Shigeru Miyamoto and music games
A chapter of Cold Technology, Hot Beats
All music has a game-like quality. Both games and music are social and interactive. Both require deep focus and precise timing.
Music-oriented video games are so popular because they invite new gamers who aren’t interested in the traditional game narratives of violence and power. My entire family, all the aunts and uncles and cousins, played Dance Dance Revolution together last Thanksgiving. We couldn’t have all played Tetris or Grand Theft Auto or Super Mario Bros that way. We don’t do a lot of dancing together, but the game context gave us another way in.
Music and games share the verb “to play”
Play is semi-structured learning with a social component. That’s also a pretty good definition for music.
Jazz is like a game, specifically Tetris.
Game music
For most members of my generation, games were our first serious exposure to purely electronic music.
The minimal, repetitive soundtrack of Super Mario Bros is produced on a microchip containing a few electronic oscillators. By blending different waveforms on the oscillator, the game can produce simple beeps and tones and noise-based percussion. To make music on a microchip, you need to write a computer program that translates the pitches, timing, timbre and articulation from the score into assembly language instructing the oscillators to pulse at such and such a frequency for so many clock cycles.
As digital sound hardware gets more sophisticated, game soundtracks have followed suit. In Japan, game soundtracks are a significant presence in popular music generally, like the distinctively quirky songs in Katamari Damacy.
Rather than just playing loops mindlessly, newer game soundtracks respond to the action in real time, like Amon Tobin’s futuristic, paranoid music for Splinter Cell.
Music as a competitive sport
The most popular music-centric games are rhythm games, where the player has to step on pads, press buttons or hit drums in time to the beat, following a scrolling onscreen notation that resembles a piano roll. Rhythm games include Dance Dance Revolution, Guitar Hero and Rock Band, Taiko Drum Master and DJ Hero. These games are a test of the player’s accuracy. They don’t allow much scope for improvisation or expressiveness, at least not yet.
Karaoke takes on a competitive aspect in pitch games. You sing into a microphone and the game system detects your pitch using software similar to Autotune. Pitch games include SingStar and Karaoke Revolution.
Wii Music combines elements of all of the above games, along with some creative mappings of spatial gestures to sonic elements.
Game controllers as musical instruments
All video games have a musical quality. On the bodily level, most video games consist of pressing memorized sequences of buttons at particular times. It isn’t so different from playing the piano. Some musicians have started exploring using video game controllers as musical instruments in their own right. For my own electronic music, I use a system that maps a dual thumbstick controller to MIDI.
Any computer-based device with audio hardware can become a musical instrument. Korg DS-10 turns a Game Boy into a digital synth controlled by a stylus on the touchscreen. Cell phones are going to be the next major platform for music gaming, interactive music toys and, down the road, full-blown production.
Playlist
Miles Davis – “So What”
Super Mario Bros soundtrack
Amon Tobin – Splinter Cell soundtrack
Katamari soundtrack
DJ Shadow – “Let’s Dance” by David Bowie vs “Jack of Spades” by KRS-One
