William Gibbons
Biographic Data
| ID | 522300 |
|---|---|
| NAME | William Gibbons |
| GIVEN NAMES | William |
| FAMILY NAME | Gibbons |
| SIGNATURE | GIBBONS W |
| AFFILIATIONS | State University of New York at Potsdam |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2987-0187 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 17 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1956 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
The Oxford Handbook of Video Game Music and Sound
The music and sounds of video games have become an inescapable part of our world. Not only do these sonic elements profoundly shape the experiences of billions of players every day, but also the soundscapes of games have stretched out from our living rooms to encompass spaces as diverse as pinball arcades, concert halls, museums, and classrooms across the globe. Research on game music and sound is equally diverse—a vibrant, innovative, and multif…
Nostalgia and Videogame Music
Sony makes news with the latest version of its iconic Walkman. Top Gun, Indiana Jones, and Ghostbusters are top-grossing movies in theaters. Those who prefer TV might tune into thrilling new episodes of Magnum, P.I., laugh along with the antics of Night Court, or watch Captain Picard and his crew save the universe yet again in Star Trek. Mullets are a distressingly trendy hairstyle. It seems that, in the 2020s, everything 1980s is new again. As m…
Genealogies of Music and Memory
Journal Article Genealogies of Music and Memory: Gluck in the 19th-Century Parisian Imagination. Mark Everist Get access Genealogies of Music and Memory: Gluck in the 19th-Century Parisian Imagination. By Mark Everist. Pp. 200. ( Oxford University Press, New York, 2021. ISBN 978-0-19-754600-0, £82.) William Gibbons William Gibbons State University of New York at Potsdam Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Musi…
Ludomusicology
Music in the Role-Playing Game
Music in the Role-Playing Game: Heroes & Harmonies offers the first scholarly approach focusing on music in the broad class of video games known as role-playing games, or RPGs. Known for their narrative sophistication and long playtimes, RPGs have long been celebrated by players for the quality of their cinematic musical scores, which have taken on a life of their own, drawing large audiences to live orchestral performances. The chapters in this …
Music in the Role-Playing Game
Song and the Transition to “Part-Talkie” Japanese Role-Playing Games
This chapter explores the connection between the transitions to voice in 1990s Japanese role-playing games (JRPGs) like Lunar and the “part-talkie” era of film in the late 1920s and 1930s, with particular emphasis on the role that song plays in both transitions. To a surprising extent, that holds true of JRPGs in their transition to voice acting, as well. But equally important were the changes to the game’s video and audio. Some games were issued…
Playing with Music History
This chapter traces how classical music works can create a sense of time and place in video games. Beginning with a case study of how music establishes the eighteenth-century setting of Assassin’s Creed III , it then explores both how games build on frameworks of musical signification established in early cinema. It identifies games, such as Punch-Out!! , which use classical works to indicate a specific nation, as well as those that do the same f…
Conclusion
This brief conclusion brings together threads from several previous chapters. It begins with a consideration of the independent game The End Is Nigh , a recent postapocalyptic game that contains a soundtrack by the duo Ridiculon consisting of remixed classical works. It then reflects on ways in which the cultural barriers between classical music and video games have weakened in popular culture, emphasizing that games are increasingly recognized f…
A Requiem for Schrödinger’s Cat
This chapter embarks on a close reading of the video game BioShock Infinite , investigating how its use of popular and classical music connects with the game’s larger themes. The chapter begins by describing how BioShock Infinite employs covers of popular music, such as the songs “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys and “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper. A later section of the chapter analyzes in detail how the inclusion of portions of …
Terms and Conditions
This chapter focuses on a close reading of the two terms that are central to the book: “classical music” (also sometimes referred to as “art music”) and “video games.” It explores both scholarly and popular understandings of both terms, pointing to the tendency to view classical music as highbrow art and video games as lowbrow entertainment, and asks why we understand these two pursuits as contradictory. Based on these mutually exclusive definiti…
Allusions of Grandeur
This chapter explores how video games can seek to raise their artistic profile by using classical music to allude to cinema history. After describing some of the visual elements that can be incorporated in games to create a cinematic feeling for players, the chapter traces the use of classical compilation scores in games, connecting the practice to early cinema history. It then turns to more specific topics: first, video game versions of the Disn…
Playing Chopin
