Music and Game: Perspectives on a Popular Alliance

224 Pages·2013·1.33 MB·English

by  Melanie Fritsch (auth.)

Musik und Medien
Edited by
H. Schramm, University of Würzburg, Germany
Peter Moormann (Ed.)
Music and Game
Perspectives on a Popular Alliance
Editor
Peter Moormann
Berlin, Germany
ISBN 978-3-531-17409-9 ISBN 978-3-531-18913-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-531-18913-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012946195
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
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Contents

Foreword ....................................................................................................................... 7
Peter Moormann

History of Video Game Music ................................................................................... 11
Melanie Fritsch

Interactivity and Music in Computer Games ........................................................... 41
Michael Liebe

Droppin’ Science: Video Game Audio Breakdown ................................................ 63
Leonard J. Paul

The Legacy of iMuse: Interactive Video Game Music in the 1990s ..................... 81
Willem Strank

Scoring Play – Soundtracks and Video Game Genres ........................................... 93
Andreas Rauscher

Resourceful Frames and Sensory Functions –
Musical Transformations from Game to Film in Silent Hill .................................. 107
Florian Mundhenke

Mundane Sounds in Miraculous Realms:
An Auditory Analysis of Fantastical Games ........................................................... 125
Marcus Erbe

Atmospheres at Play: Aesthetical Considerations of Game Music ...................... 147
Gregor Herzfeld

Playing with Music – Featuring Sound in Games .................................................. 159
Michael Custodis

Geeks on Stage? Investigations in the World of (Live) Chipmusic ..................... 171
Matthias Pasdzierny

P(l)aying Music and Games ....................................................................................... 191
Stefan Strötgen
6 Contents
Contributors ................................................................................................................ 215

List of Abbreviations .................................................................................................. 219

Index of Games .......................................................................................................... 221

Index of Names .......................................................................................................... 225
Foreword

Although battling virtual worlds in high fidelity started to spread from youth into
mainstream culture decades ago, the study of music in games is still a research
desideratum of media studies and musicology. In German-speaking countries only
very little attention has been paid to this issue. This limited recognition is contra-
dictory to a global game market worth 30 billion dollars and as important for the
production and distribution of music as other media sectors. The number of
computer users has multiplied significantly in recent years – particularly in the for-
mative teenage group where games are just as important as movies and television
for musical socialization, i.e. developing musical preferences and semantic assign-
ments. Games of different genres use sophisticated musical concepts which in turn
rely on a variety of sound idioms. It is worth noting that this aesthetic
approach is especially related to compositional techniques in the field of film and
popular music which specialize in creating specific moods, atmospheres and
characters for virtual worlds that can be connected to the real world via uncon-
scious musical means. It must, however, be taken into account that music in games
depends very much on user interactivity.
Depending on the video game genre, composing for video games can differ
drastically from other forms of composition. Loop-techniques and other means are
part of a compositional system which unfolds in ever new combinations according
to user behaviour. For example, music for role-playing games is often not a fixed
composition, but a series of modules. From the very beginning of video games,
there was a desire to increase the degree of interactivity. Video game music con-
tributes considerably to this interactivity, and has done so since the introduction of
iMuse in the early 1990s. Subsequent developments have led to the current complex
system of modules. Although the modules themselves are relatively fixed, their
combination depends on the player’s specific actions. Therefore the length and
sequence of the modules has to be flexible so that the music of any one module is
able to flow smoothly into that of any of the others as well as allowing two or more
modules to be played harmoniously at the same time. This harmonious flexibility is
also an essential element for the interactivity between music and sound design.
Consequently, composer and sound designer work closely together. The auditive
environment they thus produce can, in addition, be described as democratic since
the flexibility of the game allows the player to become ‘co-author’. This notion of
equality within the close relationship of creator and consumer as collaborators
stands in strong contrast to the autocratic idea of being ‘true to the work’ or the
8 Foreword
‘genius-aesthetic’ which became particularly strong in the 19th century and, mostly,
still exists today. Video game music can thus have an influence on current debates
regarding what a work actually is – is it, for example, the score or its performance?
The interactivity of game, music, sound, the actions of the player, etc. fully immerse
the player into the game, not only as co-author, but also as performer.
In order to unfold in depth this strong alliance between music and game, the
contributors to this book examine its various perspectives. Melanie Fritsch gives an
historical overview of both the technical and compositional development of video
game music from the time when such games were born until the present day. Her
text ranges from video games for arcade halls to those for contemporary handhelds
as well as outlining the progress made in the composition of the music, originally
created by the video game programmers themselves and currently created by highly-
specialised composers. Interactivity is the main focus of Michael Liebe’s contribu-
tion. He provides a thorough description of numerous music games as well as intro-
ducing a new system of categorisation showing how music and gameplay are inter-
linked: the relationship of the two being based on (a) player or computer
performance, (b) objective or symbolic interfaces and (c) linear, reactive or proac-
tive tracks. Changing the perspective from a theoretical viewpoint to that of
practice, video game composer and remixer Leonard Paul describes in detail various
interactive techniques such as branching, layering and creating transitions and cites
examples from specific video games in order to illustrate how these techniques
function. Willem Strank’s text focuses, in particular, on the aspect of reactive music
by discussing the 1990s’ era, during which various attempts were made to increase
the player’s freedom of interactivity in role-playing games. As he shows in his analy-
sis of Monkey Island 2, the main purpose of LucasArts’ iMuse was to create a flexible
and dynamic soundtrack by means of horizontal re-sequencing as well as variations
in sound, tempo, dynamics, etc. by means of vertical re-orchestration. He also
examines the semiotic and semantic aspects of video game music. In the
following text, Andreas Rauscher concentrates on theoretical observations concern-
ing the relationship between video game and film music. Among other facets, he
transposes Jean Mitry’s theories about rhythm in film to that of video games: the
rhythmic movements of the avatar, for example, being similar to the notes and
tempos of a music score. He also explains how differences in genre can create
different expectations regarding game play and settings. Florian Mundhenke’s
comparative evaluation explores the functionality of music and sound in the original
Silent Hill video game series as well as in the film adaptation. He furnishes an over-
view of various theoretical approaches to both the sound and the video games,
including classifications of the music and their specific roles. Following this
discussion regarding the relationship of music and sound, Marcus Erbe’s text
presents the results of a collaborative analysis of the levels of the latter in video
games. This analysis is the result of a seminar experiment in which the students
Foreword 9
observed and monitored the various dimensions of game audio in the related genres
of science fiction, fantasy and horror. Gregor Herzfeld’s contribution addresses the
issue of musical atmosphere in video games and their aesthetic implications. In the
course of this, he relates Kant’s, Huizinga’s and Schiller’s theoretical observations
regarding play (man as player) to Böhme’s theory of atmosphere by analysing the
environment of involvement in first-person-shooter and role-playing games.
Michael Custodis’ text provides an historical overview of music in play. He shows,
within this, that video game music cannot be seen as a specific musical genre, but
rather as a performative functional assignment in order to make the player feel like a
pop star as, for example, in Guitar Hero. He additionally deals with endeavours to
connect the ‘unreality’ of game music with the reality of live concerts. Continuing
this theme, Matthias Pasdzierny is also concerned with the performative aspect,
particularly in regard to live chip music concerts. He gives a detailed history of the
development of the chip music scene from the late 1980s onwards, highlighting
both the technological and sociological aspects and argues that through such live
performances the cultural value of video game music is enhanced. The focus of the
final contribution, Stefan Strötgen’s, concerns the business aspect of such music
including an extensive overview of both production and composing conditions. In
the course of so doing, he highlights the affiliations between composer and client,
composers’ rights, marketing strategies and cross-industrial relations.
To conclude this foreword, I wish to extend my deep and heartfelt gratitude to
each of the above contributors for the amount of time and effort expended in
producing an invaluable and comprehensive insight into the world of music for
video games. In addition, I wish to thank Jim Sullivan for his editorial assistance in
correcting the English where necessary, providing advice when needed, and
(occasionally) finding the perfect synonym.

