Musings: Video Game Music Class

One of my goals this semester is to blog about teaching my video game music course weekly.  Since our semester started on Tuesday, today's a perfect day to begin!  

One of the best things about teaching the course-- at least for me, with the way I set it up-- is that there's plenty of time for student discussion and comments.  These moments are the ones where I learn the most from the students.  It's that classic "several minds are better than one" scenario.  

On the first day, we surveyed game audio in four brief examples: Pong, Super Mario Bros, Final Fantasy VII, and Journey.  When I played the Pong video example and asked for reactions, one of the students mentioned that he found it interesting that the designers had decided to celebrate the loss in Pong, rather than the win.  

Have you ever thought about that?  I certainly hadn't!  Instead of a "good" sound that clearly celebrates the point earned by the winning player, the sound is abrasive and harsh, seemingly related to the ball being out of bounds.  Some of this is dependent on the version of Pong you're listening too, but here's a pretty close version to what we heard in class.   

This decision to have that sort of sound play may have simply been pragmatic, based on what Al Alcorn could coax out of the machine at the time.  Still, I had never considered the fact that the scoring point audio highlights the out of bounds loss rather than the crafty win.  

Musings: Analysis: NES My Gaming Audio History Lessons Learned

This is a rather long entry, but contains a lot of information.  If you're new to the blog or a regular reader, I highly suggest taking your time and reading.  There's a lot of insight and information below as I analyze the NES games in My Gaming Audio History, a journey I've come to the end of after over a year.  Next up, SNES games... but for today, the last of my musings and analysis of the NES era audio.

I've been taking some time to think about what I learned by studying the music (and audio) to these NES games that I played growing up.  Not only have I been wondering about results of my study and what I've learned so far, but I've been asking myself fundamental questions like: why is the NES era so fascinating to me, and why am I studying game music?  It's this final question that I'm going to start with now...

For one, I've always played games.  I've also played the piano as well as several other musical instruments.  I've already written about the connections I see between playing games and playing musical instruments, particularly my life and career as a pianist.  Yet, recently I've thought of another reason that games study is so appealing to me.  My partner is a very successful opera singer and is traveling the world roughly half of the year.  I'm at home... my connection with his work is in preparing him for those roles and performances.  After that initial step, then he leaves and is gone for months working on the projects in fabulous places around the country (the last year took him to France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain, and Holland, for instance).  I've begun to realize that games are not just nostalgic, but also a way for me to go to exotic locations and hear amazing sounds right from my living room.  I think this "away from where I am" aspect is a big part of the draw in studying game audio for me.  It's a way to travel anywhere and hear new sounds from my life at home.

Continuing in reverse order, why is the NES era so fascinating to me?  And, it's not just me!  Many other folks love the 8-bit era above all other game audio times.  One thing is that the NES was nearly universal-- it had such a huge market share in the 80s that nearly everyone who played games played the NES and could relate to it.  Thus, it gives a universal language among people around my age.

Another reason I think the NES era is so fascinating is that with the development of the NES, the era of home gaming was born.  One can definitely hear the influence of the arcades (the "ringing" up of your score at the end of Super Mario Bros, for instance, imitates pinball).  However, music needed to fill out the audio experience of gaming because it was at home and not in a crowded arcade.  Also, your NES was plugged into a TV, which didn't have great speakers, but probably better ones than your computer sound in the 80s!  So, there's an influence of what came before (main the arcade/ pinball sound effects) but also better audio quality.

For me, undoubtedly one of the most amazing aspects of game music in the NES era was the lack of precedent.  By the time of 16-bit consoles, there were years of game audio history to build on.  But the developers of NES games and game audio were in uncharted territory.  What should a game sound like?  What should a power-up sound like?  What should death sound like?  What should running out of time sound like?  What did music tell the player about the scene and moment in the game?  These questions were decided in this era of home gaming in a way that still carries influence today-- and not just because some sounds are exactly the same (finding a treasure in Zelda, for instance), but even more basic parameters.  Generally, power-ups rise, death music descends, running out of time speeds up....

By the time of the SNES, my parents had bought another TV and my brother and I were moved into a new room where we could game without using the "family TV."  Thus, game audio no longer filled the house in the same way.  Thus, games had lost their universality as my parents no longer watched and listened as we played along for hours.

Finally, what have I learned so far?  I've already created a chart where I show how the amount of music in NES games increases over time.  But what else?  Well...

When I started this project, I expected to find a grand key scheme and design in these games.  By this I mean: like a great Beethoven symphony, I hoped to find that a game was in a certain key with various tracks in related keys, which were connected by musical (mathematic) significance.  I really didn't find much of this.  Koji Kondo definitely has key relationships in the Mario Bros games (these games are overwhelmingly in C major), and David Wise has moments of it-- like the E centered RC Pro-Am.  However, composers don't do this as much as one might expect.

I also expected to find lots of thematic relationships.  By this I mean musical symbolism that occurs by the use of motives that describe feelings, people, places, things, etc...  If you need more info, check out my video on Leitmotifs in Final Fantasy 7.  I've only just started my SNES research, and am looking forward to writing about it soon, but I can already say that this is more common in SNES games than NES games.  Koji Kondo is definitely a leader in this way.

Finally, I'd like to share one unexpected thing I've learned in my NES game study.  Admittedly, I feel a little foolish to write that this is unexpected, because I should have realized it, but...  Game composers have "sounds" that define them in the same way that Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart, etc, have "sounds" that an experienced listener can identify.  I definitely can recognize David Wise music, at least on the NES.  He has compositional forms as well as sounds that he uses more regularly than another composer might, say Koji Kondo, for instance.  And likewise with other composers.  This isn't to say that all games by a composer sound exactly the same, but there are similarities that one can come to hear and understand as this music is studied so that even hearing a piece for the first time allows for educated guesses if you're familiar with more of the composer's work.  Like I said, I don't know why I didn't expect to find this, but I hadn't thought of it until now and definitely hear it.

So there are my reflections on the last year and a half of game audio study I've been doing.  Now, I'm off to the next era; I've already been studying Super Mario World with great delight.  Looking forward to the next journey.

