Virtual Worlds: An Ethnomusicological Perspective
Author: Dr. Trevor Harvey (Ethnomusicology123 <3 <3 <3)
Dr. Trevor Harvey is a lecturer at the University of Iowa Voxman School of Music. His main areas of expertise are in Ethnomusicology and Musicology. He earned his BA Brigham Young University, and his graduate degrees at Florida State University (Go Noles!) Dr. Harvey has held positions at Florida State University and Middle Tennessee State University. He serves as the editor of Ethnomusicology Today on the Society for Musicology website as well as presenting at multiple conferences including the International Association for the Study of Popular Music and Society of Musicology.
Overview
This article covers the author’s journey of interviewing different participants of the site Second Life. He covers aspects of performer to audience relations in Second Life where users take on a second life and interact with one another through different channels. The main channel that most users get to interact with one another is the live concerts that take place on the site itself. This article then goes into detail about how certain performers feel about performing on the virtual stage vs on the real stage and how they connect personally with these performances.
Concepts that Interested Me
- In the Music in Virtual Worlds section came up, the author brought up how “live performances are conceived as social events — circumscribed times and spaces defined as socially interactive gathering places for participant avatars” and this made me think and wonder if we are avatars when we participate in live performances offline.
- Second Life is all about letting users escape their own world and participate in another world living another life. Yet when you go online, the site lets the users be engaged in concerts that take place online and in a way that is no different to what we would do in our real life. Except that it is open to others to freely experience it from the comforts of their own home. This makes me rethink what a “live” concert and performance is online vs in real life offline.
- Musicking making an appearance in the form of Crystal Sands typing lyrics in the chat function during her performance. I thought this was a unique and different way for me to understand Musicking.
- The idea of immediate feedback in Second Life is brought to a light that I didn’t think about when I was reading this article. In an interview with Rich, he talks about how in live performances, we get feedback at the end of concerts whether it is onsite or in letters and emails to the orchestra. In Second Life, the audience gets to interact in the chat function and give feedback quickly. I think that is a different experience than what we are normally used to and I found this to be interesting.
- Overall, I found this article to be interesting and more than what I expected when I started it vs how it ended and it makes me want to partake in one of these events.
Discussion Questions
- Have you ever been involved with a site or even a video game that is similar to Second Life and did it have any music performing concepts?
- Damien Carbonell talked about the mental shift from performing offline venues vs performing online. He said it takes getting used to and how we don’t normally get the “buzz” from performing in person vs online. Do you think that, in this current climate of COVID-19 and virtual performances, that we will get used to these virtual performances and will it be a little jarring to return to the stage with live audiences one day?
- If Second Life came to be now, do you think more musicians would take part in it as a way to perform in a more unique performance style as compared to a livestream?
Hi LaBarrin! Great job with the article!
Personally, the most similar game I've played is the Sims. There is musical performance in it, but this honestly isn't something I've interacted with much as a player, as I typically tried to make Sims that were different from me and had different interests and experiences. From what I remember, creating music was very technical and was more along the lines of just a click action you would make the Sim do. I haven't played in a probably a decade, but from a quick Google search, it seems like music creation and careers are more involved and intense in the newest version, so if anyone has experience with the Sims 4, it would be interesting to hear more about this!
I think returning to truly live performances will be weird for me, as my few musical performances the past 8 months have been absent of a live audience reacting immediately to a performance. I wouldn't say I'm necessarily used to virtual performances now, but I think readjusting to how things were pre-covid will be jarring no matter what context its in. While it might be weird at first, I think the readjustment will be quicker than other contexts, simply because it will be awesome to actually share a musical performance with an audience and a larger group of musicians again.
The Sims is the first thing that came to mind for me, too. But like you, Arianna, my interaction as a player has mostly been me creating characters who were very different from me and 'play out' different life scenarios. It's far from realistic, but still fun to think about "what if" circumstances. I have never experienced anything similar with performance, but I honestly wonder if that is something that would feel even more unrealistic. As performers, we spend so much time thinking about and practicing our demeanor on stage for a live audience.
For me, the digital performances have been pretty unnerving, but not nearly as much as playing for a live audience wearing masks. I react so much on the facial expressions of listeners, that having a live audiences who is incapable of showing expressions feels even more disconnected than a computer screen.
I like the points Sarah mentioned earlier about how avatars are often a way to escape reality or an opportunity to experience being a completely different person. Anonymity can be liberating, and in playing with avatars I find things about how I wish I could be that I wasn’t even aware of.
That being said, I feel like the buzz around virtual performances post-COVID has been this kind of unusual opportunity for me to re-invent a performance avatar of myself.
