title: Carillon

text: Carillon music was first published in North America in 1934. G. Schirmer, Inc. published the compositions of Curtis Institute of Music students Samuel Barber, Gian Carlo Menotti, and Nino Rota as part of the institute's short-lived publishing series. The Guild of Carillonneurs in North America opened the first dedicated publishing house for carillon music in North America in 1961. In 1968, the Anton Brees Carillon Library was established at Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales, Florida, US; it contains large collections of carillon music and related materials.


title: Carillon

text: In the late 2010s, University of Michigan professor Tiffany Ng analyzed the diversity of the carillon repertoire. In a bibliography focusing on African-American music and composers, Ng claims that "while African-American music permeates the carillon repertoire," mostly in the form of spirituals, "almost none of the carillon arrangements and compositions are authored by African Americans." In a second bibliography with Emmet Lewis focusing on women, transgender, and non-binary composers, they assert that while many works have been written by these groups, they are often not published through traditional means, and "gender inequality remains systemic and common practice in carillon concerts."


title: Carillon

text: Performances on the carillon are commonly categorized as either recitals or concerts. Carillon recitals are traditional performances that take place on fixed schedules throughout the week. They may supplement regularly scheduled events, or take place at the convenience of the carillonneur. Traditional since the instrument's inception, this method is the foundation of carillon performance. Concerts refer to special carillon performances, typically featuring a program and a place for the audience to sit and listen. Some carillonneurs may livestream the event so the audience can watch them at the keyboard. The first carillon concert was held on 1 August 1892 as part of Jef Denyn's Monday evening concert series.


title: Carillon

text: The lack of consistent interest in traditional performances among the general public has caused carillonneurs to engage in musical collaborations and experiments, collectively referred to as "Carillon Plus". Carillonneur duos explore the possibility of duet playing and producing new music for the configuration. Others seek to play the carillon in orchestras, bands, and other ensembles. Carillon Plus performances are not new, but have been explored more intensely since the mid-20th century.


title: Carillon

text: The World Carillon Federation is the central organization of carillon players and enthusiasts. It is a federation of preexisting regional, national, and supranational carillon organizations. it is composed of 15 member organizations:


title: Carillon

text: Every three years, the federation hosts an international congress in a home country of one of the member organizations. The congresses host lectures, workshops, and committee meetings about the topics related to the carillon, for example: news, tutorials and demos, and research developments. Most member organizations give periodical updates to their members on the current state of carillon culture in their respective regions.


title: Carillon

text: Training to perform on a carillon can be obtained at several institutions, though the Royal Carillon School "Jef Denyn" has been the most popular. The LUCA School of Arts in Leuven, Belgium, offers a master's degree in the carillon, and the Utrecht School of the Arts in Amersfoort, Netherlands, has a dedicated school. There are schools in the United Kingdom, France, and Denmark.


title: Carillon

text: The Guild of Carillonneurs in North America organizes carillon examinations during its annual congresses. Those who pass are certified as carillonneur-members of the guild. It also partners with the North American Carillon School, founded in 2012 as an affiliate of the Royal Carillon School "Jef Denyn". Several American universities offer a carillon program within their curriculum. For example, the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, Santa Barbara; the University of Denver; the University of Florida; and the University of Michigan offer complete courses of study. Clemson University, Indiana University, Iowa State University, the University of Kansas, and Marquette University offer limited credit for carillon performance. Employed carillonneurs will often offer private lessons at their carillons. Universities that possess a carillon but do not offer course credit often have a student organization or education program, such as the Yale Guild of Carillonneurs, which manages performances on the Yale Memorial Carillon.


title: Carillon

text: Several institutions register and count carillons worldwide. Some registries specialize in counting specific types of carillons. For example, the War Memorial and Peace Carillons registry counts instruments which serve as war memorials or were built in the name of promoting world peace. TowerBells counts carillons played via a baton keyboard as "traditional carillons" and those with computerized or electronic mechanisms as "non-traditional carillons", among other bell instruments. It also publishes maps, technical specifications, and summary statistics. As the World Carillon Federation does not consider non-traditional carillons to be carillons, it counts only those which are played via a baton keyboard and without computerized or electronic mechanisms.


title: Carillon

text: According to TowerBells and the World Carillon Federation, there are about 700 existing traditional carillons. At least three can be found on every continent except Antarctica; however, of the countries in which traditional carillons can be found, only six have more than 20. The "great carillon" countries—the Netherlands, Belgium, and the United States—account for two-thirds of the world total. Over 90 percent are in either Western Europe (mainly the Low Countries) or North America. In North America, about 80 percent of carillons are owned by religious or educational institutions, while in Europe, nearly all carillons are municipally owned. Almost all extant traditional carillons were constructed in the last 100 years; only some 50 historical carillons from the 18th century or earlier still exist. According to TowerBells, there are another 483 non-traditional carillons, which are located mainly in the United States and Western Europe.


title: Carillon

text: Traveling or mobile carillons are those which are not housed in a tower. Instead, the bells and playing console are installed on a frame that allows it to be transported. These carillons have to be much lighter than their non-mobile counterparts. Nora Johnston conceived the idea of a traveling carillon between 1933 and 1938. She connected a traditional baton keyboard to a system of chime bars and fixed the structure to a portable frame. Johnston traveled twice to the United States to perform in radio documentaries, orchestral concerts, and commercials. Subsequent constructions by others used actual carillon bells.


title: Carillon

text: According to counts by the World Carillon Federation and TowerBells, there are about 20 existing traveling carillons with only three being non-traditional. Many were or are currently owned by bell foundries as a promotional tool. Almost all traveling carillons are headquartered in Western Europe and the United States. Two American traveling carillons are part of the musical group Cast in Bronze, which features the "Spirit of the Bells" playing the carillon in concert with other instruments or a recording. Cast in Bronze is credited with introducing the carillon to the United States' public in its mission to promote and preserve the instrument.


title: Charlotte's Web (1973 film)

text: Charlotte's Web is a 1973 American animated musical drama film based upon the 1952 children's book of the same name by E. B. White, produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film, like the book, is about a pig named Wilbur who befriends an intelligent spider named Charlotte who saves him from being slaughtered. The film was directed by Charles A. Nichols and Iwao Takamoto from a story by Earl Hamner Jr., and features the voices of Debbie Reynolds, Paul Lynde, and Henry Gibson, alongside narration by Rex Allen. "Charlotte's Web" also features a song score of music and lyrics written by the Sherman Brothers, who had previously written music for family films like "Mary Poppins" (1964), "The Jungle Book" (1967), and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" (1968).


title: Charlotte's Web (1973 film)

text: "Charlotte's Web" premiered at the Radio City Music Hall on February 22, 1973, and was released on March 1 to moderate critical and commercial success. It was the first of only four Hanna-Barbera films not to be based upon one of their famous television cartoons, "C.H.O.M.P.S." (1979), "Heidi's Song" (1982) and "Once Upon a Forest" (1993) being the other three.


title: Charlotte's Web (1973 film)

text: Early one morning, Fern Arable prevents her father John from slaughtering a piglet as the runt of the litter. He decides to let her raise it as a pet. She nurtures it lovingly, naming it Wilbur. Six weeks later, Wilbur, due to being a spring pig, has matured, and John sells Wilbur to Fern's uncle, Homer Zuckerman. At Zuckerman's farm, Wilbur yearns for companionship, and attempts to get a goose and a rat named Templeton to play with him. After they refuse, Wilbur tries to play with a lamb, but the lamb's father says sheep do not play with pigs because it is only a matter of time before pigs are slaughtered and turned into smoked bacon and ham. Horrified, Wilbur reduces himself to tears until a mysterious voice tells him to "chin up", and waits until morning to reveal herself to him. The following morning, she reveals herself to be a spider named Charlotte A. Cavatica, living on a web on a corner of Homer's barn overlooking Wilbur's pig pen. She tells him that she will come up with a plan guaranteed to spare his life.


title: Charlotte's Web (1973 film)

text: Later, the goose's goslings hatch. One of them, named Jeffrey, befriends Wilbur. Eventually, Charlotte reveals her plan to "play a trick on Zuckerman", and consoles Wilbur to sleep. Fern and her brother Avery visit the barn that same day. Avery tries to capture Charlotte, but is foiled by the stench of a rotten egg. The next morning, Zuckerman's farmhand, Lurvy, sees the words, SOME PIG, spun within Charlotte's web. The incident attracts publicity among Zuckerman's neighbors who deem the praise to be a miracle. The publicity eventually dies down, and, after a hornet lands in Charlotte's web and ruins the SOME PIG message, Charlotte requests the barn animals to devise a new word to spin within her web. After several suggestions, the goose suggests the phrase, TERRIFIC! TERRIFIC! TERRIFIC!, though Charlotte decides to shorten it to one TERRIFIC. The incident becomes another media sensation, though Zuckerman still desires to slaughter Wilbur. For the next message, Charlotte then employs Templeton to go to the dump to pull a word from a magazine clipping for inspiration. Templeton returns with the word RADIANT ripped from a soap box to spin within her web. Following this, Zuckerman decides to enter Wilbur in the county fair for the summer. Charlotte reluctantly decides to accompany Wilbur, though Templeton at first is uninterested in going to the fair until the goose tells him about all the food there. After one night there, Charlotte sends Templeton back to the dump on another errand to gather another word for her next message, and he returns with the word HUMBLE. The next morning, Wilbur awakens to find Charlotte has spun an egg sac containing her unborn offspring, and the following afternoon, the word HUMBLE is spun. However, Avery discovers another pig named Uncle has won first place, though the county fair staff decides to hold a celebration in honor of Zuckerman's miraculous pig, and rewards him $25 and an engraved, bronze medal. Zuckerman then announces that he will allow Wilbur to "live to a ripe old age".


