game events and so on, as dictated by the programming for each game. In Guitar Hero, the player is led to understand each song as a gameplay round, in terms of easy and harder passages, bonus sections (solos) and opportunities for advanced performance

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techniques.20 Through this process of interrogating the musical component of the game in the frame of the gameplay, players are undertaking a form of musical analysis, critically listening to the music in an investigative way. We might even consider the gameplay mechanic as an analytical/interpretive frame for the musical outputs, encouraging players to adopt particular modes of listening. The nature of analytical listening and musical interpretation in games relies upon the way that the music is integrated into the game. Through the gameplay, music is given what might be termed a ‘game setting’. Just as an opera is re-staged repeatedly in different ways, so the musical material of a piece is ‘staged’ or ‘set’ when it is included in a music video game. To use more traditional terminology, the game setting serves as a kind of video game mise-en-scène as gameplay is presented as an expression of, or complementary to, the music. The setting of a song extends from the general semiotic world in which the music is set (as in Guitar Hero) to the format of the gameplay, or the specific choreography created for a song. In each case, the games interpret the music in terms of other contextual frames. Music games are lessons in reading music – players are shown ways of interpreting, performing and listening to music. One game will favour certain musical qualities and produce musical meanings that another ludic setting will not. Even if the same piece of music was included in Dance Dance Revolution, Karaoke Revolution, Guitar Hero and Audiosurf, it would be read differently as the context colours the player’s understanding of the music in each game. The diversity of different ways of listening is shown in these games that produce exciting modes of interpreting and engaging with music.21 Game producers hope that the musical-ludic mechanics of the game provide interaction with music in a fashion that the player/listener finds rewarding. This interaction can include being ‘inserted’ into the music, as in the karaoke games, role-playing as a Guitar Hero, or finding a new mode of relating to the music through bodily expression. In Dance Dance Revolution, as Joanna Demers reports, ‘songs are appreciated not only through listening, but through dancing’.22 Some games re-present already 20

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See, for example, this strategy guide for the song ‘Jordan’ by Buckethead in Guitar Hero II. ‘CryofthePlanet’, ‘Guitar Hero II Jordan Expert Guide’, neoseeker (2008) www.neoseeker.com/ guitar-hero-ii/faqs/159869-jordan.html, accessed 21 June 2015. These different articulations of musical performance are perhaps similar to the realism spectrum of racing games discussed earlier. I am grateful to Ben Winters for this observation. Demers, ‘Dancing Machines’: 410, emphasis original.

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familiar music in a new game-expression, allowing players to experience the music in a different and potentially enriching way. These new modes of hearing can be traced throughout the games here discussed, as the player has to learn how to listen to the music in terms of the game in order to play successfully. This musical education is part of the satisfying appeal of the games as much as the obvious challenges they provide. Despite the ‘Adornian nightmare’ that Guitar Hero can potentially represent,23 such games may also create new ‘expert listeners’.24

Music-Ludic Interaction and Fantastic Synergy Complex interactions between gameplay and music are not, of course, limited to the domain of ‘music games’; such ludic-musical interactivity is sometimes integrated in the service of broader aesthetic goals. From the earliest video games, music has been utilized to accentuate ludic events and sonically emphasize the player’s agency. In video games of the 1970s, sports games were a dominant presence. The limitations of early audio technology meant that game sound often consisted of monophonic pitches and glissandi. These early beeping games produce audio that is simultaneously both sound effect and music – undoubtedly pitched and often tuned so that across the game, tones match intervals such as octaves, semitones and fifths, but with a brevity and synchronization with game action that suggests a sound effect. Take, for example, Pong (1972), in which tones are used to articulate the game structure and state: A typical Pong game uses three tones, one for the ball hitting the bat, another for the ball against the wall and a third for a ‘win/lose’ moment when the ball is missed by the bat. The ball against the bat tone is an octave higher than the tone used for the ball on the wall, while the ‘win/lose’ tone is a fuzzy, distorted sounding of the lower pitch. The tones are not organized by the logic of attempting to create realistic sound effects, but the significance of the events for the gameplay progression. This use of music in a ‘mickey-mousing’ fashion, to render the action more impactful and meaningful is evident throughout the sports games domain of this period: there is no reason why scoring in one basket in Atari’s Basketball (1979, XE edition) should prompt one tone, and in the opponent’s basket, produce a tone an octave below it, other than the significance this holds for the gameplay. Such musicalization 23 24

Miller, ‘Schizophonic Performance’: 405. Adorno, Introduction to the Sociology of Music: 4ff.

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is typical of early game sound and evident in most sports games of the era. With graphical limitations, musical sound helps to give the impression of a wide range of movement (borrowed partly from the learnt signification of ‘mickey-mouse’ technique from film), dynamizing the gameplay action and giving sonic voice to the ludic structure. The tradition of music dynamizing the ludic action is not limited to games of the 1970s and 1980s, nor is the phenomenon of gameplay activity determining the musical output limited to what have traditionally been thought of as ‘music games’. The snowboarding games SSX Tricky (2001) and SSX 3 (2003) are particularly apt examples of games in which players ‘play’ the music in games by utilizing their agency to alter the musical output, as part of a broader gameplay mechanism. These games use a music implementation system more complex than the simple unaltered insertion of music into the game found in many sports titles.25 Most players will be primarily familiar with snowboarding from edited extreme sports videos, in which music is typically deployed so that musical climaxes synchronize with events in the footage. The SSX games apply this synchronization to in-game music: the game manipulates music in real-time, responding to the gameplay, depending on the events of the race. Each race is accompanied by a piece of club dance music. These pieces are manipulated during the race, so that musical climaxes synchronize with important moments of the gameplay: for example, when the player’s snowboarder jumps into the air, filters (such as phasing effects) are applied and certain elements of the music muted, only to be re-introduced upon landing. As Steve Schnur, a music executive at SSX’s developer Electronic Arts described, [SSX 3] synchronizes music interaction with individual gameplay. It’s a revolutionary way to play the game; Imagine [sic] going off-course and having the music drop to bass-and-drum tracks. Get back on-course and you’re in the verse again. Cross the finish line and the chorus explodes.26

Schnur considers the effect of the music system on the aesthetic experience of the game substantial to the point of being a fundamentally different

25

26

For a description of the music in Cool Boarders 2 (EUP/Sony, 1997) see David Bessell, ‘What’s That Funny Noise? An Examination of the Role of Music in Cool Boarders 2, Alien Trilogy and Medievil 2’, in Geoff King and Tanya Krzywinska (eds.) Screenplay: Cinema/Videogames/ Interfaces (London and New York: Wallflower, 2002), 136–144. Rusty James, ‘SSX3 Interview with Steve Schnur’, music4games.net (2003), retrieved from http:// web.archive.org/web/20041025072246/www.music4games.net/f_ssx3.html, accessed 24 July 2015.

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manner of play. Perhaps he hopes that the musical interaction creates a new level of gameplay as the gamer plays along with the music, experimenting with, and responding to the soundtrack. To produce this effect, SSX uses a combination of fading between musical layers and loops, and queuing new musical sections for segue.27 Part of the effectiveness of the music implementation comes from its seamlessness. While not without glitches (occasionally vocal tracks can be suddenly silenced mid-note, momentarily breaking the fantastic illusion), by and large, the impression of mysterious synchronicity is preserved; music ‘happens’ to fit perfectly with the events of the game.28 SSX 3 is narrated by a radio DJ and the audio inducts the player into the world of SSX, adding coherence to the entire game. In Tricky, music merely emanates from the ether, though if we were to position the gamer’s ears anywhere, it would be within the consciousness of the snowboarder, as though they were imagining their own soundtrack to the race, since it is the snowboarder who most vividly experiences the jumps and movements that alter the music.29 This phenomenon binds the player and snowboarding experience closer, through the avatar. As in music games, by playing the game, the gamer, in changing the musical output, is also somehow simultaneously ‘playing’ the music. In SSX 3 the DJ introduces the music, sometimes by artist and/or track name. But if the music is supposedly a record on a radio, how does it match the player’s race experience?30 This is part of what might be termed the fantasy of synergy: the magical effect of the hero to whom all other elements either submit or synchronize. The player is ‘in tune’ with the music and world, making them feel powerful and heroic, bolstered and

27

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The music engine used in SSX, Pathfinder, is a proprietary piece of software, owned by EA for in-house productions. As well as the interactive soundtrack described here, musical stingers sound depending on ingame events, such as gaining first place during a race, or executing an impressive snowboarding trick. In the case of SSX Tricky, after achieving several points from tricks, a ‘super trick’ is possible, which prompts an excerpt from Run-D.M.C.’s ‘It’s Tricky’ to play. If this superpower goes unused, it fades, accompanied by another sample of the song, manipulated by a slowingdown effect. These additional musical effects, however, are secondary to the music tracks that always accompany the gameplay. Internet snowboarding forums reveal a variety of opinions concerning listening to music while snowboarding. Many snowboarders listen to music only through one earphone, to maintain a degree of aural awareness. The video game allows a full stereo experience without inhibiting perception of the environment. The player can subvert the DJ by creating their own playlist from the game’s music, or by silencing him. In addition, the player’s musical power is demonstrated to be greater than that of the DJ with their ability to alter the music through their snowboarding actions.

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supported in this construct. Music places the player ‘in the groove’. Miraculously, everything is in total synergy with them. SSX’s music system brings players closer to the sport by delivering an aesthetic of dance music with musical synchronization, which emulates the form in which the sport is most frequently encountered by players outside games (sports videos). The music mirrors the race progress by altering depending on certain events in a predictable and interpretable fashion: the change to downtempo music recognizes that the player has entered the offcourse section and responds to this event. The player is off the beaten track (quite literally) of the music as much as the course. Exploring physical territory is matched by exploring musical territory as particular areas of the landscape are assigned musical sections. The musical processes are common between tracks, allowing the player to recognize musical changes and their signified meanings even in different tracks and on first hearing. Such narration monumentalizes the race through the synchronized musical trace of the racing activity. The game pays attention to the race responding to, and appreciating, the player’s actions as a knowledgeable entity. Musical synchronization in this fashion adds emphasis to the events of the race, particularly when the snowboard lands accompanied by the reintroduction of a drum track. One journalist described the music’s synchronization as making the game ‘that much more intense to play’.31 The music dynamizes the gameplay and the gameplay seems to dynamize the music. Such an effect is not so different from the pitches and glissandi of the early Pong-era sports games, nor from the music games in which player agency manipulates the musical output. In many games, players of music and players of games become one and the same in a very direct way.

The Video Game as a Musical Instrument Playing games as, and while, playing music has been a recurring theme of this book since the cartoon I introduced in the Introduction. We have explored a diverse range of situations in which gameplay action controls and determines music, sometimes in very complicated ways, sometimes in rather more straightforward modes of implementation. It is worth 31

Greg Kasavin, Gamespot SSX3 Video Review (2003), video retrieved from http:// uk.gamespot.com/ps2/sports/ssx3/video/6077087/ssx-3-video-review?tag=summary%3Bwatchreview, accessed 30 December 2010.

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emphasizing that when we notice that gamers play, and play with, music as they play games, this is not an analogy – players are routinely given agency to prompt and alter musical output of the game. This may not necessarily be in a format that one might traditionally understand musical agency to be incarnated, but nevertheless, it is part of a modern landscape of musical instrumentation that includes synthesizers, turntables, samplers and virtual instrument software. If we are to investigate this formulation further, then the game system appears as the musical instrument that is played by the gamer. This idea of the game as a musical instrument is one that has been explored by video game producers, including those responsible for the flagship titles of one of the world’s largest video game companies. The Mario series of platform games produced by Nintendo have traditionally involved a high degree of sonic responsiveness to game action. Even in the first Super Mario game, Super Mario Bros. (1985), Mario’s jump is musicalized with a rising glissando, collecting coins sounds as a rising fourth, an ascending sequence accompanies a power-up, and so on. Such synchronized musical responsiveness rewards player interaction and, in reacting to the player’s actions, apparently plays with the gamer. 3D platforming games Super Mario Galaxy (2007) and its sequel (2010) feature music that tightly synchronizes with, and dynamizes, in-game events. Alongside a looping underscore cue that is mainly area-specific, nearly every game occurrence (from winning a level, to solving puzzles, to collecting a power-up or token, to selecting menu options) is accompanied by a musical chime or stinger. Some of the many examples of Mario Galaxy’s playfully responsive music includes: • Mario must traverse a level while riding atop a large sphere. The music is programmed to play at a tempo directly proportional to the speed of the sphere. • When Mario uses a ‘launch star’ to catapult himself through space, a harp arpeggio synchronizes with this movement. The arpeggio matches the harmony that the underscore is sounding at that particular moment. • During the game selection menu, the pitches that sound when the player hovers over a menu option change to be harmonically consonant with the underscore, forming a countermelody if repeatedly triggered. • In one challenge, Mario must collect a set of musical note icons. When obtaining each one, a few notes of a piece of music are heard, so that when Mario runs to collects the notes in quick succession, the melody plays as a coherent whole (as dictated by the speed at which Mario collects the fragments).

