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Analyzing NES Music

By Andrew Schartmann

Product Image: Analyzing NES Music

Analyzing NES Music

By Andrew Schartmann

0 - Default Title
Description
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.  
Product details
Edition:
1
Number of Pages:
268
Release Date:
2025-05-28
Publication Date:
2025-05-23
Publisher:
Intellect Books
Languages:
Original: English
ISBN10:
1835951090
ISBN13:
9781835951095
Weight:
647 g
Height:
175 cm
Width:
250 cm
Thickness:
19 cm
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