There Really Is a Conference Where Nerds Study Videogame Music

Even for your average gamer, the music from classic games like Super Mario Bros. or Halo can trigger nostalgic reveries, conjuring memories of endless hours spent fighting to save Princess Toadstool or decimating alien hordes. The ludomusicological movement reaches an important milestone today, with the start of North America’s first academic conference devoted exclusively to the analysis of videogame music. The two-day affair at Youngstown State University features 19 presentations ranging from an examination of leitmotifs in Final Fantasy Tactics to the splendidly titled “A Study of the iMUSE Transition Matrix Music System in the Woodtick Location of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge.” Conference organizer Steven Reale traces his abiding fascination with videogame music to the 1984 release of Pitfall II. “It’s supposed to be used as work music, but Chopin is totally wrong for that—it doesn’t have that steady beat,” says Sarah Pozderac-Chenevey1, a graduate student in music theory at the University of Cincinnati who hopes to write her dissertation about videogame music. “Then I realized, the way the music was being stripped of its rubato, what it does is it reflects how Fink is stripping his workers of their humanity.” She will talk about that strategic butchery of Chopin at the conference, as well as the lyrical choices that make the game’s version of “Will the Circle be Unbroken” evoke concepts of both heavenly bliss and earthly disillusionment.