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• An end-of-level boss, King Kaliente, fires projectiles at Mario. To defeat him, Mario must deflect certain missiles back at the boss. Each successful ricochet and impact that Mario achieves produces a musical response in the form of a pitch sounded in a synthesized brass timbre. Every time Mario executes a successful return, the notes incrementally rise in pitch. This progression lets the player know that this is the correct course of action to beat the boss (and that they should continue with this strategy). If too much time passes between successful returns, the boss heals, and the player must begin the chain of attacks again, which is sonically articulated by the brass interjections returning to the first, lowest, pitch. Such musical reactivity to player action musicalizes and celebrates the interactive nature of the game. Even what is not ostensibly a ‘music game’, this is undoubtedly a musical game (like SSX), bestowing small degrees of musical agency upon the player, in diverse and interesting ways that are often surprising. When I play Mario Galaxy and discover musical reactivity, I smile and experience delight at the unexpected and newfound opportunity for musical interaction. I immediately begin to play with the localized musical interactive system, testing its limits and responses to my input through experimentation. Small moments of joy like this significantly enhance the fun of the whole experience of playing Mario Galaxy, lending an aura of playfulness to the game. Such moments of musical play are microcosms of the way that the game’s producers conceive of the game as a whole. When the programmers and composers of Super Mario Galaxy discuss the game and its sequel, they describe their conception of both the music and, crucially, the game as a whole in musical terms, which helps to explain the agenda of synchronicity and dynamism during the game. A departure from previous Mario titles, Super Mario Galaxy uses some acoustically recorded music. The designers were reticent to record the score in this way, out of fear that such a score would be less easily programmed for close correspondence with the game’s action.32 The technical challenges were obviously surmounted and the composers report that with this score, ‘the

32

Satoru Iwata, ‘Iwata Asks: Super Mario Galaxy. Volume 3: The Sound Team’, wii.com (c.2007), retrieved from http://web.archive.org/web/20110217202837/http://us.wii.com/iwata_asks_ vol3_index.jsp; http://web.archive.org/web/20110716234037/http://us.wii.com/iwata_asks_ vol3_page2.jsp; http://web.archive.org/web/20110716234048/http://us.wii.com/iwata_ asks_vol3_page3.jsp; http://web.archive.org/web/20110511113513/http://us.wii.com/iwata_ asks_vol3_page4.jsp, all accessed 24 July 2015.

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game’s rhythm improved, and the players are able to focus better on the game play’.33 Though the composers’ account is rather ambiguous, it seems as though they are describing an immersive ‘flow’ effect, encouraged by the score. The clever music programming of Super Mario Galaxy allows the quasi-musical sound effects to synchronize and harmonically mesh with the accompanying score, ‘blending’ (as the producers describe) the sound effects and underscore components into an integrated sonic landscape.34 Notions of determinably diegetic and non-diegetic sound dissolve as the whole game activity takes on a musical quality. While Martin O’Donnell, audio director for the Halo series of first-person shooter games, repeatedly claims that it is the job of sound effects to ‘make it real’ and music to ‘make you feel’,35 Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto has long insisted on ‘sound effects “You Can Feel”’.36 It is perhaps unsurprising, then, to find that so many of Nintendo’s sound effects are distinctly musical, tightly synchronized to the game action and seamlessly gelled with the underscore. Miyamoto has spoken of his attempt to ‘to give people something that they felt a connection to’ and create a rewarding play experience (what he terms ‘resonance’).37 In essence, Miyamoto describes how an interactive universe gives a sense of response to interaction. ‘Resonance’ is further developed by Mario Galaxy’s producer, Yoshiaki Koizumi, whose discussion with Nintendo’s late president, Satoru Iwata, is worth quoting at length. koizumi: I started learning guitar recently . . . I thought maybe a Mario game is a kind of musical instrument . . . For example, if someone hands you a Mario game, you can play all kinds of different ways, but a first-time player just walks around and maybe jumps once. That’s like playing a single string on a guitar. Then, when you get a little better, you do a Wall Jump, like playing two strings. You play the same song over and over again, and get better and better, and in the end, you can use all six strings and have more and more fun. I think that’s like Mario. Our job is to make a song that you enjoy as you improve.

33 36 37

34 35 Ibid. Ibid. O’Donnell, ‘Producing Audio for Halo’. Iwata, ‘Iwata Asks: Super Mario Galaxy. Volume 3: The Sound Team’. Satoru Iwata, ‘Iwata Asks: Super Mario Galaxy 2. Vol. 1’, wii.com (c.2010a), retrieved from http://web.archive.org/web/20110217161254/http://us.wii.com/iwata_asks/supermariogalaxy2/ vol1_page1.jsp; http://web.archive.org/web/20110217185622/http://us.wii.com/iwata_asks/ supermariogalaxy2/vol1_page2.jsp; http://web.archive.org/web/20110217185510/http://us.wii .com/iwata_asks/supermariogalaxy2/vol1_page3.jsp, all accessed 24 July 2015.

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Koizumi understands the game similar to a musical instrument in which the avatar’s moves are equivalent to the strings of a guitar or violin (domains of sound production), and players can become virtuosi with practice on this instrument. Different gamers have their own ways of playing this instrument and use moves (performative gestures) to complete levels (pieces). Just as personal interpretations of a piece may sound very different, one gamer/player’s performance of a level will contrast with another’s because of the deployment of such performative gestures. With the heavily musicalized interactions in Mario Galaxy game, the analogy of game-system as musical instrument becomes literally voiced. Different ways of playing the game (read instrument) produce divergent

38

Satoru Iwata, ‘Iwata Asks: Super Mario Galaxy 2. Vol. 2’, wii.com (c.2010b), retrieved from http://web.archive.org/web/20110217161738/http://us.wii.com/iwata_asks/supermariogalaxy2/ vol2_page1.jsp; http://web.archive.org/web/20110217162523/http://us.wii.com/iwata_asks/ supermariogalaxy2/vol2_page2.jsp; http://web.archive.org/web/20110217161103/http://us.wii .com/iwata_asks/supermariogalaxy2/vol2_page3.jsp; http://web.archive.org/web/ 20110217162756/http://us.wii.com/iwata_asks/supermariogalaxy2/vol2_page4.jsp; http://web .archive.org/web/20110217152552/http://us.wii.com/iwata_asks/supermariogalaxy2/ vol2_page5.jsp, all accessed 24 July 2015.

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musical/sonic outputs, but the ‘piece’ being played (level) will anchor the plethora of performances in some commonality. The musical interactions of Mario Galaxy give sonic expression to the otherwise unheard musicality of the game system as a whole. The testimony of composers and producers reveals how the music in Mario games enhances the musical instrument quality of the game itself. The audio programmers emphasize the importance of music that is in some way ‘fun’.39 The ‘fun’ dimension of the game encourages players to practice playing, and enjoy performing (with), the game. The playfulness and ‘resonance’ of Mario’s highly interactive score creates a space for the player’s empowered improvisation on the instrument that is the Mario game. Just as fulfilment from playing a musical instrument comes from the performance of music, so a responsive musical score emphasizes the performative dimension of the game (Miyamoto’s ‘resonance’). It is for this reason that the musical score is discussed by the producers as ‘express[ing] functions’ of the game.40 The highly interactive score of Mario is successful because it seeks to unleash the musicality (rhythm/tempo, ‘resonance’ and performance) of the video game itself. *** In this chapter, we have seen that playing video games and playing music can overlap, sometimes even conflate with each other. Such situations are not limited to those in which musical instruments are specifically shown. Games can offer new ways of providing and presenting musical interactivity for the player. With their musical agency, gamers play, and crucially play with, music in a dynamic and reactive way. I have argued for this ‘musically playful’ perspective on games at some length. While it might be expected for a musicologist to argue for a music-centric understanding of the medium, I nevertheless propose that there are two useful broader implications of this viewpoint.

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40

Satoru Iwata, ‘Iwata Asks: Super Mario Galaxy 2. Vol. 3’, wii.com (c.2010c), retrieved from http://web.archive.org/web/20110217162933/http://us.wii.com/iwata_asks/supermariogalaxy2/ vol3_page1.jsp; http://web.archive.org/web/20110217203235/http://us.wii.com/iwata_asks/ supermariogalaxy2/vol3_page2.jsp; http://web.archive.org/web/20110217202734/http://us.wii .com/iwata_asks/supermariogalaxy2/vol3_page3.jsp; http://web.archive.org/web/ 20110217202618/http://us.wii.com/iwata_asks/supermariogalaxy2/vol3_page4.jsp; http://web .archive.org/web/20110217202432/http://us.wii.com/iwata_asks/supermariogalaxy2/ vol3_page5.jsp, all accessed 24 July 2015. Ibid.

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Emphasizing the musical play of games helps us to understand the importance of music in the game experience. This is especially true of situations where player action is dynamized by the score – as the reviewer quoted earlier said of SSX, such interaction makes games ‘that much more intense to play’. Because of the potential of music in the medium, games can provide significant musical experiences for players (indeed, the cluster of ‘music games’ is premised on this belief) and even represent a form of musical education for players. From the perspective of game play and musical play, we ask ourselves to interrogate what kind of musical education and experiences are being provided by the games – whether they are cultural (Guitar Hero), analytical (Audiosurf), or compositional (Ocarina of Time). The second implication is that musical (particularly instrumental) play is a useful way to understand video games. In considering the instrumental qualities of the game which is played by the gamer, we highlight the performative dimension of gameplay, concepts of player virtuosity and skill, the idea of engaging and responding with technology, and even the way that practice, individualistic performance and repetition are formulated in video games. Like instrumental musicians, gamers learn proficiency with a game, repeat sections until successfully executed, find their own particular style of play, favour certain texts and passages over others, and so on. Games also readily provide interplay. This is a quality encountered in musical performance when playing in an ensemble with others: a co-op sonata for clarinet and piano, a multiplayer string quartet, etc. Interplay in collaborative performance (whether in a rock band or classical ensemble) is mirrored in games by the interactive nature of the medium, responding to the player’s actions. The joy that I receive from musical exchange between band members in a jazz ensemble is not so far removed from the dynamic interaction with a game. Games do not just supply something to play, they provide something to play with. Playing a game is like, and sometimes quite literally involves, playing music. This shared quality of play has been explored here, but to further investigate this connecting bond, we must directly focus on the concept of play, which we will explore in the Epilogue.

Conceptual Toolkit: Musical performance in games – games frequently involve musical performance of one type or another. This might include the

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representation of musical instruments, but might equally occur through manipulation of icons or abstract shapes. Musical performance in games may also happen via the player’s ability to alter and direct music through the game mechanism more generally. Two major parameters of such performances are i) the musicality of the player’s input and ii) the degree and nature of musical agency afforded players in the game mechanic. Karaoke Revolution involves the singing performance of the player, while Rocksmith gamers play on their own guitars. Guitar Hero, on the other hand, does not allow divergence from the pre-existing song. Chime allows the reorganization of elements of a song, together with some player elaboration, even if the agency is enacted through the placement of abstract shapes. Musical education – games describe, explain and teach players about music. This may involve educating players about a musical culture, prompting and facilitating musical activity by players, or encouraging players to hear and analyse music in certain ways. Guitar Hero presents and inducts players into rock music culture, Ocarina of Time develops players’ musical memories and encourages them to become composers, and music games like Audiosurf and Chime ask players to analyse the music for correspondence with the gameplay. Dynamizing play – similar to the filmic tradition of ‘mickey-mousing’, musical accentuation is used to emphasize and dynamize the player’s actions and activity in the game. Pong uses pitched tones to give sonic voice to the ludic events. The tuning and placement of these sounds cannot be explained simply as sound effects – they structure and dynamize the play. ‘Fantastic synergy’ – The aesthetic effect of seamless synchronicity where the player’s activity is musically accompanied and represented, particularly when the aim is to create the illusion that the music is pre-existing or otherwise fixed. SSX uses a music engine that carefully gives the impression that preexisting pieces of music match and synchronize with the game action. The powerful player is ‘in tune’ as elements of the virtual world fit with their actions. Game as instrument – A conceptual viewpoint in which the gamer is a performer, playing the instrument represented by the game to sound the different pieces (levels) in the game.

