Video-game music confab at YSU this weekend
Staff report
YOUNGSTOWN
Video-game music has come a long way since 1985, when Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. planted that 8-bit song we came to love or hate.
“As soon as consoles were able to manage it, they stopped using that synthesized music and started using orchestral music,” said Stephen Reale, assistant professor of music theory at Youngstown State University’s Dana School of Music.
Reale, a gamer and musician since the Atari era, is responsible for bringing America’s first academic conference on video-game music to YSU this weekend.
Reale said his favorite video games are Super Mario Galaxy, Rayman Origins, Assassin’s Creed 2, Portal and Portal 2, Braid, Kerbal Space Program and Batman: Arkham Asylum.
He said his favorite video-game music scores are from Super Mario Galaxy and Rayman Origins.
The conference, which begins Saturday, will feature discussion among academics from around the world on topics related to music produced for video games.
“I’ve been wanting to do this for a number of years,” Reale said. “I felt like surely somebody was doing this or would do it, but nothing happened.”
In 2009, Reale published his first article on video-game music, and soon was asked to pen a chapter for a book, “Music in Video Games: Studying the Playable.”
After establishing connections in the video-game and music worlds, he approached Brian DePoy, YSU’s dean of the College of Creative Arts and Communication, about having a conference here. Reale began planning the event in August.
Reale sent requests for academic papers on video-game music in November and received about two dozen submissions. He and two other members of a committee whittled that down to 18 papers they’d like to have presented.
The conference at the McDonough Museum of Art on Wick Avenue will feature papers and presentations by academic authorities on video-game music from Harvard and Yale universities, the University of Chicago, York University, Texas Christian University, the Canadian Centre of Arts and Technology at Waterloo, the Sydney Conservatory of Music, the Eastman School of Music in New York and YSU, among others.
Though it is not the first conference on video-game music, it is the first academic conference on the subject in the United States, Reale said.
DePoy said the idea makes sense because the video-game industry now presents real professional options for graduates. He said academic curriculums focused on video-game development would serve students and YSU well.
“When we look at the video-game industry in general, it is projected to be a $111 billion industry by 2015, and it’s $93 billion this year,” he said. “From an academic strategic point of view, this is a documented, factual, growth industry.”
DePoy said YSU could begin to explore a new curriculum focused on the industry as early as next year using this weekend’s conference as a springboard.
He said music is only one aspect of the industry, and students with focuses in business, graphic arts, science and technology, creative writing and even theater could cross over into a video-game curriculum.
“This is an opportunity for YSU to be an innovator at a time when we really need to be innovative,” Reale said. “I’m hoping this conference will serve as a driver for that innovation.”
“It’s the perfect opportunity for YSU to establish itself as part of a technology corridor,” DePoy said.
Reale said the community, including high-school students, already has shown interest in the conference, which is open to the public. Registration begins at 8 a.m. Saturday with welcoming remarks at 9 a.m. The conference will end about 3 p.m. Sunday.