I miss playing chamber music, I miss playing for live audiences, I miss interacting with real people. But I also don’t mind wearing a mask when I play, I don’t mind performing virtually, I don’t mind a little bit of distance from the audience, and I don’t mind playing more solo rep.
My initial reaction to disaster or catastrophe is to look for these opportunities. I think I’ve had plenty of conditioning when I was younger, moving from refugee camp to the other, living through uncertainty, poverty and war to constantly look for opportunities to reinvent myself; as a person and musician looking to connect, belong and feel secure.
One of the things that struck me in this article was the mention of Popmundo which I found especially interesting to look up. It reminded me that english-speaking MMO's are not necessarily the only ones out there and that there are so many communities online that I am completely oblivious to. It's hard for me even to say that I have a decent conception of MMO games or internet communities in general since my experience is so limited relative to the whole of the internet.
Reading about Second Life reminds me of my own limited experience with MMO games, and it makes me remember learning about how many people spend so much time on these kinds of games, sometimes at the exclusion of any other leisure activity! The community aspect of these games heightens gamer investment to a degree that is otherwise impossible.
Reading about the founding of ethnomuiscology makes me feel surprised that music is/was considered an art-object independent of people for so long! Music is a human phenomenon! In my experience, performers, teachers, composers, curators, scholars, and patrons of music would benefit from adopting this approach to understanding music. I also have definitely considered ethnomusicology to generally study non-western cultures and only the traditional music from those cultures, but this approach actually limits an incredibly vast array of music, especially contemporary musics. If ethnomusicology is an approach to understanding a culture, its music, and the interaction between the two, than any music is fair game for ethnomusicological study!
Two of the musicians who were interviewed describe initial friction with the interface that was later overcome, which I think shows that with all the virtual mediums we have discussed this semester, the agency lies not with the technology but with the people. No medium is inherently virtuous, evil, disruptive, authentic, or inauthentic.
I looked up Damien (one of the Second Life live performers) and he has a great voice! I enjoyed it very much, but I was just watching a video recording. Even though the music was excellent, I would have enjoyed it much more if I was interacting with others and participating in a community of some sort.
I did have an experience with music making ingame: It is actually very cool! Final Fantasy 14 MMORPG has a "Bard class" playable character.
Once you reach level 30 you can unlock the «performance» feature. which has a lot of instruments to choose from and you can create music LIVE! With a large enough group, you can create some great stuff, although most of the time its just a cacophony.
also, there are plugs in to run pre-written midi work from outside the games infrastructure!
Bard Music Player is the plugin
and on youtube you can find a how to guide: "How to Unlock Bard Performance and Play Midi Files in Final Fantasy XIV"
can't include active links!
Great job, LaBarrin! I have never been involved with a site or even a video game that is similar to Second Life and did it have any music performing concepts. I actually just started playing video games for the first time during COVID. My boyfriend introduced me to MarioCart. The only other time I've played was my dads old Attari once. Very interesting!
I think it will take some getting used to digital performances, although I kind of like them. I like having the control of multiple takes. That being said I think doing live performances will be harder after we've been doing digital concerts for a while.
Like Lisa, I have never been involved in sites like Second Life. Although I played some video games back in the days, there was no music performing concepts — so I don't have a particular experience to share. However, when I think about some kids who grow up playing virtual games or being involved in a virtual world like Second Life, I think it will be difficult for them to learn to get used to playing or performing music in a real life. As Damien’s example in the article, Dr. Harvey pointed out that virtual worlds and other online spaces have a major obstacle for perceiving temporal immediacy between the live performers and the audience. It is difficult to communicate with the audience other than the written communication via chat function, such as what kind of facial expression the audience makes in real time, whether they are listening with concentration or doing something else while the music is being played. If there are children who grow up to form their musical identity in a virtual space familiar with the absence of real person-to-person interaction, I expect that those children will feel more awkward to musically communicate with the audiences and it is expected that it will take time for them to adapt.
Good job Labarrin!
I play a lot of video games and online games but I never experienced something like Second Life. Same as Arianna, I think the closest thing will be Sims but you can only train the Sims to practice and perform, but can't really play real music like in Second Life.
For Jazz Band and saxophone studio, we are still performing in person with real audiences. So, I don't think I will have a hard time changing back to fully live performances. But I can see why some musicians will have a hard time adjusting back to real live performances.