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Super Mario Galaxy’s producers understand the game as a musical instrument, conceptualizing the player’s interaction with the game as a performance, through negotiation with the technology. Mario Galaxy voices this perspective through a reactive and responsive musical score that sounds and accentuates the musical-performative conception of gameplay.

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u Epilogue Fun, Play and Music

[A]bove all, video games are meant to be just one thing – fun. Fun for everyone. – Satoru Iwata, President of Nintendo, 2002–20151

I began this volume by suggesting a link between play as it applies to video games and play in the context of music. In the intervening chapters we have encountered many different ways in which music is part of the way that gamers play games – from building the worlds and realities that are played with, to the communication of information useful for succeeding at winning the game, or, as in the last chapter, as part of exerting musical agency. To conclude this book, I wish to examine this common playful impulse further and try to understand why the combination of music and gameplay should be quite so significant. As one might expect from a nebulous phenomenon, play has been theorized in a great multiplicity of ways. Psychologists, philosophers, game designers, sociologists and educationalists have all proposed different formulations of play.2 Common to nearly all examinations of play are three recurring components: • some notion of rules, parameters or external forces that serve as boundaries or frames for play,

1

2

Satoru Iwata, ‘Disrupting Development’, Game Developers’ Conference, San José, 23 March 2006. Video available from https://archive.org/details/2006-gdc-nintendo-keynote-tape-z-200603-23, accessed 13 July 2015. For a psychological approach, see Stuart Brown, with Christopher Vaughan, Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul (New York: Avery, 2009), for a philosophical approach, see Bernard Suits, The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2014), for a perspective from game designers, see Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals (Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 2004): Unit 3, for a sociological perspective, see Thomas S. Henricks, Play Reconsidered: Sociological Perspectives on Human Expression (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006), for an educational perspective, see Michael Patte and Fraser Brown, Rethinking Children’s Play (London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013) and for a history of the different perspectives on play, see Brian Sutton-Smith, The Ambiguity of Play (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1997).

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• creativity within those given rules/parameters/forces and • a distinct mood or attitude of play. These same three properties can be observed across the spectrum of scholarly definitions and descriptions of play, shared even between different disciplinary perspectives. Biologists Patrick Bateson and Paul Martin, as part of their argument that ‘[p]lay enables the individual to discover new approaches to dealing with the world’,3 describe the factors outlined above, respectively, as the environment, novel solutions to dealing with the world, and playfulness, a ‘positive mood state that facilitates and accompanies’ the kind of play that generates these novel solutions.4 Sociologist Thomas Henricks characterizes these same three issues as ‘external objects’, ‘a scheming or manipulative stance of subjects toward external objects’ and the ‘wave of sensations’ during play,5 while cultural historian Johan Huizinga defines them as ‘rules’, ‘voluntary activity or occupation’ and ‘a feeling of tension, joy and the consciousness that it is “different” from “ordinary life”’.6 In this final category, of the ‘mood or attitude’ of play, Huizinga also stressed the importance of fun of play, claiming that it is the ‘fun-element that characterizes the essence of play’.7 As reported in the epigraph to this chapter, Nintendo’s former President shared this belief, even going so far as to say that fun is the main purpose of games. For me, the connection between playing games and playing music (in my case, particularly playing the piano and listening to music) comes not from the similarity of manipulating joysticks and piano keys, nor especially from an activity that I perceive to be segregated from everyday life.8 Instead, the most visceral and obvious connection between the two is that they are both activities that are immensely fun. I play games because I enjoy the fun that I have playing them. I play, compose, listen and write about music because I enjoy the fun that I have doing so. It is unsurprising that associations of music, especially ‘art music’, with fun have historically been underplayed in musicological literature and ‘serious’ criticism. Music historians and theorists have long grappled with,

3

4 6 8

Patrick Bateson and Paul Martin, Play, Playfulness, Creativity and Innovation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013): 5. 5 Bateson and Martin, Play, 2–8. Henricks, Play Reconsidered: 185, 192. 7 Huizinga, Homo Ludens: 28. Huizinga, Homo Ludens: 3. As Brian Upton has pointed out, Huizinga himself undermines the notion of play as separated from ordinary life, when he identifies the play element in so much of everyday activity. Brian Upton, The Aesthetic of Play (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2015): 15.

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and perpetuated, a false dichotomy between art and entertainment. In the fallacious binary discourse of what Andreas Huyssen calls ‘The Great Divide’ – that is, ‘the kind of discourse which insists on the categorical distinction between high art and mass culture’,9 fun most definitely invokes the ‘mass culture’ and ‘not-art’ category. As composers and critics claim that ‘proper music’ (whatever the particular style the author is promoting) is far more than ‘mere entertainment’, fun has been ignored in favour of claims for capital-g Greatness and significant cultural, sometimes ethical, merit; for example, Julian Johnson, a well-known advocate for the modernist position, writes that ‘the value of music-as-art is essentially ethical’.10 Fun, with its associations with play, frivolity and transient dispensability are hardly compatible with the grumpy glare of Beethoven, chiselled into many a stone monument. Beethoven does not smile and neither does he play games, for this is serious art: to talk about enjoyment, pleasure and, heaven forbid, fun, is to miss the point.11 But this is where the hardline modernist position breaks with our experience of music, which is important to us precisely because it is pleasurable, enjoyable, emotionally affecting and fun. I would suggest that part of music criticism’s paranoia about its own purpose and status stems from this significance of the fun and playful elements to our experience of music. It is entirely understandable that arguments which engage with music as fun play have not been much in evidence. Widespread recognition of the importance of play in wider society is an ongoing project, so when arts organizations have to make the case for funding, resources and the place of certain types of music in culture, a discourse based upon entertainment, play and fun are not helpful. It is for this reason that John Cage’s comment, in his 1957 lecture on experimental music, that writing music could be thought of as

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Andreas Huyssen, After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986): viii. Julian Johnson, Who Needs Classical Music? (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002): 9. Perhaps this denial of fun and play in music is linked to the absurd received wisdom that ‘great’ composers have no need of instruments to compose or write down their compositions – that somehow, not composing on an instrument, not engaging with the instrumental experimentation and sonic substance of music (i.e. bypassing any obvious play) is a mark of a greater composer. Contrary to popular myth it is well-documented that Haydn, Mozart, Schumann, Stravinsky and even Beethoven (to name but five of the ‘greats’) all composed using an instrument. See Lewis Lockwood, Beethoven: The Music and the Life (New York: Norton, 2003): 280ff; Charles Rosen, Piano Notes: The Hidden World of the Pianist (London: Penguin, 2004): 12–15; Graham Griffiths, Stravinsky’s Piano: Genesis of a Musical Language (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013): 105.

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‘purposeless play’,12 was a radical position, daring to name the spectres that haunt modernism’s guilty conscience. In his critical review of Julian Johnson’s work, Richard Taruskin connects the dots between music and pleasure for us: John Cage once observed that he was fortunate in that his work was also his entertainment. That was his explanation for his lifelong commitment to the practice of a particularly abstruse brand of art-making that afforded little or no pecuniary return: he took pleasure in it . . . That pleasure, the agreeable mental pursuit that (if one is persistent and lucky) can repay the pursuer with a great intensity of delight, was certainly my own conduit into what has become my vocation. Wasn’t it Johnson’s? Isn’t it everybody’s? Can there be any other motivation for engagement with art? Before romanticism raised the stakes, the purpose of art was always described as that of ‘pleasing.’ All pretenses notwithstanding, other purposes, and especially Johnson’s, remain secondary.13

Pleasure and delight exist in the same orbit as fun. This is not, of course, to say that musical experiences are always positively emotional, nor are they only valued when the mood is joyful. The same is true of games – we keep playing even if we lose (as I frequently do playing Rayman Legends), we jump and become art-scared in Dead Space, and some games are intensely emotional experiences. To cite just one example, when the tear-jerking Japanese RPG Mother (1989) used the tagline, ‘Please don’t cry until the end’, it was promising a rich emotional experience that would be attractive to gamers. ‘Fun’ is not synonymous with ‘happy’ or ‘winning’, but the emotional reward for engagement is what keeps us playing in both situations. What then, is ‘fun’? Perhaps it can be conceptualized in a way that is helpful to understanding music and games. Game designer Raph Koster tackles the issue of finding fun in his book, A Theory of Fun. Rather tellingly, he uses a description of listening to music to explain his conception of fun: The first time you hear bebop jazz it may sound weird to you . . . If you get past your initial distaste (which may last only a fraction of a second), you may come to see the patterns inherent in it. For example, you’ll spot the flattened fifth that is so important to a jazzy sound. You’ll start drumming your fingers to the expected 4/4 beat, and find to your dismay that it’s actually 7/8 or some other meter. You’ll be at 12

13

John Cage, ‘Experimental Music’ (1957), reprinted in John Cage, Silence: Lectures and Writings 50th Anniversary Edition (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press: 2011): 16. Richard Taruskin, ‘The Musical Mystique’, The New Republic (22 October 2007), retrieved from www.newrepublic.com/article/the-musical-mystique, accessed 16 July 2015.

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sea for a bit, but you may experience a little thrill of delight once you get it, and experience a moment of discovery, of joy . . . [O]nce we see a pattern we delight in tracing it and seeing it reoccur.14 . . . Fun comes from ‘richly interpretable’ situations.15

Koster’s description here emphasizes the element of playing with the music through listening, particularly when his hypothesis of 4/4 is defied. He creates interpretations which are proposed and then edited and negotiated in light of the sonic material of the music. These meanings are negotiated with the music. Koster’s description resonates with another theory of fun, by Dorothy and Jerome Singer. When the Singers suggest that fun ‘may be a consequence of the gradual reduction of a high level of ambiguity or extreme novelty in a stimulus complex to a manageable cognitive structure the child can manipulate and over which . . . he or she can experience some power’,16 this is very similar to the processes of musical mastery, for example, my attempts to play Oscar Peterson transcriptions: I am presented with a complex stimulus that I must gradually process (i.e. disassemble into sections, practice and learn to play), until I can perform it proficiently. Once I have mastered the mechanics of playing the notes, I can gain agency over the piece by developing my own interpretation of the music. This idea of processing a stimulus is clearly similar to Koster’s description of learning to listen to bebop and engaging with a ‘richly interpretable’ situation. To sum up so far, then, we can suggest that both games and music are playfully fun because they present richly interpretable situations through a stimulus that can be played with – that is, the player can become empowered through, and as a result of, engaged meaning-making activity (hermeneutics, performance interpretation, game mastery, etc.). Returning to the play parameters discussed earlier, the boundary or frame for play is supplied by the game/music, the creativity comes from the meaningmaking and engagement, and fun is the resultant mood or attitude from good play. ‘Musicking’ is playful,17 gaming is playful, and both activities value the experience of fun. When they are compounded in the video game, it is 14

15 16

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Raph Koster, A Theory of Fun for Game Design 2nd Edition 10th Anniversary (Sebastopol, California: O’Reilly, 2014): 26–27. Koster, Theory of Fun: 38. Dorothy Singer and Jerome Singer, The House of Make-Believe: Children’s Play and the Developing Imagination (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992): 203. Musicking is a term popularized by Christopher Small to refer to ‘tak[ing] part, in any capacity, in a musical performance, whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing or practicing, by

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unsurprising that the effect should be potent. The result is a medium that challenges players to engage in both musical play and game play. An interactive relationship is forged that sees players and games reacting to, and playing with, each other, via a stimulus ready for fun. Music can add to the fun of video games because of the additional dimension of play that it brings to the experience – music provides a whole further domain of patterning and interaction that is alongside and intertwined with the play mechanics – a ‘richly interpretable situation’ indeed. To describe this context in the terms used by Dorothy and Jerome Singer, music adds to the complexity and novelty of the stimulus, which is then processed and cognitively engaged with by players as they listen to, and interpret, the music in terms of the gameplay. Simultaneously, gamers also interpret the gameplay in terms of the music. Games encourage players to interpret music and understand it as a meaningful entity, one that constructs and/or emphasizes rules, characters, worlds and game states (to name just four). As has become apparent, music in a game does not just have one role, it acts in many dimensions simultaneously, part of the broader complex of the game as a whole. Players ask of music, ‘What are the implications?’, ‘What can it mean?’, such is the power of the game context for forcing active musical inquiry. As in any musical situation, what, and how, music ‘means’ is based upon the interaction between the musical sonics and the contexts in which it is sounded. In light of such contexts, particular signs and semiotic dimensions are read (and felt) more strongly than others, and certain meanings are encouraged, while others are inhibited. This interpretive process may be thought of as a kind of ‘negotiation’, as music and context are each brought to bear upon the other. In a video game, this ongoing negotiation is particularly playful where game and player react to one another, developing the contexts of musical soundings, further influencing musical interpretations. As players engage with the interpretive possibilities of games, they can also ‘experience some power’ through the way that their agency and play action prompt musical changes. There is fun and joy through playing with the complex, interlocking domains of musical and gaming meanings in this interactive medium. This playful negotiation with music that players undertake in games is similar to Koster’s account of his engagement with bebop – when I hear the ‘Blue Danube’ in Elite, the danger music in Splinter Cell, Katy Perry in The providing material for performance . . . or by dancing.’ Christopher Small, Musicking: The Meanings of Performance and Listening (Middletown: CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1998): 9.

