CHAPTER VI. theme and variations

Musical Form ◽  
1951 ◽  
pp. 95-109
Keyword(s):  
Theme And Variations

Variations on a Theme by a Rogue A.I.: Music, Gameplay, and Storytelling in Portal 2 (Part 1 of 2)

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Reale
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Theme And Variations ◽  
Scientific Experimentation ◽  
Game Developers ◽  
Variations On A Theme

This two-video series explores how the scoring to the video game Portal 2, published by Valve Corporation, not only helps tell the game’s story, but also comments on the game developers’ philosophy of puzzle design. The first video explores how the game’s title theme 9999999, including its texture, voice leadings, and chord qualities, musically enacts dual aspects of the character of the game’s central antagonist GlaDOS: once human, her personality was uploaded into a computer mainframe where she has become a sociopathic, homicidal artificial intelligence who takes delight in subjecting humans to hazardous scientific experimentation. The second video demonstrates that 9999999 serves as the theme for a set of double variations in the game’s middle act. Since Valve’s philosophy of player training centers on iterative puzzle-design that systematically increase in complexity, and the musical accompaniments for these puzzles feature coordinated developments in musical complexity, the scoring here lets us parse the puzzle design into a kind of set of gameplay theme-and-variations.

scholarly journals Theme and Variations: A Study of Linear Twelve Tone Composition

1959 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
Robert Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Twelve Tone ◽  
Theme And Variations

Isopropenyl glycosides and congeners as novel classes of glycosyl donors: theme and variations

1992 ◽  
Vol 114 (16) ◽  
pp. 6354-6360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto Marra ◽  
Jacques Esnault ◽  
Alain Veyrieres ◽  
Pierre Sinay
Keyword(s):  
Theme And Variations ◽  
Glycosyl Donors
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