“Game Scoring: An Interdisciplinary Perspective”

Speaker's bio:

Dr. Mack ENNS, holds a PhD in Musicology from Western University, where he specialized in scoring for interactive media, music technology and popular music studies.  His research on musical composition for video games, or "game scoring" is being published in a book format by Routledge later this year, and will include discussion of the technological and aesthetic concerns game scorers face, as well as the distinct musical strategies they have developed.  Mack re-mixes and DJ's hip-hop, video game, electronic and pop music, and "mashes" these genres together quite often.  He enjoys any opportunity to present his research on game scoring using different modes of engagement with music, such as dancing, DJing, VJing, and gaming itself.

​​

Abstracts:

In this technical talk, I will discuss my research on musical composition for video games, or "game scoring," from an interdisciplinary perspective.  Since gamers interact with games in many different ways, game scorers have the difficult task of writing -- and programming -- music that both follows and helps form different modes of gameplay.  I will discuss different disciplines within and outside music, and how their perspectives might help us understand how music impacts the gaming experience, as well as how game scoring activity is significant to other research areas, such as sound design, popular music studies, visual arts and design, and computer science, among others.