Musings: An afternoon at the casino

Today Vince and I went to the MGM casino in Detroit after a lovely river walk downtown.  He joked with me that the trip could be research, and I thought that'd be funny, but he's right.  I can't help myself...  even before I enter the place, I start to think about the audio experience of going to the casino.

The MGM grand audio experience starts in the parking garage.  Unlike any parking deck you've ever entered, this one is full of speaker and playing music.  The Bee Gees "Staying Alive" was on when we were walking in.  Then as soon as you enter the place, there's that casino sound.  The chorus of machines ringing in C major.  It's absolutely a symphonic experience of all these machines joined in harmony.  Is every single machine in C?  No, but an overwhelming majority of them are.  Unlike the arcades of olden days, these machines are working in tandem in an auditory way.  Really interesting and unique.  Not quite like anything I else I know: if you've not heard it, you need to go in to one and give it a listen.

I had a couple of experiences that I jotted down to share.  First of all, I was standing behind Vince watching him play a machine and someone sat down at the adjacent machine.  From time to time, I glanced at how he was doing.  On his particular machine, when the player increased the number of line bets, the pitch of the machine went up or down in a major scale.  This really caught my eye and ear because he increased the number of line bets, he went up from 13 to 21.  Now, I can't say for sure why he chose those numbers, 13 certainly has a bit of "numerology" with it, but I did notice he hesitated for a moment at 20 and then went up to 21.  I probably would have done the same: although 20 seems like a nice, round number, 21 completed the octave from where he began.  Don't underestimate the audio power these games have over the players!

Also noticed an interesting experience where Vince sat down at WMS Monopoly Real Estate Tycoon machine (amazing music, plus he doubled his money!  Would be very interested to learn who's the composer here, but can't find that information online).  The sounds were overwhelmingly loud and he realized it was possible to turn it down immediately with an onscreen command.  The lady beside him, who had been playing for a long time, watched him do this and then adjusted her machine's volume as well.  Fascinating that she had not realized this was possible and was interested to watch and learn how to do this from him after hearing him complain about it.  Just a little more evidence about how important the sounds of the casino machines are when your attention is drawn to them.

Sitting in one of the restaurants there, TAPS, I kept my ear on the casino, though I wasn't in the midst of it.  The sound of C major is amazing.  bVI-bVII-I.  (This brought to mind Mandy Moore, Candy.)  Almost all the sounds from machines are repeated pitches, or a series of rising pitches.  Glissandos are common.  The sound of change pouring out of the machines... which is almost a funny sound.  I'm old enough to remember the real sound of coins pouring out from machines in Vegas right around the turn of the century, but who pays with cash/coins anymore?  That's almost a lost sound.  What will the sound of a monetary win sound like in another 50 years?

Finally, there was a game that really caught my ear for having game-like audio, Aristocrat's Mr. Cashman.  There are many varieties of this game, and I'm not sure exactly which one I heard, but in this timestamped link, you can hear a bit of what I'm talking about.

Well, another trip to the casino, left with a bit of a gain for once, and got some good thinking going with the casino audio experience.

Musings: Reflections on the North American Conference on Video Game Music

I've been really stimulated as I've continued to think about my weekend at the video game music conference.  As I've chatted with some friends around the U, I mentioned the conference to one who often teases me about "degrading the education at UM by offering courses on video game music."  I told him how we had a lengthy discussion as to what to call the group-- should it join with other academic groups: AMS, SAM, etc?  Or should we branch out on our own?  Should we call ourselves Game music scholars or "Ludomusicologists?"  I thought this would might help my friend change his thinking.  Nope.  His reply: "Ludo-musicologists?!  Sounds like Pseudo-Musicologists!"  It's a good reminder for me that not everyone sees validity in studying game audio.

While I was at the conference, I kept wondering why so many of the speakers were interested in finding and explaining classical music (or secondarily, popular music) examples in games.  I can think of a few potential answers immediately: 1- as "scholarly" musicians, these are examples that we hear, recognize, and relate with; and 2- as scholars, we find these examples of "high art" in game music and hope that it gives some extra weight to our argument that it is worthwhile; and 3- these classical works give us a reference point to engage our other scholarly trained friends.  I'm sure there are more, but these pop up for me immediately.

For me, though, the greatest interest in game audio is that which is created specifically for the medium.  And what an interesting creation it is!  I was thinking this morning about how every aspect of the game is so carefully crafted and how it takes such skill are precision for ambient sounds, sound effects, dialogue, and music to all come together and create a real, immersive, believable world where players want to spend time.  When I began the blog, I considered following examples of classical music in games-- I even created a label "classical connections," but I never used it.  In fact, the use of Hadyn in Final Fantasy 7 was one of my initial interesting points that came up as I studied FF7 music early on in this blog.  However, as I thought more about game audio, I became more interested in game music (and audio) for its own sake.  There's something inherently exciting about these new sounds that are being created.

Anyhow, my conversation yesterday got me thinking about why academics interested in game audio might go for classical connections and how we might use it to our advantage at this point as we try to convince our peers that this area is worthy of study.  However, the new music being created for games should be drunk deeply, fully studied, and appreciated as well!

Musings: Mixing in Guitar Hero

I've been grading some quizzes over the holiday and love the fact that teaching video game music gives me a chance to learn from the students.  I've only played Guitar Hero a few times-- I don't really like music games (probably because I'm playing enough music in real life!).  On the quiz, I played a little of Eye of the Tiger from Guitar Hero.  Several of the students commented that the mixing was different in the game from what it is in the original song.  I'd never thought about that at all, but I definitely agree as I listen to it again, not only are there more sounds added (crowd cheering, clapping, etc), but also the vocals are ducked from the original version.  Would this change depending on what instrument you're playing?  Probably, but I need to do more research to know for sure.

Give the original a listen:

And compare the Guitar Hero version:

Musings: A moment of brilliance in Skyward Sword's Wiimote calibration.

I've been playing a bit of Skyward Sword recently, listening for thematic transformation in Groose's theme, which I remember noticing on my first playthrough.  While doing this, I almost noticed the most interesting connection between the startup sound and the main theme.