title: Charlotte's Web (1973 film)

text: Exhausted from laying eggs and writing words, Charlotte tells Wilbur she will remain at the fair to die. Not willing to let her children be abandoned, Wilbur has Templeton retrieve her egg sac to take back to the farm, just before she dies. After returning to Zuckerman's farm, Wilbur guards the egg sac through the winter. The next spring, Charlotte's 514 children are hatched, but leave the farm, causing Wilbur to become so saddened that he resolves to run away. Before he can, the ram points out that three of them did not fly away. Pleased at finding new friends, he names them Joy, Nellie, and Aranea, but as much as he loves them, they will never replace the memory of Charlotte.


title: Charlotte's Web (1973 film)

text: In 1967, animators John and Faith Hubley were interested to purchase the film rights of "Charlotte's Web" in hopes of producing a feature-length animated adaptation. E.B. White, who had liked the Hubleys, sold the film rights, but the Hubleys were unable to acquire financial backing and the project languished. In September 1970, the "Los Angeles Times" reported that White had sold the film rights to "Charlotte's Web" to Edgar Bronfman Sr.'s Sagittarius Productions who intended to produce a feature-length animated adaptation of the book. Director-producer Michael Campus was hired to supervise the project. Later, in November, Henry White, president of Sagittarius Pictures, and Campus approached director Gene Deitch to direct "Charlotte's Web". Deitch agreed and personally met with E.B. White to discuss how the book should be adapted. As part of the contract deal with E.B. White, he would have the final approval of the character design and the casting of the spider character, Charlotte. However, Campus left the project to direct "Z.P.G." (1972), and Deitch later learned he was forbidden to show his storyboards to E.B. White.


title: Charlotte's Web (1973 film)

text: Development on the film still continued at Deitch's animation studio in Prague with Czech painter Mirko Hanák producing artwork of the film before dying of leukemia in November 1971. However, Bronfman Sr. began to grow dissatisfied with the European-influenced conceptual artwork. By May 1971, Deitch shipped his storyboards in a package to Sagittarius Productions in New York City, whom notified that his package went unopened and would be returned to him. On June 3, 1971, Deitch, in a mailed letter to E.B. White, stated that Sagittarius had refused to look his storyboards following six months of work on the project. That same month, it was reported that Sagittarius Productions had signed a two-picture production deal with Hanna-Barbera Productions in which both films would be distributed by Paramount Pictures; one of the films being "Charlotte's Web". Around that same time, Joe Barbera had visited White at his residence in Maine, in which the author highlighted parts of the book he did not want to change, and parts that were "subject to discussion."


title: Charlotte's Web (1973 film)

text: In January 1972, it was reported that Henry Gibson, Debbie Reynolds, and Tony Randall had signed on to provide the voices of Wilbur, Charlotte, and Templeton. Writing in his autobiography, Barbera wrote that Reynolds had called him and said that she was willing to join the project even without being paid. Although Randall had completed all of his voicework, co-director Iwao Takamoto wrote that "his readings just went flat, which surprised all of us. Tony's delivery was a bit too sophisticated and his singing was too operatic. He did not have enough of that raunchy feeling that the character required." Barbera felt Randall had to be replaced, and approached Paul Lynde, who was voicing characters in "The Perils of Penelope Pitstop" and other Hanna-Barbera TV shows at the time, to do a reading. Lynde was officially cast in the following spring, which was followed by Agnes Moorehead, Rex Allen, Pamelyn Ferdin, and Martha Scott who had joined the cast.


title: Charlotte's Web (1973 film)

text: "Charlotte's Web" was originally slated to be released during the summer of 1972, but by September 1972, its release was pushed back to early 1973. The film premiered at the Radio City Music Hall on February 22, 1973, which was followed with its general release on March 1, 1973, by Paramount Pictures in the United States. The film was accompanied in theaters by the animated short "The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow". It was also released in West Germany on March 30, 1973, as well as August 11 in Sweden, August 25 in Japan, and September 4, 1981, in Australia.


title: Charlotte's Web (1973 film)

text: The film was first released on VHS in 1979, followed by three more re-releases in 1988, 1993, and 1996. It made its DVD debut on June 19, 2001. A second DVD release of the film was released in 2006.


title: Charlotte's Web (1973 film)

text: Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" described the music and visuals as "exceedingly uninteresting," but noted that the screenplay "has followed the original so closely that it's still possible to be moved by the story." "Variety" called the film "heartwarming entertainment" with "imaginative and clever" animation. Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" gave the film three stars out of four, writing that although "the animation style is television-quickie (bland, static backgrounds), White's story is so blessed nice it is doubtful that anyone or anything could ruin it." Charles Champlin of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote, "No one, I think, could ask for a more respectful treatment of a classic ... The grownups will miss some of the artful appeal the book has, but can settle gladly enough for a cheerful and enthusiastic piece of children's fare." In a negative review for "The Monthly Film Bulletin", Clyde Jeavons criticized the animation as "stiff, basic and two-dimensional" and the music as lacking "that instant catchiness which has always been a successful feature of Walt Disney's cartoon melodies. But the saddest thing of all is to see E. B. White's celebrated fantasy reduced to such plodding blandness in defiance of its rich potential."


title: Charlotte's Web (1973 film)

text: The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film approval rating based on reviews, with an average score of . The critical consensus reads; "That's some pig, with spirited vocal performances and a charmingly family-friendly adaptation of E.B. White's winsome story spun around him." Among retrospective reviews, Craig Butler of All-Movie Guide criticized the animation and the musical score, but called it a faithful adaptation, noting that "no attempt has been made to soften the existential sadness at the story's core". Dan Jardine criticized the songs and the "Saturday morning cartoon quality" of the animation, but also says that Hamner "retains just enough of White’s elegant prose in the dialogue and narration to keep the film from being simply a painfully well-intended experiment." Christopher Null of Filmcritic.com stated that the animation is sometimes "downright bad", but that White's classic fable needs little to make it come to life. "TV Guide" reviewed the film with generally positive remarks, stating that "The voices of Reynolds, Lynde, Gibson, and all the rest are perfectly cast, and the songs by the Sherman brothers are solid, although none of them became hits like those they wrote for such Disney movies as MARY POPPINS." When it was reissued on DVD it was awarded an Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Gold Award.


title: Charlotte's Web (1973 film)

text: Despite assisting in helping keep parts of the story, White was still very displeased with the adaptation. According to Gene Deitch, White wrote in a 1977 letter, "We have never ceased to regret that your version of 'Charlotte's Web' never got made. The Hanna-Barbera version has never pleased either of us ... a travesty ..." White himself wrote of the film, "The story is interrupted every few minutes so that somebody can sing a jolly song. I don't care much for jolly songs. The Blue Hill Fair, which I tried to report faithfully in the book, has become a Disney World, with 76 trombones. But that's what you get for getting embroiled in Hollywood." White had previously turned down Disney when they offered to make a film based on his book. According to the film's writer, Earl Hamner Jr., Katharine White, White's wife — who sometimes offered advice and suggestions to the filmmakers — would have preferred the music of Mozart in the film, rather than the music of the Sherman Brothers.


title: Charlotte's Web (1973 film)

text: The film has developed a devoted following over the following years due to television and VHS; in 1994 it surprised the marketplace by becoming one of the best-selling titles of the year, 21 years after its first premiere. No other non-Disney musical animated film has enjoyed such a comeback in popularity, prompting a direct-to-video sequel, "", which Paramount released in the US on March 18, 2003 (Universal released it internationally and, through Universal Cartoon Studios, also animated it), followed by a live-action film version (co-produced by Nickelodeon Movies) of the original story, which was released on December 15, 2006.


title: Charlotte's Web (1973 film)

text: Debbie Reynolds has stated that in her later appearances, when fans handed her items to autograph. most of them were soundtrack albums of Charlote's Web.


title: Charlotte's Web (1973 film)

text: Gary Wince, director of the 2006 CG remake of Charlotte's Web, said on the DVD commentary that the fair sequence had to be lengthened after test audiences commented that Templeton's "Smorgasbord" song was missing, referring to one of the memorable sequences in the 1973 film.


title: Charlotte's Web (1973 film)

text: A direct-to-video sequel titled "Charlotte's Web 2: Wilbur's Great Adventure" was released in 2003, co-produced by Nickelodeon and co-distributed by Universal Studios Home Entertainment. The sequel centers on Wilbur's relationship with a lonely lamb named Cardigan and also shows Charlotte's children as adolescents. Reviews for the sequel were generally unfavorable, with critics panning its animation and plot.


title: Charlotte's Web (1973 film)

text: The soundtrack was composed by the Sherman Brothers, who are well known for their work on numerous Disney films. Al Sherman, songwriting father of the Sherman Brothers, considered it their finest score.


title: Charlotte's Web (1973 film)

text: "Zuckerman's Famous Pig" is the title that saves Wilbur from being slaughtered in the story. It was the theme of the finale song in the film. It was written by the Sherman Brothers and arranged as a barbershop quartet by Irwin Kostal, in keeping with the time and place of the story. It was covered by the Brady Kids and was chosen for release on their first single taken from "The Brady Bunch Phonographic Album" by producer Jackie Mills on Paramount Records. The group also recorded the theme from "Charlotte's Web", as did Ray Conniff for Columbia Records.


title: Charlotte's Web (1973 film)

text: The original soundtrack album was released in 1973 on Paramount Records, with a picture disc in 1978 on MCA Records, which bought the Paramount label. In March 2018 the Original Cast Soundtrack was released on CD for the first time by the Varèse Sarabande record label, followed by a vinyl reissue a few months later.


title: Deck the Halls (2006 film)

text: Deck the Halls is a 2006 American Christmas comedy film directed by John Whitesell, written by Matt Corman, Chris Ord, and Don Rhymer, and starring Danny DeVito, Matthew Broderick, Kristin Davis, and Kristin Chenoweth. The film was released on November 22, 2006. The film was released by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment on DVD on November 6, 2007.


