‘Hearing Problems: Sounding Medieval in Video Games’

Karen Cook, University of Hartford. @CooksterKC https://twitter.com/MidAgesModGames/status/1277983484221390853 1 #MAMG20 Hi, everyone! I’ll be giving this as a full paper on 10 Jul (#imc2020): this is a sneak preview. Also: see the Oxford Bibl. on “Medievalism and Music” doi: 10.1093/obo/9780199757824-0241 & the new Oxford Handbook of Music and Medievalism (https://rb.gy/ykkjaz) 2 #MAMG20 As this conference has already shown, modern media such as video games offer a wide array of types of Middle Ages, some complementary and others quite contradictory, some rooted in history, others creative reimaginings, others hardly recognizable. 3 #MAMG20 The study of medievalism in music, therefore, seeks to analyze and understand the myriad sonic cues that have developed, in some cases over centuries, as a sort of aural shorthand for any and all of these types of Middle Ages. 4 #MAMG20 Few of these cues have to do with what music actually sounded like in the Middle Ages; instead, the “sounds of the medieval” have been created and perpetuated in media such as opera, symphonic repertoire, film, literature, and popular music. 5 #MAMG20 Some of the more common medieval cues include plainchant, parallel fifths, modal melodies; the horn call/fanfare; the church bell, the Gothic pipe organ, the hurdy-gurdy, lute, or recorder. (See John Haines: https://rb.gy/ho9igf) https://youtu.be/EUcmVBw8a58 6 #MAMG20 Other cues are further removed from medieval musical ideas: lots of Latin, or “Other-ed” languages: Sanskrit, Elvish; a bombastic ensemble à la Orff’s “O Fortuna”; the wordless female voice, often symbolizing youth, nostalgia, or a distant past. https://youtu.be/_VCejZCX_40 7 #MAMG20 Such sounds might not be medievalist unto themselves but are used in conjunction with other medievalizing information—scenery, clothing, setting, narrative, and ludic function—and thus continue to be (re)medievalized. 8 #MAMG20 As numerous scholars have noted, the Middle Ages act as a blank slate upon which later societies, incl. today’s, project their hopes, fears, and preconceptions, some quite harmful: the MA as all-white, violent, heteronormative, misogynist, Christian. 9 #MAMG20 Such stereotypes are often visible, both overtly and covertly, in medievalist video games, whether historical or fantastical. But are they audible? I argue that at least some of the most common sonic cues for the medieval might subconsciously replicate these problems. 10 #MAMG20 Some of these cues stem from actual or perceived (Catholic) Christianity: plainchant, Latin, the church bell, the organ. If these are main referents for the medieval, are the Middle Ages being (inadvertently) portrayed as exclusively Christian? https://youtu.be/WS2h8ipzzlw 11 #MAMG20 Similarly, timbres/stratifications of voices can play to stereotypical heteronormative gender roles: deep male voices=martial, no vibrato=religious, lower/vibrato fem. voices=dangerous/seductive, higher/no vibrato fem. voices = pure/nostalgic https://youtu.be/kdLXc7FgvvY 12 #MAMG20 While such sonic cues occur in all modern media, in games players must act based on information gleaned from the audible, which might further ingrain these stereotypes even in games w/o explicit medieval themes. Can we imagine a different sound world for the medieval?