Diegetic Music - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 61

Figure 1. A systematic overview of all forms of diegetic music

differences to non-diegetic music regarding
inner-musical properties, its functional use, and its
staging and implementation. Particular attention
is paid to interactivity aspects that hold a variety
of new opportunities and challenges in store, es-
pecially in the context of modern computer games
technology. This directly results in concrete design
guidelines. These show that adequate staging of
diegetic music requires more than its playback. The
problem area comprises the simulation of room
acoustics and sound radiation, the generation of
expressive performances of a given compositional
material, even its creation and variation in real-
time, amongst others.
The complexity and breadth of these issues
might discourage developers. The effort seems too
expensive for a commercial product and is barely
invested. Game development companies usually
have no resources available to conduct research
in either of these fields. But in most cases, this is
not even necessary. Previous and recent research
in audio signal processing and computer music
created many tools, algorithms, and systems.
Even if not developed for the particular circum-
stances of diegetic music, they approach or even
solve similar problems. It is a further aim of this
chapter to uncover this fallow potential. This may
inspire developers to make new user experiences
possible, beyond the limitations of an excluded
passive listener.

The key to this is interactivity. However, dif-
ferent types of games allow different modes of
interaction. Different approaches to diegetic music
follow, accordingly. To lay a solid conceptual basis,
this chapter also introduces a more differentiating
typology of diegetic music and its subspecies,
which is outlined in Figure 1. The respective sec-
tions expand on the different types. Before that,
a brief historical background and a clarification
of the terminology used are provided.

Where Does It come From?

Early examples of diegetic music can be found
in classic theatre and opera works, for instance,
the ball music in the finale of W.A. Mozart's Don
Giovanni (KV 527, premiered in 1787) which is
performed onstage, not from the orchestra pit.
Placing musicians onstage next to the actors may
hamper dialog comprehensibility. To prevent
such conflicts, diegetic music was often used
as a foreground element that replaces speech. It
wasn't until radio plays and sound films offered
more flexible mixing possibilities that diegetic
music grew to be more relevant for background
soundscape design (for example, bar music, street
musicians). Such background features could
now be set on a significantly lower sound level
to facilitate focusing the audience's attention on
the spoken text, comparable to the well-known
Cocktail Party Effect (Arons, 1992).