Ongoing History Daily: Ludomusicology. Wait–what?

If you’re a fan of video games, you’ll know how important music is to each and every game out there. Music curation for games is a complex thing involving everything from finding the right sounds for a million different scenarios to composing music for specific games to licensing music from the real world.

There are segues and transitions, climaxes and pauses, all of which require their own type of music. And then everything has to be put together carefully so there are no sudden stops and starts in the game because that ruins the immersive feeling you get when playing. Video game music has become such a popular thing that it’s actually a field of academic study.

This work is called ludomusicology—“ludology” (the study of gameplay) with “musicology” (the study of music). If this sounds fascinating to you, check out an organization called “The Society of Sound and Music in Games.”

There’s your word of the day. Now go use it in a sentence with your friends. I dare you.