O’Leary, J., & Tobias, E. S. (2017). Sonic participatory cultures within, through, and around video games. In R. Mantie & G. D. Smith (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of music making and leisure (pp. 541-564). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Sonic Participatory Cultures Within Through and Around Video Games
In 2017, Jared O’Leary and I had our chapter, Sonic participatory Cultures Within, Through, and Around Video Games published in The Oxford Handbook of Music Making and Leisure [affiliate link].
The Oxford Handbook of Music Making and Leisure, edited by Roger Mantie and Gareth Dylan Smith, is a fabulous resource that provides an expansive set of chapters outlining the many ways people do music. Whether you are interested in leisure, musical engagement, or music learning and teaching, the handbook is sure to open new ways of thinking and catalyze interest in the ways people choose to spend their leisure time.
Chapter Overview
Our chapter Sonic participatory Cultures Within, Through, and Around Video Games introduces the notion of sonic participatory cultures as a way of making meaning of the multiple ways people engage with video games through sound and music. Here’s how we open the chapter:
This chapter is concerned with the diverse ways that people engage with music or sound within, through, or around video games. We situate these forms of engagement in relation to what we term sonic participatory cultures, and discuss the specific ways that people engage with video games and sound or music as sonic participation. We refer to sonic participation as encompassing both music and sound, as some forms of participation involve music, others involve sound effects, and still others involve both.
While we are interested in the implications for sonic participatory cultures and people’s musical and engagement with, through, and around video games, given the handbook’s focus on leisure we focus on diverse ways that people do leisure through music and video games. That being said, the varied forms of musical engagement we discuss have interesting potential for music learning and teaching.
Sonic Participatory Cultures
Jared and I offer the concept of sonic participatory cultures as a way of addressing aspects of participatory music making as described by Thomas Turino in his book Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation, [affiliate link] and participatory culture as discussed by Henry Jenkins and colleagues in Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. As we discuss:
. . . it would be inaccurate to apply existing theories of participatory culture designed for particular aspects of media (Jenkins 2006; Jenkins et al. 2009) or musical engagement (Turino 2008) as overarching frameworks to explain the breadth of ways that people engage with music and sound in relation to video games. Thus, we leverage aspects of existing theories of participatory culture when appropriate while simultaneously exploring a form of sonic participatory culture specific to and born out of the convergence of music, sound, and other media. We refer to larger cultural contexts and phenomena involving music, sound, and media as sonic participatory cultures and the more specific types of engagement as forms ot sonic participation. p. 545
Multifaceted Forms of Musical Engagement: Sonic Participatory Cultures and Video Games
While our analysis of the ways people engage in sonic participatory cultures within, through, and around participatory cultures is not exhaustive, we address a number of ways that people do music in relation to video games. The themes we discuss are as follows:
Sonic Participatory Cultures Within Video Games
- Rhythm games
- Games supporting music creation
- ABC notation and freestyle
- Note blocks
Sonic Participatory Cultures Through Video Games
- Machinima, vidding, and other multimedia appropriations
- Modding and coding
- 01000011 01101000 01101001 01110000 01110100 01110101 01101110 01100101 01110011
Sonic Participatory Cultures Around Video Games
- Film scoring
- Sonic paratexts
- Performing
- Affinity spaces and groups
Even a scan through the handbook can give one the sense that typical K-12 music programs are quite narrow in scope compared to the many ways that people do music and leisure. It would be interesting to consider what it might be like to engage young people in these ways of being musical. Let me know via email or the comment section if you would like a copy of the chapter and consider that the diversity of ways people do music in this chapter is one of many forms of engagement addressed throughout The Oxford Handbook of Music Making and Leisure.
Works Cited in This Post
(some books are affiliate links)
Jenkins, H. (2006). Fans, bloggers, and gamers: Exploring participatory culture. New York: NY: New York University Press.
Jenkins, H., Purushotma, R., Weigel, M., Clinton, K., & Robison, A. J. (2009). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. MIT Press.
Turino, Thomas. (2008). Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.