title: Deck the Halls (2006 film)

text: In the fictional town of Cloverdale, Massachusetts, optometrist and self-proclaimed Christmas expert Steve Finch wants his family to have a great Christmas, filled with traditions such as using an Advent calendar, taking Christmas card pictures in matching sweaters, and buying a large tree.


title: Deck the Halls (2006 film)

text: In the middle of the night on December 1, new neighbors move in across the street: car salesman and electrical engineer Buddy Hall and his trophy wife Tia, both whom Steve and his wife Kelly meet the next morning. Later that day, Kelly and her daughter Madison and son Carter go to the Hall house, where they meet the Halls’ teenage twin daughters, Ashley and Emily. Tia and Kelly immediately become friends, as do Ashley, Emily, and Madison.


title: Deck the Halls (2006 film)

text: Buddy goes to work as a used car salesman, where he manages to sell a car to the owner of the dealership, giving him a promotion. That night, Buddy complains to Tia that while he can sell anything, he gets bored easily. After discovering that the neighborhood can be seen on satellite photos via a website called MyEarth (seemingly a parody of Google Earth), but that his house is not visible, Buddy decides to make it visible using Christmas lights. As his display grows bigger, including live animals, it gets Buddy known around town, angering Steve and threatening his position as the “Christmas guy.”


title: Deck the Halls (2006 film)

text: Steve’s envy towards Buddy increases; in various incidents, Steve's Christmas-card photo is ruined when two of Buddy's phonophobic feral horses get startled by the sleigh bells and take Steve for a wild ride, his car doors are ripped off during one of Buddy's light shows, and his private Christmas-tree lot is destroyed by a fire when Buddy accidentally spills gasoline with his chainsaw. Eventually, Buddy's house is completely lit, and even synchronized to music. Steve manages to sabotage Buddy’s lights by filling his fusebox with snow, but a backup generator foils his plan. Buddy discovers the sabotage and retaliates by stealing the town's Christmas tree, putting it in Steve's house, and "buying" him a car.


title: Deck the Halls (2006 film)

text: Buddy and Steve make a bet: if Steve beats Buddy in the WinterFest speedskating race, then Buddy removes the lights, and if Buddy beats Steve, Steve pays for the car. Buddy wins, causing Steve to yell at Buddy for being a nobody, since his house is still not visible from space. Hurt, Buddy compensates by buying a huge amount of programmable LED lights, which he pays for by hocking Tia's expensive heirloom vase, and Tia and the girls depart.


title: Deck the Halls (2006 film)

text: Having had enough, Steve buys various fireworks including The Atomic Warlord, a large, illegal, military-grade rocket from a gangster and tries to destroy the Hall house. The rocket misfires, setting the town Christmas tree on fire, and Steve's family leaves, but not before Kelly scolds Steve for ignoring his children to focus on Buddy.


title: Deck the Halls (2006 film)

text: Steve discovers Buddy has been stealing the former’s power for the latter’s lights. However, after seeing Buddy taking down his lights, a remorseful Steve forgives Buddy. The two forget their rivalry and build a winter wonderland with all of Buddy's lights. They lure Tia, Kelly, and the kids home and all sit down to a nice meal made by both Steve and Buddy.


title: Deck the Halls (2006 film)

text: Soon, the whole town arrives at Buddy’s house to help put Buddy's lights back up in time for a story about them on MTV. They do not work, and everyone sings carols and uses their cell phones as flashlights. As they sing, Steve accepts Buddy’s offer to be his friend, and Carter notices that the lights did not work because one of the plugs is not plugged in properly. He tightly plugs it in, causing the lights to shine brightly through the night. SuChin Pak, doing the MTV report, gets confirmation from MyEarth that the house is indeed visible from space, and the crowd celebrates.


title: Deck the Halls (2006 film)

text: The film was originally entitled "All Lit Up", and while it was set in the United States, it was shot in Cloverdale, Surrey, Ocean Park, Surrey, and other locations throughout Metro Vancouver.


title: Deck the Halls (2006 film)

text: In the scene in which Steve and Buddy are in a speedskating race, Matthew Broderick had to train with a real Olympic speed skater trainer for a few weeks before he could film that scene. He trained at Chelsea Piers in New York.


title: Deck the Halls (2006 film)

text: The film grossed $35.1 million in North America and $12.1 million in other territories for a total of $47.2 million, against a budget of $51 million, making it a box office failure where it only earned back 91.8% of its total budget.


title: Deck the Halls (2006 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews with an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads, "Relying on flat humor and a preposterous plot, "Deck the Halls" is an unnecessarily mean-spirited holiday movie that does little to put viewers in a holiday mood." This was the third-worst reviewed Christmas movie on the site, after "The Nutcracker in 3D" and "Christmas with the Kranks", respectively. On Metacritic, the film has a score of 28 out of 100 based on 22 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Deck the Halls (2006 film)

text: Roger Moore of the "Orlando Sentinel" named it "A leaden slice of fruitcake, with about as much nutritional value," and concluding that "it's not worth working up a good hate over". Stephen Hunter remarked "I literally didn't count a single laugh in the whole aimless schlep," and suggested that the film should've been named "Dreck the Halls" instead. Michael Medved named it the "Worst Movie of 2006." Finally, Richard Roeper, co-host of the television show "Ebert & Roeper", wrote:


title: Deck the Halls (2006 film)

text: "You can't believe how excruciatingly awful this movie is. It is bad in a way that will cause unfortunate viewers to huddle in the lobby afterward, hugging in small groups, consoling one another with the knowledge that it's over, it's over -- thank God, it's over. [...] Compared to the honest hard labor performed by tens of millions of Americans every day, a film critic's job is like a winning lottery ticket. But there IS work involved, and it can be painful -- and the next time someone tells me I have the best job in the world, I'm going to grab them by the ear, fourth-grade-teacher-in-1966-style, and drag them to see "Deck the Halls"."


title: Texas Longhorn

text: The Texas Longhorn is an American breed of beef cattle, characterized by its long horns, which can span more than from tip to tip. It derives from cattle brought from the Iberian Peninsula to the Americas by Spanish conquistadores from the time of the Second Voyage of Christopher Columbus until about 1512. For hundreds of years the cattle lived a semi-feral existence on the rangelands; they have a higher tolerance of heat and drought than most European breeds.


title: Texas Longhorn

text: It can be of any color or mix of colors. In some 40% of the cattle it is some shade of red, often a light red; the only shade of red not seen is the deep color typical of the Hereford.


title: Texas Longhorn

text: The Texas Longhorn has become a common symbol of Texas itself, especially the University of Texas at Austin, of which it is the mascot.


title: Texas Longhorn

text: The Texas Longhorn derives from cattle brought to the Americas by Spanish conquistadores from the time of the Second Voyage of Christopher Columbus until about 1512. The first cattle were landed in 1493 on the Caribbean island of La Isla Española (now known as Hispaniola) to provide food for the colonists.


title: Texas Longhorn

text: Over the next two centuries, the Spaniards used the cattle in Mexico and gradually moved them north to accompany their expanding settlements. The Spaniards reached the area that became known as "Texas" near the end of the 17th century. Eventually, some cattle escaped or were turned loose on the open range, where they remained mostly feral for the next two centuries. Over several generations, descendants of these cattle developed to have high feed- and drought-stress tolerances and other "hardy" characteristics that have given Longhorns their reputation as livestock.


title: Texas Longhorn

text: Early Anglo-American settlers in East Texas, then a part of Mexico, obtained feral Mexican cattle from the borderland between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. They bred them with their own eastern cattle. The result was a tough, rangy animal that was characterized by its lengthy legs and exceptionally long horns that extended up to 7 feet.


title: Texas Longhorn

text: As Texas became more densely settled through increased migration after it was annexed by the U.S., the frontier was developed for crop farms and ranch lands. The leaner beef of the Texas Longhorn was not as attractive in an era where tallow was highly prized. The breed's ability to survive on the poor vegetation of the open range was not as important as the range was enclosed. Other breeds demonstrated traits more highly valued by the modern rancher, such as the ability to gain weight quickly for marketing as beef.


title: Texas Longhorn

text: The Texas Longhorn stock slowly dwindled, but in 1927, the breed was saved from near extinction by enthusiasts from the United States Forest Service. They collected a small herd of stock to breed on the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in Lawton, Oklahoma. The breed also received significant attention after a Texas Longhorn named "Bevo" was adopted as the mascot of The University of Texas at Austin in 1917. The animal's image became commonly associated with the school's sports teams, known as the Texas Longhorns. A few years later, J. Frank Dobie and others gathered small herds to keep in Texas state parks. Oilman Sid W. Richardson helped finance the project. The Longhorns were cared for largely as curiosities, but the stock's longevity, resistance to disease, and ability to thrive on marginal pastures resulted in a revival of the breed as beef stock and for their link to Texas history.


title: Texas Longhorn

text: In 1957, Charles Schreiner III began creating a Longhorn herd on his ranch, the "Y O", in Mountain Home, Texas, as a tribute to the ranching legacy of his grandfather, Captain Charles Armand Schreiner, and the Longhorns he ran on his ranches. Schreiner purchased five heifers and one bull calf for $75 each from the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge near Lawton. In 1964, Schreiner founded the Texas Longhorn Breeders Association of America. The YO herd was the first cattle registered with the association. To draw attention to the Longhorn and its new association, in 1966, Schreiner organized a cattle drive of Longhorn steers from San Antonio, Texas to Dodge City, Kansas. The drive was promoted as a centennial commemoration of the earlier Chisholm Trail drives. Schreiner arranged for local members of the Quanah sheriff’s posse to stage a simulated “Indian attack” as the steers crossed the Red River at Doan's Crossing. The attack was so authentic that the steers stampeded with cowboys in close pursuit. Four hours were needed to reassemble the herd. In 1976, Texas Tech University in Lubbock persuaded Schreiner to stage a cattle trail drive to celebrate its new National Ranching Heritage Center.


