This conference features series of engaging talks on video game audio. In addition, on Saturday evening, the College of Music is hosting a concert consisting of video game arrangements performed by MSU students, scholars from around the country, and our keynote speaker, industry performer and arranger Laura Intravia.
Location:
Communications Arts and Sciences Building, Room 147 and Murray Hall in the College of Music
More information can be found here
Conference Program
Saturday March 16
9:00-9:15 am Introductory Remarks
9:15-10:45 am Session 1: Listening to Early Game Audio
- 9:15 am Beyond Modularity: Listening to Early Minimalist Music and First-Generation Video Game Sound in the Long 1970s (David Chapman)
- 9:45 am Harmonic Function in NES Music (Andrew Schartmann)
- 10:15 am Fanfare for the Unreal Symphony – 8-Bit Orchestration and Imaginary Timbres (Thomas B. Yee)
10:45-11:00 am Coffee Break
11:00 am-12:00 pm Session 2: Nostalgia?
- 11:00 am Virtual Acousmatics: Video Games’ Practice of Remix (Logan H.G. Davis)
- 11:30 am Arranged Music and Manifold Memory: Beauty and Nostalgia in the Soundtrack of Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster (David Munro)
12:00-1:30 pm Lunch
1:30-2:00 pm Bonus Level: A Mystery is Afoot
- 1:30 pm Forking Paths and Ludomusical Form in John Morris’s Score for Clue (1985) (William R. Ayers)
2:00-2:30 pm Bonus Level: Fighting About Games
- 2:00 pm “Ludology Meets Narratology” at 25: A “Duel” Approach (Julianne Grasso & Andrew Powell)
2:30-3:30 pm Session 3: The Power of the Voice
- 2:30 pm Playing Games, Playing Music, Playing God: Listening and Voicing in My Singing Monsters (Jordan Good)
- 3:00 pm Singing to Save the World: Voice and Identity in Transistor (2014) and Wandersong (2018) (Madison Drace)
3:30-4:00 pm Break
4:00-5:00 pm Keynote: Laura Intravia
5:00-8:00 pm Dinner Break
8:00-9:30 pm Concert
- Note: the concert will take place in Murray Hall at the College of Music
Sunday March 17, 2024
9:00-10:00 am Session 4: Mega Men
- 9:00 am Unique Timbral Effects in 8-Bit NES: Technological Affordances in Mega Man 1-3 (Matthew Ferrandino)
- 9:30 am Rhythmic Stereo Panning: Disruptive Combat Music of the Mega Man Battle Network Series (Morgan Weeks)
10:00-11:00 am Session 5: Design and Interface
- 10:00 am Nuclear Sound Design: Analyzing Immersive Audio Techniques in Fallout 4 (Alex Sallade)
- 10:30 am Play While Play (Jorge Variego)
11:00-11:15 am Coffee Break
11:15-11:45 am Bonus Level: “I Feel it…I Feel the Cosmos”
- 11:15 am Exploring the Cosmos Through Sound: The Soundtrack of Stellaris and Its Cosmist Influences (Joseph Chang)
11:45 am-1:15 pm Lunch
1:15-2:45 pm Session 6: (Un)Comfortable Sounds
- 1:15 pm Tracing Timbre and Horror Troping in Monolith Productions’ Blood (1997) (Holly Bergeron-Dumaine)
- 1:45 pm Humor and Horror: Immersive Functions of Glissandi in Video Game Music (Jeremy W. Smith)
- 2:15 pm Conceptualizing Coziness: Unearthing Iyashikei and the Pastoral in Cozy Video Game Music (Adriana Ezekiel)
2:45-3:00 pm Break
3:00-4:00 pm Session 7: Dance and Ethnography
- 3:00 pm Just Dance (Taylor’s Version): Embodied Intertextual Listening and Gameplay Fandom (Kate Galloway)
- 3:15 pm “Where Did You Learn Those Moves?”: A Choreomusical Approach to Movement-Oriented Rhythm Games” (Drake Eshleman)
- 3:30 pm Gathering and Listening on Twitch: A Brief Ethnographic Study (Molly Hennig)
4:00-5:00 pm Session 8: Topics and Tropes
- 4:00 pm Exploring Player Affect and Worldbuilding Through the Music of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon (Eileen Snyder)
- 4:30 pm This Sounds Familiar…: A Model for Tropes in Video Games (Ben Major)
5:00 pm Closing Remarks