THE ORCHESTRA IN THE ARCADE
Step into the arcade, try to find a piece of private space, and wait. Block out the visual. Close your eyes. Let an onrush of sound attack you. What do you hear? A blur of cacophony? The anarchy of a thousand microchips competing with each other?
THE ORCHESTRA IN THE ARCADE
FEATURES
P. GREGORY SPRINGER
Step into the arcade, try to find a piece of private space, and wait. Block out the visual. Close your eyes. Let an onrush of sound attack you.
What do you hear? A blur of cacophony? The anarchy of a thousand microchips competing with each other? Or, an interwoven, technological aleatory music, a Found Philharmonic playing the 20th Century's Favorite Song?
The music of video games takes back seat to the visual effects produced on the screen, but most of the surviving popular games would hove faded long ago without their hypnotically clever music. Heard separately, individual games like Pac-Man and Q'Bert owe much of their magic to the sounds they sinq to every player at their controls.