title: Texas Longhorn

text: In 1995, the Texas Legislature designated the Texas Longhorn as the state large mammal. In the 21st century, Texas Longhorns from elite bloodlines can sell for $40,000 or more at auction. The record of $380,000 on March 18, 2017, was for a cow, 3S Danica, and heifer calf at side, during the Legacy XIII sale in Fort Worth, Texas.


title: Texas Longhorn

text: Registries for the breed include: the Texas Longhorn Breeders Association of America, founded in 1964 by the Kerr County rancher Charles Schreiner III; the International Texas Longhorn Association; and the Cattlemen's Texas Longhorn Registry. The online National Texas Longhorn Museum displays the diversity of horns found in the breed, stories about notable individual cattle of the breed, and a gallery of furniture made from cattle horns.


title: Texas Longhorn

text: The Longhorn is genetically close to Iberian cattle breeds such as the De Lidia and Retinta of Spain and the Alentejana and Mertolenga of Portugal. Like other Criollo cattle of the Americas and many breeds of southern Europe, it is principally of taurine (European) derivation, but has a small admixture of indicine genetic heritage; this may be a consequence of gene flow across the Strait of Gibraltar from cattle of African origin dating to before the time of the Spanish Conquest.


title: Texas Longhorn

text: The horns are in some cases very long. In general, the horns of bulls are of moderate length, while those of steers may be much longer. In 2022 the Guinness Book of Records reported the longest spread of cattle horns (on a living animal) to be: for a steer called Poncho Via; for a cow named 3S Danica; and for a bull named Cowboy Tuff Chex. All three were Texas Longhorns.


title: Texas Longhorn

text: Coat color is extremely variable. In some 40% of the cattle it is some shade of red, often a light red; the only shade of red not seen is the deep colour typical of the Hereford. The finching pattern is common; when the base color is black it is called , from the Spanish word for 'skunk'. Other colors include variations of black, blue, brown, cream, dun, grey, yellow or white, either with or without brindling (called , from the Spanish word for 'cat'), speckling or spotting. Speckled and solid-coloured animals are in roughly equal proportion.


title: Texas Longhorn

text: The Longhorn was traditionally reared for beef. In the twenty-first century it is considered part of the cultural heritage of Texas. It may be kept for conservation reasons, or bred for greater horn length. It is occasionally used for steer riding.


title: Video game music

text: Video game music (or VGM) is the soundtrack that accompanies video games. Early video game music was once limited to sounds of early sound chips, such as programmable sound generators (PSG) or FM synthesis chips. These limitations have led to the style of music known as chiptune, which became the sound of the first video games.


title: Video game music

text: With technological advances, video game music has grown to include a wider range of sounds. Players can hear music in video games over a game's title screen, menus, and gameplay. Game soundtracks can also change depending on a player's actions or situation, such as indicating missed actions in rhythm games, informing the player they are in a dangerous situation, or rewarding them for specific achievements.


title: Video game music

text: The popularity of video game music has created education and job opportunities, generated awards, and led video game soundtracks to be commercially sold and performed in concerts.


title: Video game music

text: At the time video games had emerged as a popular form of entertainment in the late 1970s, music was stored on physical medium in analog waveforms such as compact cassettes and phonograph records. Such components were expensive and prone to breakage under heavy use, making them less than ideal for use in an arcade cabinet, though in rare cases such as "Journey", they were used. A more affordable method of having music in a video game was to use digital means, where a specific computer chip would change electrical impulses from computer code into analog sound waves on the fly for output on a speaker. Sound effects for the games were also generated in this fashion. An early example of such an approach to video game music was the opening chiptune in Tomohiro Nishikado's "Gun Fight" (1975).


title: Video game music

text: While this allowed for inclusion of music in early arcade video games, it was usually monophonic, looped or used sparingly between stages or at the start of a new game, such as the Namco titles "Pac-Man" (1980) composed by Toshio Kai or "Pole Position" (1982) composed by Nobuyuki Ohnogi. The first game to use a continuous background soundtrack was Tomohiro Nishikado's "Space Invaders", released by Taito in 1978. It had four descending chromatic bass notes repeating in a loop, though it was dynamic and interacted with the player, increasing pace as the enemies descended on the player. The first video game to feature continuous, melodic background music was "Rally-X", released by Namco in 1980, featuring a simple tune that repeats continuously during gameplay. The decision to include any music into a video game meant that at some point it would have to be transcribed into computer code. Some music was original, some was public domain music such as folk songs. Sound capabilities were limited; the popular Atari 2600 home system, for example, was capable of generating only two tones at a time.


title: Video game music

text: As advances were made in silicon technology and costs fell, a definitively new generation of arcade machines and home consoles allowed for great changes in accompanying music. In arcades, machines based on the Motorola 68000 CPU and accompanying various Yamaha YM programmable sound generator sound chips allowed for several more tones or "channels" of sound, sometimes eight or more. The earliest known example of this was Sega's 1980 arcade game "Carnival", which used an AY-3-8910 chip to create an electronic rendition of the classical 1889 composition "Over The Waves" by Juventino Rosas.


title: Video game music

text: Konami's 1981 arcade game "Frogger" introduced a dynamic approach to video game music, using at least eleven different gameplay tracks, in addition to level-starting and game over themes, which change according to the player's actions. This was further improved upon by Namco's 1982 arcade game "Dig Dug", where the music stopped when the player stopped moving. "Dig Dug" was composed by Yuriko Keino, who also composed the music for other Namco games such as "Xevious" (1982) and "Phozon" (1983). Sega's 1982 arcade game "Super Locomotive" featured a chiptune rendition of Yellow Magic Orchestra's "Rydeen" (1979); several later computer games also covered the song, such as "Trooper Truck" (1983) by Rabbit Software as well as "Daley Thompson's Decathlon" (1984) and "Stryker's Run" (1986) composed by Martin Galway.


title: Video game music

text: Home console systems also had a comparable upgrade in sound ability beginning with the ColecoVision in 1982 capable of four channels. However, more notable was the Japanese release of the Famicom in 1983 which was later released in the US as the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985. It was capable of five channels, one being capable of simple PCM sampled sound. The home computer Commodore 64 released in 1982 was capable of early forms of filtering effects, different types of waveforms and eventually the undocumented ability to play 4-bit samples on a pseudo fourth sound channel. Its comparatively low cost made it a popular alternative to other home computers, as well as its ability to use a TV for an affordable display monitor.


title: Video game music

text: Approach to game music development in this time period usually involved using simple tone generation and/or frequency modulation synthesis to simulate instruments for melodies, and use of a "noise channel" for simulating percussive noises. Early use of PCM samples in this era was limited to short sound bites ("Monopoly"), or as an alternate for percussion sounds ("Super Mario Bros. 3"). The music on home consoles often had to share the available channels with other sound effects. For example, if a laser beam was fired by a spaceship, and the laser used a 1400 Hz square wave, then the square wave channel that was in use by music would stop playing music and start playing the sound effect.


title: Video game music

text: The mid-to-late 1980s software releases for these platforms had music developed by more people with greater musical experience than before. Quality of composition improved noticeably, and evidence of the popularity of music of this time period remains even today. Composers who made a name for themselves with their software include Koichi Sugiyama ("Dragon Quest"), Nobuo Uematsu ("Final Fantasy"), Rob Hubbard ("Monty On the Run", "International Karate"), Koji Kondo ("Super Mario Bros.", "The Legend of Zelda"), Miki Higashino ("Gradius", "Yie-Ar Kung Fu", "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"), Hiroshi Kawaguchi ("Space Harrier", "Hang-On", "Out Run"), Hirokazu Tanaka ("Metroid", "Kid Icarus", "EarthBound"), Martin Galway ("Daley Thompson's Decathlon", "Stryker's Run", "Times of Lore"), David Wise ("Donkey Kong Country"), Yuzo Koshiro ("Dragon Slayer", "Ys", "Shinobi", "ActRaiser", "Streets of Rage"), Mieko Ishikawa ("Dragon Slayer", "Ys"), and Ryu Umemoto (visual novels, shoot 'em ups). By the late 1980s, video game music was being sold as cassette tape soundtracks in Japan, inspiring American companies such as Sierra, Cinemaware and Interplay to give more serious attention to video game music by 1988. The Golden Joystick Awards introduced a category for "Best Soundtrack of the Year" in 1986, won by Sanxion.


title: Video game music

text: Some games for cartridge systems have been sold with extra audio hardware on board, including "Pitfall II" for the Atari 2600 and several late Famicom titles. These chips add to the existing sound capabilities.


title: Video game music

text: From around 1980, some arcade games began taking steps toward digitized, or sampled, sounds. Namco's 1980 arcade game "Rally-X" was the first known game to use a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) to produce sampled tones instead of a tone generator. That same year, the first known video game to feature speech synthesis was also released: Sunsoft's shoot 'em up game "Stratovox". Around the same time, the introduction of frequency modulation synthesis (FM synthesis), first commercially released by Yamaha for their digital synthesizers and FM sound chips, allowed the tones to be manipulated to have different sound characteristics, where before the tone generated by the chip was limited to the design of the chip itself. Konami's 1983 arcade game "Gyruss" used five synthesis sound chips along with a DAC, which were used to create an electronic version of J. S. Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D minor".


title: Video game music

text: Beyond arcade games, significant improvements to personal computer game music were made possible with the introduction of digital FM synth boards, which Yamaha released for Japanese computers such as the NEC PC-8801 and PC-9801 in the early 1980s, and by the mid-1980s, the PC-8801 and FM-7 had built-in FM sound. The sound FM synth boards produced are described as "warm and pleasant sound". Musicians such as Yuzo Koshiro and Takeshi Abo utilized to produce music that is still highly regarded within the chiptune community. The widespread adoption of FM synthesis by consoles would later be one of the major advances of the 16-bit era, by which time 16-bit arcade machines were using multiple FM synthesis chips.


