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Ludomusicology (with the prefix Ludo coming from the Latin 'lūdō' meaning ('I play')) is a sub-discipline of the broader field of Musicology, focusing on video game music. It is the academic and scholarly analysis of music found in video games and music based video games. The Easter Conference on Video Game Music and Sound and the North American Conference on Video Game Music, taking place in England and the United States respectively, are conferences held yearly where ludomusicologists (scholars and researchers in the field of ludomusicology) gather to discuss topics related to the field.

Importance of Interactivity
In ludomusicology, music is studied in a unique way considering the unique nature of video game music. While in musicology a piece is considered static and does not change based on a user's input, game music is directly affected by the player of said game. In video game music, the actions of the player determine the sound or music to be played by the game. In these cases, the actions of the player change the soundtrack that the individual will hear; every player’s soundtrack, while made up of the same pieces, will be different as a whole. Both the interpretation and intent of the composer of the piece and the effect the piece has on the player (which also varies from player to player) must be considered when studying a piece of game music. This is what sets ludomusicology apart from regular musicology as this added layer of interactivity has to be taken into account when studying game music.

Relationship Between the Composer and the Player
Video Game Music is always composed with the effect said music will have on the player's experience with a game (this can be compared to the way that classical composer's will consider how their piece will be interpreted by audiences and how the piece will affect them). In a game, the composer creates the soundtrack for what is called an ‘experience potential’. A video game can be thought of as a set of experience potentials that a player interacts with in order to create and shape their own version of the game. The most trivial action (the player decides to jump, sprint to their objective, speak to an NPC (non-player character)) will affect the soundtrack of the game; it almost impossible for two players to have exactly the same soundtrack. This is why in ludomusicology, the player themselves can be considered a composer as well, collaborating with the composer of the soundtrack of certain experience potentials to create a unique and personal experience.

Karen Collins
Karen Collins is an author, Canada Research Chair in Interactive Audio at the Games Institute, and associate professor at the University of Waterloo. She is known in the ludomusicology community for her groundbreaking research in interactive sound and for her texts 'Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design' (MIT Press 2008) and 'Playing with Sound' ( MIT Press 2013) which are both regularly referenced in research papers based on the topic.

Ludomusicology (Video Music Research Group)
The Ludomusicology group is an inter-university research organisation focusing on the study of game music comprised of 4 researchers: Michiel Kamp, Tim Summers, Melanie Fritsch, and Mark Sweeney. Together they organise an annual conference held in the UK (The Easter Conference on Video Game Music and Sound), have created an organisation called The Society for the Study of Sound and Music in Games with the aim of bringing together both practitioners and researchers in order to develop the field's understanding of sound and video game music. They have also put together and edited a collection of essays based around the study of game sound entitled 'Ludomusicology: Approaches to Video Game Music'.

Notable Studies & Further Reading
1. Richardson, P., & Kim, Y. (2011). Beyond fun and games: A framework for quantifying music skill developments from video game play. Journal of New Music Research, 40(4), 277-291. doi:10.1080/09298215.2011.565350 2. Pasinski, A., Hannon, E., & Snyder, J. (2016). How musical are music video game players? Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 23(5), 1553-1558. doi:10.3758/s13423-015-0998-x 3. Whalen, Z. (2004, November). Play Along - An Approach to Videogame Music. Game Studies - The International Journal of Computer Game Research, 4(1). Retrieved from http://gamestudies.org/0401/whalen/?ref=SeksDE.Com 4. Summers, T. (2011, July). Playing the Tune: Video Game Music, Gamers, and Genre. ACT - Musik & Performance, (2). Retrieved from http://www.act.uni-bayreuth.de/en/archiv/2011-02/04_Summers_Playing_the_Tune/index.html 5. Liebe, M. (2013). Interactivity and Music in Computer Games. Music And Game, 41-62. doi:978-3-531-18913-0 6. Cheng, W. (2014). Sound play: Video games and the musical imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 7. Collins, K. (2008). Game sound: An introduction to the history, theory, and practice of video game music and sound design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.