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Sims, a mariachi version of ‘Eye of the Tiger’ in Rayman, a parody of a well-known film theme in Space Quest, or some fragments of music in Mario Galaxy, I immediately try to find the patterns, the meanings and the relationship with gameplay in the music. I try hypotheses of musical structures and meanings, I try to exert agency over the music, I listen to how it reacts with the game action, I play with it in any number of ways. To quote Koster, I ‘experience a little thrill of delight’ and ‘experience a moment of discovery’ once I have formed my understanding of music in these ‘richly interpretable’ situations. This book has been about understanding how video game music is meaningful. Throughout the past chapters, we have examined the different ways that video game music contributes to the game in a constitutive way and the wide variety of roles that it plays. Music is part of how we play games; it is part of the playful experience of video gaming. Video game music can be a source of fun in the game by adding additional complexity to the game as a whole, challenging players to engage in playful negotiation with the music and its contexts. In doing so, game music highlights more generally the fun, playful negotiations of meanings in human musical activity. Whenever music is sounded, it creates an interpretive play space as the listener engages with the whole spectrum of potential musical meanings and reconciles them with the context in which the music is heard. Here there is ‘play’. The human-music interaction is complex – music does not simply determine one particular effect upon a listener, it creates a space of negotiation with, interaction with, play with, humans. Just like music creates dimensions and entities in game texts, so it does in the broader world. The word ‘play’ is not only applicable to the game context, but conjures images of an improvisatory, explorative, investigative, dynamic negotiation. Game music highlights the playfulness in music’s meaninggeneration and the fun that we value from musicking. Perhaps this, then, is the legacy of game music – it reveals not only the importance of music in play, but the play in music.

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Appendix How to Hear a Video Game: An Outline

In 1994, Royal S. Brown published his landmark book Overtones and Undertones: Reading Film Music. That volume, something of an inspiration for my own, contains an appendix titled ‘How to Hear a Film: An Outline’.1 In an effort to illustrate the possibilities and systematic avenues for reading video game music, I present here my own version of this useful appendix. I have adapted Brown’s schematic outline to the video game and populated it with my own examples. Many of the cited examples are discussed in the main text of this book, while others await detailed examination. I. Origins of the music A. Score composed originally for the game B. Score taken from previously composed music 1. Raiding the classics: The Dig (uses excerpts of Wagner opera preludes); Loom (uses music from Tchaikovsky’s ‘Swan Lake’) 2. Raiding the pops: Grand Theft Auto; Rock Band 3. Earlier game scores: Super Smash Bros. Brawl (music during fights reworks game music from previous appearances of the characters) C. Combinations of original and nonoriginal music: Eternal Sonata; Fallout 3; etc. II. Original scores: types of music A. Classical 1. General style a. Musical styles such as plainchant (Halo), baroque dance suites (Final Fantasy IX), the romantic piano concerto (Kingdom Hearts), modernist avant-garde orchestral music (BioShock; Dead Space) b. Imitations of earlier media music styles and/or of other composers. Rome: Total War imitation of Hans Zimmer; Space Quest imitation of John Williams; Legend of Zelda imitation of Erich Wolfgang Korngold

1

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Royal S. Brown, Overtones and Undertones: Reading Film Music (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994): 343–52.

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Appendix: How to Hear a Video Game

c. Other styles, such as minimalism (Space Invaders; The Whispered World), New Age (Myst), etc. d. Musique concrète: Silent Hill 2. Instrumentation a. Full orchestra: Advent Rising; Halo b. Smaller ensembles; chamber groups: The Whispered World c. Solo instrument: games scored with only one type of sound, like the PC Speaker (Leisure Suit Larry), or simple beeps (Pong) d. Voice 1) Chorus: Alone in the Dark (2008); Command & Conquer 4 2) Solo: Portal e. Electronic: Bejeweled; Wipeout f. Special instrumental or vocal colours or effects 1) Theremin: Destroy All Humans! 2) A cappella chorus: Hitman 2: Silent Assassin 3) Solo cello: Fahrenheit 4) Extended saxophone technique: Deadly Premonition 5) Harmonica: Red Dead Redemption 6) Miscellaneous unusual instruments: ocarina (Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time) 3. Use of certain classical models. Dragon Quest III’s ‘Castle theme’ uses a fugue and the Dragon Quest series emulates classical musical forms throughout the early instalments 4. Individual style: does the music quickly reveal itself as the creation of its composer (consistency of style)? Which melodic, harmonic, instrumental, rhythmic, or textural elements characterize the work of the particular composer? Jason Graves, James Hannigan and Nobuo Uematsu are three game composers whose styles are recognizable. B. Jazz: Grim Fandango (amongst many) C. Popular 1. Pop tune style a. Without lyrics: Mother b. With lyrics: Portal; L.A. Noire’s newly written songs c. Pop tunes used both with lyrics and integrated into the instrumental score: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater 2. Rock: Full Throttle 3. Club dance: Dance Dance Revolution 4. Hip-hop and rap: 50 Cent: Bulletproof 5. Electronica: Ridge Racer Unbounded

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6. Post-rock and ambient: Kentucky Route Zero (underscore) 7. Miscellaneous D. Ethnic 1. American folk: Songs written for Kentucky Route Zero 2. Non-Western tradition: Chinese classical music stylistically emulated in Shangri La 3. Russian folk: Tetris 4. Etc. 5. Tons of pseudo ethnic music E. Mélanges, fusion and uncategorizable 1. Civilization IV’s ‘Baba Yetu’: Swahili language and some nonWestern instrumentation fused with Western symphonic orchestra 2. Diablo uses a combination of Led Zeppelin-like guitar parts with orchestral instruments 3. Speed Racer: The Game fuses disco-electronica with orchestral instruments 4. Etc. F. Deliberate emulation of older game music aesthetics 1. Chiptune music in games – for just one example amongst many, see Super Amazing Wagon Adventure III. The function of music in the game A. The genre(s) chosen for the game 1. What is the relationship between the narrative genre of the game and the music genre(s) used in that game? (Why is a musical genre change made between different regional releases of Gran Turismo?) 2. What is the relationship between the type of game and the music genre(s) used in that game? (Why is there a proliferation of hip-hop in street racing games?) 3. What is the relationship between the era, country, etc., the game depicts and the genre? Especially pertinent here is the (mis-) representation of musical histories in games like Civilization IV. Contrast with period-appropriate music in L.A. Noire and the cinema-history musical soundworlds of Gladiator in Rome and Spaghetti Westerns in Red Dead Redemption. 4. What is the relationship between the era, country, etc., in which the game was made and the musical genre(s)? Technological evolution plays a large part in determining the musical possibilities for a game, as do the differences between the musical resources available for a high-budget game and an independent game.

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5. In the case of previously composed music, does the music chosen have any thematic relationship to the diegesis? Consider, for example, the musical selections in BioShock and Fallout 3, when musical juxtaposition plays a significant part of the aesthetic effect of the game. B. The style(s) used within the particular genre(s) 1. What elements of the music are stressed and how does this relate to the game? a. Melody: Mother b. Short motifs: Final Fantasy VII c. Rhythm: Bejeweled d. Tempo: Space Invaders e. Instrumental colour: Quake IV. The use and nonuse of music in the game A. Points at which the music is used in the game: relationship to the narrative (diegetic) structure 1. Do the same characters and/or narrative elements tend to get the same themes or motifs (leitmotif technique)? (Monkey Island 2) 2. Or do recurring musical themes and motifs seem to have more of a general, mood-producing function? (The Sims) 3. Is the score essentially monothematic? (Bomberman) 4. Is the music used mostly when there is no dialogue (or narration), mostly when there is dialogue, or in about equal proportions between dialogue and non-dialogue sections of the game? 5. Does the music imitate, one way or the other, specific actions in the game? This is a device frequently used in cartoons, hence the term mickey-mousing. (Super Mario Galaxy, Pong) 6. Even when mickey-mousing is avoided, is there a close coordination between musical climaxes and/or accents and the action of the game? (Splinter Cell) 7. Does the music tend to get used in predictable, dramatic situations (love sequences, suspense, etc.)? Are there any markedly unpredictable uses of music? 8. Length of musical cues a. Long (Morrowind) b. Brief (Super Mario Bros.) c. Both long and brief (Age of Empires III)

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9. Volume level of the music a. Soft (outside cutscenes, Halo’s score is often quiet in the mix) b. Loud: 1) Effective: The Dig 2) Overwhelming: Advent Rising 10. The ludic functions of music in the game a. Does music communicate information about the game state (Resident Evil 4)? b. Is a musical mechanic part of how gamers play the game (Guitar Hero, L.A. Noire)? B. The nonuse of music, its diegetic and extradiegetic functions 1. Expository passages: Music often fades out in the start of cutscenes (as often happens in Alone in the Dark [4]: The New Nightmare) 2. To deemphasize drama (certain passages of The Dig). Paradox: the use of music often tends to guarantee the affective authenticity of certain game signifiers. Therefore, the nonuse of music can go as far as to remove a particular visual signifier . . . from the mainstream of the diegetic flow, i.e., the absence of music indicates a narrative ‘lie’. 3. To emphasize drama: silence in Silent Hill 4. To heighten ‘realism’ (F-1 World Grand Prix and other simulation-style racing games, Microsoft Flight Simulator) C. The introduction of music into the game 1. Non-diegetic music: the apparently total separation of the music track from the narrative universe (diegesis) 2. Diegetic (‘source’) music: music apparently coming from a radio, jukebox, orchestra, band, etc. a. ‘Phony’ source music: it appears to be coming from a source, but it is clearly unrealistic in its implementation (The Sims) b. ‘Realistic’ source music: music coming from a source (Project Gotham Racing) 3. ‘Narrative’ music: music that plays an active role in the game’s narrative (or in some cases antinarrative) structure and is performed in whole or in part by character(s) contained within that structure. The music is often integrated into the non-diegetic score as well, particularly for classical music. a. Classical music 1) Opera ‘Draco and Maria’ in Final Fantasy VI

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b. Popular music, etc. 1) Games in which a character performs on a musical instrument (player-directed or otherwise). Especially notable examples include The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Loom 2) Songs etc. (BioShock Infinite, Sam & Max Hit the Road) 3) The integration of various personalities into the action: 50 Cent in 50 Cent: Bulletproof; The Blues Brothers in Space Quest 4. The musical slippage between diegetic and non-diegetic music (Luigi hums along to the underscore in Luigi’s Mansion, Snake comments on the background music in Metal Gear Solid, and ocarina tunes played by Link are integrated into the underscore in Ocarina of Time) D. Relationship of music to nonnarrative elements of the game, such as the editing, the vocal ranges of the actors and actresses, sound effects, etc. E. Overall musical profile: the total number of musical cues, their length, genre, composer, etc. V. Miscellaneous A. The relationship of the composer to the game 1. Was the score done after the game was largely finished, as it generally the case, or was the composer involved at an earlier stage? 2. Was the composer involved with the engine design/development/implementation, or did he or she just generate the content? What level of involvement did the composer take? (e.g. Harry Gregson-Williams for Metal Gear Solid 2 (minimal involvement in engine design) vs. Jason Graves for Dead Space (significant involvement in game development)) 3. Were at least some of the game sequences timed to fit the music, rather than vice versa? (Menu animations timed to music in Civilization IV; iMUSE can delay game events for musical synchronization, see Monkey Island 2) 4. What kinds of indications were given to the composer as to what kinds of music were desired, and where? 5. Was a scratch or temp track (previously composed and recorded music laid in on the music track of the rough cut) used? 6. Was there a discarded musical approach or different score used for trailers/early demos than the finished product? (Command & Conquer 4)

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7. How many composers worked on the project? (both Danny Elfman and Russell Shaw for Fable, for example) 8. Experimental implementation and design features, such as Spore’s generative music system B. Important composer/director/series collaborations. Nobuo Uematsu’s long association with Final Fantasy, Jason Graves for Dead Space games, Akira Yamaoka for Silent Hill games, etc. C. The composer’s profile 1. Is he or she principally a game composer (as is generally the case) or a film/television composer (Harry Gregson-Williams for Metal Gear Solid 2; Barrington Pheloung for Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars; Danny Elfman for Fable), or a ‘name’ A-list composer, or a nonfilm/nongame composer doing game work as well such as Trent Reznor, Brian Eno or Mike Oldfield? 2. Schooling, teachers, influences, etc. 3. Style(s) 4. Versatility: ability to work in diverse genres (James Hannigan’s compositions for a diverse range of game types vs. Jeff van Dyck’s specialism in sports and strategy games) 5. Did the composer have any other function (director, actor, etc.) in the making of the game? Beneath a Steel Sky (David Cummins as composer, writer and designer), Leisure Suit Larry (Al Lowe as writer/designer and composer) D. The involvement or noninvolvement of an orchestrator and/or an arranger and/or an audio director. (Don Veca’s audio engine in Dead Space; Brian Eno as consultant in Spore) E. Political implications of game music, both on a general and on a per-game basis; Street Fighter II F. Commercial implications of game music 1. To what degree does or can a given score add to or subtract from the popularity of a given game? See the large role that music played in the marketing of Wipeout 2. The marketability of a pop tune (on recordings and/or sheet music) and/or the entire musical score (on recordings). See EA Sports Games (EA Trax); Grand Theft Auto licenses G. Documentation: availability of scores, printed or in manuscript; original music-track recordings; ripped data from the original produced media (music, engine, scripting, etc.); letters/email conversations; online message-board interactions; composer’s own website documentation; fan transcriptions; interviews; etc.

