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Video Games and Music Education

Updated 9/21/19

The following curated resources can be helpful for music learning and teaching in varied formal and informal settings. Some affiliate links are included. You can find out more about affiliate links at the bottom of my about page.

Take a look at other curated resources for music education.

While we have resources on video games and music education, I think we could do more with the writing and thinking of musicologists, music theorists, and composers who address video game music.

Contents

Research and Scholarship on Video Games and Music Education

Here are some examples of research and scholarship addressing video games in relation to music education. You might notice that the majority of work on video games and music learning and teaching focuses on performing and rhythm action games. Jared O’Leary and I have worked to broaden ways of thinking about the possibilities of video games and music learning and teaching. The scholarship continues to emerge and there are many exciting possibilities ahead.

Gower, L., & McDowall, J. (2012). Interactive music video games and children’s musical development. British Journal of Music Education, 29(1), 91-105. doi:10.1017/S0265051711000398

Graham, K., & Schofield, D. (2018). Rock god or game guru: Using Rocksmith to learn to play a guitar. Journal of Music, Technology & Education, 11(1), 65-82.

Havre, S. J., Väkevä, L., Christophersen, C. R., & Haugland, E. (2019). Playing to learn or learning to play? Playing Rocksmith to learn electric guitar and bass in Nordic music teacher education. British Journal of Music Education, 36(1), 21-32.

Hein, E. (2014, January). Music games in education. In Learning, Education and Games (pp. 93-108). ETC Press.

Jenson, J., De Castell, S., Muehrer, R., & Droumeva, M. (2016). So you think you can play: An exploratory study of music video games. Journal of Music, Technology & Education, 9(3), 273-288.

O’Leary, J. D. (2018). A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of music-related practices discussed within chipmusic. org (Doctoral dissertation, Arizona State University).

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.

Paney, A. S. (2015). Singing video games may help improve pitch-matching accuracy. Music Education Research, 17(1), 48-56.

Peppler, K., Downton, M., Lindsay, E., & Hay, K. (2011). The Nirvana effect: Tapping video games to mediate music learning and interest. International Journal of Learning and Media, 3(1), 41-59. doi:10.1162/IJLM_a_00062

Richardson, P., & Kim, Y. (2011). Beyond fun and games: A framework for quantifying music skill developments from video game play. Journal of New Music Research, 40(4), 277-291.

Tobias, E. S. (2012). Let’s play! Learning music through video games and virtual worlds. In G. McPherson & G. Welch (Eds.), Oxford handbook of music education (Vol. 2, pp. 531-548). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Tobias, E. S., & O’Leary, J. (2017). Video games. In A. King, E. Himonides, & S. A. Ruthmann (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Music, Technology, and Education (pp. 263-272). New York, NY: Routledge.

Books on Music and Video Games

There are many books on video games and music. The ones listed below are those that I have engaged with and found highly valuable. Each of these links to books are affiliate links.

A Composer’s Guide to Game Music – Winifred Phillips

Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory, and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design – Karen Collins

Music In Video Games: Studying Play – William Gibbons

Playing with Sound: A Theory of Interacting with Sound and Music in Video Games – Karen Collins

Sound Play: Video Games and the Musical Imagination – William Cheng

Musicology and Video Games

As I mentioned above, the work of musicologists and music theorists can be extremely helpful in expanding the ways we think about video games and music. I find that engaging with the work of musicologists often sparks ideas for projects and related curriculum and pedagogy.

Ludomusicology Videogame Music Research Group – A fantastic resource and group of scholars who focus on studying videogames and music. They organize a related conference and curate scholarship.

Ludomusicology Facebook Group and Ludomusicology Twitter

The Ludomusicology Society of Australia

Society for the Study of Sound and Music in Games (SSSMG) – SSMG maintains an updated bibliography on research related to games and music. Take a look and get inspired!

Journal of Sound and Music in Games

Exploration of Video Game Music Creation & Performance

Check out this “A Night in the Fields” project I facilitated at ASU where we created and performed music to live video game play with the game Flower

Posts I’ve Written on Video Games & Music Education

April 2, 2006

Video Game Music

Almost a year ago I posted about the possible trend of students wanting to perform…

Read More

Game-based Learning

Center for Games and Impact

Games & Learning Books

There are many books on games and learning. The books included below are those that I have engaged with and found highly valuable. It is also important to distinguish game based learning from gamification. These book links are affiliate links.

Games, Learning, and Society: Learning And Meaning In The Digital Age – Constance Steinkuehler, Kurt Squire, and Sasha Barab

Good Video Games and Good Learning: Collected Essays on Video Games, Learning and Literacy – James Gee

What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. – James Gee

Video Games and Learning: Teaching and Participatory Culture in the Digital Age – Kurt Squire

Women and Gaming: The Sims and 21st Century Learning – James Gee and Elisabeth Hayes

Video Games News Related to Music