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Summary:

"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"-- [Provided by publisher]

Table of Contents:

• Introduction. Towards a phenomenology of video game music
• Background music
• Aesthetic music
• Ludic Music
• Semiotic music.

Author/Creator:

Kamp, Michiel , author

Languages:

English

Language Notes:

English text.

Main Work:

Four ways of hearing video game music [by Kamp, M.]

Other Related Resources:

Online version: Four ways of hearing video game music [by Kamp, M.] (New York : Oxford University Press, 2024 — ISBN 9780197651254; LCCN 2023043238; OCLC Number 1397324765)

Related Series:

Oxford music/media series

Subjects:

Video game music — History and criticism

Video game music — Philosophy and aesthetics

Video game music — Analysis, appreciation

Video game music

Genres:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

General Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 193-205) and index.

Physical Description:

x, 212 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Physical Characteristics:

illustration

Call Numbers:

ML3540.7 .K35 2024

ISBNs:

9780197651216 (hardcover)
0197651216 (hardcover)
9780197651223 (paperback)
0197651224 (paperback)
9780197651247 (electronic book) [Invalid]
9780197651230 (electronic book) [Invalid]
9780197651254 (electronic book) [Invalid]

Library of Congress Control Numbers:

2023043237

OCLC Numbers:

1395538794