Here's the Skyward Sword Main theme.  Listen especially to the first four ascending notes at 11 sec.  Notice the pattern of them: long-- short-short-short.

Now give a listen to the first six seconds of this video, the very first four sounds you hear when you start Skyward Sword where the Wii remote is calibrating.  Notice the same first four notes of an ascending minor scale?  The same long-- short-short-short pattern?

Of course, this could've sounded like anything, but how clever to have it sound as the main theme of Skyward Sword?  A very subtle, clever use of the main theme motive!!!

Musings: The "Sound" of Gaming.

I've been thinking recently about the sounds of gaming.  For instance, when studying and preparing my opening lectures for my game music class, I was looking at some of the early games with no game audio.  For instance, Tennis for Two:

Tennis for Two is considered to be a "silent" game.  (Arguably, it's not even a video game, since all of the components are analog and not digital.)  However, from the video, I would contend that the gameplay isn't silent at all!  It's quite loud, in fact.  Even though the sounds aren't generated by the game, is scholarship going to consider the sounds of the mechanics of playing games?

A more modern example of this is when I play The Last Story.  My Wii is literally groaning under the stress of playing the game.  At times, the sounds of the game loading (or whatever it's doing) are as loud or louder than the on screen sounds!  There's no question that those sounds are part of the audio environment the player experiences.  I remember the same effect when I played Diablo II years ago.  Loading from the CD made sounds-- an when I played on my desk, these were amplified by vibration through the laptop into the desk!

My thoughts on this topic were confirmed a few days ago when I played the above Tennis for Two video for my class and asked them about the audio.  Several students replied about the sounds of playing the game.  These sounds are part of the players' soundscape.  Will scholars account for them as well as game audio in the game?  How?

Musings: Connections between collaborative piano and game music

I've been thinking recently about some similarities I see between my main profession as a collaborative pianist and game music.  Just wanted to jot some of them down here to remember.

First, the physicality of it.  Playing the piano is in essence pushing buttons with extreme skill in precise combinations at particular times.  Rough to say it that way, but at some level it's true.  Now, no one would deny there's a certain artistry to it, right?  How is game play any different?  Great players know the combinations of buttons they need to press and the exact moment to press them to get a desired outcome.  When I'm playing, I'm shaping an aural world around myself.  When gamers are playing, they're shaping a virtual world they're connected to through their hands.  To get really great at either task, first of all you need pretty good hand eye coordination, and secondly you get better as you practice for many hours.  So far, that sounds fairly true, though with a bias toward platform or action games.  It's true of RPG types as well, as you have to make decisions based on your abilities, characters, and experience about the best combination of actions to input.  As a pianist, a fingering that may work brilliantly for one person might be one that makes me miss the scale every time.  However, knowing my abilities, and gauging my past experiences allows me to choose the best on for that particular moment.  

Now thinking more about an audio focus, consider my daily life as an accompanist versus game music. Nearly everyone agrees that games are largely visual.  As humans, we simply rely on our eyes for a vast majority of our input.  Music in a game is there, shaping the game, sculpting the gameplay; but it may not have our primary interest, which may be focused more on our controllers or what we're seeing on screen.  For me, that's quite connected with my work at the piano.  When I'm playing with a singer, for instance, most people are focused on what the singer is doing and listening to him/her.  It actually takes a lot of listening skill to direct your attention to the accompaniment and hear that, since the primary melody is usually being sung plus words!  Yet, if the accompaniment is poorly played, the performance, no matter how good the soloist may be, won't seem quite as good.  The same is so true of game music: if the score is second rate, irritating, jarring, or doesn't fit musically with the onscreen moment, the game simply won't seem as good.  It may be hard to put your finger on what it is that's off, but the game music is undoubtedly a big part of the whole.

To emphasize the importance of good collaborative pianists, I like to use a surfer analogy:  If you watch a surfing competition everyone's paying attention to the surfer on the board.  The surfer knows very well if the ocean is good that day for surfing or not, but most people watching aren't thinking about that.  They're thinking about the surfer.  It's true for collaborative pianists too, if the ocean (the accompaniment) isn't good, the surfer isn't going to have as good of a ride as they could.  If it's great, they might be one of the only people who appreciates it, but they'll know it's a good day for surfing.  Isn't this true of game music, though?  Some people might realize it's very good, but for most, they're focused on the gameplay, story, visuals.  I'm sure other people have moments like me where they just stop playing a game to listen to the music.  I've been with people who did that but always simply assumed they were doing it because I was around and am a musician.  Game music is that supportive entity, shaping the moment, deepening the emotion.

One of the ideas that game audio folks like to write about is that while the screen is limited to one (usually forward) viewpoint, the audio can supply you with a full 360 degrees of information.  This is particularly true with games that employ surround sound.  Plenty of games use game music to convey when something offscreen is happening, whether that's a building being completed or a monster sneaking up behind you.  I agree and also want to add this point to the discussion.  Audio is creating physical waves in the air around you, which are bumping into you.  That super low rumble from your subwoofer?  You're feeling that in your body.  The game audio is a huge part of the physical presence in the room with you.

I suppose the reason for this post is that I've been thinking a bit about how I got to the place I did where I'm so interested in examining game audio.  My Gaming Audio History is tracing through the games I played growing up, which I think had a lot of incredible audio.  And I think there is a shared hand-eye coordination between the physicality of playing a video game and playing an instrument.  I don't see these paths as having been separate; I see them as making perfect sense.

 

Musings: Comparing video games and tv/movies

When I first started getting into video game music and talking about creating this class with my colleagues and friends, I often explained the class this way: "it'd be just like a film music class, but with video game music."  Now, almost a year farther into the the project, I think back to this comparison a lot.  In some ways it makes sense; in other ways, I was naive.  At this point, I'm almost tired of hearing people say, "oh, it's like film music," or "you should talk to so-and-so who studies film music."  I'm starting to think that game audio is different enough that it's almost past the usefulness of comparing the two.  What do you think of the comparison?  I'm just jotting down some of my thoughts.  I know that in high scholarly terms, not much (if anything) here is groundbreaking, but I just wanted to brainstorm a bit, get my mind wrapped around the idea more, and get a dialogue started if there's one to be had here.