This chapter explores two video games that feature the nineteenth-century pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin as the main character: the Japanese role-playing game Eternal Sonata and the mobile game Frederic: Resurrection of Music . The chapter begins by examining three mythic identities that have shaped audience’s understandings of Chopin and his music and that play a role in Eternal Sonata and Frederic : the salon composer, the Romantic compos…
Violent Offenders and Violin Defenders
This chapter considers video games that feature classical music and musicians as part of their narrative. In that setting, musicians often act as stand-ins both for art as a whole and for its cultural roles. Case studies include two very different musicians: in Fallout 3 , the gentle violinist Agatha, for whom the player tries to retrieve a family heirloom, a Stradivarius violin; and in BioShock , the psychopathic composer Sander Cohen, an artist…
Unlimited Replays
This book explores the intersections of values and meanings in two types of replay: where video games meet classical music, and vice versa. From the bleeps and bloops of 1980s arcades to the world’s most prestigious concert halls, classical music and video games have a long history together. Medieval chant, classical symphonies, postminimalist film scores, and everything in between fill the soundtracks of many video games, while world-renowned or…
Music In Video Games
From its earliest days as little more than a series of monophonic outbursts to its current-day scores that can rival major symphonic film scores, video game music has gone through its own particular set of stylistic and functional metamorphoses while both borrowing and recontextualizing the earlier models from which it borrows. With topics ranging from early classics like Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros. to more recent hits like Plants vs. Zombi…
Divining Zoroastro
The magician Zoroastro plays a critical role in Handel's opera Orlando (1733). He opens the first act with a dramatic monologue, keeps the hero Orlando from wreaking too much havoc in his madness, and eventually brings the opera to a peaceful conclusion. Despite his importance to the plot, however, Zoroastro was a late addition to the libretto, created expressly for Handel's production—an addition calculated to appeal to London audiences. The ima…
"Yankee Doodle" and Nationalism, 1780-1920
This DOI is not currently attached to any metadata records. DOIs can’t actually ever be deleted (they’re persistent), but sometimes our members create DOIs in error. We do have a process to approximate deletion which we follow only in rare cases where the DOI has been genuinely created in error, and most crucially, if the DOI has never been published anywhere online or in print and never otherwise distributed to or communicated with anyone (autho…
The Nature and Transmission of the Genetic and Cultural Characteristics of Human Populations
Indigenous Population of the Americas
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Indigenous Population of the Americas
The Nature and Transmission of the Genetic and Cultural Characteristics of Human Populations
"Yankee Doodle" and Nationalism, 1780-1920
This DOI is not currently attached to any metadata records. DOIs can’t actually ever be deleted (they’re persistent), but sometimes our members create DOIs in error. We do have a process to approximate deletion which we follow only in rare cases where the DOI has been genuinely created in error, and most crucially, if the DOI has never been published anywhere online or in print and never otherwise distributed to or communicated with anyone (autho…
Divining Zoroastro
The magician Zoroastro plays a critical role in Handel's opera Orlando (1733). He opens the first act with a dramatic monologue, keeps the hero Orlando from wreaking too much havoc in his madness, and eventually brings the opera to a peaceful conclusion. Despite his importance to the plot, however, Zoroastro was a late addition to the libretto, created expressly for Handel's production—an addition calculated to appeal to London audiences. The ima…
Music In Video Games
From its earliest days as little more than a series of monophonic outbursts to its current-day scores that can rival major symphonic film scores, video game music has gone through its own particular set of stylistic and functional metamorphoses while both borrowing and recontextualizing the earlier models from which it borrows. With topics ranging from early classics like Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros. to more recent hits like Plants vs. Zombi…
Playing with Music History
This chapter traces how classical music works can create a sense of time and place in video games. Beginning with a case study of how music establishes the eighteenth-century setting of Assassin’s Creed III , it then explores both how games build on frameworks of musical signification established in early cinema. It identifies games, such as Punch-Out!! , which use classical works to indicate a specific nation, as well as those that do the same f…
Conclusion
This brief conclusion brings together threads from several previous chapters. It begins with a consideration of the independent game The End Is Nigh , a recent postapocalyptic game that contains a soundtrack by the duo Ridiculon consisting of remixed classical works. It then reflects on ways in which the cultural barriers between classical music and video games have weakened in popular culture, emphasizing that games are increasingly recognized f…
A Requiem for Schrödinger’s Cat