title: Video game music

text: One of the earliest home computers to make use of digital signal processing in the form of sampling was the Commodore Amiga in 1985. The computer's sound chip featured four independent 8-bit digital-to-analog converters. Developers could use this platform to take samples of a music performance, sometimes just a single note long, and play it back through the computer's sound chip from memory. This differed from "Rally-X" in that its hardware DAC was used to play back simple waveform samples, and a sampled sound allowed for a complexity and authenticity of a real instrument that an FM simulation could not offer. For its role in being one of the first and affordable, the Amiga would remain a staple tool of early sequenced music composing, especially in Europe.


title: Video game music

text: The Amiga offered these features before most other competing home computer platforms though the Macintosh which had been introduced a year earlier had similar capabilities. The Amiga's main rival, the Atari ST, sourced the Yamaha YM2149 Programmable Sound Generator (PSG). Compared to the in-house designed Amiga sound engine, the PSG could only handle 1 channel of sampled sound, and needed the computer's CPU to process the data for it. This made it impractical for game development use until 1989 with the release of the Atari STE which used DMA techniques to play back PCM samples at up to 50 kHz. The ST, however, remained relevant as it was equipped with a MIDI controller and external ports. It became the choice of by many professional musicians as a MIDI programming device.


title: Video game music

text: IBM PC clones in 1985 would not see any significant development in multimedia abilities for a few more years, and sampling would not become popular in other video game systems for several years. Though sampling had the potential to produce much more realistic sounds, each sample required much more data in memory. This was at a time when all memory, solid-state (ROM cartridge), magnetic (floppy disk) or otherwise was still very costly per kilobyte. Sequenced soundchip-generated music, on the other hand, was generated with a few lines of comparatively simple code and took up far less precious memory.


title: Video game music

text: Arcade systems pushed game music forward in 1984 with the introduction of FM (Frequency Modulation) synthesis, providing more organic sounds than previous PSGs. The first such game, Marble Madness used the Yamaha YM2151 FM synthesis chip.


title: Video game music

text: As home consoles moved into the fourth generation, or 16-bit era, the hybrid approach (sampled and tone) to music composing continued to be used. The Sega Genesis offered advanced graphics over the NES and improved sound synthesis features (also using a Yamaha chip, the YM2612), but largely held the same approach to sound design. Ten channels in total for tone generation with one for PCM samples were available in stereo instead of the NES's five channels in mono, one for PCM. As before, it was often used for percussion samples. The Genesis did not support 16-bit sampled sounds. Despite the additional tone channels, writing music still posed a challenge to traditional composers and it forced much more imaginative use of the FM synthesizer to create an enjoyable listening experience. The composer Yuzo Koshiro utilized the Genesis hardware effectively to produce "progressive, catchy, techno-style compositions far more advanced than what players were used to" for games such as "The Revenge of Shinobi" (1989) and the "Streets of Rage" series, setting a "new high watermark for what music in games could sound like." The soundtrack for "Streets of Rage 2" (1992) in particular is considered "revolutionary" and "ahead of its time" for its blend of house music with "dirty" electro basslines and "trancey electronic textures" that "would feel as comfortable in a nightclub as a video game." Another important FM synth composer was the late Ryu Umemoto, who composed music for many visual novels and shoot 'em ups during the 1990s.


title: Video game music

text: As the cost of magnetic memory declined in the form of diskettes, the evolution of video game music on the Amiga, and some years later game music development in general, shifted to sampling in some form. It took some years before Amiga game designers learned to wholly use digitized sound effects in music (an early exception case was the title music of text adventure game "The Pawn", 1986). By this time, computer and game music had already begun to form its own identity, and thus many music makers intentionally tried to produce music that sounded like that heard on the Commodore 64 and NES, which resulted in the chiptune genre.


title: Video game music

text: The release of a freely-distributed Amiga program named Soundtracker by Karsten Obarski in 1987 started the era of MOD-format which made it easy for anyone to produce music based on digitized samples. Module files were made with programs called "trackers" after Obarski's Soundtracker. This MOD/tracker tradition continued with PC computers in the 1990s. Examples of Amiga games using digitized instrument samples include David Whittaker's soundtrack for "Shadow of the Beast", Chris Hülsbeck's soundtrack for "Turrican 2" and Matt Furniss's tunes for "Laser Squad". Richard Joseph also composed some theme songs featuring vocals and lyrics for games by Sensible Software most famous being "Cannon Fodder" (1993) with a song "War Has Never Been So Much Fun" and "Sensible World of Soccer" (1994) with a song "Goal Scoring Superstar Hero". These songs used long vocal samples.


title: Video game music

text: A similar approach to sound and music developments had become common in the arcades by this time and had been used in many arcade system boards since the mid-1980s. This was further popularized in the early 1990s by games like "Street Fighter II" (1991) on the CPS-1, which used voice samples extensively along with sampled sound effects and percussion. Neo Geo's MVS system also carried powerful sound development which often included surround sound.


title: Video game music

text: The evolution also carried into home console video games, such as the release of the Super Famicom in 1990, and its US/EU version Super NES in 1991. It sported a specialized custom Sony chip for both the sound generation and for special hardware DSP. It was capable of eight channels of sampled sounds at up to 16-bit resolution, had a wide selection of DSP effects, including a type of ADSR usually seen in high-end synthesizers of the time, and full stereo sound. This allowed experimentation with applied acoustics in video games, such as musical acoustics (early games like "Super Castlevania IV", "F-Zero", "Final Fantasy IV", "Gradius III", and later games like "Chrono Trigger"), directional ("Star Fox") and spatial acoustics (Dolby Pro Logic was used in some games, like "King Arthur's World" and "Jurassic Park"), as well as environmental and architectural acoustics ("", "Secret of Evermore"). Many games also made heavy use of the high-quality sample playback capabilities ("Super Star Wars", "Tales of Phantasia"). The only real limitation to this powerful setup was the still-costly solid state memory. Other consoles of the generation could boast similar abilities yet did not have the same circulation levels as the Super NES. The Neo-Geo home system was capable of the same powerful sample processing as its arcade counterpart but was several times the cost of a Super NES. The Sega CD (the Mega CD outside North America) hardware upgrade to the Mega Drive (Genesis in the US) offered multiple PCM channels, but they were often passed over instead to use its capabilities with the CD-ROM itself.


title: Video game music

text: The popularity of the Super NES and its software remained limited to regions where NTSC television was the broadcast standard. Partly because of the difference in frame rates of PAL broadcast equipment, many titles released were never redesigned to play appropriately and ran much slower than had been intended, or were never released. This showed a divergence in popular video game music between PAL and NTSC countries that still shows to this day. This divergence would be lessened as the fifth generation of home consoles launched globally, and as Commodore began to take a back seat to general-purpose PCs and Macs for developing and gaming.


title: Video game music

text: Though the Mega CD/Sega CD, and to a greater extent the PC Engine in Japan, would give gamers a preview of the direction video game music would take in streaming music, the use of both sampled and sequenced music continues in game consoles even today. The huge data storage benefit of optical media would be coupled with progressively more powerful audio generation hardware and higher quality samples in the Fifth Generation. In 1994, the CD-ROM equipped PlayStation supported 24 channels of 16-bit samples of up to 44.1 kHz sample rate, samples equal to CD audio in quality. It also sported a few hardware DSP effects like reverb. Many Square titles continued to use sequenced music, such as "Final Fantasy VII", "Legend of Mana", and "Final Fantasy Tactics". The Sega Saturn also with a CD drive supported 32 channels of PCM at the same resolution as the original PlayStation. In 1996, the Nintendo 64, still using a solid-state cartridge, actually supported an integrated and scalable sound system that was potentially capable of 100 channels of PCM, and an improved sample rate of 48 kHz. Games for the N64, because of the cost of the solid-state memory, typically had samples of lesser quality than the other two, however, and music tended to be simpler in construct.


title: Video game music

text: In the same timeframe of the late 1980s to mid-1990s, the IBM PC clones using the x86 architecture became more ubiquitous, yet had a very different path in sound design than other PCs and consoles. Early PC gaming was limited to the PC speaker, and some proprietary standards such as the IBM PCjr 3-voice chip. While sampled sound could be achieved on the PC speaker using pulse width modulation, doing so required a significant proportion of the available processor power, rendering its use in games rare.


title: Video game music

text: With the increase of x86 PCs in the market, there was a vacuum in sound performance in home computing that expansion cards attempted to fill. The first two recognizable standards were the Roland MT-32, followed by the AdLib sound card. Roland's solution was driven by MIDI sequencing using advanced LA synthesizers. This made it the first choice for game developers to produce upon, but its higher cost as an end-user solution made it prohibitive. The AdLib used a low-cost FM synthesis chip from Yamaha, and many boards could operate compatibly using the MIDI standard.


title: Video game music

text: The AdLib card was usurped in 1989 by Creative's Sound Blaster, which used the same Yamaha FM chip in the AdLib, for compatibility, but also added 8-bit 22.05 kHz (later 44.1 kHz) digital audio recording and playback of a single stereo channel. As an affordable end-user product, the Sound Blaster constituted the core sound technology of the early 1990s; a combination of a simple FM engine that supported MIDI, and a DAC engine of one or more streams. Only a minority of developers ever used Amiga-style tracker formats in commercial PC games, ("Unreal") typically preferring to use the MT-32 or AdLib/SB-compatible devices. As general purpose PCs using x86 became more ubiquitous than the other PC platforms, developers drew their focus towards that platform.


title: Video game music

text: The last major development before streaming music came in 1992: Roland Corporation released the first General MIDI card, the sample-based SCC-1, an add-in card version of the SC-55 desktop MIDI module. The comparative quality of the samples spurred similar offerings from Soundblaster, but costs for both products were still high. Both companies offered 'daughterboards' with sample-based synthesizers that could be later added to a less expensive soundcard (which only had a DAC and a MIDI controller) to give it the features of a fully integrated card.