This comparison makes sense:

The basis of most game music studies begins with film music studies.  In Karen Collins book Game Audio, which I have sitting beside me, the second review on the back cover is by the author of a book on Sound Design in Cinema.  That's just a blatant example that's convenient.  The fact is, nearly all of the academic works that I've read cite material in film studies as a basis for creating the field of game studies.  Film has been around a lot longer than games-- I'd say film audio has roughly a half a century headstart ahead of game audio.  Games music is similar to film music in that they are both "moving" images with audio added.  I think the correlation is natural.  There're plenty of great ideas in film audio studies that are perfectly applicable to game audio.  No need to deny these or belittle them.  Instead, use them as a springboard for largely already done work and then move on.

Both genres are constrained by budgets, communication by various parties working on the project, and other marketing and practical creative concerns.  Being unable to anticipate the exact differences between sound systems in theaters isn't much different from home systems and if there is such a thing as a "fixed" theater sound system parameter, game audio has much the same when considering creating music for a portable system where speaker limitations are a known.

How much music is enough is another big shared fact between game audio and film/tv audio.  Everyone agrees game/film music should be amazing.  Everyone also seems to agree it shouldn't overwhelm the experience in any way.  For instance, I love Star Trek TNG, but early on the music for the show is a little old school overwhelming.  The producers realized this and changed the style as the seasons went along.  The same is true in game audio: the wall to wall games like Manic Mansion style of music where something loops forever until you do something that triggers a new loop aren't as common now.  There's definitely a shift toward less is more.  Perhaps budgetary, perhaps gamer tastes, and certainly because of the addition of spoken dialogue in many modern games.

If you read composer interviews, game composers constantly cite watching tv/movies as sources of inspiration for their game compositions.  If you asked someone to compose a score for a kids game, they'd hang up the phone and watch some kids tv and movies!  Of course they'd play some kids video games for inspiration too.  However, movies and tv are mentioned in nearly every interview in Aaron Marks prints in Guide to Game Audio.  Film/tv are easily accessible ways to see/hear what's going on in the moving image and sound world, whether or not you're familiar with the genre!  If composers are taking inspiration from the field, there must be some use in comparing the two!

This comparison doesn't make sense:

Because of the interactivity of game audio versus the passive nature of film/tv audio, game audio presents many interesting challenges that film/tv doesn't.  By this I mean that as you watch a film, you're seeing the same movie that unfolds the same way each time you watch.  You might notice different things if you rewatch it, but it's the same, linear unfolding.  With a game, you're making the onscreen action happen.  Choices you make determine what audio events occur and when they happen.  This leads to a completely different, active, adaptive audio experience.  

This also leads to a huge challenge in game audio which is that, unlike a linear musical medium (such as film), the audio has to be flexible enough to adapt itself to whatever your current moment is.  In an old game like Super Mario Bros, this means, when you go down a pipe, the Overworld music stops, the pipe sound effect plays, and then the Underworld music starts.  This changeability has to be able to happen at any moment, and should (theoretically) happen without a jarring audio glitch.  (Hence the pipe sound effect to cover the moment between the two musical themes!)  In a very modern game, this might include audio that adapts itself to your style of playing: if you lurk around and are very cautious, that should yield one audio experience.  Contrast that with another gamer who rushes in head on and blows everything up quickly blasting from one challenge to the next.  The best possible world of audio would be very different experiences for these two players!

Also, considering game music, how will music flow from one piece to the next?  Will it change at the end of a loop?  Will it change no matter where in the musical piece you are?  With game audio, there are parameters constructed: you're in a room and if you get close to this machine, an alarm goes off and the music changes.  How will the transition between the two pieces of music work?  All this must be planned and constructed and should feel intuitive and perfect for the gamer.  In movies, this isn't a problem: the pacing of the movie is set, the timing decided.  The movie, like most music, is linear.  Music for film can be constructed exactly in a way that game audio simply cannot... unless perhaps you're playing a game where all you do is push the A button to continue.

The constraint of memory is huge for games and is a non-existent problem for movie music.  A five hour movie can have five hours of super high quality audio, always synced up perfectly.  Five hours of audio is way more than almost any game can have these days.  Keeping the music relevant (and not turned off) but not annoying and repetitive is such a critical game design area.  Movies rarely happen with the audio turned off.  Some games (Candy Crush?) are probably played with the audio rarely turned on!

Some games now rely on the audio engine to mix the music to your playing style.  Film, in contrast, just needs to be synced up one time perfectly and then is saved.  Because the game designers don't know exactly when you're going to jump across a series of stones, they have decisions to make in the audio construction of the game: should an affirmation of your successful jump happen in sync with the visual?  Should it happen close to sync with your visual but on an important beat in the music?  Consider Skyward Sword: if you're doing very well in battle, the music might be just playing a couple of tracks, but if you're fighting a monster who deals you a critical blow, the music might swing into full volume and intensity, playing many more of the possible tracks.  This causes the composition style to be very different for games as well, as many games now need to be composed in stems that can be mixed according to the audio engine and the player.

One of my favorite uses of music in a game is to lead a player through a challenge in the game.  Imagine audio leading you through a maze (like the Lost Woods in Ocarina of Time).  If you listen closely, you can hear which direction you need to continue.  This is brilliant!  Film music can tell you what to expect, break your expectations, and build tension as you watch a scene, but because the movie isn't interactive, it can't cause you to make any choices about how the movie progresses as you watch.  (Although, an interactive movie would be a cool idea!)


So, the more I think about it, the more game audio is its own thing which was best served by film music being a jumping off point for a start of studies.  Really, I think it's time that comparison was left in the past.  Let me know what you think!

Musings: Video Game Nostaglia

So I'm getting ready to leave my summer work as of six years. A very poignant moment for me; one whose influence I'm feeling on my life now. Simultaneously one I'm excited to leave to focus on the future. I've been playing FF..... The original.  But not really the original, the iPad/iPhone remake. Keys are different, music added.  Some transitions are made better (music doesn't always restart from the initial bar), while others-- returning to musical theme is jarring and poorly sown sonically.  (Not to mention dungeons added, graphics updated, dialogue changed, game made easier, etc considering non-sound functions).

