[yr humble correspondent]
Friday, June 26, 2009
Just Add Performance
I just published my first of three columns for FlowTV, titled "Just Add Performance". I'll republish the column on this blog eventually, but for obvious reasons they ask that I don't do it right away. Check it out!
[yr humble correspondent]
[yr humble correspondent]
Friday, May 8, 2009
Schizophonic Performance article
I'm excited to report that my first article on Guitar Hero and Rock Band has been accepted for publication in the Journal of the Society for American Music. According to my copyright transfer agreement, I have the right to post the unrevised manuscript version on a personal website -- see the PDF link at the end of this post.
Update: I've completed the final revisions and made some significant changes, so do check back for the final draft this fall, when I'll be able to link to the published version.
Schizophonic Performance: Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and Virtual Virtuosity
Abstract: Music-oriented videogames like Guitar Hero and Rock Band are generating new modes of engagement with popular music repertoires. Tens of millions of players use instrument-shaped controllers to play along with classic and contemporary rock songs, generating appreciative feedback from a virtual crowd. These games inspire physically virtuosic, visually engaging performances. Players often “practice” at home and “perform” in public (or on YouTube). Advanced players gather online to share tips for mastering the fingerwork for complicated musical passages. In the course of their gameplay, players encounter and assess game designers’ conceptions of rock’s canonical repertoire, aesthetic norms, performance conventions, and symbolic value. But what does pressing buttons in time with a pre-recorded soundtrack have to do with music-making? This article investigates these games’ implicit models of rock authenticity, their sometimes-sincere/sometimes-ironic constructions of rock heroism, and their players’ ideas about authentic musicality. Drawing on ethnographic research—including interviews with players and game designers, a web-based qualitative survey, and media reception analysis—I discuss players’ concepts of musicality, creativity, and performance as they are developed through Guitar Hero and Rock Band gameplay and game-related discourse.
This article has been accepted for publication in the Journal of the Society for American Music and is slated to appear in issue 3(4), copyright the Society for American Music. This document is the final version submitted to the journal prior to revision arising from peer review and editorial input. I am posting it on my personal website in accordance with the non-transferable rights affirmed in my copyright transfer agreement with Cambridge University Press. Those who wish to cite this research are encouraged to consult/cite the published version when it becomes available.
PDF of manuscript
Update: I've completed the final revisions and made some significant changes, so do check back for the final draft this fall, when I'll be able to link to the published version.
Schizophonic Performance: Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and Virtual Virtuosity
Abstract: Music-oriented videogames like Guitar Hero and Rock Band are generating new modes of engagement with popular music repertoires. Tens of millions of players use instrument-shaped controllers to play along with classic and contemporary rock songs, generating appreciative feedback from a virtual crowd. These games inspire physically virtuosic, visually engaging performances. Players often “practice” at home and “perform” in public (or on YouTube). Advanced players gather online to share tips for mastering the fingerwork for complicated musical passages. In the course of their gameplay, players encounter and assess game designers’ conceptions of rock’s canonical repertoire, aesthetic norms, performance conventions, and symbolic value. But what does pressing buttons in time with a pre-recorded soundtrack have to do with music-making? This article investigates these games’ implicit models of rock authenticity, their sometimes-sincere/sometimes-ironic constructions of rock heroism, and their players’ ideas about authentic musicality. Drawing on ethnographic research—including interviews with players and game designers, a web-based qualitative survey, and media reception analysis—I discuss players’ concepts of musicality, creativity, and performance as they are developed through Guitar Hero and Rock Band gameplay and game-related discourse.
This article has been accepted for publication in the Journal of the Society for American Music and is slated to appear in issue 3(4), copyright the Society for American Music. This document is the final version submitted to the journal prior to revision arising from peer review and editorial input. I am posting it on my personal website in accordance with the non-transferable rights affirmed in my copyright transfer agreement with Cambridge University Press. Those who wish to cite this research are encouraged to consult/cite the published version when it becomes available.
PDF of manuscript
Monday, January 12, 2009
interview tidbits: on musicality in Guitar Hero and Rock Band
During Brown's winter break I've been working on a talk I'll be giving in March; the Boston University Music Society (BUMS) has graciously invited me to be the keynote speaker for their annual graduate student music conference. My tentative title is "Virtual Virtuosity and Mediated Musicality: Why Guitar Hero Players Don't Just Play Real Guitars". I'm planning to focus on a very basic question: what’s musical about Guitar Hero and Rock Band? In particular, I will address the nature of the musical notation in these games, how playing a controller compares to playing a traditional instrument, and how gameplay affects musical listening. I discussed these matters in detail with a bunch of players who volunteered to participate in gameplay observation/interview sessions last summer, and I've been revisiting the interviews in search of material for this new talk. I thought I'd post a few clips here (with the permission of the interviewees, of course), since it's so interesting to hear people talk about this stuff.