title: Video game music

text: Unlike the standards of Amiga or Atari, a PC using x86 even then could be using a broad mix of hardware. Developers increasingly used MIDI sequences: instead of writing soundtrack data for each type of soundcard, they generally wrote a fully featured data set for the Roland application that would be compatible with lesser featured equipment so long as it had a MIDI controller to run the sequence. However, different products used different sounds attached to their MIDI controllers. Some tied into the Yamaha FM chip to simulate instruments, some daughterboards of samples had very different sound qualities; meaning that no single sequence performance would be accurate to every other General MIDI device.


title: Video game music

text: All of these considerations in the products reflected the high cost of memory storage which rapidly declined with the optical CD format.


title: Video game music

text: Taking entirely pre-recorded music had many advantages over sequencing for sound quality. Music could be produced freely with any kind and number of instruments, allowing developers to simply record one track to be played back during the game. Quality was only limited by the effort put into mastering the track itself. Memory space costs that was previously a concern was somewhat addressed with optical media becoming the dominant media for software games. CD quality audio allowed for music and voice that had the potential to be truly indistinguishable from any other source or genre of music.


title: Video game music

text: In fourth generation home video games and PCs this was limited to playing a Mixed Mode CD audio track from a CD while the game was in play (such as "Sonic CD"). The earliest examples of Mixed Mode CD audio in video games include the TurboGrafx-CD RPG franchises "Tengai Makyō", composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto from 1989, and the "Ys" series, composed by Yuzo Koshiro and and arranged by in 1989. The "Ys" soundtracks, particularly "Ys I & II" (1989), are still regarded as some of the most influential video game music ever composed.


title: Video game music

text: However, there were several disadvantages of regular CD-audio. Optical drive technology was still limited in spindle speed, so playing an audio track from the game CD meant that the system could not access data again until it stopped the track from playing. Looping, the most common form of game music, was also a problem as when the laser reached the end of a track, it had to move itself back to the beginning to start reading again causing an audible gap in playback.


title: Video game music

text: To address these drawbacks, some PC game developers designed their own container formats in house, for each application in some cases, to stream compressed audio. This would cut back on memory used for music on the CD, allowed for much lower latency and seek time when finding and starting to play music, and also allowed for much smoother looping due to being able to buffer the data. A minor drawback was that use of compressed audio meant it had to be decompressed which put load on the CPU of a system. As computing power increased, this load became minimal, and in some cases, dedicated chips in a computer (such as a sound card) would actually handle all the decompressing.


title: Video game music

text: Fifth generation home console systems also developed specialised streaming formats and containers for compressed audio playback. Games would take full advantage of this ability, sometimes with highly praised results (""). Games ported from arcade machines, which continued to use FM synthesis, often saw superior pre-recorded music streams on their home console counterparts ("Street Fighter Alpha 2"). Even though the game systems were capable of "CD quality" sound, these compressed audio tracks were not true "CD quality." Many of them had lower sampling rates, but not so significant that most consumers would notice. Using a compressed stream allowed game designers to play back streamed music and still be able to access other data on the disc without interruption of the music, at the cost of CPU power used to render the audio stream. Manipulating the stream any further would require a far more significant level of CPU power available in the 5th generation.


title: Video game music

text: Some games, such as the "Wipeout" series, continued to use full Mixed Mode CD audio for their soundtracks.


title: Video game music

text: This overall freedom offered to music composers gave video game music the equal footing with other popular music it had lacked. A musician could now, with no need to learn about programming or the game architecture itself, independently produce the music to their satisfaction. This flexibility would be exercised as popular mainstream musicians would be using their talents for video games specifically. An early example is "Way of the Warrior" on the 3DO, with music by White Zombie. A more well-known example is Trent Reznor's score for "Quake".


title: Video game music

text: An alternate approach, as with the "TMNT" arcade, was to take pre-existing music not written exclusively for the game and use it in the game. The game "" and subsequent "Star Wars" games took music composed by John Williams for the "Star Wars" films of the 1970s and 1980s and used it for the game soundtracks.


title: Video game music

text: Both using new music streams made specifically for the game, and using previously released/recorded music streams are common approaches for developing sound tracks to this day. It is common for X-games sports-based video games to come with some popular artists recent releases ("SSX", "Tony Hawk", "Initial D"), as well as any game with heavy cultural demographic theme that has tie-in to music ("", "Gran Turismo", and "Grand Theft Auto"). Sometimes a hybrid of the two are used, such as in "Dance Dance Revolution".


title: Video game music

text: Sequencing samples continue to be used in modern gaming where fully recorded audio is not viable. Until the mid-2000s, many larger games on home consoles used sequenced audio to save space. Additionally, most games on the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS used sequenced music due to storage limitations. Sometimes a cross between sequencing samples, and streaming music is used. Games such as "" (music composed by James Hannigan) and "" (music composed by Bill Brown) have utilised sophisticated systems governing the flow of incidental music by stringing together short phrases based on the action on screen and the player's most recent choices (see dynamic music). Other games dynamically mixed the sound on the game based on cues of the game environment.


title: Video game music

text: As processing power increased dramatically in the 6th generation of home consoles, it became possible to apply special effects in realtime to streamed audio. In "SSX", a recent video game series, if a snowboarder takes to the air after jumping from a ramp, the music softens or muffles a bit, and the ambient noise of wind and air blowing becomes louder to emphasize being airborne. When the snowboarder lands, the music resumes regular playback until its next "cue". The LucasArts company pioneered this interactive music technique with their iMUSE system, used in their early adventure games and the "Star Wars" flight simulators "" and "". Action games such as these will change dynamically to match the amount of danger. Stealth-based games will sometimes rely on such music, either by handling streams differently, or dynamically changing the composition of a sequenced soundtrack.


title: Video game music

text: Being able to play one's own music during a game in the past usually meant turning down the game audio and using an alternative music player. Some early exceptions were possible on PC/Windows gaming in which it was possible to independently adjust game audio while playing music with a separate program running in the background. Some PC games, such as "Quake", play music from the CD while retrieving game data exclusively from the hard disk, thereby allowing the game CD to be swapped for any music CD. The first PC game to introduce in-game support for custom soundtracks was Lionhead Studio's Black and White. The 2001 game included an in-game interface for Winamp that enabled the players to play audio tracks from their own playlists. In addition, this would sometimes trigger various reactions from the player's Creature, like dancing or laughing.


title: Video game music

text: Some PlayStation games supported this by swapping the game CD with a music CD, although when the game needed data, players had to swap the CDs again. One of the earliest games, "Ridge Racer", was loaded entirely into RAM, letting the player insert a music CD to provide a soundtrack throughout the entirety of the gameplay. In "Vib Ribbon", this became a gameplay feature, with the game generating levels based entirely on the music on whatever CD the player inserted.


title: Video game music

text: Microsoft's Xbox allowed music to be copied from a CD onto its internal hard drive, to be used as a "Custom Soundtrack", if enabled by the game developer. The feature carried over into the Xbox 360 where it became supported by the system software and could be enabled at any point. The Wii is also able to play custom soundtracks if it is enabled by the game ("Excite Truck", "Endless Ocean"). The PlayStation Portable can, in games like "" and "FIFA 08", play music from a Memory Stick.


title: Video game music

text: The PlayStation 3 has the ability to utilize custom soundtracks in games using music saved on the hard drive, however few game developers used this function. "MLB 08: The Show", released in 2008, has a My MLB sound track feature that allows the user to play music tracks of their choice saved on the hard drive of their PS3, rather than the preprogrammed tracks incorporated into the game by the developer. An update to "Wipeout HD", released on the PlayStation Network, was made to also incorporate this feature.


title: Video game music

text: In the video game "Audiosurf", custom soundtracks are the main aspect of the game. Users have to pick a music file to be analyzed. The game will generate a race track based on tempo, pitch and complexity of the sound. The user will then race on this track, synchronized with the music.


title: Video game music

text: Games in the "Grand Theft Auto" series have supported custom soundtracks, using them as a separate in-game radio station. The feature was primarily exclusive to PC versions, and was adopted to a limited degree on console platforms. On a PC, inserting custom music into the stations is done by placing music files into a designated folder. For the Xbox version, a CD must be installed into the console's hard drive. For the iPhone version of "", players create an iTunes playlist which is then played by the game.


title: Video game music

text: The Xbox 360 supports Dolby Digital software, sampling and playback rate of 16-bit @ 48 kHz (internal; with 24-bit hardware D/A converters), hardware codec streaming, and potential of 256 audio simultaneous channels. While powerful and flexible, none of these features represent any major change in how game music is made from the last generation of console systems. PCs continue to rely on third-party devices for in-game sound reproduction, and SoundBlaster is largely the only major player in the entertainment audio expansion card business.


title: Video game music

text: The PlayStation 3 handles multiple types of surround sound technology, including Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, with up to 7.1 channels, and with sampling rates of up to 192 kHz.


title: Video game music

text: Nintendo's Wii console shares many audio components with the Nintendo GameCube from the previous generation, including Dolby Pro Logic II. These features are extensions of technology already currently in use.


title: Video game music

text: The game developer of today has many choices on how to develop music. More likely, changes in video game music creation will have very little to do with technology and more to do with other factors of game development as a business whole. Video game music has diversified much to the point where scores for games can be presented with a full orchestra or simple 8/16-bit chiptunes. This degree of freedom has made the creative possibilities of video game music limitless to developers. As sales of video game music diverged from the game itself in the West (compared to Japan where game music CDs had been selling for years), business elements also wield a new level of influence. Music from outside the game developer's immediate employment, such as music composers and pop artists, have been contracted to produce game music just as they would for a theatrical movie. Many other factors have growing influence, such as editing for content, politics on some level of the development, and executive input.


title: Video game music

text: Many video game players believe that music can enhance game play and outlets such as "Popular Science" have stated that it is designed to "simultaneously stimulate your senses and blend into the background of your brain, because that's the point of the soundtrack. It has to engage you, the player, in a task without distracting from it. In fact, the best music would actually direct the listener to the task."


