Four Ways of Hearing Video Game Music

Four Ways of Hearing Video Game Music PDF Author: Michiel Kamp
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780197651247
Category : Video game music
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"Before answering the question 'how do we listen to video game music?' one should begin by asking 'Do we actually listen to video game music, and if so, when?' Of course, anyone steeped in gaming culture will be able to hum the theme to Super Mario Bros. (1985), but they might have picked it up when their little brother took the controller and played some of the game, giving them time to sit back and enjoy the sights and sounds of the game. Or they might have heard it in one of the many YouTube video performances on the most outlandish instruments, or even by a full symphony orchestra at a Video Games Live concert. In between avoiding pits, picking up coins, jumping on goombas (the game's mushroom-like enemies) and making it to the end of a level within the time limit, is there really a moment during which the player can divert their attention away from all this to the music? Or is it somehow possible to both play and listen at the same time? I want to start my account of musical listening in video games at its boundaries, at those moments where we do not listen to whatever music there is. The above example from Robert Fink's Repeating Ourselves (2005) conveys one such boundary experience-specifically engineered background music that does not attract our attention, but still affects us somehow. This is just one of many situations in modern everyday life where we encounter music in this, usually acousmatic, way: in films, on the television, in video games, in restaurants and shops, and in the workplace. Sometimes we even engineer such situations ourselves, such as turning on the radio to help us study or creating a playlist for a morning run. In all these cases we are doing something else (or our attention is directed at something else) while music is playing, but this does not mean that our experience of the music is the same in each: the simple fact that we choose radically different music when reading a book and while going for a run suggests that more is going on"--

Four Ways of Hearing Video Game Music

Four Ways of Hearing Video Game Music PDF Author: Michiel Kamp
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780197651247
Category : Video game music
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Before answering the question 'how do we listen to video game music?' one should begin by asking 'Do we actually listen to video game music, and if so, when?' Of course, anyone steeped in gaming culture will be able to hum the theme to Super Mario Bros. (1985), but they might have picked it up when their little brother took the controller and played some of the game, giving them time to sit back and enjoy the sights and sounds of the game. Or they might have heard it in one of the many YouTube video performances on the most outlandish instruments, or even by a full symphony orchestra at a Video Games Live concert. In between avoiding pits, picking up coins, jumping on goombas (the game's mushroom-like enemies) and making it to the end of a level within the time limit, is there really a moment during which the player can divert their attention away from all this to the music? Or is it somehow possible to both play and listen at the same time? I want to start my account of musical listening in video games at its boundaries, at those moments where we do not listen to whatever music there is. The above example from Robert Fink's Repeating Ourselves (2005) conveys one such boundary experience-specifically engineered background music that does not attract our attention, but still affects us somehow. This is just one of many situations in modern everyday life where we encounter music in this, usually acousmatic, way: in films, on the television, in video games, in restaurants and shops, and in the workplace. Sometimes we even engineer such situations ourselves, such as turning on the radio to help us study or creating a playlist for a morning run. In all these cases we are doing something else (or our attention is directed at something else) while music is playing, but this does not mean that our experience of the music is the same in each: the simple fact that we choose radically different music when reading a book and while going for a run suggests that more is going on"--

Four Ways of Hearing Video Game Music

Four Ways of Hearing Video Game Music PDF Author: Michiel Kamp
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197651224
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Four Ways of Hearing Video Game Music offers a phenomenological approach to music in video games. Drawing on past phenomenological approaches to music as well as studies of music listening in a variety of disciplines such as aesthetics and ecological psychology, author Michiel Kamp explains four main ways of hearing the same piece of music--through background, aesthetic, ludic, and semiotic hearing.

The Cambridge Companion to Video Game Music

The Cambridge Companion to Video Game Music PDF Author: Melanie Fritsch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316999440
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 483

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Book Description
Video game music has been permeating popular culture for over forty years. Now, reaching billions of listeners, game music encompasses a diverse spectrum of musical materials and practices. This book provides a comprehensive, up-to-date survey of video game music by a diverse group of scholars and industry professionals. The chapters and summaries consolidate existing knowledge and present tools for readers to engage with the music in new ways. Many popular games are analysed, including Super Mario Galaxy, Bastion, The Last of Us, Kentucky Route Zero and the Katamari, Gran Turismo and Tales series. Topics include chiptunes, compositional processes, localization, history and game music concerts. The book also engages with other disciplines such as psychology, music analysis, business strategy and critical theory, and will prove an equally valuable resource for readers active in the industry, composers or designers, and music students and scholars.

Understanding Video Game Music

Understanding Video Game Music PDF Author: Tim Summers
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108107761
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
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.