I heard about Second Life but I didn't know it is still "a thing" until I read this article and google the game. I watched a few videos about musicians in the game and how much they enjoy playing music in the game. One musician actually publishes an album in the game, where the avatars need to line up in the game (like a real concert) to buy the album. And what was fascinating is the musician found out someone bought his music and was playing it on the radio!! I think Second Life is a great platform for musicians to promote themselves! This musician even woke up at 6 am (9 pm Tokoyo time) to go to a bar in the game to perform for Japanese players!!
Therefore, for Q3. I think it is possible! It might be hard to set up all the technology at first, but I think it will be a fun way to perform and also it's a good way to play for the whole world!!
Great job LaBarrin! I haven't experienced anything like this myself but for my final project I will be giving a performance in a virtual world so I've been doing a bit more research in that area. As you mentioned as well, I have been surprised by the feedback these virtual concerts have received. With the research I have done thus far, everything has been overwhelmingly positive. People seem to love these events. Lil Nas X just did a roblox concert and I saw so many tweets praising the event. I enjoyed reading about the experience of the musicians in Dr. Harvey's article as well. It seems that everyone involved, audiences and musicians, take it very seriously as another type of musical event. Of course these events are compared to the live music we are all used to experiencing, but these virtual concerts seem to always be in a realm of their own—a completely new experience for users. As someone who is really not a fan of livestreams as a performer or viewer, I would love to see events like this become more widespread. I don't think it'll be jarring to return to the real stage when it becomes safe again. At least, my performance anxiety won't be any worse than it normally is…If anything, I think I might even feel a bit better about performing. As a result of missing the interaction that comes with the performance as well as all the recording I've done throughout this time, there's a chance I might even be less anxious and more excited on stage.
I feel like the real me is about to make people roll their eyes, but i genuinely never play online games. My brother always did, like every waking moment. I have always been the one who read books. I feel like an outsider looking in with some of this.
I honestly feel like the "buzz" that is referred to is something I still get. I really love playing with people. It feels like I am experiencing something so special and exciting that the audience doesn't even get to partake in. All of the people performing with me are also like audience members, but they get to communicate. For example, playing with the Stravinsky Octet, I have lines that typically go a certain way, but in the moment Megan communicated with me with her body language and baton that she wanted to sit back a little bit and I responded with cool, I got you. The section was sweeter than usual and I don't feel like that would have been different with an audience.
I have never played Second Life or the Sims and frankly have never understood the appeal of these "real life simulation" genres. I did spend an unhealthy amount of time playing Runescape between 2005-2006 but this is a MMORPG. I can relate to the idea of being invested in an avatar and communicating with people I'd never meet, although the primary reason I enjoyed that game was because it was fantasy and I could choose how I wanted to build up my character for battles for quests. I can imagine there were music-making scenarios I came across at some point but they were likely the result of pressing a certain key and watching your avatar do all the actions on their own.
I don't think many musicians would gravitate to these types of games as a performing outlet with streaming platforms like Twitch being as popular as they are. I understand the appeal of maintaining anonymity but it's easy enough to create a pseudo-persona on any platform.
It's hard to say whether or not we will adjust to virtual performance because there are so many different kinds of virtual performance.
Professionally created sound recording (album/music video)? Yes- we have been comfortable with these for years.
Recording of live performance put online for view anytime? Yes- again we have been doing this for years
Live-streamed real time performance without live audience (Covid performance)? No- it's less rewarding to the performer and the audience can always choose to listen to already created music on demand without waiting for a premiere (that will then usually be stored online anyways).
Live-streamed real time performance with audience? Sure- if it's happening anyways someone is bound to tune in online. The difference is that since it's there is a live audience it works for the performer and the in-person audience while extending it to those who can't be there.
If we include records and CD's as virtual performance, we have been used to virtual performance for years. I don't think we will have an issue returning to physical performances, but I also don't think we will have issues with accepting certain forms of virtual performances.
I have never been involved with a virtual space concert outside of watching live streams or pre-recorded broadcasts. However, I recently read about a concert in a virtual space— Fortnite with a concert from Travis Scott. The link below is actual real gameplay. 27.7 million people tuned in for free to watch the performance, which attracted national attention.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/fortnite-s-travis-scott-concert-was-historic-he-s-not-ncna1195686
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYeFAlVC8qU
The closest video game I've played to second life is Sims, and there is no "live music or concert" mode—but there is a lot of practice functions on various instruments. The interesting aspect is when you're at the beginning of your development as a musician, you truly sound awful! But the more XP and time you give towards practicing you actually sound much better! In the intermediate stages, you can hear some slight intonation issues but not ones that the common person would pick up on. The repertoire choices (all public domain) during the practice sessions are also commensurate to that of someone learning violin/piano/guitar.