I went for the game for nostalgia in a hard life moment. Did I find what I was looking for sonically?  How does the modern day iPhone experience compare with my childhood tv and playing experience?  This will become a more in depth Analysis entry later, but I'm glad to be thinking about this early. Updating a game.....  I've thought of games like symphonies, but I think operas//songs might be a more fair comparison considering key/tempos. More on this soon.

Is this cryptic?  Sorry, just excited to get back in the swing with Internet access and time!

Musings: Similarities between video game music and other music.

For the last few days I've been talking to a few more of my friends about my game music class.  Several of them asked what do I know about game music?  I always replied that I've played games for years, basically since birth.  And then I've read a ton about game music at this point.  And I've run this blog.  I'll know even more about game music after I've taught the course on it, I'm sure.  That's one of the blessings of teaching, you (as the teacher) get just as much (or more) out of teaching the subject as your students do!  No, I haven't written game music, but neither have people who are teaching about Beethoven symphonies written a Beethoven symphony.  Or opera, chamber music, etc...

At a cabaret performance tonight with a wide variety of numbers, I was really struck by another similarity that game music has to classical music.  Classical music is written down explicitly and performers often try to do it just as it's written down.  The reality of the pre-recording era is that players improvised and ornamented a lot, changing the music to suit themselves and the moment, but that's less of a convention now that we've heard all of the music recorded exactly as it's printed.  Game music struck me as being similar.  Unlike the jazz numbers on tonights performance, the pieces I played were very scripted to be done with certain notes, words-- and from the singers, even actions and staging-- at certain moments.  While the jazz players had agreed on a form, there was less certainty about the performance than the written down music.  I think that might be one thing I appreciate about game music: it happens in a set way (at least until very recently).  The theme for Castlevania plays in exactly the same way and loops until you leave the screen where it's playing and another theme begins, which plays in its prescribed manner.  So, even though game music doesn't exist in a transcribed form, like classical music, it's neither like improvised music, where exactly how it goes is up to the whim of the player.

Actually, now that I've said it, I have to take that back, at least in couple of senses.  First of all, if you remember my analogy from earlier about the player being the "performer" of game music, then there is a certain way in which it does happen under our control.  When I was little and would jump around with Mario in SMB for hours just to hear the sound of him jumping and hitting bricks versus hitting blocks that he could destroy, I was very much in control of the audio experience.  It was up to me how the audio unfolded, to a certain degree.  Perhaps the same is true of jazz performers and improvisers.  They practice certain shapes and patterns which they'll gravitate toward in the moment of performance, but they're unsure of which exact ones they'll do in the moment.  Likewise, game music has an uncertainty of duration, but not of audio unfolding...

And that's where I need my second caveat.  As I think more about it, games like Red Dead Redemption have various audio possibilities that are combined randomly by the audio engine based on the way you play.  So while there are still a given number of audio unfoldings possible as you play, the possibilities expand greatly.  Perhaps even as greatly as for an improvising jazz player.  In reality, there are limitations to what they can do-- particularly when they are performing with others.  Forms must be adhered to, solos orders are decided, perhaps ahead of time, keys are established...  The jazz players must be able to follow along with one another.  And similarly, the game, even though it combines the music by an audio formula with lots of options is still limited by certain parameters.

I suppose these two seemingly different trains of thought are merging in my head into a discussion I want to consider more.  What do I know about game music?  What gives me the right to teach it?  How does one become an expert in it?  You can't get a doctorate in video game music.  Most folks who are writing and researching about it pursued related fields of study and then turned their attention to after school.  Likewise, many people who've spent their careers composing, implementing, programming, and otherwise working in the field and would be the "right" people (and even the right age at this point in game history) to start teaching the subject wouldn't have the degrees or pedigree generally expected of University teachers.  It's really a double sided problem.  But here I am, presented with the question of finding a class that would appeal broadly to non-music majors.  The perfect topic to me: game music!  I'm not an expert in it in the way I am art song, opera, or chamber music.  But I have a lifetime of experience playing games, a huge background of musical study, and am now digesting all I can about game music.  I hope one day to write some game music-- that'd be a blast!  But for now, I'm at a very interesting junction.  I've got the highest level of study a person can in classical music and a large background of knowledge that comes with that.

That background leads me to ask: how is classical music, performing music live, and the music business like game music.  It's an interesting line of questioning that I'll continue to explore.  For today, suffice it to say that the genre may change, but the music business is still much the same across game music, classical music, pop music.  One of the biggest things I'm seeing is that game music is just one more medium in the huge musical world.  It's not a foreign entity.  It's kind of different; every kind of music is a little different!  But it's not foreign for a person who's studied any kind of music if you embrace it.

Musings: Playthroughs need to include death!

The internet where I'm working this summer is so unreliable, but I'm bringing my computer to another location where it works a bit better.  A little limiting, and it slows my work-- which is already slow from this summer workload, but....

As I'm listening/watching various game playthroughs online, I was thinking that to be true completionist playthroughs, they should include a death scene.  I think players often think of a complete playthrough as one where all items are collected, all enemies battled, all dungeons cleared, maximum money/life collected, etc.  What about all music heard?  That should certainly be a consideration, though I'm not sure players think about it.  Not just for my scholarly purposes, but for the sake of having the complete experience of playing the game, death screens, continue screens, etc should be experienced!  How does the music sound?  Does it encourage you to try one more time?  Mock you mercilessly?  This is a major part of the game audio experience as well.  The game creators don't want you to literally stop playing when you die, and the music can egg you on to continue.  I've just been wishing to find less "perfect" playthroughs.  Speed runs are impressive, but longplays give more opportunity to hear game audio.  And a perfect run isn't the best for the audio!  Running into a wall, making a misstep, dying, etc... these are game sounds that need to be heard in these playthroughs!

