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Analyzing NES Music - Andrew Schartmann

Analyzing NES Music

Harmony, Form, and the Art of Technological Constraint
Buch | Hardcover
266 Seiten
2025
Intellect Books (Verlag)
9781835951095 (ISBN)
CHF 169,00 inkl. MwSt
This study of five of Nintendo’s landmark music scores offers new insights into video game music composition and creativity with limited technology.



Faced with severe technological constraints on system memory, composers of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) sought ways to disguise repetition in music that repeats extensively. Their efforts gave rise to a set of compositional techniques for creating the illusion of variety.



Andrew Schartmann distills these techniques into a theory of harmony and form for the analysis of NES music. It then uses this theory to analyze five landmark scores of the NES era: Super Mario Bros., Dragon Warrior, Metroid, Mega Man 2, and Silver Surfer. Both theory and analysis are scaffolded by a detailed description of the NES hardware and its attendant constraints, highlighting the ever-evolving dialogue between technology, commercial demand, and artistic sensibility that characterizes video game music of the 1980s and 1990s.



 

Andrew Schartmann is a faculty member at New England Conservatory and serves as Audio Director at Yale's XR Pediatrics video game lab. He is the author of several books including Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack.

List of Examples



List of Figures



Acknowledgements                                                   



Introduction                                       



 



PART I - TECHNIQUE                                          



 



1 - Technology                       



2 - Loops & Modules                         



3 - Harmony                                       



4 - Modular Composition      



5 - Layered Composition                   



 



PART II - ANALYSIS



 



6 - Super Mario Bros. (1985)            



7 - Dragon Warrior (1986)               



8 - Metroid (1986)                 



9 - Mega Man 2 (1987)                      



10 - Silver Surfer (1990)                    



 



Conclusion                                         



Glossary                                 



Bibliography                                      



Ludography                                       



Index  

Erscheinungsdatum
Reihe/Serie Studies in Game Sound and Music
Zusatzinfo 170 Halftones, black and white
Sprache englisch
Maße 170 x 244 mm
Gewicht 629 g
Themenwelt Kunst / Musik / Theater Musik Musiktheorie / Musiklehre
Kunst / Musik / Theater Musik Pop / Rock
ISBN-13 9781835951095 / 9781835951095
Zustand Neuware
Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR)
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