Musical Goals, Graphical Lure and Narrative Drive: Visualaudio in Games

Musical computer games and their reward structures are transforming solitary and participative music making. Visuals in musical games tend to assume the role of music in video games as they become incidental to the gameplay or provide graphical aid for musical decision making. Constrained manifestations of musical skill in game software simulations point towards the development of real world musical skills. Yet, arguably, no video game so far developed requires the kind of sophisticated expression that a musician hones by training. The time-scale for mastery is an order of magnitude greater in traditional musical instruments and teaching, but we may be at the dawn of a new audiovisual musical learning paradigm.