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Ludography

Title (Developer/Publisher, Year). Platform played by TS. Where pertinent, I have specified further details about the music hardware used. 50 Cent: Bulletproof (Genuine and Interscope/Sierra, 2005). PlayStation 2. Advent Rising (GlyphX/Majesco, 2005). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Age of Empires III (Ensemble/Microsoft, 2005). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Age of Mythology (Ensemble Studios/Microsoft, 2002). PC. Realtek HD Audio/ Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Alone in the Dark [4]: The New Nightmare (Darkworks/Infogrames, 2001). PlayStation and PC (port by Spiral House). Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Alone in the Dark (Eden and Hydravision/Atari, 2008). Wii. Audiosurf (Dylan Fitterer, 2008). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Basketball (1979, XE edition). Reference only. Documentary footage from www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxvkyFsc5nA, accessed 29 July 2015. BeatMania (Konami, 1997). Arcade. Unavailable. Bejeweled (PopCap, 2001). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Beneath a Steel Sky (Revolution/Virgin, 1994). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth via ScummVM. Beyond: Two Souls (Quantic Dream/Sony, 2013). Reference only. BioShock (2K, 2007). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. BioShock: Infinite (Irrational/2K, 2013). XBOX 360. Black & White (Lionhead/EA, 2001). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Bomberman (Hudson Soft/Nintendo, 1983). NES (Emulated). Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (Revolution/Virgin, 1996). TS plays 2009 Nintendo DS version (Revolution/Ubisoft). Call of Duty (Infinity Ward/Activision 2003). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Capitalism II (Enlight/Ubisoft, 2001). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Chime (Zoë Mode/OneBigGame, 2010). PC. Steam platform, Realtek HD Audio/ Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth.

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Ludography

Cisco Heat (Jaleco, 1990). PC. PC speaker. Civilization IV (Firaxis, 2005). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Command & Conquer 4 (EA, 2010). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Command & Conquer: Red Alert (Westwood/Virgin and Sony, 1996). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Cruis’n USA (Midway, 1994). Nintendo 64. Dance Aerobics (TRY/Nintendo, 1987). Reference only. Dance Central (Harmonix/MTV and Microsoft, 2010). XBOX 360. Dance Dance Revolution (1998–2009). Arcade. Daytona USA (1994). PC (Deluxe version). Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Dead Space (Visceral Games/EA, 2008). PC and XBOX 360. Deadly Premonition (Access/Rising Star, 2010). XBOX 360. Destroy All Humans! (Pandemic/THQ, 2005). PlayStation 2. Diablo (Blizzard, 1996). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Diddy Kong Racing (Rare/Nintendo, 1997). Nintendo 64. The Dig (LucasArts, 1995). PC. Audigy 2. Dragon Quest III aka Dragon Warrior III (Chunsoft/Enix, 1988). NES (emulated). Elite (Acornsoft, 1984). Commodore 64 [1985] (emulated). Eternal Sonata (tri-Crescendo/Namco, 2007). XBOX 360. F-1 World Grand Prix (Paradigm/Nintendo, 1998). Nintendo 64. F-Zero X (Nintendo, 1998). Nintendo 64. The F.A. Premier League Football Manager 99 (EA, 1998). PC. Audigy 2. Fable (Big Blue Box/Microsoft, 2004). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Fahrenheit aka Indigo Prophecy (Quantic Dream/Atari, 2005). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Fallout 3 (Bethesda, 2008). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Final Fantasy VI (Square, 1994). TS plays 1999 PlayStation version. Final Fantasy VII (Square, 1997). PlayStation and PC (Eidos, 1998), Steam platform, Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Final Fantasy IX (Square, 2000). Reference only. Final Fantasy X (Square, 2001). PlayStation 2. Formula 1 05 (SCE Liverpool/Sony, 2005). PlayStation 2. Forza Motorsport 3 (Turn 10/Microsoft, 2009). XBOX 360. Forza Motorsport 4 (Turn 10/Microsoft, 2011). XBOX 360. Frequency (Harmonix/Sony, 2001). PlayStation 2. Full Throttle (LucasArts, 1995). PC. Audigy 2. Gears of War (Epic/Microsoft, 2006). Reference only.

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Ludography

God of War (Sony, 2005). PlayStation 2. GoldenEye 007 (Rare/Nintendo, 1997). Nintendo 64. GoldenEye 007 (Eurocom/Activision, 2010). Wii. Gran Turismo (Polyphony Digital/Sony, 1997). PlayStation. Gran Turismo 5: Academy Edition (Polyphony Digital/Sony, 2012). PlayStation 3. Grand Theft Auto (Rockstar, 1997–2013) series. PC. Audigy 2. Grim Fandango (LucasArts, 1998). PC. Audigy 2. Guitar Hero (Harmonix/RedOctane, 2005). PlayStation 2. Halo: Combat Evolved (Bungie/Microsoft, 2001). XBOX and PC (2003). Halo: Combat Evolved – Anniversary Edition (Bungie/Microsoft, 2011). XBOX 360. Halo 3 (Bungie/Microsoft, 2007). Reference only. Hitman 2: Silent Assassin (IO/Eidos, 2002). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Indianapolis 500: The Simulation (Papyrus, 1989). PC. DOSBox emulating Sound Blaster 16. Indycar Racing (Papyrus, 1993). PC. Sound Blaster AWE 32. Intellivision Lives! (Realtime/Crave, 2003). PlayStation 2. Juiced (Juice Games/THQ, 2005). PlayStation 2. Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights (Juice Games/THQ, 2007). PlayStation 2. Just Dance 3 (Ubisoft 2011). XBOX 360. Just Dance 2015 (Ubisoft 2014). XBOX 360. Karaoke Revolution (Konami, 2003–2009). TS plays Wii (Blitz/Konami, 2009). Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer, 2013). PC. Realtek HD Audio/ Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. KeyboardMania (Konami, 2000). Arcade. Unavailable. Kick Off (Anco/Imagineer, 1991). NES (Emulated). Kingdom Hearts (Square, 2002). PlayStation 2. L.A. Noire (Team Bondi/Rockstar Games, 2011). PC and XBOX 360. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (Nintendo, 1991). Super Nintendo Entertainment System. TS plays Virtual Console version on Wii U. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo, 1998). Nintendo 64. Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards (Sierra On-Line, 1987). PC. PC speaker. Loom (LucasArts, 1990). PC. Steam platform, Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Luigi’s Mansion (Nintendo, 2001). GameCube. Madden 07 (EA, 2006). Reference only. Mambo a Go Go (Konami, 2001). Arcade. Unavailable. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo, 2008). Wii. Mario Kart 8 (Nintendo, 2014). Wii U. Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (EA, 2002). PC. Mega Man X (Capcom, 1993). SNES (Emulated). PC (1995). DOSBox emulating Sound Blaster 16.

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Ludography

Megarace (Cryo Interactive/Software Toolworks, 1994). PC. Sound Blaster AWE32. Metal Gear Solid (Konami, 1998). PlayStation. Metal Gear Solid 2 (Konami, 2001). PlayStation 2. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (Konami, 2004). PlayStation 2. Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (Konami, 2014). PlayStation 3. Microsoft Flight Simulator 5.1 (Microsoft, 1995). PC. Sound Blaster AWE32. Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition REMIX (Rockstar, 2005). PlayStation 2. MLB 09: The Show (Sony, 2009). PlayStation 3. Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge (LucasArts, 1991). PC. Audigy 2. Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge – Special Edition (LucasArts, 2009). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Monopoly Tycoon (Deep Red/Infogrames, 2001). PC. Audigy 2. Morrowind [The Elder Scrolls III] (Bethesda, 2002). PC. Realtek HD Audio/ Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Mother aka Earthbound Beginnings (Ape/Nintendo, 1989). NES (Emulated). NASCAR Racing 2002 Season (Papyrus/Sierra, 2002). PC. Realtek HD Audio/ Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. NBA Live 07 (EA, 2006). Reference only. Need for Speed series (EA, 1994–). PC. (Various titles.) Need for Speed: Carbon (EA, 2006). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Need for Speed: Most Wanted (EA, 2005). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Need for Speed: Underground (EA, 2003). PlayStation 2. NFL 2K3 (Visual Concepts/Sega, 2002). PlayStation 2. Nintendo Ice Hockey (Nintendo, 1988). NES (Emulated). Nintendo World Cup (Nintendo, 1989). NES (Emulated). Out Run (Sega, 1986). Arcade (Emulated). PaRappa the Rapper (NanaOn-Sha/Sony, 1996). Reference only. Pong (Atari, 1972). Arcade (Emulated). Portal (Valve, 2007). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Project Gotham Racing (Bizarre Creations/Microsoft, 2001). XBOX. Project Gotham Racing 3 (Bizarre Creations/Microsoft, 2005). XBOX 360. Quake (id/GT, 1996). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Quake 64 (id/GT, Midway). Nintendo 64. Railroad Tycoon II: Platinum (PopTop/Gathering of Developers, 1998). PC. Steam platform, Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Rayman (Ubisoft, 1995). PC. DOSBox emulating Sound Blaster 16. Rayman Legends (Ubisoft, 2013). Wii U. Red Dead Redemption (Rockstar, 2010). XBOX 360. Resident Evil (Capcom, 1996). PlayStation. Resident Evil (Capcom, 2002). GameCube.

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Ludography

Resident Evil 4 (Capcom, 2007). Wii. Rez (Sega, 2001). PlayStation 2. Ridge Racer 6 (Namco, 2005). XBOX 360. Ridge Racer Unbounded (Bugbear/Namco, 2012). PlayStation 3. Road Rash (EA, 1991). PC. Sound Blaster AWE64. Rock Band (Harmonix/EA, 2007). XBOX 360. Rocksmith (Ubisoft, 2012). Reference only. Rome: Total War (The Creative Assembly/Activision, 2004). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Sam & Max Hit the Road (LucasArts, 1993). PC. Emulation from Good Old Games. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Samba de Amigo (Sega, 1999). Arcade. Unavailable. The Secret of Monkey Island [Monkey Island 1] (LucasFilm Games/LucasArts, 1990). PC. Sound Blaster AWE16. Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection (Backbone/Sega, 2010). XBOX 360. Sega Rally Championship (Sega, 1995). Arcade and PC. Shangri La 2 (Zylom/Gamehouse, 2007). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Shark Jaws (Atari, 1975). Reference only. Documentary footage from www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHUMNTpUMoE, accessed 30 July 2015. Shift 2: Unleashed (Slightly Mad/EA, 2011). XBOX 360. Silent Hill (Konami, 1999). PlayStation. SimCity 2000 (Maxis/EA, 1995). PC. DOSBox emulating Sound Blaster 16. SimCity 3000 (Maxis/EA, 1999). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. The Sims (Maxis/EA, 2000). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. SingStar (London Studio/Sony, 2004). PlayStation 2. Space Quest [1] (Sierra, 1986). PC. PC speaker. Space Invaders (Taito/Taito and Midway, 1978). Arcade. Speed Racer: The Videogame (Sidhe/Warner Bros., 2008). Wii. Spore (Maxis/EA, 2008). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. SSX 3 (EA, 2003). PlayStation 2. SSX Tricky (EA, 2001). PlayStation 2. Star Trek (Mike Mayfield, c.1971). Reference only. Star Trek: 25th Anniversary (Interplay, 1992). PC. Sound Blaster AWE32. Street Fighter II (Capcom, 1991). Arcade (Emulated). Street Fighter IV (Capcom, 2008). XBOX 360. Super Amazing Wagon Adventure (sparsevector, 2013). PC. Steam platform, Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo, 1985). NES (Emulated). Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo, 2007). Wii.