Peter Moormann Berlin, May 2012
History of Video Game Music

Melanie Fritsch

1 Introduction

Video game music has changed significantly during its history since the first bleeps
and bloops came out of the first computer loudspeakers. Whereas in the early years
the music was often created by the programmers themselves, today’s video game
scores are created by film music composers such as, for example, Danny Elfman
(Fable, 2004) or Hans Zimmer (Modern Warfare 2, 2009) or by specialized game
composers. They all have to face compositional challenges no other combination of
moving pictures and music has presented before. A video game is non-linear and is
only assembled from the different components provided in its storage medium
when the player plays it. Therefore it needs a dynamic soundtrack which basically
reacts to the player’s inputs and the state of the game. This has to be addressed on
the technical as well as the compositional level.
This article follows the technical development and is therefore subdivided into
time-spans in which certain technical standards prevailed, the latter of which also
created the prerequisites for certain aesthetics to develop. I will mention only the
main characteristics and innovations as well as some of the, in terms of music, most
interesting games and composers of each era. My approach here is to preferably
give a broad overview and just highlight the particular developments which strongly
influenced video game music or made remarkable progress possible. My focus is to
acquaint the reader with the rich history of video game music as well as the
literature1 currently available for further research. At present, in particular, finding
the appropriate vocabulary is a major issue in video game music research as can be
seen in the existing literature2 written by researchers and composers. Karen Collins
also indicated this desideratum in her keynote speech at the 2010’s “Music and the
Moving Image” conference at New York University, posing the question: “Where
do we go from here?”3

1 Historical overviews can also be found in Collins 2005 and 2008a, Belinkie 1999, Douglas 2002,
McDonald 2002, Pidkameny 2002, Dittbrenner 2005.
2 Besides Collins, see, e.g., Ross 2001, Pidkameny 2002 and Dittbrenner 2005 (for an overview, 68, fig.
8).
3 The slides are available on her website www.gamessound.com [05/05/2012]. See also Jørgensen 2010.
P. Moormann (ed.), Music and Game, DOI 10.1007/978-3-531-18913-0_1,
© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden 2013