Four Ways of Hearing Video Game Music

Abstract

Abstract Four Ways of Hearing Video Game Music offers a phenomenological approach to characterize music in video games, drawing on earlier phenomenologies of music as well as studies of music listening in a variety of disciplines such as aesthetics and ecological psychology. The central point of departure is the possibility of multiple ways of hearing the same piece of music: background, aesthetic, ludic, and semiotic hearing. As a background, music is not attended to at all, but can still be described in terms of moods, atmospheres, affordances, or equipment. Aesthetic hearing is a reflective attitude that invites hermeneutic interpretation; ludic hearing on the other hand invites ‘playing along’ to the music, either through embodied movement, or in response to the music’s cinematic or theatrical connotations. Finally, in semiotic hearing we hear music as transparent symbols or signals that that provide information about the state of a game. The four categories are illustrated and investigated through detailed case studies of video games from a variety of eras and genres, building on autoethnographic accounts and gameplay recordings.