This previous April, I posted some content on this blog regarding video game music and the growing push for understanding its academic potential in relation to musicology. I also referred to a collaborative playlist that I had been compiling concerning the cultural connections with video game music to Iberian (Spanish and Portuguese), Latin American, and Caribbean regions. Six months have passed since I began compiling the playlist in March, and myriad tracks have been added since. In accordance with Hispanic and Latin American Heritage Month, this current post will explain what I have encountered so far when compiling music for the playlist.

I approach this project overall and the materials that I have collected so far from an ethnographic perspective. This means that I often consider multiple facets concerning geography, cultural representation in video games, and (to some extent) cultural preservation. Concerning the first facet of my work, video game music that uses “Hispanic” or “Latin” elements attempt to depict multiple countries, territories, and regions: from Spanish Flamenco influences in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, to salsa music in more obscure games like the Clockwork Knight platforming games, to the plethora of samba and bossa nova music from Brazil in respective games from both Nintendo and Sega. I have also noticed indigenous Latin American musical depictions through games like Inca and the Sid Meir’s Civilization series. How these cultures and their music get musically represented for public consumption varies. Games from Japan, other areas of Western Europe, and North America tend to apply an exoticist approach to Iberia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. They use etic perspectives from composers outside of the cultures by applying specific “foreign” instruments, syncopated rhythms, or music that represents a certain geographical landscape: most notably, islands and deserts. Some composers, like Konji Kondo, have incorporated Latin American, Spanish, and Portuguese music in video game soundtracks because they enjoy listening to these types of music. Other instances can come off as problematic by either accentuating cultural stereotyping or romanticizing European colonial history, as are the cases with the Street Fighter and Uncharted Waters series.

 Things have begun to change in recent years. I have noticed a growing necessity within the Iberian, Latin American, and Caribbean gaming communities for greater and better representation beyond character stereotyping. This change is also occurring with video game music. Some composers have tried creating music with more respect to the distinct regions and customs instead of assuming cultural homogeneity (thinking that every culture is the same across the regions). In other instances, I found video game music written by composers from the emic perspectives as cultural insiders. These observations demonstrate a work in progress. I hope to expand on this research in greater detail soon.  

Some readers may recall in an earlier post that I recently had the opportunity to visit the French-Canadian province of Québec. In my travels there in June, I spent much of my time in the historic downtown area of Québec City and explored a bit of Montreal. Besides visiting areas like the Citadelle de Québec, I toured the local shops and communicated with the citizens of Québec City (in both English and French). One of the stores downtown featured musical spoons for sale, which I purchased as both a souvenir and as an instrument to study and collect for ethnomusicological purposes.

The musical spoons that I acquired on my trip are composed of wood that consists of a smooth texture to the touch. The two conjoined spoons have their respective ends facing each other, with the scoops of the spoons positioned on opposite sides and the top spoon emblazoned with the manufacturer logo. The musical spoons in my instrument collection derive from Heritage Musical Spoons, a family-owned business from Quebec City founded by Richard Mathieu that has been actively crafting musical spoons since the late 1990s. Mathieu and his son construct their musical spoons in their workshop by hand using Canadian Maplewood.

The pair of musical spoons from Heritage comes equipped with detailed textual and visual instructions for how to play the instrument. They are a deceptively simple percussive instrument that takes some practice to get used to the overall feel. Readers can find myriad video tutorials concerning how to play the musical spoons, including from Heritage themselves. Holding the musical spoons requires inserting the index finger of whichever dominant hand that the player wishes to use in the space between the two spoons and placing the thumb of the dominant hand on the top spoon. To produce effective tones with the musical spoons, the player must sit down with both feet positioned flat on the floor and knees bent. Using the other free hand, depending on which hand the player uses to hold the musical spoons, the player must position the free hand flat and steadily at a certain distance away from the spoons. Heritage recommends that people playing the musical spoons place their free hand six to eight inches away from the instrument. Moving the spoons back and forth from the lap of the leg to the free hand produces rhythms and tones. The player can alter the pitches of the spoons by positioning their free hand flat or cupped and can also apply different rhythmic patterns or speeds. One other trick with the musical spoons involves stretching the fingers of the free hand and scraping against them via the spoons for more complex rhythmic passages.  

Those curious as to how I have been able to produce the audio effects created on this track and the Vaporwave Sound Strudies albums should stay tuned for updates, I plan on reviewing and discussing the CD-ROMantic smartphone application in more detail sometime this week.

