ABSTRACT
If we can learn one lesson from the medium of the video game, it is that fixed, linear approaches to subjects are not always the most satisfying or appropriate ways to engage with ideas and materials. This is something that is well understood by music historians; the idea of a singular ‘history’ has become nuanced into a multiplicity of ‘histories’ that can be told. Taking my cue from the subject under discussion, I here present not the history of game music, but rather, a few different ways of drawing histories of game music. There are three types of game-music history that this chapter examines: technological histories, game type histories, and reception histories. These historical perspectives intersect and overlap, but they each have something in particular to reveal about the music of video games.