Musings: Four thoughts

On this game music project: The best thing about this blog is that I'm engaging with others in conversation about game music.  This project gives me a reason to talk with other great musicians about game music and their experience with it.  Otherwise, we don't necessarily discuss it because gaming isn't always a topic that comes up among friends.  Also, this has really taught me a lot about the gaming industry.  Learning all of these game music facts has reinforced for me similarities in the classical world that I know and see regularly in work-- what's the same and what's different across the field of music: pop music, academia, opera, musical theater, and classical music.  The ideas, topics, issues, etc are many of the same things, but the genre and music involved changes.  Lastly, this project has almost unexpectedly exposed me to a lot of music I didn't know before.  I'm learning about all different kinds of music: popular music, historical musical references, classical music, scientific information about sounds and sound waves, the workings of modern composers, the business of music, the interaction of music with technology and psychology, the interactive abilities of game music.  What an interesting project this is!  I can imagine game music as a way to organize study in a music school that would touch effectively in many marketable, current, relevant areas of music study.  Creating audio for a game is the perfect way to organize students across various disciplines with a common goal.  It's the kind of cross curriculum work everyone wants to create-- well, now's the time to do it!

On my next entry: I thought I'd have finished the Collins early PC history section of Chapter 2 by tonight, but now that I'm in the midst of listening/watching the games, there's more there than I thought.  Music texts should be presented as interactive reading with listening links available at touch.  Good quality audio and performances/recordings, too!  Visual aspects-- especially with game music texts, should be expected as well.  Making these Collins listening link lists is a cool project, reminding me of the best interactions between music, technology, and printed texts.  How often do music students actually listen to the examples listed in a text and get to know them?  Is music, ever more at the touch of our fingers, in danger of becoming merely words on a page?  In the words of Virginia Woolf, "perhaps, melodramatic."

What else I'm up to game audiowise: I've been watching some of the GAT tutorial videos.  Internet out here in the Berkshires is slow and spotty.  Not my favorite situation by any means.  With these videos downloaded, there's always something I can watch, even when the internet is down.  Seeing the way that audio and games are manipulated now is very powerful.  I've got an inherent fear of having to program and understand game mechanics because I only am aware of the early era where integration was very complicated and at the mercy of the programmer.  I'm learning now that middleware and the usability of software are making integrating audio into a game just another step to learn, not a mystic programming activity.  (My mother, who has more programming experience than I would say that programming isn't mystic-- but it seems so to me!)  Watching these tutorial videos is like seeing behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz... it makes me more hungry to explore the GAT program/text and integrate some audio in the fall.  Once I get my new UM computer with a Windows split, I'll be able to check that text out in more detail, although it seems it'll take quite a while to work through.  If I can finish it in a years time I'll be pleased.  My current reading is the new Collins book, which I'm enjoying thoroughly and looking forward to blogging about soon.

Just for fun: For the longest time, I've been wanting to make my cell ring be the Final Fantasy victory track.  I suppose it's an Advent Children nostalgia that was the beginning of it, but I'm finally working tonight on making a ringtone.  I think it's an important thing for me to experience.  Plus, although I hate phone sound effects and I always keep my phone on silent, the one exception is when Vince is out of town-- like now-- and then I keep it on in case he calls.  It's the perfect reminder for me to change the ring up to be more special, since it's generally him calling!  I think I'm going with the FF 6 victory.  I think out of the different end game sounds, it's the best for a ring tone.  I also like the original, 3, 4, and 9, but 9 ends too softly, 1 doesn't have enough variety, and 4 is too repetitive for me.  I want the looping section to sound more lively since it's the extension of the ring.  6 also has the opera scene.  Give them all a listen.  It's a repurposing, yes, but what game audio do you think would make the best ringtone?

Musings: Music Making in Video Games: Musicians in Video Games (Mainly Edward, FF4)

I just started reading Karen Collins new book today, Playing with Sound, which seems so interesting and right in line with many of the topics I was thinking about in my last Musing about listening to game audio. How cool!  I can tell it's going to be hard to put down despite my busy week.

And that, somehow, got me thinking back to the Music Making in Video Games series on the blog, which I haven't updated in a long time.  I'll definitely update it a few times this week. One of the most interesting playable game characters to me is the musician. Combining this idea a bit with My Gaming Audio History and the opening pages of Collins new book got me thinking about playing games as a musician.  While Manic Mansion probably had the first musician characters I could play as (and did play as) with Razor and Syd-- who, like me, had blond hair, I played FF 4 much more and always thought about Edward as the first game musician I identified with.

I disliked Edward strongly, and probably still do to some degree. Firstly, as a playable character.  His fighting is weak, as is his defense-- leaving him hiding or dead after he's been struck even once, and in the SNES version, his singing ability is severely neutered. Secondly I disliked him, as an emotional character.  He's wimpy in his decision making, wanting to stay and cry with Anna after her death contrasting with Tellah's strong desire for revenge.  I was never impressed with the Dark Elf harp scene as Edward drags himself from bed to play his harp to save the day.  Even the game description listed him as "of frail constitution."  Frankly, he was not an easy character for me to grapple with as I was playing this game around the same time I was really becoming aware of my own same sex attraction and growing up in a very conservative rural NC environment. Edward embodied a weak, unmasculine (effeminate?) energy.  Part of my rejection of him was certainly a mirror of my dislike and fear of similar traits in myself. Was this what it meant to be a musician?

Here's the initial Edward playing scene for SNES:

And here's the DS dark elf battle:

Beyond Manic Mansion and Final Fantasy 4, later I would loves Celes' opera scene in FF6.  In Final Fantasy 7, I played the pianos in Tifa's room and the Shinra Mansion for WAY too long.  Making up my own melody for the Scarecrow song in Zelda 64 almost transformed Link into a musician, though I often opted for the ultilitarian all right button tune so as not to get confused about which melody I'd settled on for it!  In The Sims, I always made my character a gay musician, practicing the piano for hours. Eternal Sonata is absolutely insane for me right now!  I'll keep thinking more about this, and I'm sure there are examples I've forgotten right now, and even more I don't know of, but game character as musician is a cool connection I've always enjoyed in my gaming experience.

