Ludomusicological Semiotics: Theory, Implications, and Case Studies Iain James Timothy Hart A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Sydney Conservatorium of Music The University of Sydney 2018 This is to certify that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, and that all external sources have been acknowledged. This thesis has not been submitted for any other degree or other purposes. Iain James Timothy Hart Authorship Attribution Statement The first section of chapter 1 of this thesis was originally published as a guest contribution on the Ludomusicology Research Group website: Iain Hart, “Creativity in Abstraction: Beyond the Film/Game Parallel”, Ludomusicology: Videogame Music Research Group, 3 December 2013, http://www.ludomusicology.org/2013/12/03/ creativity-abstraction-beyond-filmgame-parallel/. It is included here with small edits and corrections. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 of this thesis contain material originally published as “Meaningful Play: Performativity, Interactivity and Semiotics in Video Game Music”, Musicology Australia 36, no. 2 (2014): 273–90. Further detail about the adaptation and distribution of the published material is provided in the preface to each chapter. I am the sole author of the previously published material specified above. Iain James Timothy Hart Date As supervisor for the candidature upon which this thesis is based, I can confirm that the authorship attribution statements above are correct. James Wierzbicki Date For my father Norman Leslie Fagg 1945 – 1999 Thanks for showing me how to play. Acknowledgements I would like to thank the following people, without whose support this thesis would not have been possible. I owe an enormous debt of thanks to my supervisor, James Wierzbicki, whose advice on research, writing, and the academic life has been of incalculable worth. Doing research in a relatively new field of study has been made much easier by James’s belief in the value and potential of that field. Thanks also to my auxiliary supervisor, Charles Fairchild, for his advice and encouragement throughout my musicological journey, and for showing me the best ways to teach. Thanks to the various faculty and staff of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music who have helped me along the way. Thanks especially to Matthew Hindson, whose lectures reignited my passion for music and set me down this road; to Cecilia Sun, for introducing me to the potential of musicology; and to Anne Boyd, whose classes inspired new creativity. Thanks to my ludomusicological colleagues overseas, without whom this would have been a more difficult and less interesting journey. It is an honour to be building the most exciting of disciplines alongside so many brilliant minds. Thanks to the organisers of the conferences I attended during my studies. Special thanks to the Ludomusicology Research Group, whose mere existence has helped legitimise the field (and normalise the term) the world over. Many thanks, also, to my thesis examiners for their correction, advice, and guidance. Thanks to all my friends who have played video games with me “as research”, or who have encouraged me along the way. Thanks to my family: Mum and Robert, Catriona and Evan, the Faggs, the Harts, and the Croaker clan. Their love, support, music, games, inspiration, advice, meals, encouragement, EndNote help, commiseration, beers, and proofreading have been an extraordinary help. The greatest thanks: to my wife Sylvia, for her love, support, encouragement, patience, and assistance. You’re the best. Soli Deo gloria. iv Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Creativity in abstraction 1 Video game music, communication, and semiotics 8 Thesis overview 12 Chapter 2: Foundations of Ludomusicological Semiotics 17 Introduction 17 Notes on terminology 18 Starting with Peirce 21 Musicology and musical semiotics 26 Video game theory and semiotics 38 Ludomusicology and semiotics 48 ‘Meaning’ in ludomusicology 58 Chapter 3: Performativity, Interactivity, and Semiotics in Video Game Music 64 Preface 64 Introduction 64 A complex context 66 A performative approach to interactivity 69 Video game music and performativity 82 A twofold semiosis 86 v Chapter 4: The Semiosis of Initial Composition 88 Preface 88 Beginning at the start 88 A note about timeframes 95 Poietic influences 96 Poiesis 99 Musical significations 102 Configurative significations 104 Music: the neutral level (for now) 106 Esthesis 109 Notes on the analysis of the semiosis of initial composition 112 Conclusion 116 Chapter 5: The Semiosis of Gameplay 117 Preface, and note on revisions since publication of “Meaningful Play” 117 Beginning at the start (part 2) 118 Another note about timeframes 124 The initial composition (and what it becomes) 125 Ergodesis: choosing how to play 128 Interactive poiesis: creation through gameplay 134 Musical significations 137 Configurative significations 139 Personal significations 142 How interactive poietic significations become part of the game 147 Significations: from music, and from other game elements 148 Music, and other game elements 150 Esthesis: making sense of it all 152 Post-esthesic influence over current and future gameplay 155 Notes on the analysis of the semiosis of gameplay 160 Conclusion 166 vi Chapter 6: Driving Games and Experiential Variations: 167 A Case Study of Gran Turismo, Forza Motorsport 4, Dirt 2, and Race Driver: Grid Experiential variation: a triviality? 