Content

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………..2 The Development of Game music - History and Composers …………………………….4 The Conventions of Game Music - Diegetic and Non-diegetic music…………………….6 Super Mario Land 2: The Six Golden Coins

- An example for commissioned game music…………………………………………………7 Grand Theft Auto - Liberty City Stories Bringing Popular Music into Games…………………………………………………………..9 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………11

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Introduction

The role of the music that builds the frame to the experience of playing a video game is often underestimated. Sometimes the player does not even seem to realise that there is music playing in the background or it will even be turned off or exchanged through one’s favourite songs, since the original tune is annoying the player. Game music has to face a similar problem in the field of game studies. There has been a substantial amount of research and discussion about many aspects of computer games, but game music somehow remains the orphan of the gaming scene. Only one credible article dealing with the topic has been published yet, namely the one by Zach Whalen (2004) in an issue of the e-journal Game Studies. The value of the essay by Yale student Matthew Belinkie (1999) is to be doubted, since it has never been officially published beside its appearance on the Web. However, it at least gives an overview of the practices in the culture surrounding game music. Thus, this article should be a further contribution to the examination of this field. In contrast to its non-observance in the academic area gaming music has become increasingly important for the music industry. Especially in Japan and other Asian countries game music is tightly woven into the charts and the composers are the new stars on the Asian heaven of popular music. This trend is not followed in Europe and the USA however. Here game music is sold and bought as well, but it is not the one composed especially for games and which resemble film soundtracks. The songs that become famous in the Western world are those that have been written by celebrated pop stars (Hamblin, 2001). However, a similar trend has developed in both realms: Game music is about to conquer the opera houses and concert halls. It is the new fashion to arrange game music for philharmonic orchestras and to present those versions in concert halls (Whalen, 2004). One of the latest examples was the opening concert of the Game Convention 2006 in Leipzig, Germany. There the sound of games like Anno 1701 or Sonic the Hedgehog was performed. The above mentioned instances clarify that there is a need for the academics to be concerned about game music, since it already has an increasing commercial impact around the entire world. The separation between the Western and Eastern countries in terms of the acceptance of the soundtrack-like game music and popular songs used in video games has not been overcome yet however. Thus, I find it interesting to examine the difference between the two kinds of game music especially, since both types have been considered to fulfil a different function in films. Hence, the goal of this article will be to contrast the function of video game soundtracks using commissioned composed music to those employing popular compiled

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music. Furthermore, it should be detected if the differences in function are severe enough to explain the separation in the market for game music.

In order to provide an answer to these questions this paper will attempt to approach the music in games with the help of theories taken from the field of film music studies, since the two types share the common idea of giving an aural background to moving pictures. The theories on film scores that will be the scale I will measure game music with distinguish between music and sound. I will distance myself from the discussion of sound - such as shots, footsteps etc - and cut scenes that are inserted between the levels to explain the narrative development. Elaborating on those would lead this article to a different direction than I intended.

I will begin this essay with a general introduction to the field of game music including a short history of the development and the most famous composers of music in games. In this part I will also explain the difference between diegetic and non-diegetic music and their function in games. In the second part of this paper I will elaborate on the role of music composed for games by means of the example of the game Super Mario Land 2: The Six Golden Coins for the Nintendo Game Boy. The third part will deal with the function of popular music ¹ in games. In order to illustrate this I will also analyse an example from the gaming world, namely the game Grand Theft Auto - Liberty Stories. Finally, I will conclude this essay by summarizing my findings and providing an answer to the abovementioned questions.

The Development of Game music - History and Composers

The history of game music is closely connected to the development of technology necessary for computers and video games. In the 1970s the consoles were only able to produce two tones at a time and hence the music was very basic. The first time one could talk about music was the emergence of the Nintendo Entertainment System ² in 1985. The console was capable of playing four simultaneous sounds that could be recorded in its memory. As Belinkie states, “video game music was defined by its limits” (1999). Therefore, the composers had to be extremely creative to write something that could even be considered and enjoyed as a tune. In the 1990s the sound of the consoles began to improve. With the introduction of the Super-NES by Nintendo the writers had the possibility to compose songs with eight tracks and even to import synthesizer samples. By the middle of the decade a few

¹ One should not forget that popular music is composed as well. In this essay I will treat it as different to the normal way a commissioned song is composed.

² The Nintendo Enterteinment System will be referred to as NES.

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significant inventions followed another rapidly. The first was in 1995, when Sony released the PlayStation and with it a console that could play twenty-four voices at a time. Importing true sounds and stereo playback were features that made music composition increasingly easy. A few brand new technologies followed: the MIDI, MOD and the Redbook Audio. All of them were different appliances to record and produce a wider range of sounds. The latter was the only one that came to a highly realistic result by means of linking synthesizer samples to real sounds (Belinkie, 1999). Game music has become more sophisticated and with the increasing memory of today’s consoles real sounds can be used without causing any problem. The player even has the choice to upload her own music to personalise her gaming experience. Interactive Music (iMUSE) has been the most recent development by the Star Wars creator LucasArts. Here a range of samples and streams can be stringed together following certain cues in the gaming environment. Thus, the player experiences her activity more as being part of a narrative than only listening to the same never changing music. This kind of music is also called adaptive or reactive audio (Pidkameny, 2002). Without the composers of game music the above mentioned development would not have been possible, therefore I will dedicate the next section to them. One of those composers is Koji Kondo the writer of many soundtracks for the Super Mario Brothers games and The Legend of Zelda. He has influenced game music right from its start and the “Mario Tune” is so catchy that many of us could hum it straight away (Belinkie, 1999). Among the most notable composers of game music is also one of the creators of iMUSE: Michael Land. He has written the score for the Monkey Island series and has had a great influence on the development of game music in general. Another well-known composer is George A. Sanger also known as The Fat Man. He and his “Fat Team” have written music for about 130 games (Pidkameny, 2002). The most famous composer according to Belinkie (1999) is the Japanese Nobou Uematsu, who mainly produced music for Nintendo. His name has become wide-spread due to his compositions for the Final Fantasy series. He and his colleague Koichi Sugiyama have also revolutionized game music, by means of creating classical music on the Nintendo. They are responsible for the trend of designing music for games that resembles the music for films. There exist a large number of composers that have specialised on games and many of them have made great contributions to the way game music is today. However, those mentioned above are the best known; they are the reason for game music having become a category of the Grammies in 2002. Moreover, as a result of their work, music in games has been increasingly considered as a genre of its own. The concerts and record sales mentioned in the introduction are an indicator for this development.

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