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Ludography

Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010). Wii. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Nintendo, 2008). Wii. Taiko no Tatsujin (Namco, 2001). Arcade. Unavailable. Test Drive 4 (Pitbull/Accolade, 1997). PC. Sound Blaster AWE64. Tetris (Nintendo, 1989). Game Boy. Theme Hospital (Bullfrog/EA, 1997). PC. Sound Blaster AWE 64. ToCA Race Driver 2 (Codemasters, 2004). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell (Ubisoft, 2002). PC and XBOX. Tomb Raider II (Eidos, 1997). PC. Sound Blaster AWE 64. Torin’s Passage (Sierra On-Line, 1995). PC. DOSBox emulating Sound Blaster 16. Vigilante 8 (Luzoflux/Activision, 1998). Nintendo 64. Wayne Gretzky Hockey (Bethesda Softworks, 1990). NES (Emulated). The Whispered World (Daedalic/Deep Silver, 2009). PC. Realtek HD Audio/ Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Wipeout (Psygnosis, 1995). PlayStation. Wolfenstein 3D (id, 1992). PC. DOSBox emulating Sound Blaster 16. Zoo Empire (Enlight, 2004). PC. Realtek HD Audio/Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth.

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Index of Games

50 Cent: Bulletproof, 209, 213 Advent Rising, 8, 49, 150–55, 161, 176, 209, 212 Age of Empires III, 110, 115, 119–20, 140, 211 Age of Mythology, 64 Alone in the Dark (2008), 209 Alone in the Dark [4]: The New Nightmare, 28, 35–36, 46–47, 212 Audiosurf, 186–88, 198–99 Basketball, 189 BeatMania, 181 Bejeweled, 8, 117, 134–35, 141, 209, 211 Beneath a Steel Sky, 214 Beyond: Two Souls, 144 BioShock, 40, 48, 155, 208, 211 BioShock Infinite, 213 Black & White, 120–21, 122, 139–40 Bomberman, 211 Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars, 214 Call of Duty, 147–49 Capitalism II, 105 Chime, 40, 186–87, 199 Cisco Heat, 88 Civilization IV, 38, 95–101, 112, 114, 210, 213 Command & Conquer: Red Alert, 135–36, 141 Command & Conquer 4, 46, 209, 213 Cruis’n USA, 88 Dance Aerobics, 181 Dance Central, 180–81 Dance Dance Revolution, 4, 42, 179–81, 183, 187–88, 209 Daytona USA, 8, 88, 91–92, 114 Dead Space, 8, 40, 130–34, 140–41, 204, 208, 213–14 Deadly Premonition, 209 Destroy All Humans!, 209 Diablo, 210 Diddy Kong Racing, 88

Dig, The, 45, 208, 212 Dragon Quest III, 209 Elite, 60–61, 70, 72, 77, 83, 206 Eternal Sonata, 208 F.A. Premier League Football Manager 99, The, 137, 142 F-1 World Grand Prix, 8, 88–89, 111, 212 Fable, 144, 214 Fahrenheit, 144, 209 Fallout 3, 86, 208, 211 Final Fantasy IX, 42, 208 Final Fantasy VI, 212 Final Fantasy VII, 8, 39, 42, 49, 158–76, 211 Formula 1 05, 88–89 Forza Motorsport series, 88 Frequency, 186 Full Throttle, 209 F-Zero X, 88 Gears of War, 49 God of War, 64 GoldenEye 007, 7, 19, 70–72, 84, 146, 149 GoldenEye 007 (2010 remake), 27 Gran Turismo, 88, 91, 210 Gran Turismo series, 88 Grand Theft Auto series, 4, 86, 94, 208, 214 Grim Fandango, 209 Guitar Hero, 4, 8, 42, 179, 181–89, 198–99, 212 Halo: Combat Evolved, 19, 28, 48, 50, 195, 208, 212 Combat Evolved – Anniversary Edition, 27 Halo 3, 49 Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, 209 Indianapolis 500: The Simulation, 88 Indycar Racing, 88 Intellivision Lives!, 27

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Index of Games

Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights, 88 Just Dance series, 180–81 Karaoke Revolution, 180, 185, 188, 199 Kentucky Route Zero, 210 KeyboardMania, 181 Kick Off, 110 Kingdom Hearts, 208 L.A. Noire, 86, 117–19, 129, 139–40, 209–10, 212 Legend of Zelda, The: A Link to the Past, 148–49 Ocarina of Time, 8, 178–79, 198–99, 209, 213 Legend of Zelda, The series, 29, 39, 86, 148, 176, 208 Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, 209, 214 Loom, 80–84, 178–79, 208, 213 Luigi’s Mansion, 213 Madden 07, 113–14 Mambo a Go Go, 181 Mario Kart series, 88 Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, 38 Mega Man X, 28 Megarace, 88 Metal Gear Solid, 213 Metal Gear Solid 2, 139, 144, 213–14 Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, 209 Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, 123 Microsoft Flight Simulator 5.1, 104, 212 Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition REMIX, 88 MLB 09: The Show, 110 Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge – Special Edition, 27 LeChuck’s Revenge, 73–77, 80, 82, 84, 164, 211, 213 Monopoly Tycoon, 105 Morrowind, 169, 211 Mother, 204, 209, 211 NASCAR Racing 2002 Season, 88 NBA Live 07, 112 Need for Speed: Carbon, 94 Most Wanted, 93, 114 Need for Speed series, 88, 93–94 NFL 2K3, 110 Nintendo Ice Hockey, 110 Nintendo World Cup Soccer, 110 Out Run, 90 PaRappa the Rapper, 181 Pong, 189, 192, 199, 209, 211

Portal, 21, 209 Project Gotham Racing, 90, 94, 112, 114, 212 Project Gotham Racing 3, 91 Project Gotham Racing series, 88 Quake, 28, 211 Quake 64, 28 Railroad Tycoon II, 105, 115 Rayman, 28 Rayman Legends, 138–40, 204, 207 Red Dead Redemption, 39–40, 209–10 Resident Evil (1996), 27 Resident Evil (2002), 27 Resident Evil 4, 116–17, 127, 134, 141, 212 Rez, 186–87 Ridge Racer series, 88 Ridge Racer Unbounded, 209 Road Rash, 88 Rock Band, 43, 181, 183, 185, 187, 208 Rocksmith, 185, 199 Rome: Total War, 37–38, 110–12, 147–49, 208, 210 Sam & Max Hit the Road, 213 Samba de Amigo, 181 Secret of Monkey Island, The [Monkey Island 1], 75 Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection, 27 Sega Rally Championship, 88 Shangri La 2, 210 Shark Jaws, 143 Shift 2: Unleashed, 40, 88 Silent Hill, 8, 127–30, 132–34, 140–41, 209, 212, 214 SimCity 2000, 39, 105–8, 111, 115 SimCity 3000, 105 Sims, The, 101–3, 112, 114, 206, 211–12 SingStar, 179–80 Space Invaders, 4, 209, 211 Space Quest [1], 146–47, 149, 176, 207–8, 213 Speed Racer: The Game, 210 Spore, 22, 40, 45, 214 SSX 3, 8, 22, 191–92, 194, 198–99 SSX Tricky, 8, 190, 194, 198–99 Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, 146, 149, 176 Star Trek (video game), 143 Street Fighter II, 62, 72–73, 83, 214 Street Fighter IV, 62 Super Amazing Wagon Adventure, 210 Super Mario Bros., 40, 193, 211

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Index of Games

Super Mario Galaxy, 8, 86, 193–97, 200, 207, 211 Super Mario Galaxy 2, 193–96 Super Smash Bros. Brawl, 17–18, 208 Taiko no Tatsujin, 181 Test Drive series, 88 Tetris, 21, 145, 210 Theme Hospital, 105, 111 ToCA Race Driver 2, 88 Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, 8, 122–29, 132, 134–35, 139, 141, 206, 211

Tomb Raider II, 85 Torin’s Passage, 144 Vigilante 8, 88 Wayne Gretzky Hockey, 110 Whispered World, The, 209 Wipeout, 88, 209, 214 Wolfenstein 3D, 7, 67–69, 72, 83 Zoo Empire, 105

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General Index

.mp3 format, 37–38 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968), 60 50 Cent, 213 action games, 39, 117, 150 Adams, John, 97, 100 Adorno, Theodor W., 185 adventure games, 45, 72, 80, 146 Adventures of Robin Hood, The (1938), 148–49 aesthetic position of music in games, 8, 77, 80, 82, 163–66, 175–76 Airplane! (1980), 1, 121 aleatoric music, 42, 131 Alien (1979), 131 Allegri, Gregorio, 98 Allen, Lily, 103 ambient music, 19, 210 America (song), 67 anachronism, musical, 95, 97 analysis defining, 5, 31 overview of approaches, 52 analytical play, 34–36 Anderson, Leroy, 102 annoyance, in game music, 19, 169 arcade, 15, 26–27, 87–89, 91–92, 179, 181 arie di baule, 29 art music. See classical music (art music) art, in opposition to entertainment, 202–4 Atkins, Barry, 156 audio portal (concept), 102–3, 112, 115 Austin, J.L., 123–24 automobiles. See cars avant-garde music, 131, 140, See also aleatoric music, modernism

240

Baba Yetu (Civilization IV), 210 Bach, J.S., 98–99 BAFTA award, 138 baroque (musical era), 97, 163, 208 Barton, Matt, 180 Bates, Eliot, 28

Bateson, Patrick, 202 Baudrillard, Jean, 110–13 Bayreuth, 82 Baysted, Stephen, 40 bebop, 204–6 Beethoven, Ludwig van, 99, 203 Bergson, Henri, 86 bhangra, 62, 91 Black Sabbath, 182 Blue Danube, The (Johann Strauss II), 60–61, 83, 206 Blues Brothers, The, 213 Bond, James, 19, 70–72, 84, 146 bongo drums, as game controller, 181 borrowing. See intertextuality boss (video game), 23, 40, 149, 160, 167, 170, 194 Brahms, Johannes, 99 Brame, Jason, 39 Bride of Frankenstein (1935), 131 Brodsky, Warren, 41 Brown, Royal S., 9, 208–14 Brumel, Antoine, 98 Butterflies and Hurricanes (Muse song), 89 Cage, John, 203–4 Calleja, Gordon, 58 canon, of music, 72, 97, 184–85 Capcom, 16 Carmina Burana (Carl Orff), 167 Carmina Burana (manuscript), 167 Carroll, Noël, 133 cars, 41, 87–95, 111 casual games, 14 chamber music, 209 Channel Orange (Frank Ocean album), 16 Cheng, William, 4, 41–42, 128 chiptune, 210 cinema. See film cinematics. See cutscenes Clarke, Isaac (Dead Space), 131 Clarke, Peter, 20 classical music (art music), 5–7, 29–31, 40, 43, 89, 91, 95–98, 103, 114, 131, 137, 179, 183–85, 198, 202, 208–9, 212

