Well, I'm home from the video game music conference. Sorry that I wasn't able to blog during the event. I went out both nights with various conference attendees. Lunches were also events together. That was really great in that way, but left little time to process the experience or reflect on it in the midst of it. A very "be present" experience. The conference got lots of press and online attention. Wired wrote an article about it, as did WKBN, the local news, and these are just a couple of examples.
Like I said in my last post, I'm not a person who is used to academic conferences, so I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. I just had a hazy memory of attending a few talks at a conference more than ten years ago. The highlight of NACVGM was meeting people who are into gaming and music, and seeing how they're thinking about the two. Really fun to make some connections and meet like-minded thinkers. I was also particularly stimulated by several of the topics. Really cool to hear ideas of how programmers not realizing that an accidental has duration throughout a measure might explain transcription errors of classical pieces. Also neat to think about the harmonies of cutscenes-- a V-I progression might give resolution to the gameplay before where as a I-V might end a cutscene with a feeling of needing resolution in the following gameplay. Also, meeting Karen Collins in person was amazing and hearing her keynote address on where we've come from and where we might go (and what she's working on!).
As a performance degree holder, I was a little surprised by the atmosphere of the event. The presentations were lots of reading, just a touch too quietly. I was expecting to hear more of mini-lectures: more eye contact, more connection between the speaker and audience. I know, the content should matter most, but delivery must play in to these experiences as well. Again, I was the outsider at the event; basically everyone else there was a musicologist or music theorist. However, if this is the norm for presentations, my thought is that a smooth, crafty, engaging delivery would be a big boon for those in attendance.
Another thing that I was surprised by was the fact that everyone referred to these talks as "papers." I didn't write out my comments explicitly to be read-- I simply created a Keynote presentation and organized my thoughts with that. As one of the conference organizers pointed out, I "extemporized." I had notes that I used to make sure I made key points, and practiced delivering my presentation twice, but I didn't plan to simply stand and read. As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather delivery 95% or 90% of what I want to in a more interactive way than read word for word. In retrospect, I suspect this method of delivery was more natural for me because I just spent a semester doing exactly that in my video game music class. Also, my dissertation committee said after my lecture recital: "you're at your most boring when you read." I had practiced my talking during the recital as being off the cuff, but in the moment I got nervous and read more than I had. After that experience, I know reading isn't my best way to present. So, I was an odd ball, but I wouldn't have had it any other way.
There was great interest for me to share my game music class syllabus. I decided to share it here so that it's available for anyone who would like to see it. In a way, I see it as giving back; I read lots of sample syllabi online and blog posts about how to gamify a course when I was creating my syllabus, so I'll share my attempt with the world as well. I'll post it in my next post.
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