Dear list, We are seeking for a motivated Master student for a research internship position on Video Game Music this spring. All details below. Best wishes, Florence Levé — Research Internship - “Loop Perception in Video Game Music: Corpus Constitution and Experimental Study” Duration: 4-6 months Theme: music analysis, video games, perception Location : Lille (Villeneuve d’Ascq, Laboratoire CRIStAL, métro 4 Cantons); Partial remote work possible Supervisors: Yann Teytaut (CRIStAL), Clément Canonne (IRCAM), Florence Levé (MIS + CRIStAL) Full proposal: https://www.algomus.fr/jobs/#loop Open for applications until January 31, 2025. Desired profile Master of Research (M2) in either computer science, (audio) signal processing or computational musicology; Interest in video game music and musical structure; Previous experience in musical algorithmics or perception would be appreciated but is not necessary. Context Video Game Music (VGM) refers to the musical genre associated with soundtracks accompanying interactive game-plays with the aim to deepen immersion within virtual worlds and enhance the player’s overall gaming experience [Gibbons24]. Back in the 70s-80s, early game soundtracks were limited by hardware constraints, and relied on chiptune melodies that became iconic through their memorable and repetitive structure [Collins08]. Following the progress in computer music and music technology, VGM has evolved to intricate compositions that now play a crucial role in intensifying emotions and supporting storytelling via true orchestral scores or even original songs [Phillips14]. Today, from its presence on audio streaming platforms, to specialized training courses in musical conservatories, as well as CD/vinyl releases and themed concerts, VGM fully contributes to the broader cultural landscape, showcasing the unique capabilities of interactive media, and has therefore become a concrete area of study in digital humanities [Lipscomb04; Kamp16]. Yet, it remains only marginally explored in the Music Information Retrieval (MIR) community. Additionally, one of the key features of VGM is its “seamless loop” structure: most VGM is composed in repeating patterns, or loops, designed to repeat continuously and as subtly as possible so that the listener hardly notices the transition [Margulis13]. However, exploring whether listeners are actually sensitive to the “seam” in looping remains an unexplored research area. The purpose of this internship is thus twofold. On one hand, it aims to provide the MIR community with a resource for analyzing VGM by creating a representative VGM corpus with structural annotations. On the other hand, it seeks to study participants’ ability to accurately predict the looping point in VGM based on the constituted database. Related works and objectives While there already exist several VGM datasets, these offer only a partial view of the diverse audio landscape in modern video games. Indeed, available corpora lack sufficient diversity as they may (1) provide solely MIDI data (e.g., VGMIDI, Lakh MIDI); (2) be focused on one specific game (e.g., GameSound) or aesthetic (e.g., NES-MDB); or (3) include non-official arrangements instead of original works (e.g., VGMix Archive, VGMIDI). As a result, they fall short in representing the full spectrum of game audio, particularly the high-quality recordings of recent orchestral and/or pop/rock soundtracks. In order to bridge this gap, the first part of this internship will be dedicated to reflect on and identify relevant factors (e.g., video game genres, years, stations, etc.) to build both a diverse and representative VGM database (about 100 pieces). The corpus will then be annotated in terms of structural patterns, following conventions established on other music structure datasets [Smith11]. Finally, experimental studies will be conducted, aiming at assessing the extent to which listeners are sensitive to the “loop-based” nature of most VGM, by contrasting, first, several types of VGM relying on various compositional techniques, and, second, a passive (listening only) vs an interactive (listening while playing the game, or a proxy) reception. Organization During the course of this internship, the candidate will be incited to understand and get familiar with Video Game Music (VGM), study and discover proximity literature on this genre (i.e., ludomusicology) and existing datasets, reflect on and identify relevant factors to constitute a dedicated dataset, annotate the structural patterns, and conduct experimental studies from a perception perspective. Environment: The intern will be integrated in the Algorithmic Musicology (Algomus) Team at the CRIStAL Lab of the University of Lille, and will profit from the team knowledge on both music digital humanities and Music Information Retrieval. The annotated corpus could notably be integrated in the Dezrann platform [Giraud18]. For both the theoretical framework and perceptual studies, the intern will also benefit from the expertise of IRCAM’s Musical Practices Analysis (APM) Team. Bibliography [Gibbons24] Gibbons, William et Grimshaw-Aagaard, Mark (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Video Game Music and Sound. Oxford University Press, 2024. [Collins08] Collins, Karen. Game sound: an introduction to the history, theory, and practice of video game music and sound design, MIT Press, 2008. [Lipscomb04] Lipscomb, Scott D. and Zehnder, Sean M. Immersion in the virtual environment: The effect of a musical score on the video gaming experience. Journal of Physiological Anthropology and Applied Human Science, vol. 23, no 6, p. 337-343, 2004. [Kamp16] Kamp, Michiel, Summers, Tim, Sweeney, Mark, et al. Ludomusicology: Approaches to video game music. Intersections: Canadian Journal of Music/Revue Canadienne de Musique, vol. 36, no 2, p. 117-124, 2016. [Collins07] Collins, Karen. In the loop: Creativity and constraint in 8-bit video game audio. Twentieth-century music, 2007, vol. 4, no 2, p. 209-227, 2007 [Margulis13] Margulis, Elizabeth Hellmuth. On repeat: How music plays the mind. Oxford University Press, 2013. [Smith11] Smith, Jordan Bennett Louis, Burgoyne, John Ashley, Fujinaga, Ichiro, et al. Design and creation of a large-scale database of structural annotations. In : ISMIR 2011, p. 555-560, 2011. [Giraud18] Giraud, Mathieu, Groult, Richard, et Leguy, Emmanuel. Dezrann, a web framework to share music analysis. In : TENOR 2018, pp. 104-110. 2018 VGMIDI - https://github.com/lucasnfe/VGMIDI VGMix Archive - https://vgmixarchive.com/ Lakh MIDI - https://colinraffel.com/projects/lmd/ GameSound - https://michaeliantorno.com/gamesound/ NES-MDB - https://github.com/chrisdonahue/nesmdb |