Kevin (who has a little experience with trumpet, sax, and guitar) talks about whether gameplay feels like making music:
All of my interviewees reported that people had asked them why they don’t just play real instruments. Here are two clips from an interview with Josh, who has many years of experience playing jazz saxophone:
Another interviewee, Steffen, is an experienced rock drummer. He contrasted the experience of playing the guitar controller with the experience of firing a weapon in other video games:
You can hear Steffen trying to work through the apparent contradiction between feeling like he’s really playing music, even playing creatively, and knowing that he's doing what the game wants him to do.
Josh, the sax player, discussed the importance of muscle memory and embodied knowledge for both playing videogames and playing traditional instruments:
Here several interviewees compare their Guitar Hero or Rock Band gameplay with their other musical performance experiences:
Mike (a guitarist)
Dan (a singer-songwriter who regularly performs on acoustic guitar; he sings and plays lead guitar simultaneously in Rock Band)
Lauren (a drummer)
Sean (a pianist who has dabbled in guitar; the interviewer is my research assistant, Kate)
Josh (comparing playing sax and playing Guitar Hero)
Reviewing my interview and survey materials has also made it clear to me that for many players, the feeling of making music in these games doesn’t necessarily have to do with feeling like a star rock performer on stage. Here I talk about this topic with Kevin:
I'm still working through the tracks about the impact of gameplay on musical listening and/or learning about music, but here's a teaser from Dan:
All of these interviewees were undergraduate or graduate students here at Brown; none of them were music students. (I didn't deliberately exclude music students, but math/science/engineering types were much more likely to be on campus during the summer.)
Kevin (who has a little experience with trumpet, sax, and guitar) talks about whether gameplay feels like making music:
All of my interviewees reported that people had asked them why they don’t just play real instruments. Here are two clips from an interview with Josh, who has many years of experience playing jazz saxophone:
Another interviewee, Steffen, is an experienced rock drummer. He contrasted the experience of playing the guitar controller with the experience of firing a weapon in other video games:
You can hear Steffen trying to work through the apparent contradiction between feeling like he’s really playing music, even playing creatively, and knowing that he's doing what the game wants him to do.
Josh, the sax player, discussed the importance of muscle memory and embodied knowledge for both playing videogames and playing traditional instruments:
Here several interviewees compare their Guitar Hero or Rock Band gameplay with their other musical performance experiences:
Mike (a guitarist)
Dan (a singer-songwriter who regularly performs on acoustic guitar; he sings and plays lead guitar simultaneously in Rock Band)
Lauren (a drummer)
Sean (a pianist who has dabbled in guitar; the interviewer is my research assistant, Kate)
Josh (comparing playing sax and playing Guitar Hero)
Reviewing my interview and survey materials has also made it clear to me that for many players, the feeling of making music in these games doesn’t necessarily have to do with feeling like a star rock performer on stage. Here I talk about this topic with Kevin:
I'm still working through the tracks about the impact of gameplay on musical listening and/or learning about music, but here's a teaser from Dan:
All of these interviewees were undergraduate or graduate students here at Brown; none of them were music students. (I didn't deliberately exclude music students, but math/science/engineering types were much more likely to be on campus during the summer.)
Friday, August 15, 2008
some numbers
As I work away on this article (now tentatively titled "Schizophonic Performance: Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and Rock Authenticity") I've been reviewing some statistics generated by my qualitative survey on the GH/RB gameplay experience. Since this article probably won't be published in a journal for a year (if I'm lucky), I thought I'd share some of the stats here.