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General Index

classical music (musical era), 97, 99 classical mythology. See mythology Cloud (Final Fantasy VII), 159–60, 164, 174 club dance music. See dance music coach, music as, 8, 134–36, 141 code, game music programming, 26, 34, 36–37, 40, 52, 161 Collins, Karen, 4, 22, 58, 128, 159 commercial aspects of game music, 26, 46, 48, 103, 113, 214, See also trailers Commodore 64, 20 communication, musical, 8, 21, 41, 62, 102–3, 113, 116–42, 164, 177, 201, 212 composer, player as, 32, 131, 179, 187, 198–99 concerts, of game music, 29, 113, 159 concurrency of musical communication, 121, 140 consistency, of musical logic, 105–6, 123, 129–30, 141, 153–55 construction, of game. See game architecture continuity, 79, 153–54, 163, 175–76 Cook, Karen M., 96 corporate logos. See logos corporeality, music and, 68–70, 83, 181, 188 Covach, John, 43 Cream (band), 182 credits, music for, 16–17, 24 Croft, Lara (Tomb Raider), 85 cue, types common in games, 13–25 Cummins, David, 214 cutscene, 21, 23–24, 29, 89, 151, 170, 212 dance music (club dance), 20, 89, 93, 186, 190, 192, 209 dancing games, 4, 42, 179–89 Daytona (NASCAR races), 92 de la Torre, Francisco, 97–98 Deep Purple, 182 Deleuze, Gilles, 86 Demers, Joanna, 42, 188 Derrida, Jacques, 123 dialogue, between player and music, 121, 126, 141 dialogue, in games, 74, 127, 153–54, 163–64, 211 difficulty, and music in L.A. Noire, 119 disco, 94, 180, 210 disinterested music, 104–6, 111, 115 DJ (on a simulated radio), 90, 191 DJ turntables, 181 Doctor Who, 155 Donnelly, K.J., 44, 133

driving games. See racing games Dunn, Jonathan, 20 duration, of games, 96, 157, 167, 175, 177 Dvořák, Antonin, 99–100 dynamic music, 8, 15, 22–23, 35, 39, 41, 46, 52, 73, 79, 89, 116, 123, 136, 156, 161, 186, 190–91, 193–94, 197, 200 dynamizing, musical effect, 8, 190, 192–93, 198–99 EA Trax, 214 Eagleton, Terry, 88 earcon, 120 editions (musical), 29–30 education, by game music, 33, 97, 121, 179, 182–83, 185, 189, 198–99 Electronic Arts (EA), 112–13, 190–91, 214 electronica, 26, 134, 210 Elfman, Danny, 144, 214 Elgar, Edward, 148 emotion and dynamic systems, 41 and fun, 203–4 music and manipulation of, 122, 125–26, 130, 141 music and potency for player, 155, 158–60, 168–69 musical connotation of, 154, 159, 175, 177 emulation, 26–27 engine (video game), 36–37, 116, 131, 144, 180, 186, 191, 199, 213–14, see also iMUSE Eno, Brian, 214 epic texturing. See texturing, epic epic, classical. See mythology, classical epitext, 24, 32 Ermi, Laura, 59 ethnomusicology, of video games, 42 evil, musical depiction of, 120, 122, 164 extreme sports, 190–92 Eye of the Tiger (Survivor song), 139, 207 failure. See success and failure cues fairness, music and, 104, 106, 115 fan (mechanical) noise, 15 fan culture, 37, 42, 48–49, 62, 170, 183, 214 fanfare, 15, 110, 120, 148, 166 fantasy and the fantastic, 59, 79–80, 83–84, 88, 90–92, 111, 185, 187, 191 Fiese, David, 132 fighting games, 1–3, 17, 62–63, 83 film music analysis of, 24, 50, 208

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242

General Index film music (cont.) as demonic presence, 133 as education, 121 citation and adaptation in games, 60–61, 70– 72, 145–49, 207 comparison with game music, 50, 143–77 composers writing for games, 214 mickey-mousing in games, 190 stylistic emulation in games, 110, 129, 145–49 film studios, 16 filters (music production), 22, 190 first-person shooter, 40, 63–72, 147, 195 Fisher, Andrew, 39 Fisher, Sam (Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell), 121–27 flamenco, 62 FMOD, 37 folk music, 210 football (soccer), 137–38, 142 Forbidden Planet (1956), 131 form, musical. See structure Formula 1, 89 FPS. See first-person shooter franchise, multimedia, 70, 72, 84, 146 Frankfurt School, 103, See also Adorno, Theodor W. Franklin, Peter, 164, 175 Franz Ferdinand, 182 Fritsch, Melanie, 43 fugue, 209 fun, music and, 9, 23, 31, 140, 180, 194, 201–7 Fux, Johann, 40 Galway, Martin, 20 Game of Thrones (television series), 65 game tone. See register game world. See virtuality gameplay music, common types of, 13–15, 21–24 Gasselseder, Hans-Peter, 41 Gee, James Paul, 50 generative music. See procedural music Genette, Gérard, 24, 31 genre filmic musical tropes, 110–11, 145, 149 interactive genres of games, 67, 87–95, 107, 116, 119, 121, 134, 159, 179, 185, 214 musical, 40, 93, 103, 135, 183, 208, 210, 213 narrative, 16, 210 geographic differences. See localization geography, virtual, 75, 162–64, 175 Gibbons, William, 4, 40 Gladiator (2001), 111, 147, 210

glitch, 28–29, 36, 79, 123, 191 Goehr, Lydia, 25 GoldenEye (1995), 70–72, 146 Gone with the Wind (1939), 65, 69, 162 goodness, musical depiction of, 120–22 Gorbman, Claudia, 154–55, 162–63, 167–68, 175 Górecki, Henryk, 131 Graves, Jason, 130–34, 209, 213–14 Gregson-Williams, Harry, 144, 213–14 Grimshaw, Mark, 41, 63 grinding (in role-playing games), 169 Grodal, Torben, 156–57, 175 handheld gaming, 14–15 Hannigan, James, 137–38, 209, 214 harmony analysis in games, 52 compositional style, 209 musical analysis in games, 39–40, 52 programming in games, 186, 193, 195 signification in games, 102, 120, 122 Hart, Iain, 42, 124 Haydn, Joseph, 203 heartbeat. See corporeality Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 65 Heldt, Guido, 24 hell, musical depiction of, 128, 130 Hendrix, Jimi, 182 Henricks, Thomas, 202 hermeneutics, 5, 41, 44, 140, 205 hip-hop, 16, 89, 93–94, 112, 209–10, See also rap historically-informed performance, 26, 30 history, musical, 40, 95–101, 111, 114, 210 Hjorth, Larissa, 144, 156, 175 Hocking, Clint, 155 Hodges, Aubrey, 28 Holst, Gustav, 111 hornpipe, 75 horror. See survival horror Horst-Wessel-Lied, Das (anthem of the Nazi Party), 67 Hot N Cold (Katy Perry song), 103 Hughes, Paul, 20 Huizinga, Johan, 3, 6, 202 Huntley, John, 50 Huyssen, Andreas, 203 hyperreality, 111 I Wanna Be Sedated (Ramones song), 182 immersion, 58–59, 63, 66, 69, 72, 79–80, 83–84, 153, 195

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General Index

impartiality. See fairness improvisation, 3, 9, 102, 106, 115, 179–80, 183–84, 197, 207 iMUSE, 72–77, 79–80, 84, 153, 213 instrumental colour. See timbre interactivity, of music. See dynamic music interpretation. See hermeneutics interstitiality, sonic, 129 intertextuality, 40, 59–61, 70–72, 101, 110–11, 145–50, 176, 208 intervallic relationships, in Final Fantasy VII, 39, 170–74 Iwata, Satoru, 195–96, 201 Jaws (1975), 143 jazz, 3, 103, 106, 115, 198, 209, See also bebop Jenkins, Henry, 156 jingles, 110 Johnson, Julian, 203–4 Jørgensen, Kristine, 117, 120 Josquin Desprez, 98 JRPGs. See role-playing games Jules, Gary, 49 Juul, Jesper, 85 Kalinak, Kathryn, 163, 168, 175 Kamp, Michiel, 42, 155 Kant, Immanuel, 78–79, 82 karaoke, 179–81, 187–88, 199 Kasavin, Greg, 169 King Kong (1933), 131 Kirkhope, Grant, 70 kithara, 111 Kizzire, Jessica, 42 Klepacki, Frank, 135–36 Koestler, Arthur, 1 Koizumi, Yoshiaki, 195–96 Korngold, Erich Wolfgang, 148–49, 208 Koster, Raph, 204–5, 207 Kramer, Lawrence, 44 Krasner, David, 95 Land, Michael Z., 45, 73, 79 Largo (Monkey Island II), 74–75, 77 Lassus, Orlande de, 98 Latin, 17–18 Latin (musical style), 103, 163 layering, 23, 39, 131–33, 186, 191 Led Zeppelin, 210 Legrand, Michel, 144 leitmotif. See themes and motifs

Lerner, Neil, 40 Liberace, 3 licensed music, 89–90, 112–13, 137, 214, See also popular music Liljedahl, Mats, 59, 69, 80 limitations of technology, 20, 60, 62, 79, 83, 144, 164, 168, 175, 189–90 liner notes, 46, 48, 52 Link (The Legend of Zelda), 149, 178, 213 Lipscomb, Scott, 41, 59 Liszt, Franz, 29 literacy, musical (of players), 145, 149, 185 loading screens, 19–20, 182 localization (regions), 25–26, 29, 210 locations. See geography locutionary act. See speech act theory logos (corporate), 15–16, 24 Loguidice, Bill, 180 looping, 19–23, 28, 36, 39, 45, 62, 67, 73, 75, 89, 105, 115, 126, 128, 135, 159 LoPiccolo, Greg, 182 Los Angeles, 86, 118 losing. See success and failure cues Lowe, Al, 214 ludic aspects of games, related to music, 118, 128, 145, 149–50, 154–55, 159–60, 165– 67, 169, 174–76, 186–90, 199, 206, 212 Luigi (Nintendo character), 213 Lutosławski, Witold, 131 Mad World (Tears for Fears song), 49 Magee, Bryan, 78 MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator), 27 Manvell, Roger, 50 maracas, as game controller, 181 mariachi music, 138–39, 207 Mario (Nintendo character), 193–97 Martin, Paul, 202 Marxism, 103 Mason, Harry (Silent Hill), 127–30 Massumi, Brian, 86, 114 Maximus Dan, 113 Mäyrä, Frans, 59 McConnell, Peter, 73, 79 mechanics of gameplay. See ludic aspects of games Medina-Gray, Elizabeth, 42 melody. See also Totaka’s Song (melody), themes and parody in Space Quest [1], 146 and play in Super Mario Galaxy, 193 and player communication in L.A. Noire, 117–19

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General Index

melody. (cont.) and playing style in Bejeweled, 134–35 and signification in Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, 122 and songs in The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, 178–79 and structure in The Sims, 102 and variation in Civilization IV, 95–96 and variation in Monkey Island II, 75 and variation in SimCity 2000, 106 as part of stylistic emulation in The Sims, 102 as stressed musical element, 211 compositonal style, 209 for characters in Street Fighter II, 62 for Largo in Monkey Island II, 74 for spells in Loom, 80–83 in Ocean loading screens, 20 in Spore’s generative music system, 22, 40, 45 in Wolfenstein 3D, 67–68 menus, 15, 17–20, 67, 89, 105, 112, 135, 137–38, 193, 213 metal music, 135 metaphysics, 82–83, 111, 164, 173 mickey-mousing, See film music, mickeymousing in games Microsoft DirectMusic, 37 middleware, 37 MIDI, 45, 73, 76, 146, 159 Miles Sound System, 37 Miller, Kiri, 4, 42, 58, 94, 184–85 minimalism, 134, 209 mixing, 19, 44–45, 62, 122, 128, 151–53, 155, 163, 182, 212 Miyamoto, Shigeru, 195, 197 MMORPGs. See online multiplayer games modding, 37–38 modernism (musical), 40, 131, 203–4, 208 modular structures, 15, 42 Mongol Internationale (anthem), 95 monothematicism, 211 Mori, Masaki, 64–65 Morse code, 67 Moseley, Roger, 43 motif. See themes and motifs motorsport, simulation of, 87–90, 92 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 99, 103, 184, 203 MTV, 113 Munday, Rod, 66 Muse (band), 89 Musée Mécanique, 26 museum collections, 26 music games, 178–89, 197–99 music in video games

approaches to, 39–43 challenges of studying, 25–32 sources for studying, 39–50 types of, 13–25 music videos, 93 musical texturing. See texturing, musical musicking (after Christopher Small), 205, 207 musicology, 5–6, 28, 43–44, 49 musique concrète, 128 mythology classical, 17, 64–65 of rock music, 182 narration and music, 23, 66, 83, 154–55, 162, 176, 211–12 framing gameplay, 67–68, 71, 145–50, 176 integration of narrative and rules, 145, 160, 167, 174 musical narrator, 101, 105, 123, 129, 133, 141, 192 performative utterances, 125–26 with repsect to genre, 16, 210 narrative vertigo, 64, 66, 69 NASCAR, 92 Nattiez, Jean-Jacques, 124 Nazis, 67 New Age (musical genre), 209 Newman, James, 145 NFL, 113 Nimrod (Edward Elgar), 148 Nintendo, 39, 193, 195, 201–2, See also Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), Wii and Wii U Nintendo 64, 28, 70 nondiegetic/diegetic music, 116, 154, 162, 175, 195, 211–12 non-Western music, 210 Norgate, Graeme, 70 Noriega, Manuel, 136 noumenal. See phenomenal and noumenal O’Donnell, Martin, 48, 195 ocarina, 178–79, 199, 209, 213 Ocean Loader (Ocean software), 20 Ocean, Frank, 16 Ockeghem, Johannes, 97–98 Oldfield, Mike, 214 online multiplayer games, 42, 85 opera, 17, 29, 82, 137, 161, 188, 208, 212, See also Wagner, Richard Orff, Carl, 167 Orientalism, musical, 62