A forgotten era in early film comes back to life in the twenty-first century. The Wurlitzer theater organ, often referred to as the “Mighty Wurlitzer” theater organ, represents a significant artifact of motion picture history from the early twentieth century. Theater organs often functioned as versatile and valuable keyboard instruments meant to complement the visual aspect of silent films in the 1920s. This specific type of organ could replicate acoustic orchestral instruments (like strings and woodwinds) and sound effects (like ringing telephones and birds). The organist could produce these aural effects on the instrument by applying different combinations of tabs, stops, and pedals. The theater organ also included features often not found in traditional church organs, such as a tremulation effect when depressing the tones.
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I had the opportunity to view a Wurlitzer theater organ in action: both in terms of its musical range and via a demonstration of its inclusion in silent film. The model of the instrument that I observed was initially installed at the Lucas Theater in 1925 and recently restored in April 2023. The organ features pipes hidden within the left and right sides of the stage walls to produce a stereophonic effect when the organist triggers sound on the console. It also features mounted percussion, like a glockenspiel or xylophone, to produce certain instrumental effects on the organ whenever necessary. This Wurlitzer theater organ is one of the more than two-thousand theater organs constructed by the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company from the 1910s to the 1940s.  

I have devoted much time on this blog over the years to reviewing music applications and software programs in hopes that audiences will find my input beneficial. Some programs fare better than others. In more extreme case, I have witnessed moments where updates to applications and programs have proven less helpful that older versions. The 12 Tone Matrix application represents such an example, in that I previously reviewed it two other times to determine its practicability and see what had changed. Is 12 Tone Matrix worth using in 2023, and are there other music applications that provide tools and guidance for understanding twentieth-century music theory analytical techniques?

Skimming through Google Play reveals plenty of (Western) music theory and composition applications (apps) for smartphones. Many of them concentrate on the basic educational elements of tonality in classical music: understanding notes, chords, keys, harmonic progressions, and ear training. They are primarily designed as tools that supplement learning some of the components of music theory and composition for audiences both inside and outside of academic settings. However, Western music theory can be an acquired taste and often requires years of training, which grows more complicated when considering some of the classical music written after 1900.

12 Tone Matrix and Matrix Maker function as tools for writing serial music from the twentieth century. That aspect serves as both a strength and weakness. Developed by datapluscode and Dead Hand Media respectively, both apps offer a 12x12 grid where users can pick the pitch classes (musical notes) to create a row of twelve tones. The apps give users the options to create the main row (“Prime 0,” or “P0”) via the musical alphabet or pitch class numbers and abbreviations. The application automatically fills in the rest of the grid when all twelve tones are chosen to complete the “P0” row. The rows can be written forwards (“Prime”), backwards (“Retrograde”), through “Inversion,” and through “Retrograde-Inversion.”
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12 Tone Matrix and Matrix Maker serve primarily as tools for music composition by automatically generating tone rows. They assume that people already understand the concepts behind analyzing twelve-tone music, which is not always true. The applications are not intended to provide theoretical contexts for how to create the tone rows and pitch class sets. They also do not offer historical context for how Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) devised the twelve-tone system, nor do they play back the tones for each row or feature musical examples from composers who use serial music techniques: perhaps, for copyright reasons. It would benefit both composers and Music Theory students to have an application that uses an interactive “pitch class clock” and provides background information about symmetry and set relations. Adding these components to future programs would prove useful. 12 Tone Matrix and Matrix Maker are currently available for free on Google Play.

The following photographs derive from my recent travel abroad in Canada via Québec City, Québec. Although that specific region of the country applies French linguistics and customs, one must also consider the British English impact on Canada. In this specific instance, I took the opportunity to visit the fortification known as the Citadelle de Québec. This area focused primarily on the historical significance of the fort: from the British capture and occupation of Québec to the modern era and the role of the Canadian Military from World War I through the Korean War and beyond. The Citadelle also functions as an active base for the Royal 22nd Regiment. This group was established in the 1920s with the express purpose of protecting the British Monarchy, such as when they had been directed to guard Buckingham Palace in World War II.
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What does this information have to do with music? Music served to entertain, provide comfort to, and strengthen the morale for Canadians involved in military combat throughout the global conflicts. Whenever necessary the musicians would also drop their  instruments and assist the wounded soldiers. The band of the Royal 22nd Regiments frequently presents music concerts spanning different genre with a diverse repertoire covering everything from classical to video game music.