I just came across a terrific YouTube documentary discussing how video game music may be the new popular music canon being transformed into art, just like how songs from Tin Pan Alley and motion pictures became essential elements of modern jazz. The video makes the case for video game music as the new source of “standards.” It also does a terrific job of enriching the audience’s basic understanding of song structure and composition.
Don’t be put off by the title of the video. Please watch it with the young people in your life. It may inspire them to pick up a musical instrument and may just save a school music teacher.
Featured in the video (above) is one of today’s great video game music auteurs, Constructing Modern Knowledge 2023 guest speaker, Charlie Rosen. It opens with scenes from Rosen’s standing-room only performance by his 8-Bit Big Band for 3,200 adoring fans. Mr. Rosen is not only a great advocate of video game music, he is a Broadway and Hollywood composer, arranger, and orchestrator who by the age of 32 has already won an Obie, Tony, and Grammy Award. Oh yeah, he also plays 70+ instruments according to his profile in the New York Times.
Charlie Rosen is the quintessential CMK Guest Speaker, someone exceptional at a career that your school guidance counselor didn’t know existed – and at the intersection of culture, learning, and technology. Check out our entire slate of brilliant guest speakers and faculty at constructingmodernknowledge.com
Check out all of our guest speakers for Constructing Modern Knowledge 2023, July 11-14, 2023 and do not miss the opportunity to participate in the learning adventure of the year!