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General Index

Ortiz, Diego, 97–98 Oye Como Va (song), 163 Palestrina, Giovanni da, 98 parody, 103, 146, 176, 207 Pathfinder (EA Software), 191 pause menus, music in, 19 PC, 15, 26, 28, 34, 36, 46, 180, 209 Penderecki, Krzysztof, 131 perception, music as simulation of. See virtual musical perception performativity. See speech act theory peritexts, 24, See also Genette, Gérard perlocutionary force. See speech act theory Perron, Bernard, 128 Perry, Katy, 103, 206 Peterson, Oscar, 205 phasing (music production effect), 120, 190 Pheloung, Barrington, 214 Phelps, Cole (L.A. Noire), 117–19 phenomenal and noumenal, 77–79 Phillips, Winifred, 58 Pieslak, Jonathan, 136 pirates, 73, 75 pitch across platform ports, 28 and musicalized sound in early sports games, 189 as feedback in Super Mario Galaxy, 194 as ludic articulation in Pong, 189 in Black & White’s depiction of morality, 120 in Chime’s music system, 186 in Elite, 60 in Karaoke Revolution, 180 in Loom’s interface, 82 in Monkey Island II’s depiction of voodoo, 77 in Ocean loading screens, 20 in Spore’s generative music system, 22, 40 in The Dig, 45 in Zelda’s ocarina interface, 178–79 plainchant, 98, 208 Planet of the Apes (1968), 131 Planets, The (Holst suite), 111 platform games, 138, 193 platforms, 15–16, 26–27, 29, 34 Platoon (1986), 148 play as analytic strategy, 34–36, 53 characteristics of, 201–2 commonality in games and music, 3, 7, 9, 31–32, 201–7 music as communication for, 116–42 playful negotiation, 9, 206

playfulness, 8, 194, 197, 202, 207 playing games as playing music, 80–83, 178–200 PlayStation [1], 16, 36, 46, 159 PlayStation 2, 27 PlayStation 3, 16, 27 Plowman, Michael Richard, 122 point and click games. See adventure games ponchando (rhythm), 163 popular music, 4, 19–20, 26, 89–95, 97, 103, 112–13, 115, 137, 182–86, 208–9, 213–14, See also individual musical genres scholarship of, 25, 43–44 porting. See versions post-rock, 210 power relationships, of music and players, 8, 40, 82, 84, 121, 125–26, 130, 133–34, 141, 185–87, 191, 197, 205–6 power-up, 150, 182, 193 Praetorius, Michael, 98 pre-existing music, 19, 26, 40, 45, 89–101, 112, 131, 146, 181–86, 199, See also popular music procedural music, including generative music, 22, 37, 40, 45, 170, 214 promotion. See commercial aspects of game music Proust, Marcel, 86 puzzle games, 86, 117, 134–35 Quantic Dream (company), 144 Queens of the Stone Age, 182 R&B, 89, 93, 210 racing games, 8, 41, 86–95, 105, 107, 112, 114, 188, 210, 212 radio broadcast medium, 113, 212 in Grand Theft Auto, 94 in racing games, 89–91, 94, 112, 114 in Silent Hill, 128–30, 133 in SSX 3, 191 in The Sims, 101, 103 Ramones, The, 182 rap, 89, 93, 136, 209 Raybould, Dave, 58 Reale, Steven B., 118 realism, 87–92, 94, 97, 104, 107–11, 113, 115, 188, 212 reception study, 35, 49, 52, 150–55, 158, 168–69, 176, 183 register of gameplay, 88, 104, 107, 110, 114

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General Index

remakes, of games, 27 Renaissance (musical era), 97 repetition, in games, 42, 96, 106, 135, 154, 157, 160, 167–77, 198 research. See scholarship reviews. See reception Reznor, Trent, 28, 214 rhythm, 170, 209, 211 and communication with player, 122 and player performed music, 80, 178 corporeal, 68, 83 in generative systems, 22 in loading screens, 20 in menus, 19 in musical topics, 62, 67, 111, 120, 148, 163 in Ocean loading screens, 20 of gameplay, 62, 126, 136, 139, 154, 166, 195, 197 rhythm games, 179–82, 185–89 Rimsky-Korsakov, Nicolai, 100 Rippy, Stephen, 110 Rite of Spring, The (Stravinsky), 167 rock music, 26, 43, 89, 135–36, 182–85, 198–99, 209 Rocky III (1982), 139 role-playing games (RPGs), 41, 63, 158–77 romantic and romanticism, 138, 204, 208 Rome, ancient, 37, 110–11, 149, 210 Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture (Tchaikovsky), 101 rondo form, 75 RPG. See role-playing games rubber chicken, 73 Rule, Britannia! (Arne), 95 rules. See ludic aspects of games Run-D.M.C., 191 Sabor, Rudolph, 82 Saint-Saëns, Camille, 100 Sanger, George, 143–44 Santas, Constantine, 64 satire, 103, 146, See also parody Saturday Night Fever (1977), 94 Scarlatti, Domenico, 95 Schenkerian analysis, 42 Schnur, Steve, 112–13, 190 scholarship, of game audio, 4, 43 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 82 Schumann, Robert, 203 Schyman, Garry, 48 Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010), 150 Sea Hawk, The (1940), 148–49

Searle, John, 123 Second World War, 66–67, 147 Sega, 16 semiotics, 16, 40, 61–63, 68, 101–2, 121–22, 124–31, 133, 141, 149, 164, 176, 183, 188, 206 Sephiroth (Final Fantasy VII), 159–60, 167, 170 Serra, Éric, 70 Shaw, Russell, 214 Sheppard, John, 98 Shields, Rob, 86 Shining, The (1980), 131 silence, 20, 129, 162, 212 Simlish, 103 simulacra, 110–13 simulation, 8, 79, 84, 86–91, 94, 101–8, 110, 144, 156, 184, 212 Singer, Dorothy and Jerome, 205–6 Slater, Mel, 58 Small, Christopher, 205 smartphone gaming, 15 Smile (Lily Allen song), 103 Smith, Jacob, 42 Snake (Metal Gear Solid), 213 snowboarding, 190–92 Soames, David, 1–3 Song of the Volga Boatman, 95 sound cards, 26 soundtrack album, 46–48 speech act theory, 123–27 sports games, 19, 107–10, 112–14, 137–38, 189–92, 214, See also motorsports Star Trek, 143, 146, 149, 176 Star Wars, 146, 149, 176 Star-Spangled Banner, The (song), 67 stealth games, 121–27, 129, 134 Steiner, Max, 162 stems (cue fragments), 23 stereotyping, 62, 83, 101, 164, 184 Stevens, Richard, 58 stingers, 23, 102, 149, 191, 193 strategy games, 37–38, 95–101, 110–11, 119–20, 135–36, 214 strategy, for playing, 134–36, 141, 166, 188, 194 Strauss II, Johann, 60 Stravinsky, Igor, 167, 203 street racing, 87–89, 91–95, 112, 114, 210 structure, of music and game, 20, 22, 40, 42, 75, 96, 102, 106, 111, 115, 135–36, 161, 167–68, 189–90, 199, 207, 211

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General Index

success and failure cues, 23, 38, 105, 149, 166, 194 suitcase arias, 29 Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), 28 survival horror, 35–36, 116, 121, 127–34 Survivor (band), 139 Svec, Henry, 183–84 Swahili, 210 Sweeney, Mark, 40, 42 synchronization, 23, 73, 75–77, 79, 133, 139, 180, 189–95, 199, 213 synergy, between music and game, 189–92, 199 synth-pop, 20 system start cue, 15–16 tablet gaming, 15 Tagg, Philip, 124 taiko drum, as game controller, 181 Tan, Siu-Lan, 41 Taruskin, Richard, 204 Tate, James, 42 Tavinor, Grant, 87 Taylor, T.L., 94 Tchaikovsky, Peter, 101, 208 television and promotion of game music, 113 broadcast medium, 111, 119, 121, 143, 145, 156, 214 game musical imitation of, 89–92, 110, 114, 146–47, 176 musical processes of, 145, 149, 155–56, 162, 170 representation in games, 101 tempo and dynamic music, 22, 192–93 and musicality of games, 197 and time in games, 102 as stressed musical element, 211 impact on players, 41 in arcade racing, 91 in menus, 19 in Rayman Legends, 138 signification of, 122, 126, 135, 153, 163–64, 166 tenor of game. See register of gameplay textuality of the video game, 25–32 texturing (concept), 57–84, 95, 110–11, 117 epic, 63–69 themes and motifs, 39, 211 and (inter)textual relationships, 70–72, 146, 148, 176 and national identity in Street Fighter II, 62

and parody, 146–47 as part of character/place identity and perception, 62–63, 77 development and game progress, 96 development in pause menus, 19 establishing, 19 narrative cueing in Final Fantasy VII, 159–65, 175 on soundtrack albums, 48 providing gameplay information, 118 reprise in credits, 17 the leitmotif in games, 80–83, 164 unity in Final Fantasy VII, 167–74 theremin, 209 Threadbare, Bobbin (Loom), 80 Threepwood, Guybrush (Monkey Island), 73, 75, 80 Tifa (Final Fantasy VII), 164, 168, 170, 174 timbre analysis of, 43 and dynamic music, 75 and intertextuality, 71, 146 as part of player manipulation, 129–30 as stressed musical element, 211 distinct in games, 62 imitation of orchestral instruments, 74 in Elite, 60 in generative systems, 22 signification of, 62, 77, 89, 91, 120, 123, 131 variation between PCs, 26 time ambiguity of events in gaming, 19, 146 and music in virtual worlds, 101–5, 119 and playing musically, 139 duration of games, 64, 166–69 music as highlighting significance, 135 time, limits of cues, 36 Titanic (1997), 65, 69 topic, musical, 40, 52, 68, 135, 166 Totaka’s Song (melody), 39 trailers, 49, 52, 213 transcriptions, 29, 39, 52, 205, 214 transitions. See changes, musical TV. See television Twentieth Century Fox, 16 Uematsu, Nobuo, 42, 159, 170, 209, 214 unity, and music, 154, 167–77 Universal (film studio), 16 unreactive music. See disinterested music Upton, Brian, 202 utterance, musical. See speech act theory

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247

248

General Index

van Dyck, Jeff, 214 van Elferen, Isabella, 4, 134 Varney, Allen, 58 Vaughan Williams, Ralph, 148 Veca, Don, 132, 214 verisimilitude, 87, 90, 110 versions, of games and music, 25–29, 34, 36, 46, 181 video game as musical instrument, 192–98 video game music and realism, 87–92, 106–12 as part of perception of game world, 72–77 comparison with film music, 143–77 video games typical kinds of cue in, 13–25 Video Games Live, 29 Vinders, Jheronimus, 98 violence, 42, 67, 135 virtual musical perception, 74, 77–80, 84 virtual world, 8, 17, 42, 59, 65, 85–115, 153, 156, 159, 162–63, 166, 175, 199 virtuosity, 3, 62, 183–85, 196, 198 voice chorus, 17, 91, 120, 122, 150, 161, 167, 209 in karaoke games, 180, 187 solo, 17, 91–92, 111, 136–37, 150, 191, 209 volume. See mixing voodoo, 75–77

war, as backdrop for gameplay, 67, 147 Whalen, Zach, 128, 156, 161 When Johnny Comes Marching Home (song), 67 Wierzbicki, James, 129 Wii (Nintendo console), 116 Wii U (Nintendo console), 19 Wilco, Roger (Space Quest), 146 Wild Style (1983), 94 Williams, John, 149, 208 win/lose music. See success and failure cues Winters, Ben, 68, 162, 169, 175 Wolf, Mark J.P., 156, 175 Wolzogen, Hans von, 82 Wood, Simon, 122–23 Wooller, René, 22 work concept, 25, 30 World War II. See Second World War Wreck-It Ralph (2012), 150 Wwise, 37

Wagner, Richard, 45, 82, 161, 164, 208 Walser, Robert, 135

Zehnder, Sean, 59 Zimmer, Hans, 111, 208

XBOX, 27 XBOX 360, 15, 19, 27 Yamaoka, Akira, 129, 214 Yankee Doodle (song), 67 YouTube, 35, 47, 49, 158

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