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A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Music Johannesburg, 2016 / In this part-written, part-composed creative research project I consider the music of ‘indie’ video games, specifically exploring some of the myriad dynamic compositional approaches in this particular category of game development. In my written work I analyse three indie video games – Braid (2008), Fez (2012) and Journey (2012) – each of which use unique methods to apply music dynamically. I use interviews with the games’ creators, as well as close analysis and transcription of significant sections of each video game, in order to reveal how music is used to provide the player with a more immersive, satisfying, and involving gaming experience. I also consider the use of ambient music in indie video games, a common feature of a large number of contemporary games, weighing up its merits and limitations. Musical concepts and compositional approaches raised in my written work have informed the portfolio of compositions submitted for this degree, and, similarly, my creative work has informed my analytical research. My creative work explores, amongst other aspects, indeterminate form, ambient music, and ways of ‘looping’ material in the creation of unrepeatable structures. This thesis also considers music which functions narratively in games – a function that might necessitate a greater degree of musical linearity — and how this musical role might be incompatible with the demands of interactivity. After briefly introducing the concepts dealt with across this thesis in Chapter 1, Chapters 2 to 4 take the form of case studies of the indie games mentioned above, with each chapter tackling unique challenges that game composers face when writing music for non-linear games, by which I mean games structured so that not all players will experience the content in the same order due to player agency. More specifically, Chapter 2 deals with the game Braid and its use of pre-composed, licensed music and how the game’s developer applies this music dynamically to the game. Chapter 3 deals with Fez and its mainly adaptive musical approach, its built-in software music engine, ‘Fezzer’, which allows for a composer to input and manipulate musical loops in the game, and nostalgia in indie video game aesthetics. Chapter 4 centres on the video game Journey and on how autonomous, ‘narrative’ music in video games might be seen to exist in opposition to music’s ability to be truly dynamic. Finally, Chapter 5 reflects on my own creative work for this thesis; how concepts from the case studies have informed my creative work and vice versa. / MT2017

This article will attempt to further understanding as far as music and computer games are concerned. More specifically, it will focus on "Interactive Music". Interactivity in music has been developed and experimented upon since the early 1990's, and has many other applications besides its use in computer games. For instance, there are "Interactive Music Performances" and "Interactive Compositions" etc. Such areas of interactivity will not be explored and are too broad a topic to mention in this article. For the purposes of explaining concepts and ideas, comparisons will be drawn with media such as film, as they have some important similarities with computer games but are perhaps better understood and on the whole more accessible. To this end a terminology section has been included to provide the inexperienced computer user some idea of concepts, tools and language used in the computer world. / Thesis (M.Mus.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2005.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.Mus.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2005.

The videogame now occupies a unique territory in contemporary culture that offers a new perspective on conceptions of high and low art. While the fear that the majority of videogames 'pacify' their audience in an Adornian "culture industry" is not without justification, its reductionism can be countered by a recognition of the diversity and aesthetic potential of the medium. This has been proposed by sociologist, Graeme Kirkpatrick, although without close attention to the role of music. Videogame music often operates in similar ways to music in other mixed-media scenarios, such as film, or opera. In the same way that film music cannot be completely divorced from film, videogame music is contingent on and a crucial part of the videogame aesthetic. However, the interactive nature of the medium - its différance - has naturally led to the development of nonlinear musical systems that tailor music in real time to the game's dynamically changing dramatic action. Musical non-linearity points beyond both music and videogames (and their respective discourses) toward broader issues pertinent to contemporary musicology and critical thinking, not least to matters concerning high modernism (traditionally conceived of as resistant to mass culture). Such issues include Barthes's "death of the author", the significance of order/disorder as a formal spectrum, and postmodern conceptions and experiences of temporality. I argue that in this sense the videogame medium - and its music - warrants attention as a unique but not sui generis aesthetic experience. Precedent can be found for many of the formal ideas employed in such systems in certain aspects of avant-garde art, and especially in the aleatoric music prevalent in the 1950s and 60s. This thesis explores this paradox by considering videogames as both high and low, and, more significantly, I argue that the aesthetics of videogame music draw attention to the centrality of "play" in all cultural objects.

My research will attempt to determine how award academies choose their nominations through the analysis of select musical aesthetics. As a trained musician (pianist) and avid gamer, I will bring my two passions together, contributing to the field of ludomusicology (the study of video game music). My research consists of an overview of video game scores spanning a decade (2004 – 2013) with a select sample of three soundtracks per year (a total of thirty soundtracks). The samples will be taken from the BAFTA- (British Academy of Film and Television Arts), VGX- (formerly known as Spike), and D.I.C.E. awards (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain). Through engaging a music theory macro analysis, I will discuss melodic themes used in each soundtrack, the setting of the score (instrumental or electronic), and whether the soundtrack samples contain the epic musical idiom. At the end of my dissertation my research reveals what kind of music these award academy panels favour. If the award academies are a reflection of popular taste, my research indicates what the audiences like to hear in video game music. / Dissertation (MMus)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Music / MMus / Unrestricted

This paper is concerned with exploring the musical content of the games Banjo-Kazooie and Yooka-Laylee from the perspectives of musical emotiveness, audiovisual feedback in video games, and adaptive music systems. The exploration consists of formal analysis of the two games, as well as a comparison between the two, this is done in order to determine the evolution of the way music and audio is designed and structured within two specific games created by roughly the same group of developers, only with a 20 year difference. It is fairly easily established, as was the hypothesis, that the two games utilise musical content in much the same ways, but that there has been no significant evolution in how the latter game utilises modern audio technology to expand on the adaptivity of the music system.

Mickey-Mousing är en ljudläggningsmetod som använts sedan de tidiga tecknade filmerna i slutet på 1920-talet och beskrivs som en ”musikalisk imitation av fysisk rörelse”. Det har använts genom tiderna för att betona och förstärka de grafiska händelser som sker på filmduken, och har nu även förts in i ett nytt medie - datorspel. Det som undersöks i detta forskningsarbete är användandet av Mickey-Mousing, och dess legitimitet inom spelgenren fumblecore. Frågeställningen som undersökts lyder: Hur påverkar Mickey-Mousing spelupplevelsen i fumblecore-spel jämfört med diegetisk, realistisk ljudläggning?

Effective game music is typically adaptive, interactive, or both. Changes in game music are usually influenced by the current state of the game or the actions of the player. To provide another dimension of interactivity, it would be useful to know the affective state of the human player. Biosignals are continuous signals generated by a person that can be measured over time, and have been shown to reflect affective state. This project demonstrates that control signals can be gathered from the player and mapped to musical parameters. Using a heart rate sensor and galvanic skin response sensor built from open source designs, we have used biosignals to control music playback while playing four games from different genres. A system for controlling game music with biosignals is computationally cheap, and can provide data that is useful to other game systems. The prototype developed for this project is basic, but with further research and development, we believe such a system will greatly improve the immersive experience of video games by involving the player on a new level. / text

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