167 Driving games: the starting grid 170 Continual music: Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport 4 174 Gran Turismo 175 Forza Motorsport 4 183 Racing in silence: Dirt 2 and Race Driver: Grid 187 Dirt 2 188 Race Driver: Grid 192 Conclusion 197 Chapter 7: Exploring the Musical Multiverse: 199 A Case Study of EVE Online To boldly go where all games have gone before 199 Inside and outside, back and forth 202 EVE Online introduced 212 Texts and Peritexts 219 Epitexts 228 Emergence 233 Paratextual flexibility: fluidity and plurality 238 Conclusion 247 vii Chapter 8: Collaborative Musical Responsiveness: 251 A Case Study of Portal 2 and Mini Metro Musical responsiveness is a two-way street 251 Portal 2: synopsis 258 Collaborative musical responsiveness: theme and variations 261 Collaborative musical responsiveness: musical sound effects 266 Mini Metro: synopsis 273 Collaborative musical responsiveness in Mini Metro 276 Events based on tracks 279 Events based on passengers 281 Construction of the responsive soundscape 283 Conclusion 288 Chapter 9: Conclusion 290 Bibliography 294 List of Video Game References 304 List of Film References 307 viii Figures and Tables Figure 4.1: Semiosis of initial composition 92 Figure 5.1: Semiosis of gameplay 122 Figure 6.1: Gran Turismo’s music menu 178 Table 6.1: List of tracks in Gran Turismo’s soundtrack 178 Figure 7.1: Text, peritext and epitext of the video game according to Kamp 204 Figure 7.2: Text, peritext, epitext, and emergence, together at last 208 Table 7.1: Text, peritext, epitext, and emergence, with examples 210 Figure 7.3: EVE Online jukebox, now removed from the game 224 ix Chapter 1 Introduction Creativity in abstraction1 C.S. Lewis wrote, in his science fiction novel Out of the Silent Planet: To every man, in his acquaintance with a new art, there comes a moment when that which before was meaningless first lifts, as it were, one corner of the curtain that hides its mystery, and reveals, in a burst of delight which later and fuller understanding can hardly ever equal, one glimpse of the indefinite possibilities within.2 I had such a moment when I was sitting in a film music lecture and realised that the music of the video game3 Left 4 Dead (Valve 2008) used similar musical devices to the music of the film Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock 1960), and used them for the same purposes. Tone clusters and descending semitones like those in Bernard Herrmann’s score were also used in the soundtrack for Left 4 Dead to instil fear in the face of, not a knife-wielding hotel owner and his mummified mother, but hordes of murderous 1 This section (sans several small edits and modifications) was originally published as a guest contribution on the Ludomusicology Research Group website: Iain Hart, “Creativity in Abstraction: Beyond the Film/Game Parallel”, Ludomusicology: Videogame Music Research Group, 3 December 2013, http://www.ludomusicology.org/2013/12/03/creativity-abstraction-beyond-filmgame-parallel/. 2 C. S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (London: HarperCollins, 2000), 134. 3 The term ‘video game’ is sometimes distinguished from the terms ‘computer game’ and ‘digital game’, but these terms are just as often used synonymously, especially in non-academic writing. I will use the term ‘video game’ throughout this thesis because it is the most commonly used, but it should be understood to be a conflation of the three. 1 zombies. It was a first glimpse, not of the fact that video game music was emotive (I had felt that already), but that it was deliberately expressive and powerfully designed. That moment permanently changed the way I think about game music, and I count it among the motivating factors that have led me to study the medium. A respect for the capabilities of the medium has resided with me ever since, and with it, the notion that game music and film music are kindred spirits, doing similar things in similar ways.4 But as I have studied video game music further, the less satisfying I have found the parallel with film music to be, and the more I have realised that the differences are as myriad as the similarities. Yes, game music does many of the same things as film music, but it also does many more (chief among them: respond to the player/viewer). Similarly, there are things film music can do that game music cannot, or that game music is only just beginning to do. Although game music and film music sometimes have the same function (filling out the sonic space, for instance), they often achieve this in astoundingly different ways.