Musings: Listening to music outside of games

I've been listening through to some game music I don't know per games Collins mentions in her book, as well as reviewing the music of some games I haven't thought of in a long time.  So that's been: Crystalis, Journey to Silius, Ultima III, and Manic Mansion (the last is the only game I know well).  I've been working on my computer transposing some music for shows I'm working with this summer, and meanwhile, I've been listening through to videos of the gameplay.  I can fit a tiny corner of the video on my screen while I'm working in Sibelius, but I can't see more than about half of the screen.  Mainly, I'm just getting the audio experience.  I do check in occasionally to see what onscreen action is causing the music to play.  Especially, that tends to happen at the end of the video when the end game sequences bring in new themes.

This made me think about how to listen to game music outside of games.  Of course, game music is made to be heard during gameplay, but there are plenty of other ways to hear it: in a concert, on soundtracks, while someone is playing the game and you're in an adjacent room.  I've been wondering: How are these different?  Is one the best?

As a performer, I've got an interesting way of thinking about listening to game music.  Listening to music without playing the game I think of as being very passive, like an audience member might do at a concert.  Or perhaps if I'm listening for more detail, I'm listening like a musicologist or music critic, still though, it's a passive act.  In contrast, if I'm listening while I'm playing the game, I think of this as listening to the music as a performer.  That makes perfect sense to me: as a performer of music, my physical actions make the music happen in real time and the same is true as a game player with game audio.  My starting the game, actions, for instance going in and out of different rooms, etc, cause the game music to happen/continue/change.  In a sense, by playing the game, we gamers make the game music happen.  We're a kind of performer.  And similarly to performers, the game music can't happen without us.  Music isn't pasting pages of manuscript on the wall (like an art gallery) and looking at it.  Neither is game music merely the code in the game.  The game must be played for the music to be experienced.  There's that cool real time aspect to it, interactive-- as we play, we're in charge of the audio experience, whether we think about it or not.

I think this is why I prefer to listen to (and watch, if I can) gameplay videos rather than soundtracks.  A soundtrack plays every theme equally, whereas a listening to a gameplay (I often choose longplays) allows me hear the themes as they occur in the game.   Perhaps even more importantly, this ensures that I hear the proper ratio of music.  Let me explain: in an RPG, probably the most played music is the battle music.  If you were to listen to a soundtrack, you might hear that looped once or twice, but that's all.  If you watch a gameplay of the game, you'll hear quite a bit of the battle music, probably 2/3rds of the gameplay or so.  This is a much more realistic listening experience of the game.  Some modern soundtracks, like the one for Red Dead Redemption, are just possibilities that one might hear when playing, since the game audio is so dependent on your playing session.

All of the various ways to hear game audio are certainly valid, and I use them all depending on what I'm doing.  A soundtrack is a quick way for me to reference different tracks for analysis.  However, to experience game audio for the first time, I like to hear the music as it was intended-- in gameplay.

Musings: Are Casinos the Modern Arcades? (Part 2)

I've been thinking more about my trips to the casinos on my recent vacation.  Vince and I went to two up north in Michigan, Turtle Creek and Odawa.  Anyone who's been to a casino can call to mind the sound of being inside one immediately.  The ringing and incessant sound of the slot machines going is unmistakable.  I hadn't thought much about the connection between slot machines and video games until I saw this video of George Sanger working on music for a slot machine.  This made me wonder more about the connection between (what I think of as) video games and slot machines.

While I was in the two casinos I took some notes on the companies who made the different games.  (You should have seen some of the looks I got from security as I walked around taking notes on my phone about the games!)  Granted, I wasn't in Vegas, so there are probably many more possibilities, but for where I was here are the ones I found:

Konami (think Castlevania, Contra, etc)
Aruze (Shadow Hearts)
WMS Gaming
Bally (both WMS and Bally have connections with Midway: Ms. Pac-Man, Mortal Kombat, etc)
IGT
Aristocrat (these last two are the largest slot producers that make slot games for Playstation, mobile, etc)

Obviously, there are connections between video game companies and casino gaming companies.  This makes sense though, as many of the technologies are the same.  In fact, slot machines are, in a sense, arcade games.  They hold the software/hardware inside and are able to show video, play audio, and have gameplay by the simple press of a few buttons from the player.

One of the most interesting things as you walk around a casino is to hear the pitch of the machines.  Have you ever thought about it?  Casinos have a key: C major.  I wonder if this is worldwide or just in the US...  Most of the machines arpeggiate around the C major chord and go up the octave when you score or win.  This way the sounds are organized in a harmonious way.  It's been years since I was a kid in a busy arcade, but visiting one as an adult, they are a completely different experience.  Each machine is making its own set of sounds in its own key and makes for a very noisy, conflicting sound environment.  In contrast, the casinos are set up (aurally at least) so that the sound of a win feels more collective among the players and is easy to hear sound above the sound of the other machines around.  Clearly, the casinos have made a deal with these producers to keep a common tonality among the machines.

There are classical and popular music references thrown in some games.  Jackpot manor plays a bit of Bach's Fugue in D minor (fugue starts at 2:50).  Another game by Aruze that I wasn't able to catch the name of played Tchaikovsky's Trepak (Russian Dance) from The Nutcracker.  These were both subtle in comparison with the Queen game I played by Konami.  This game has music notes, instruments, and pictures of the members of Queen that are the onscreen symbols you want to match.  In the bonus rounds, you literally pick the Queen song you want to hear during bonus rounds.  I chose We Are the Champions.  Here you can watch some footage of someone playing the game in another casino during a bonus round.

I'll be interesting to see what happens with slot gaming music in the future.  The old style of machines that simply arpeggiate a C major chord probably won't go away-- they'll become more classic, though.  The casinos I was in definitely had a disproportionate number of older people playing them, so the bias could've been for more of the old style of machines/music.  However, my memories of Vegas (though a few years old) are much the same.  Music is getting more complex and newer machines can be heard that play music more like George is showing in his video above-- snippets of music as you play that make up a longer song.  In fact, when I hear music like that-- where a couple of notes of the phrase play each time I spin the reels, I'm even more inclined to play the next game more quickly so I can hear the musical phrase complete itself.  I know I'm a video game music nerd and not everyone is having that reaction, but at some level, folks probably are inclined to play the next game to hear more of the musical phrase.  Otherwise, it's like hearing only a few words of a spoken sentence and needing to continue to play to hear the whole sentence spoken and thus meaning imparted.

