Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2019, Musicology

Video games are ubiquitous in American culture, and their sounds have worked their way into the popular soundscape over the past half-century. At the same time, game songs continue to grant musicians and audiences a safe space in which to try out new identities, and a forum in which to engage in critical commentary. Combinations of game concepts and themes with other styles like symphonic music present opportunities for new types of audience experiences. No longer just one part of a video game, these sounds and narratives have influenced numerous musical genres, provided outlets for identity exploration and community building, and become entities unto themselves. Aural aspects of video games are just as important as visual ones in creating feelings of immersion for the player, and many people today share feelings of enthusiasm, nostalgia, and joy for the bleeps and bloops of early consoles as well as for the sound effects emitted from more modern gaming systems. Sonic cues from games weave their ways into popular culture, so much so that Pac-Man's “wacka wacka” sound and Mario's “game over” music take on new meanings. Sometimes they infiltrate dance music or establish platforms for parodies and tributes, providing bases for new musical communities and subcultures. They also work their ways into the realm of contemporary classical music, sparking experiments that combine game-inspired sounds, concepts, and images with various musical forms and genres. Additionally, game sounds give us an aural connection to the expanding relationships between new technologies and popular culture. In this dissertation, I consider what happens to game sound when it is reframed and experienced outside of an in-game context, and examine how musicians have used game sounds to reshape the cultural coding of video games in America. My primary interest here is not the in-game functions of sounds themselves, which have been discussed extensively elsewhere, but how different subcultures (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Daniel Goldmark (Committee Chair); Susan McClary (Committee Member); David Rothenberg (Committee Member); Kurt Koenigsberger (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Cultural Anthropology; Mass Communications; Music