Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Video Game Music Research

As I mentioned earlier this month, video game music scholarship has taken off within the last decade. Now an accepted area of research amongst musicologists, it also exists as a very accessible topic for many people. One video game music scholar, Will Cheng, has an excellent book with more information on the topics I highlighted this month. If you find this topic interesting and would like more information, you can go to the following website and check out his book. 

One other area of music and gaming research worthy of note comes from scholar Karen Collins who studies music and gambling. Did you know that often times, the music used at casinos is intentionally written in such a way as to cause the player to believe they are doing better than the reality of their situation? Next time you consider gambling, you should be mindful of the music!

With the idea of video game soundtracks becoming so popular, the London Philharmonic Orchestra released a Greatest Video Game Music album in 2011 followed by a second volume in 2012.

 Zelda even has a traveling symphony that many of you may have seen when they performed at Cincinnati’s Music Hall a few years ago. 


Join me next time as we wrap up our month of video game music!