The arcade may have come and gone, or they might resurge in some way if the gaming experience can become special in some way that it can't at home.  Either way, my experience this weekend and work on this blog left me wondering: are casinos the new arcades?  The environment seems very much the same to me, but even more musically harmonious.  The next time you step into one, give a listen to all those machines singing in harmony...  Seems like that win might not be so far away....

Musings: Are casinos the modern arcades?

So I'm on vacation now but still thinking and reading about game music. That means blogging via my iPhone in the middle of nowhere with no wifi!

Tonight we popped into a casino just outside Traverse City. I wouldn't have even thought of video slots as games, except that I watched an interview with George Sanger on YouTube a few months ago where he described writing music for slot machines. They mostly ring around a major triad as you play and go up the octave when you win.

I was thinking about the environment of the casino and comparing it to the arcades where I grew up. The way the arcade games used to call out is very similar to how the casino games sound-- ringing to get your attention and build excitement for the next player. Even though there are still arcades around-- A2 has PinBall Pete's-- they don't have the same excitement they used to as when I was a kid. I can't even imagine how they were in the late 70s and early 80s!

Can I write off playing at the casino as research?  Maybe a stretch....

Behind the scenes: Celebrating 100 published posts! (and introducing a new series: Musings)

I couldn't believe the counter when I saw 99 published posts this morning...  That makes this post number 100!  Yay!  

What a journey this has been!  I've never made a blog or tried to do anything like this before but it's been completely rewarding so far.  I've learned so much, but I have to say the best part has been connecting with other people who like this material.  I've been getting more comments and am starting to have a fair number of readers.  Thank you!  When I've had a crazy day where I think "what's the point of all this?" I come home and see that someone's excited to have found some information here and that's all the more motivation to keep going.  Game music deserves more attention than it's been given (or even, is being given) by scholars.  I'm not meaning to slam those working in the field as they're doing very important, very hard work; what I mean is that for such a huge study of music and culture, there needs to be more than a handful of people working on it.  

This blog is sort of a rebellion from the way I watched many of my scholar mentors work; they tend to keep their work quiet, hoping to get their insight out and published ahead of the next person (who, at least in music, probably isn't very interested in that same topic at all!).  Instead, right now at least, I'm trying to go the opposite way: I want to share all I'm learning as I do with the online community and engage with others who love this material.  Plus, this electronic format is amazing in that I can search through it very easily and find an idea I had earlier, as opposed to flipping back through a book and trying to figure out which dog-eared page is the one I'm looking for.  Maybe one day this will all coalesce into a book of sorts, or perhaps a publication into some form of media that doesn't even exist yet.  Picking up a book and reading about music without being able to hear the music...  bleh!  At best now in music scholarship, it seems we can access recordings online or off a CD, either of which are clunky.  The internet allows for the words and music to be almost seamlessly integrated, and that easy connection is the best way forward.  Several of my friends have suggested that I apply to present about game music at one of the big academic music conferences as the time is ripe.  The attitude at UM seems to be encouraging me and for this field of research.  Right now, though, I'm content: above all this electronic journey is just so appropriate considering that I'm examining game music, which exists in an electronic state.  

100 posts later, I'm reflecting: what am I doing and why?  In effect, I'm just chronicling my notes and thoughts online in this blog as I sift through all that is game music.  A lot of my work so far has been reading published scholarly information on game music to get my mind wrapped around what people are thinking and talking about in the field.  While there's not really an end to that, I can almost see the end of it now.  Let me explain what I mean.  I've either read or am reading nearly every book on the topic of game audio.  The stacks on my desk are diminishing.  This summer, I'll be able to turn my attention more toward individual journal articles.  Now, I've done enough digging now to see the scope of what's ahead-- in other words: I see trees instead of forest.  Of course, there's the old adage, "the more you learn the more you realize there is to learn."  Completely true-- and there's no real end to my surveying literature blog thread.  Even if I could conceivably read everything about game audio, one then finds filaments that point into other materials (film music/research, electronic music/research, etc) where there's ever more to learn.  I didn't even mention new publications, which seem to be on the upswing-- at least in game music, so I don't imagine any shortage of new ideas and readings to encounter.    

I just have to say also that it helps so much that all this material is online right now.  To do this kind of research even five or ten years ago would've meant needing to own or find someone who could let you borrow and play through these games.  Now I can watch gameplay videos online, hear soundtracks, remixes, and concerts easily at the click of a button.  Who knows if all this game music will be available on the internet in a few years with copyright and whatnot...  For me, that'd be a shame, but the relationship between rights and music and online right now might be best summed up with Facebook's iconic phrase, "it's complicated."  While I'm not a game music composer, as a pianist, I have performances and recordings available on the internet that no one's ask me to put up, I receive no payment for them being there, and there are even some I'd rather weren't public because that moment in time wasn't my best.  Welcome to music in the early 21st century.  The internet is changing every profession and quickly-- music is no exception.  I think one of the reasons music has been so dramatically changed by the internet is because nearly everyone loves music, encounters it, and grapples with it daily.  I hear people bemoan often that too much of the internet is devoted to something like pornography or celebrity... well then, let's make more of it devoted to music!  

I'm probably often too long winded for the general blogosphere, and here I've done it again.  So to wrap up, my 100th post is the perfect time for me to launch a new blog thread: Musings.  I've been thinking about this thread since I started the blog and I'm finally ready for it.  Unlike Surveying Literature, Analysis, or My Gaming Audio History, Musings will simply focus on whatever is on my mind with game music that day.  It could be quite long winded or as short as a sentence.  I've now taken in enough information to brainstorm my own thoughts and feel they're not as naive as they would've been many months ago when I started this journey.  So, if you want to hear my less censored, whatever's on my mind, hopefully insightful comments, watch for the thread "Musings" in the future of the blog.  

100 posts...  I might just deserve a drink!  After all, it's 5 o' clock somewhere!