[ecrea] CfP – Hear the Music, Play the Game. Music and Game Design (gamejournal.it)

GAME – Games as Art, Media, Entertainment
www.gamejournal.it
Call for Papers – n. 6/2016

Hear The Music, Play The Game
Music And Game Design: Interplays And Perspectives

Edited by Hillegonda C. Rietveld and Marco Benoît Carbone

http://www.gamejournal.it/n-62016-hear-the-music-play-the-game-music-and-game-design-interplays-and-perspectives/#.VbCbv4cn91M 


Music composition and sound design in video games are important 
dimensions in the experience of play, gaining increased acknowledgement 
and attention within the game industry. The growing relevance and 
success of several kinds of music-based games, and their codification in 
novel genres and sub-genres, illustrates one tendency in this shift of 
focus towards the aural in relation to the usually visual dominance of 
the medium. This calls for an attempt to reconsider the often-overlooked 
impact of music and its role in defining games. Arguably, a distinction 
can be made between games in which music functions in the background, 
and games in which music is an integral part of the game mechanics. For 
example, attention to game music demands a reconsideration of the 
importance of sonic content in past productions, and to look at 
practices like the revival of chip music, associated with early arcade, 
console, and home computer games. Meanwhile, the music industry has 
recognized the importance of game music, as demonstrated by the growing 
amount of releases of game sound tracks as well as occasional in-game 
music sales in and across new and different markets. Composers and sound 
designers have too often been regarded as contributors to the final 
phases of game development, despite the central affective power of music 
production in game design and the experience of play.

So far, academic research has focused mostly on general aspects of sound 
design. There seems to exist a vastly unexplored area of analysis for 
thinking about how technological change, market differentiations, and 
evolving social contexts of media consumption have affected game-music 
interactions over the past decades. With this call for papers, we 
encourage research on music as a multi-faceted creative and professional 
practice, of importance to the development and understanding of video 
games. Through a focus on music in relation to the overall game 
architecture we wish to emphasize the aural as a crucial dimension. 
Encouraging contributions from video game and music scholars, including 
musicologists, semioticians and media researchers, we are interested in 
papers exploring the intersections, interaction, and growing reciprocal 
influences between these fields.

We are particularly interested in analyses that focus on aspects and 
issues at the intersection of game and music studies that include, but 
not are limited to, the following themes:

- The general impact of music in game experience, on the acoustic space 
of games and on how a game is played within its sonic architecture.

- Non-linear approaches to music in game making: interactive 
sonicscapes, audio environments, immersive experiences.

- The impact of technologies in music creation: audio chips, storage 
devices, gaming systems and their relation with music design and musicians.

- Music game genres, streams, prototypes and innovative programming 
and/or performance, seen in professional, audience, and cultural context.

- Composers and music makers within game production teams or as game 
makers, seen through their specific background and contexts as 
composers, DJs, singers, voice actors, from different disciplinary 
perspectives.

- Game musicians as game personalities and their impact on defining 
leading franchises, brands, and gaming universes.

Authors are encouraged to submit an initial proposal of 500 words 
(excluding bibliography) by the 15th of October 2015 as a word document 
or PDF to (rietvehc /at/ lsbu.ac.uk) and (marcobenoitcarbone /at/ gmail.com). The 
proposal should describe the topic, outline the main aims and question 
or argument, and provide relevant references. Notification of acceptance 
to the issue will be communicated by the 5th of November 2015. Authors 
of successful proposals will then be asked to submit a full article of 
no more than 7,000 words by the 25th of February 2016. Papers will 
undergo a double-blind peer review process. Accepted contributions will 
be published in a 2016 issue of GAME – Games as Art, Media, Entertainment.

Contacts:
Marco Benoît Carbone (London College of Communication) - 
(marcobenoitcarbone /at/ gmail.com)
Prof Hillegonda C. Rietveld (London South Bank University) - 
(rietvehc /at/ lsbu.ac.uk)

http://www.gamejournal.it/n-62016-hear-the-music-play-the-game-music-and-game-design-interplays-and-perspectives/#.VbCbv4cn91M

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