The Oxford Handbook of Cinematic Listening

The Oxford Handbook of Cinematic Listening PDF Author: Carlo Cenciarelli
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190853638
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 789

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Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Cinematic Listening explores the place of cinema in the history of listening. It looks at the ways in which listening to film is situated in textual, spatial, and social practices, and also studies how cinematic modes of listening have extended into other media and everyday experiences. Chapters are structured around six themes. Part I ("Genealogies and Beginnings") considers film sound in light of pre-existing practices such as opera and shadow theatre, and also explores changes in listening taking place at critical junctures in the early history of cinema. Part II ("Locations and Relocations") focuses on specific venues and presentational practices from roadshow movies to contemporary live-score screenings. Part III ("Representations and Re-Presentations") zooms into the formal properties of specific films, analyzing representations of listening on screen as well as the role of sound as a representational surplus. Part IV ("The Listening Body") focuses on the power of cinematic sound to engage the full body sensorium. Part V ("Listening Again") discusses a range of ways in which film sound is encountered and reinterpreted outside the cinema, whether through ancillary materials such as songs and soundtrack albums, or in experimental conditions and pedagogical contexts. Part VI ("Across Media") compares cinema with the listening protocols of TV series and music video, promenade theatre and personal stereos, video games and Virtual Reality.

The Oxford Handbook of Video Game Music and Sound

The Oxford Handbook of Video Game Music and Sound PDF Author: William Gibbons
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197556167
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 977

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Book Description
Bringing together dozens of leading scholars from across the world to address topics from pinball to the latest in virtual reality, The Oxford Handbook of Video Game Music and Sound is the most comprehensive and multifaceted single-volume source in the rapidly expanding field of game audio research.

Pixel Soundtracks

Pixel Soundtracks PDF Author: Tim Summers
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538192772
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Tim Summers provides an engaging introduction to video game music aimed at gamers, music enthusiasts, budding composers, music professionals, and anyone with an interest in the topic. Pixel Soundtracks explore a wide variety of topics, including: the history of game music sound technology and chip music interactive and generative music composition how game music tells stories, creates worlds & characters, and evokes emotions classical and pop music in games battle and boss music nostalgia, remakes, and fandom game music concerts and albums Summers dives deeply into twenty beloved games across the decades to illustrate crucial concepts. These games include Space Invaders, Super Mario Bros., BioShock Infinite, Dark Souls III, Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, The Legend of Zelda, and more. The book is separated into five stages and a “final boss,” and sections build off each other into increasingly broader topics—starting with the specifics of computer chips and ending with questions of game music’s engagement with identity. The “final boss” brings together ideas presented throughout the book. Based on the latest research, this book will allow readers to better understand the fantastic experiences and meanings that arise when games and music fuse together.

Music and Sonic Environments in Video Games

Music and Sonic Environments in Video Games PDF Author: Kate Galloway
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040135374
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
Music and Sonic Environments in Video Games brings together a range of perspectives that explore how music and sound in video games interact with virtual and real environments, often in innovative and unexpected ways. Drawing on a range of game case studies and disciplinary perspectives, the contributors consider the sonic environment in games as its own storytelling medium. Highlighting how dynamic video game soundscapes respond to players’ movements, engage them in collaborative composition, and actively contribute to worldbuilding, the chapters discuss topics including genre conventions around soundscape design, how sonic environments shape players’ perceptions, how game sound and music model ecological processes and nonhuman relationships, and issues of cultural and geographic representation. Together, the essays in this volume bring game music and sound into the environmental humanities and transform our understanding of sonic environments as an essential part of storytelling in interactive media. Engaging a wide variety of game genres and communities of play, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of music, media studies, critical game studies, popular culture, and sound studies.

Teaching Electronic Music

Teaching Electronic Music PDF Author: Blake Stevens
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000417271
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
Teaching Electronic Music: Cultural, Creative, and Analytical Perspectives offers innovative and practical techniques for teaching electronic music in a wide range of classroom settings. Across a dozen essays, an array of contributors—including practitioners in musicology, art history, ethnomusicology, music theory, performance, and composition—reflect on the challenges of teaching electronic music, highlighting pedagogical strategies while addressing questions such as: What can instructors do to expand and diversify musical knowledge? Can the study of electronic music foster critical reflection on technology? What are the implications of a digital culture that allows so many to be producers of music? How can instructors engage students in creative experimentation with sound? Electronic music presents unique possibilities and challenges to instructors of music history courses, calling for careful attention to creative curricula, historiographies, repertoires, and practices. Teaching Electronic Music features practical models of instruction as well as paths for further inquiry, identifying untapped methodological directions with broad interest and wide applicability.

Mobilizing Music in Wartime British Film

Mobilizing Music in Wartime British Film PDF Author: Heather Wiebe
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197631711
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Mobilizing Music in Wartime British Film examines the preoccupation with art music and total war that animated British films of the 1940s.