The year is 649 of the Common Era, and a humble craftsman, Albert, loves a good tune. This one tune especially, he just heard it at the festival last week. He wants to hear it again, but can’t for the life of him remember it’s name or words. What does he do?
He has to grab up a couple of his friends, Orvyn and Garyn, to see if they remember it better. After an ale or two, they manage to put a few verses back together, add a couple of their own, and have a jolly old time.
Unlike Albert and his friends, if we forget a tune, we have a glut of ways to find and enjoy that music again. While they have their faults, streaming services have allowed an unprecedented amount of access to centuries’ worth of music.
And boy, do we love that access! A huge majority of the people we see, walking beside us in the streets are living in their own world, with their own personal soundtrack. Whereas Albert’s world would have been largely silent, but for the sounds of nature and other people going about their daily lives, we have now have a very different pair of choices: subject ourselves to our surroundings or brighten our day with Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog.
Do you know that some retailers use “Classical Music” to encourage you to spend more?
Our Daily Sensorium
The way we consume things, the way we enjoy them ultimately shapes us in turn. Tracing these changes through musical history casts long shadows, steeped with implications - these are what keep musicologists in jobs.
What fascinates me is how music has infiltrated our surroundings and come to define our much of our worldly experience. In seventh century England, music was an erstwhile ornament, decorating special moments of the day-to-day. Nowadays, especially for us city-folk, it’s everywhere; beyond the confines of our playlists, movies, television shows, ads, restaurants, and retail stores all use music to provoke certain feelings in us.
For your daily dose of paranoia: retail stores tailor their music to their target demographics to increase sales. Likewise, restaurateurs often employ the same tactic. Apparent or subliminal, music has a definite impact on our immediate, worldly experience and behavior. This access is granted primarily through music’s place in our sensorium.
Yeah you’ll probably see that word a lot with me in the future so I might as well clarify it: in many fields, “sensorium” has come to refer to an individual’s experience of the world around it through all of their senses.
Now before you get excited, we’re not diving into the whole “what’s actually real then” nonsense. That’s somebody else’s shtick.
What’s important here is that we’ve already established that music commands a subtle, yet significant influence in our daily lives. However, there is one place that almost nobody has cared to address: video games.
…What? Really?
Yeah, really. I’m perfectly happy to leave it to other musicologists and philosophers to examine the music we hear when we’re out on the town or at work. Let them have their papers.
Let’s get back to what I want to address: video games have music. Oftentimes incredible music. And that music forms a crucial element of player immersion; alongside intricate, scenic art and other auditory cues, a game’s music invites you to envelop yourself completely in a new world.
In the field of Musicology, there already exists a term for this kind of idea, made popular by the renowned composer, Richard Wagner: the gesamtkunstwerk - the “total work of art,” which encompasses all or many other art forms to deliver a singular aesthetic experience. At the time, Wagner pursued this work in opera. But now the video game medium pushes it even farther by making the entire experience interactive.
You could even imagine how a successful, video game gesamtkunstwerk constitutes the ultimate step in aesthetic immersion.
Yep, that’s the guy who wrote, “the Ride of the Valkyries”
The problem, however, is that video games and their associated music continue to be written off as trifles. Ignored by some as an escapist distraction, or by others as a waste of time. Regardless of this, video game music has matured a great deal in the last few decades, matching pace with its growing and aging audience.
I have taken the liberty of listing and describing below a few examples that, I hope, might persuade you to take a second look, should you have any doubts.
Set in the ruins of an underwater city in 1960, Bioshock explored themes of utopianism and dystopianism, echoing the writings of Aldous Huxley, Ayn Rand, and George Orwell.
Garry Schyman, the studio’s composer, not only composed much of the game’s atmospheric and - at times - dissonant music, but also included nostalgic, Jazz numbers from the early 20th century. Schyman’s musical choices both amplified the anxiety inherent in Rapture whilst reflecting on the game’s philosophical themes.
I could write a book about this game’s sound design all by itself
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim stands as one of the most iconic and most-played games from the last decade; not only has it become its own meme for being playable on anything, but it is also lauded as one of the most immersive gaming experiences to-date.
Jeremy Soule demonstrates that the gaming industry has learned from Hollywood’s sweeping, orchestral scores. At rest, the music is mysterious and lax. In battle, it is strident with driving, heroic motifs.
Eat your heart out, Wagner - Teutonic themes set in a more perfect gesamtkunstwerk
Journey represents an entirely different class of games; rather than fill it to the brim with swords, dragons, and monologues, Thatgamecompany (yes, that’s the studio’s name) focused on delivering a smaller, more minimalist aesthetic.
Whereas so many games supply their music to enhance the action, Austin Wintory’s grammy-nominated soundtrack takes on almost equal significance to the visuals themselves, finding a balance with the minimal, abstract art style.
I swear, this game can give you actual catharsis
How Relevant Is All This?
It’s not enough that we’ve already contextualized the artistic direction of music in the video game medium, or that music plays a disproportionately influential part in our assumed, gaming sensorium?
Alright, straw-man, have it your way - let’s talk numbers!
Per the free information on Statista for 2018, there are likely around 199,870,000 video gamers in North America alone. When you factor in the rest of the world, that number jumps to just upwards of 2.35 BILLION.
Now with that being said, these data likely include casual gamers, mobile gamers, one-time gamers, and hard-core gamers alike. But I’d like to put a finer point on the issue: in World of Warcraft alone, between 2004 and 2012, players spent roughly 50 billion hours in-game.
I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I’ve entirely processed that figure myself - just think about how many games there are out there and how much time gamers have spent enjoying them.
A visual metaphor for video games, you say?
What is worth understanding, however, is that there is something there that enthralls and excites countless people. Perhaps it’s something about the story, maybe just something about the gameplay, or even just that friends play it. However, many not only enjoy these games, but take especial joy in their music and the experiences it enhances.
In fact, go on and ask someone about their favorite games and game music. I bet you’ll find a few who would just open up a game to hear its music - I asked around and found several just hours before publishing this article!
With the psychology of immersion being understood, a gamer’s experience in an immersive, the virtual world and the music within it have a very real impact on how they see themselves and on the way they develop as human beings. With so much time spent by so many people in video games, I can’t help but wonder: how can so much music and so much storytelling go so well known by so many, but so sorely neglected, written off as nothing more than a trifle?
I’d bet that Albert wouldn’t write it off - he’d be blown away by the whole thing. He’d probably get obsessed with Skyrim like the rest of us and start singing along to the theme. Not a bad guy, that Albert.
The Tip of the Iceberg
Friends, musicologists, and fellow nerds, that’s where we stand - whether it is due to lack of experience, to lack of funding, or even due to elitism, almost no one is studying the music of video games.
I don’t know about you, but I’m delighted to take the dive and see how deep this thing goes! So, going forward, in addition to your soon-to-be scheduled broadcast of performance practice and other musician blogging materials, you may expect the following:
Observations & analyses of video game music
Longer form rants & opinion pieces (surprising, I know)
Occasional academic ephemera
Memes for days
Interviews with composers, audio engineers, and more
Let’s lay the groundwork, shall we?