As of this writing I have received 414 responses. Survey respondents were self-selecting; most heard about the survey through recruitment messages posted on several high-traffic online messageboards devoted specifically to these games. There is no reason to assume that these players represent an ideal demographic sample of the many millions of people who have purchased or played the games. (The Guitar Hero franchise has sold more than twenty-one million game units since 2005; Rock Band has sold more than three million games and ten million individual song downloads since its November 2007 release.) However, the content and range of the qualitative responses in the surveys does seem to match the range of perspectives I have encountered through other research channels (reading messageboards and media accounts, interviewing players, etc.). Now, the numbers:
* 88% male, 11% female, 1% intergender/trans/other
* 60% aged 21 or younger, 23% aged 22-30, 17% over 30
* 100% have played some version of Guitar Hero; 37% have also played Rock Band
* 93% own some version of Guitar Hero; 25% own both Guitar Hero and Rock Band
* 45% typically play for 1-2 hours at a time
* 16% usually play at the “easy” or “medium” difficulty levels; 19% at “hard”; 64% at “expert”
* 76% have used “practice mode” (which breaks songs down into short sections that can be drilled at slower tempos)
* 57% often play with other people watching; 69% often play in a multiplayer mode
* only 41% reported having much prior familiarity with &ge 50% of the songs included in the games
* 79% stated that the games increased their appreciation for new songs/genres; 76% had added new music to their listening collections because of the games
* 73% had experience playing an instrument; 49% (of all respondents) had experience playing guitar; 32% had played in a band; 14% regularly performed music in public
* 34% reported feeling creative during gameplay
While I must re-emphasize the caveat that these statistics are not necessarily representative of all players, it does seem important that nearly three-quarters of respondents had played an instrument—particularly given that respondents were recruited primarily from gamer discussion boards (as opposed to some more specifically music-oriented population). This fact stands in intriguing tension with the mission statement often repeated in media interviews with Harmonix designers: “to give that awesome feeling [of performing music] to people who aren't musicians, who would never get to have it” (in this instance articulated by audio director Eric Brosius).
As of this writing I have received 414 responses. Survey respondents were self-selecting; most heard about the survey through recruitment messages posted on several high-traffic online messageboards devoted specifically to these games. There is no reason to assume that these players represent an ideal demographic sample of the many millions of people who have purchased or played the games. (The Guitar Hero franchise has sold more than twenty-one million game units since 2005; Rock Band has sold more than three million games and ten million individual song downloads since its November 2007 release.) However, the content and range of the qualitative responses in the surveys does seem to match the range of perspectives I have encountered through other research channels (reading messageboards and media accounts, interviewing players, etc.). Now, the numbers:
* 88% male, 11% female, 1% intergender/trans/other
* 60% aged 21 or younger, 23% aged 22-30, 17% over 30
* 100% have played some version of Guitar Hero; 37% have also played Rock Band
* 93% own some version of Guitar Hero; 25% own both Guitar Hero and Rock Band
* 45% typically play for 1-2 hours at a time
* 16% usually play at the “easy” or “medium” difficulty levels; 19% at “hard”; 64% at “expert”
* 76% have used “practice mode” (which breaks songs down into short sections that can be drilled at slower tempos)
* 57% often play with other people watching; 69% often play in a multiplayer mode
* only 41% reported having much prior familiarity with &ge 50% of the songs included in the games
* 79% stated that the games increased their appreciation for new songs/genres; 76% had added new music to their listening collections because of the games
* 73% had experience playing an instrument; 49% (of all respondents) had experience playing guitar; 32% had played in a band; 14% regularly performed music in public
* 34% reported feeling creative during gameplay
While I must re-emphasize the caveat that these statistics are not necessarily representative of all players, it does seem important that nearly three-quarters of respondents had played an instrument—particularly given that respondents were recruited primarily from gamer discussion boards (as opposed to some more specifically music-oriented population). This fact stands in intriguing tension with the mission statement often repeated in media interviews with Harmonix designers: “to give that awesome feeling [of performing music] to people who aren't musicians, who would never get to have it” (in this instance articulated by audio director Eric Brosius).
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
too much information
This week I'm attempting to expand my IASPM conference paper into an article to send off to a journal. It's not easy, because I have much too much to say and an ever-growing collection of fascinating source material. I've had well over 400 responses to my survey on the gameplay experience (plus follow-up correspondence with a sample of respondents). I've held many gameplay observation and interview sessions on campus this summer, each of which yielded a 30-45 minute recording of a player saying insightful things about Guitar Hero and Rock Band. My wonderful summer research assistant, Kate, has tagged dozens and dozens of relevant online articles, messageboard posts, and YouTube videos. And now I need to write a 10,000-word article, not much more than twice the word count of the conference paper. (And less than the word count of the transcript of my interview with Harmonix's Rob Kay.) I wish I could just publish everything in my files with a big tag cloud and leave the interpretation to each reader. Sadly, that's not the path to tenure.
So, apologies for my infrequent posts. A few links to chew on: a new high-end drum controller designed to work with Rock Band 2; yet another newspaper article insisting that players aren't making music (the NY Times doth protest too much?); and a piece about my research in the Providence Journal (headline not of my devising).
So, apologies for my infrequent posts. A few links to chew on: a new high-end drum controller designed to work with Rock Band 2; yet another newspaper article insisting that players aren't making music (the NY Times doth protest too much?); and a piece about my research in the Providence Journal (headline not of my devising).
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