Level Up: Gaming to a Beat

A Virtual Music Composition Program Putting Video Game Culture at the Forefront

Authors

  • Christopher Pizzute The Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine, New York, USA

Keywords:

music therapy; video game culture; music education; music composition, virtual

Abstract

Video game culture is an ever-growing aspect of our current society that is virtually an untapped resource for engagement, connection, and inspiration in the current compendium of music education and music therapy practice. The COVID-19 pandemic presented a significant barrier to engaging children in enriching educational experiences when schools transitioned to a virtual format and brought to light the significant stressors impacting today’s youth. Neurodivergent and neurotypical children benefited greatly from engaging in a virtual music composition/education program designed to enrich their experience through a culturally relevant medium, video games. This article presents an in-depth examination of the creation, design, and implementation of the mainstream virtual music composition/education program, which integrated music therapy intervention and video game culture for neurodivergent and neurotypical children.

Author Biography

Christopher Pizzute, The Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine, New York, USA

Christopher Pizzute, MA, LCAT-LP, MT-BC is a music psychotherapist working in inpatient oncology, radiation oncology, and chemotherapy at Mount Sinai West in New York City. He received his Master’s in music therapy from Montclair State University and holds a Bachelor’s degree in music composition/music theory. His expertise extends to palliative, psychiatric, geriatric, pediatric, and neonatal care. He is a songwriter, an artist, and video game culture advocate. His work has extended to outreach programs focused on presenting the benefit of video game music in music therapy practice. His master’s thesis was on the examination of video game culture and its possible inclusion in music therapy practice. 

Photo of author Pizzute

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Published

2023-07-01

How to Cite

Pizzute, C. (2023). Level Up: Gaming to a Beat : A Virtual Music Composition Program Putting Video Game Culture at the Forefront. Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, 23(2). Retrieved from https://voices.no/index.php/voices/article/view/3737

Issue

Vol. 23 No. 2 (2023)

Section

Reports

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Christopher Pizzute

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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