Upon reading the assigned articles for the week, I was struck by how little I had previously appreciated the music, or really any sound for that matter, in video games. Sure, I’d always noticed that if I was playing Kirby, and I was trying to inhale something that there was a specific whirring noise associated with it, but I never gave it much thought. Upon looking closer, I notice how, as Zach Whalen says, certain music and sounds do “draw [me] forward through the sequence of gameplay” as well as how it can make the game world more vividly real. It was interesting to think about the noises that characters make when they run and try to jump to another ledge, and, how partially based on the sound, I know whether or not they will fall before it happens in the game world. I also know whether or not I’ve unlocked a new ability (for example gaining a new soul in Castlevania), or if I’ve leveled up (for example when you fulfill your experience points in Pokemon).
After thinking about music in games, I thought that it was interesting to reflect upon the relation of music to mood. In cinema, if you turn off the sound for a scary movie, often times it is no longer as scary. When we watched the trailer for Dead Island last week, the first trailer we saw was very sad. The second didn’t cue up the sounds properly, which was disorienting. However, when we watched the same trailer with semi-sung commentary, we all laughed hysterically. Granted, he was saying funny things, but the same visual was completely changed by the audio.
One last thing I wanted to touch on was the evolution of music in video games. The 8-bit loop that Karen Collins discusses at length in her article was mainly constrained by technological problems like not having enough memory, however, this forced game designers and composers of 8-bit music (there didn’t appear to be a lot of them, if any) to be more creative to work well with what they had. If you look at that, and then think that Civilization 4 had the first song created for a video game to win a Grammy, you see a huge change. Do you think that that has more to do with technological advances, or do you think that it might have something to do with the evolution of more narrative driven games?
Honestly, I believe the answer is a combination of both. I doubt that music critics would take the limited, 8-bit, soundtracks as serious “art,” especially since programmers (not composers) created the first soundtracks. As technical capabilities expand, composers are able to make conscious decisions that reflect an artistic intent, rather than technological limitation. In addition, more choices allow for more variation and the ability to create a subtle, layered orchestration that accentuates, undercuts, and/or deepens the action on screen.
However, technical excellence does not ensure artistic success! As a consumer and an artist, I often judge art’s excellence by its ability to affect me emotionally or intellectually. Without the accompanying narratives in the video games, it is difficult attach emotion or meaning to music other than its obvious “mickey-mousing” functions. For instance, consider the soundtrack to Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, or Pride and Prejudice. I don’t know about you, but I always see scenes from the movie in my head as I listen. Contrast this with Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty or Romeo and Juliet. While the music sounds strikingly like a modern soundtrack, no images accompany the music. Accordingly, when I think about non-lyrical music Tchiakovsky sinks to the bottom of the link, while soundtracks rise to the top. I would argue that the lack of a recognizable narrative cripples our affection for and identification with music. The images of emotion that I associate with soundtracks endear them to me. I believe the video game music works the same way. The presence of an overt narrative triggers deep(er) emotions in modern video games than the “mickey-mousing” music of older games.