title: Video game music

text: Sound effects within game play are also believed to impact game performance. Ambient sounds such as those present in "Resident Evil" are seen to enhance the tension felt by players, something that GameSpot stated was also used in cinema. Speeding up the sound effects and music in games such as "Space Invaders" is also stated to have a strong impact on the gaming experience when done properly. Properly done, this can help create realism within virtuality and alert players to important scenes and information.


title: Video game music

text: Music and sound effects can become memorable, enabling people to instantly recognize music or sound effects as well as hum or mimic the tune or sound effect. Polygon has stated that despite the popularity of video game music, people may not always know the name of the composer.


title: Video game music

text: Using licensed music for video games became more popular as the medium used to distribute games grew large enough to accommodate songs alongside a game's other assets. Additionally, with the large growth of the video game market in the 2000s, song licensing became a lucrative route for music rights holders to gain part of that revenue. Games like those in the "Grand Theft Auto" series became showcases of licensed music. Music licensing is generally complicated due to various copyright laws, typically with at least two separate copyrights to consider: the songwriters' and the performers' contributions. Most large video game developers and publishers who use licensed music typically have staff proficient in licensing to clear songs for use in video games with the various music labels and other creative persons.


title: Video game music

text: Games with licensed music can have problems well past release if perpetual rights for the music are not secured for the game. Early games before the onset of digital distribution would have perpetual right for the music since there was no practical way to update the game following release at retail to deal with curtailed rights. However, digital distribution platforms, like Steam, Xbox Live, and PlayStation Network keep games up-to-date automatically. Music licenses for games sold through digital distribution may include limited terms, requiring the publisher to re-negotiate rights with the music's owner, or otherwise the music must be removed from the game through these updates. Notably, "Alan Wake" by Remedy Entertainment, first released in 2010, had to be pulled from digital sale in 2017 due to expiring music rights. However, with Microsoft's help, Remedy was able to re-secure these rights a year later and returned the game for sale. "Alpha Protocol" by Obsidian Entertainment was also pulled from sale in 2019 due to expiring music license rights, though there are no known plans if publisher Sega will seek to renew these.


title: Video game music

text: Licensed music in video games has also affected video game streaming, such as Let's Play videos. Due to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), most popular video sharing and streaming sites implement automatic forms of detecting copyrighted music from most music labels, and flag or block user videos that employ that music, such as YouTube's ContentID system. These actions apply equally to videos of people playing video games, flagging the video from the licensed music in the game. To avoid this, games using licensed music may offer a "stream-safe" music option, either disabling the music playback or replacing the licensed music with copyright-free or royalty-free music.


title: Video game music

text: Musicians can garner audiences between genres due to the presence of video game culture across lifestyles, from country folk music to electronic music. Including various forms of nerd music; bitpop, nerdcore, geek rock, and filk music. Some musicians in these fields are known within their mainstream counterpart genres. Anamanaguchi is a rock and pop group known for their blending of chiptune, they created the soundtrack of to fit in with the indie music scenes of "Scott Pilgrim" graphic novels. Another example is in contemporary Christian music, with known CEDM musician Owl City creating the theme song "When Can I See You Again?" for the movie "Wreck-It Ralph" , or computer scientist and Western musician Mario J. Lucero performs experimental electronic music under the stage name LE37. Indie folk musician José González became internationally recognized with his Western inspired song "Far Away" during the music of "Red Dead Redemption". Alternative rock musician Jonathan Coulton is best known for Portal's "Still Alive" and the theme song to "Code Monkeys". Music group Trocadero was known for producing the soundtrack to "Red vs. Blue", and their former bandmate Jeff Williams produced the soundtrack to "RWBY". These types of musicians are often grouped together with video game music composers like Kero Kero Bonito or indie Ooblets composer Slime Girls (Pedro Silva), or Hideki Naganuma, Toby Fox, and Crush 40, as they are often game or related composers themselves. Musical composers can produce film scores and video game scores, for example U.S. composer Michael Giacchino who composed the soundtrack for the game Medal of Honor and later composed for the television series "Lost" and wrote scores for movies such as "The Incredibles" (2004) and "Star Trek" (2009).


title: Video game music

text: Many games for the Nintendo Entertainment System and other early game consoles feature a similar style of musical composition that is sometimes described as the "video game genre." Some aspects of this style continue to influence certain music today, though gamers do not associate many modern game soundtracks with the older style. The genre's compositional elements largely developed due to technological restraints, while also being influenced by electronic music bands, particularly Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO), who were popular during the late 1970s to 1980s. YMO sampled sounds from several classic arcade games in their early albums, most notably "Space Invaders" in the 1978 hit song "Computer Game". In turn, the band would have a major influence on much of the video game music produced during the 8-bit and 16-bit eras.


title: Video game music

text: Although the tones featured in NES music can be thought of as emulating a traditional four-piece rock band (triangle wave used as a bass, two pulse waves analogous to two guitars, and a white noise channel used for drums), composers would often go out of their way to compose complex and rapid sequences of notes, in part due to the restrictions mentioned above. This is similar to music composition during the Baroque period, when composers, particularly when creating solo pieces, focused on musical embellishments to compensate for instruments such as the harpsichord that do not allow for expressive dynamics. For the same reason, many early compositions also feature a distinct jazz influence. These would overlap with later influences from heavy metal and J-pop music, resulting in an equally distinct compositional style in the 16-bit era.


title: Video game music

text: In an unrelated but parallel course in the European and North American developer scene, similar limitations were driving the musical style of home computer games. Module file format music, particularly MOD, used similar techniques but was more heavily influenced by the electronic music scene as it developed, and resulted in another very distinct subgenre. Demos and the developing demoscene played a big part in the early years, and still influence video game music today.


title: Video game music

text: As technological limitations gradually lifted, composers were given more freedom and, with the advent of CD-ROM, pre-recorded soundtracks came to dominate, resulting in a noticeable shift in composition and voicing style. Popular early CD-ROM titles were released with high-resolution graphics and recorded music. Since the audio was not reliant on a sound-card's synthesis, CD-ROM technology ensured that composers and sound designers could know what audio would sound like on most consumer configurations and could also record sound effects, live instruments, vocals, and in-game dialogue.


title: Video game music

text: Appreciation for video game music is strong among fans and composers, particularly for music from the third and fourth generations of home video game consoles, and sometimes newer generations. This appreciation has been shown outside the context of a video game, in the form of CDs, sheet music, public performances, art installations, and popular music.


title: Video game music

text: Selling video game soundtracks separately as CDs has become increasingly popular in the industry. Interpretive albums, remixes, and live performance albums were also common variations to original soundtracks (OSTs).


title: Video game music

text: Koichi Sugiyama was an early figure in this practice, and following the release of the first "Dragon Quest" game in 1986, a live performance CD of his compositions was released and performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra (then later by other groups including the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, and NHK Symphony).


title: Video game music

text: By 1987, Sega were selling 50,000 to 100,000 game soundtrack CDs annually. Yuzo Koshiro, another early figure, released a live performance of the "Actraiser" soundtrack. Both Koshiro's and fellow Falcom composer Mieko Ishikawa's contributions to "Ys" music would have such long-lasting impact that there were more albums released of Ys music than of almost all other game-type music.


title: Video game music

text: Like anime soundtracks, these soundtracks and even sheet music books were usually marketed exclusively in Japan. Therefore, interested non-Japanese gamers had to import the soundtracks and/or sheet music books through on or offline firms specifically dedicated to video game soundtrack imports. This has been somewhat less of an issue more recently as domestic publishers of anime and video games have been producing western equivalent versions of the OSTs for sale in UK and US, though these are often for more popular titles. Video game music companies like Materia Collective have pursued and produced published book editions of video game music.


title: Video game music

text: The sale of video game soundtracks has created a growing symbiotic relationship between the music industry and the games industry. Commonly, games are being used to promote and sell licensed music, rather than just original score, and recording artists are being used to market and sell games. Music marketing agency Electric Artists conducted a study that revealed a number of interesting statistics surrounding ‘‘hard-core gamers’’ and their music habits: 40% of hard-core gamers bought the CD after hearing a song they liked in a video game, 73% of gamers said soundtracks within games help sell more CDs, and 40% of respondents said a game introduced them to a new band or song, then 27% of them went out and bought what they heard. Some game soundtracks have become so popular they have reached platinum status, such as NBA Live 2003.


title: Video game music

text: Many original composers have publicly exhibited their music through symphonic concert performances. Once again, Koichi Sugiyama was the first to execute this practice in 1987 with his "Family Classic Concert" and has continued these concert performances almost annually. In 1991, he also formed a series called Orchestral Game Music Concerts, notable for featuring music of other talented game composers such as Yoko Kanno ("Nobunaga's Ambition", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Uncharted Waters"), Nobuo Uematsu ("Final Fantasy"), Keiichi Suzuki ("Mother/Earthbound"), and Kentaro Haneda ("Wizardry").


title: Video game music

text: Following suit, compositions by Nobuo Uematsu on "Final Fantasy IV" were arranged into "", a live performance by string musicians with strong Celtic influence recorded in Ireland. The Love Theme from the same game has been used as an instructional piece of music in Japanese schools.


title: Video game music

text: With the success of Square's 1990s games "Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy VII" and "Final Fantasy VIII" by Nobuo Uematsu, and "Chrono Trigger, Xenogears" and "Chrono Cross" by Yasunori Mitsuda, public performance began to gain international popularity. On August 20, 2003, music written for video games such as "Final Fantasy" and "The Legend of Zelda" was performed for the first time outside Japan, by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra in a Symphonic Game Music Concert in Leipzig, Germany at the Gewandhaus concert hall. This event was held as the official opening ceremony of Europe's biggest trading fair for video games, the GC Games Convention and repeated in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.


title: Video game music

text: On November 17, 2003, Square Enix launched the "Final Fantasy Radio" on America Online. The radio station has initially featured complete tracks from "Final Fantasy XI" and "Final Fantasy XI: Rise of Zilart" and samplings from "Final Fantasy VII" through "Final Fantasy X".