This chapter embarks on a close reading of the video game BioShock Infinite , investigating how its use of popular and classical music connects with the game’s larger themes. The chapter begins by describing how BioShock Infinite employs covers of popular music, such as the songs “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys and “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper. A later section of the chapter analyzes in detail how the inclusion of portions of …
Terms and Conditions
This chapter focuses on a close reading of the two terms that are central to the book: “classical music” (also sometimes referred to as “art music”) and “video games.” It explores both scholarly and popular understandings of both terms, pointing to the tendency to view classical music as highbrow art and video games as lowbrow entertainment, and asks why we understand these two pursuits as contradictory. Based on these mutually exclusive definiti…
Allusions of Grandeur
This chapter explores how video games can seek to raise their artistic profile by using classical music to allude to cinema history. After describing some of the visual elements that can be incorporated in games to create a cinematic feeling for players, the chapter traces the use of classical compilation scores in games, connecting the practice to early cinema history. It then turns to more specific topics: first, video game versions of the Disn…
Playing Chopin
This chapter explores two video games that feature the nineteenth-century pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin as the main character: the Japanese role-playing game Eternal Sonata and the mobile game Frederic: Resurrection of Music . The chapter begins by examining three mythic identities that have shaped audience’s understandings of Chopin and his music and that play a role in Eternal Sonata and Frederic : the salon composer, the Romantic compos…
Violent Offenders and Violin Defenders
This chapter considers video games that feature classical music and musicians as part of their narrative. In that setting, musicians often act as stand-ins both for art as a whole and for its cultural roles. Case studies include two very different musicians: in Fallout 3 , the gentle violinist Agatha, for whom the player tries to retrieve a family heirloom, a Stradivarius violin; and in BioShock , the psychopathic composer Sander Cohen, an artist…
Unlimited Replays
This book explores the intersections of values and meanings in two types of replay: where video games meet classical music, and vice versa. From the bleeps and bloops of 1980s arcades to the world’s most prestigious concert halls, classical music and video games have a long history together. Medieval chant, classical symphonies, postminimalist film scores, and everything in between fill the soundtracks of many video games, while world-renowned or…
Music in the Role-Playing Game
Music in the Role-Playing Game: Heroes & Harmonies offers the first scholarly approach focusing on music in the broad class of video games known as role-playing games, or RPGs. Known for their narrative sophistication and long playtimes, RPGs have long been celebrated by players for the quality of their cinematic musical scores, which have taken on a life of their own, drawing large audiences to live orchestral performances. The chapters in this …
Music in the Role-Playing Game
Song and the Transition to “Part-Talkie” Japanese Role-Playing Games
This chapter explores the connection between the transitions to voice in 1990s Japanese role-playing games (JRPGs) like Lunar and the “part-talkie” era of film in the late 1920s and 1930s, with particular emphasis on the role that song plays in both transitions. To a surprising extent, that holds true of JRPGs in their transition to voice acting, as well. But equally important were the changes to the game’s video and audio. Some games were issued…
Ludomusicology
The Oxford Handbook of Video Game Music and Sound
The music and sounds of video games have become an inescapable part of our world. Not only do these sonic elements profoundly shape the experiences of billions of players every day, but also the soundscapes of games have stretched out from our living rooms to encompass spaces as diverse as pinball arcades, concert halls, museums, and classrooms across the globe. Research on game music and sound is equally diverse—a vibrant, innovative, and multif…
Nostalgia and Videogame Music
Sony makes news with the latest version of its iconic Walkman. Top Gun, Indiana Jones, and Ghostbusters are top-grossing movies in theaters. Those who prefer TV might tune into thrilling new episodes of Magnum, P.I., laugh along with the antics of Night Court, or watch Captain Picard and his crew save the universe yet again in Star Trek. Mullets are a distressingly trendy hairstyle. It seems that, in the 2020s, everything 1980s is new again. As m…
Genealogies of Music and Memory
Journal Article Genealogies of Music and Memory: Gluck in the 19th-Century Parisian Imagination. Mark Everist Get access Genealogies of Music and Memory: Gluck in the 19th-Century Parisian Imagination. By Mark Everist. Pp. 200. ( Oxford University Press, New York, 2021. ISBN 978-0-19-754600-0, £82.) William Gibbons William Gibbons State University of New York at Potsdam Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Musi…
Art (14 works) · Digital Games and Media (11 works) · Visual arts (10 works) · Art history (8 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Literature (8 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Aesthetics (4 works)