Art Music in Movies and Video Games Part III
Now to address the other end of my little rant. In pointing out that video game music and movie soundtracks should be taken as serious music, I want to talk about the other side: that classical music shouldn’t be thought of as dull and boring music by popular culture. Chances are, people who loved the Imperial March would also love The Planets, as long as no one told them it wasn’t classical art music. My problem on this end is that classical concerts, and classical recordings are attended and bought by a completely different group of people: usually older, well educated, and affluent (not always of course, this is just a broad generalization). When you talk to the average teenager and twenty-something, they consider renaissance, baroque, classical, romantic, and twentieth century art music as dull and boring (and can’t even name the different periods; for shame our public school system). My own dear mumsie is a music teacher in the public school system in the town I grew up in (though I quit school in fifth grade), and has a degree in early music; because of her I’ve seen first hand how children are raised with the mindset that old music = bad music, despite the best efforts of teachers; it’s just a given in our society.
Why should the younger generations even care? Because early music is what all modern music evolved from, the western tonality that we’re accustomed to can trace itself all the way back to the medieval period with organum and motets. It’s beautiful, amazing music that has an unfortunate reputation of needing an ‘education’ to enjoy, and that’s nonsense. Instead of needing to educate people on how to appreciate this music, we need to not teach them to hate it.
Example time! First, Barbara Strozzi’s Lagrime Mie. Strozzi was an Italian Baroque composer in the sixteen hundreds, from a fairly influential musical family. I can just as easily hear this music as the background for a video game cinematic in which, say, you’ve just discovered the lost city of a long gone elfin culture, as I can being song at the Italian Renaissance courts. This is the kind of music that modern composers draw their inspiration. When you’re trying to set the theme for an ancient race or really anything to do with time, composers go back to our own history and draw from the music that shares similarities with the made up ancient world. Now listen to the undead tavern song from Warcraft. Same kind of sad minor melody, light on texture as well, and to me invokes the same kind of ambiance as Lagrime Mie.
There are also some great examples of the two genres coming together. Another one of my favorite songs is Adam de la Halle’s Robin m’aime. It’s a particularly interesting piece of music, and apt for my purposes because it’s from a medieval musical play about Robin Hood, not a video game in itself, it’s certainly a story many games and movies are based on. Here Marion is singing about how Robin loves her, and how lucky she is. Listen to the very simple refrain, the instrumental opening is just the melody, then it repeats with voice, and then with both and a small amount of harmony. (This piece is also historically important because it’s one of the few medieval pieces whose rhythm we know for certain.) Try to picture it in a video game, the main hero has just departed off for an epic journey, and his childhood friend stays behind to sing a lovely cinematic refrain before the epic music starts and you see the hero’s horsie galloping off to adventure. I don’t know about you, but I can easily picture both that, and sitting in a medieval audience enjoying the play.
And finally, what is probably my favorite video game cinematic of all times. This is from a little well known game called Syberia. This clip is from near the end of the game, you’ve been traveling from France on your way to Seberia via clockwork train with a clockwork conductor, but on your way through an abandoned steel factory somewhere in Russia, you’re clockwork conductor’s amazing hands are stolen by the crazed manager who lives alone in the factory. To get them back, you have to bring him a famous opera singer to come perform for him. This clip is the greatest example of opera and video games going hand in hand.
So while I know it may seem odd to try to put forth a case for teaching early music via video games, I really think this could be the best way to get kids interested in a wider, grander, array of music.