title: Video game music

text: The first officially sanctioned Final Fantasy concert in the United States was performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California, on May 10, 2004. All seats at the concert were sold out in a single day. "Dear Friends: Music from Final Fantasy" followed and was performed at various cities across the United States. Nobuo Uematsu has also performed a variety of Final Fantasy compositions live with his rock band, The Black Mages.


title: Video game music

text: On July 6, 2005, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra also held a Video Games Live concert at the Hollywood Bowl, an event founded by video game music composers Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall. This concert featured a variety of video game music, ranging from "Pong" to "Halo 2". It also incorporated real-time video feeds that were in sync with the music, as well as laser and light special effects. Media outside the video game industry, such as NPR and "The New York Times", have covered their subsequent world tours.


title: Video game music

text: On August 20, 2006, the Malmö Symphonic Orchestra with host Orvar Säfström performed the outdoor game music concert Joystick in Malmö, Sweden before an audience of 17,000, holding the current record of attendance for a game music concert. Säfström has since continued to produce game music concerts around Europe under the names Joystick and Score.


title: Video game music

text: From April 20–27, 2007, Eminence Symphony Orchestra, an orchestra dedicated to video game and anime music, performed the first part of their annual tour, the "A Night in Fantasia" concert series in Australia. Whilst Eminence had performed video game music as part of their concerts since their inception, the 2007 concert marked the first time ever that the entire setlist was pieces from video games. Up to seven of the world's most famous game composers were also in attendance as special guests. Music performed included Red Alert 3 Theme: Soviet March by James Hannigan and Shadow of the Colossus by Kow Otani.


title: Video game music

text: Since 2010, video games-themed "pops" concerts have become a major proportion of the revenue in many United States concert halls, as traditional classical music performances decline in popularity.


title: Video game music

text: On March 16, 2012 the Smithsonian American Art Museum's "The Art of Video Games" exhibit opened featuring a chipmusic soundtrack at the entrance by artists 8 Bit Weapon & ComputeHer. 8 Bit Weapon also created a track called "The art of Video Games Anthem" for the exhibit as well.


title: Video game music

text: In the popular music industry, video game music and sounds have appeared in songs by various popular artists. Arcade game sounds had a particularly strong influence on the hip hop, pop music (particularly synthpop) and electro music genres during the golden age of arcade video games in the early 1980s. Arcade game sounds had an influence on synthpop pioneers Yellow Magic Orchestra, who sampled "Space Invaders" sounds in their influential 1978 debut album, particularly the hit song "Computer Game". In turn, the band would have a major influence on much of the video game music produced during the 8-bit and 16-bit eras.


title: Video game music

text: Other pop songs based on "Space Invaders" soon followed, including "Disco Space Invaders" (1979) by Funny Stuff, "Space Invaders" (1980) by Playback, and the hit songs "Space Invader" (1980) by The Pretenders and "Space Invaders" (1980) by Uncle Vic. Buckner & Garcia produced a successful album dedicated to video game music in 1982, "Pac-Man Fever". Former YMO member Haruomi Hosono also released a 1984 album produced entirely from Namco arcade game samples entitled "Video Game Music", an early example of a chiptune record and the first video game music album. Warp's record "Testone" (1990) by Sweet Exorcist sampled video game sounds from YMO's "Computer Game" and defined Sheffield's bleep techno scene in the early 1990s.


title: Video game music

text: More recently, "video game beats" have appeared in popular songs such as Kesha's "Tik Tok", the best-selling single of 2010, as well as "U Should Know Better" by Robyn featuring Snoop Dogg, and "Hellbound" by Eminem. The influence of video game music can also be seen in contemporary electronica music by artists such as Dizzee Rascal and Kieran Hebden. Grime music in particular samples sawtooth wave sounds from video games which were popular in East London. English power metal band DragonForce is also known for their "retro video game influenced" sound.


title: Video game music

text: Video game music has become part of the curriculum at the degree, undergraduate, and graduate levels in many traditional colleges and universities. According to the Entertainment Software Association, there are over 400 schools offering courses and degrees in video game design in the United States, many of which include sound and music design. Berklee College of Music, Yale University, New York University, and the New England Conservatory have all introduced game music into their music programs. These programs offer immersive education in music composition, orchestration, editing and production. Other post-secondary schools have more games-focused programs, such as DigiPen Institute of Technology, Columbia College Chicago, and Academy of Art University, who all offer programs in Music and Sound Design. These programs include courses in sound effect creation, interactive sound design, and scripting music.


title: Video game music

text: Similar programs have gained popularity in Europe. The Utrecht School of the Arts (Faculty of Art, Media and Technology) has offered a Game Sound and Music Design program since 2003. The University of Hertfordshire has a program in Music Composition and Technology for Film and Games, Leeds Beckett University offers Sound and Music for Interactive Games, and dBs Music Bristol teaches Sound for Games and Apps.


title: Video game music

text: More informal institutions, like the training seminars at GameSoundCon also feature classes in how to compose video game music.


title: Video game music

text: Extracurricular organizations devoted to the performance of video game music have also been implemented in tandem with these new curriculum programs. The Gamer Symphony Orchestra at the University of Maryland performs self-arranged video game music and the Video Game Orchestra is a semiprofessional outgrowth of students from the Berklee College of Music and other Boston-area schools.


title: Video game music

text: According to the National Association for Music Education, video game music is now being taught at elementary and secondary school levels to aid in the understanding of music composition. Students at Magruder High School in Montgomery County, Maryland have even started a student-run gamer orchestra, and many high school bands perform game music.


title: Video game music

text: Academic research on video game music began in the late 1990s, and developed through the mid 2000s. Early research on the topic often involved historical studies of game music, or comparative studies of video game music and film music (see, for instance, Zach Whalen's article "Play Along – An Approach to Videogame Music" which includes both). The study of video game music is also known by some as "ludomusicology" — a portmanteau of "ludology" (the study of games and gameplay) and "musicology" (the study and analysis of music) — a term coined independently by Guillaume Laroche and Roger Moseley.


title: Video game music

text: A prominent figure in early video game music and audio research is Karen Collins, who is associate professor at the University of Waterloo and Canada Research Chair in Interactive Audio at the University of Waterloo Games Institute. Her monograph "Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design" (MIT Press 2008) is considered a seminal work in the field, and was influential in the subsequent development of video game music studies.


title: Video game music

text: The Ludomusicology Research Group is an inter-university research organisation focusing on the study of music in games, music games and music in video game culture, composed of four researchers: Michiel Kamp, Tim Summers, Melanie Fritsch, and Mark Sweeney. Together they organise an annual international conference held in the UK or Europe (at the time of writing, the most recent was the Ludo2017 conference held at Bath Spa University). The group was founded by Kamp, Summers and Sweeney in August 2011, who have also edited a collection of essays based around the study of game sound entitled "Ludomusicology: Approaches to Video Game Music", published in July 2016. They also edited a double special issue of "The Soundtrack" and initiated a new book series for the "Study in Game Sound and Music" in 2017. In September 2016, Tim Summers' book 'Understanding Video Game Music' was published by Cambridge University Press.


title: Video game music

text: Fritsch officially joined the group in 2016. She had edited the 2nd issue of the online journal "ACT – Zeitschrift für Musik und Performance", published in July 2011, which included ludomusicological contributions written by Tim Summers, Steven B. Reale and Jason Brame. She had been a regular at the conferences since 2012 and published several book chapters on the topic. Whereas Kamp, Summers and Sweeney have a background in musicology, Fritsch's background is in performance studies.


title: Video game music

text: The North American Conference on Video Game Music (NACVGM) is an international conference on video game music held annually in North America since 2014. It is organised by Neil Lerner, Steven Beverburg Reale and William Gibbons.


title: Video game music

text: In late 2016 the Society for the Study of Sound and Music in Games (SSSMG) was launched by the Ludomusicology Research Group in conjunction with the organisers of the North American Conference on Video Game Music and the Audio Mostly conference. The SSSMG has the aim of bringing together both practitioners and researchers from across the globe in order to develop the field's understanding of sound and video game music and audio. Its focus is the use of its website as a "hub" for communication and resource centralisation, including a video game music research bibliography (a project initially begun by the Ludomusicology Research Group).


title: Video game music

text: The Ludomusicology Society of Australia was launched by Barnabas Smith in April 2017, during the Ludo2017 conference in Bath, UK; it aims to "offer a centralised and local professional body nurturing game music studies for academics, people in industry and game music fans alike in the Australasian region."


title: Video game music

text: Creating and producing video game music requires strong teams and coordination among the different divisions of game development. As the market has expanded, so have the types of jobs in game music. The process often starts with the game designer, who will have a specific musical theme or genre in mind for the game. Their options include contracting original composers or licensing existing music, both of which require other music experts.


title: Video game music

text: During the arcade and early console era (1983 to the mid 1990s), most game music was composed by full-time employees of the particular game company producing the game. This was largely due to the very specialized nature of video game music, where each system had its own technology and tool sets. It was not uncommon for a game company like Capcom or Konami to have a room full of composers, each at their own workstation with headphones writing music.


title: Video game music

text: Once the CD-era hit and studio recorded music became more ubiquitous in games, it became increasingly common for game music to be composed by independent contractors, hired by the game developer on a per-project basis. Most bigger budget games such as "Call of Duty", "Mass Effect", "Ghost Recon", or "Lost Planet" hire composers in this fashion. Approximately 50% of game composers are freelance, the remaining being employees of a game company. Original score and soundtrack may require the hiring of a Music Director, who will help create the game music as well as help book the resources needed for performing and recording the music. Some music directors may work with a game's Sound Designer to create a dynamic score. Notable exceptions include composer Koji Kondo, who remains an employee at Nintendo, and Martin O'Donnell, who worked at Bungie until early 2014.