Rhythm games have rich academic and pedagogical value. In the classroom, rhythm games’ interfaces and built-in immediate feedback help student-players grapple with basic and complex theories of rhythm and meter in relation to musical performativity and parameters. Depending on difficulty level, players negotiate various audio streams per Stephen McAdams and Albert Bregman’s (1979) theories. They may also evoke concepts such as Christopher Hasty’s metric projection (1997) and Justin London’s metric entrainment (2012).
When pedagogically incorporated, rhythm games focus rhythmic learning and experience on student action that invokes the pedagogical strategies of Chenette (2021), Karpinski (2000, 2007), and Rogers (1984). Therefore, making sense of how rhythm games work eases them into a music classroom setting that provides collaborative platforms for learning through play. This article develops pedagogical strategies that build on rhythm games’ highly interactive, touch-based, and performative aspects as well as related scholarship by Collins (2013), Donnelly (2021), Grasso (2020), Kaae (2008), Kellman (2021), Miller (2017), O’Meara (2016), Shultz (2016), and Roesner, Paisley, and Cassidy (2016).
This article’s model lessons illustrate how rhythm games can help student-players grapple with basic and complex theories of rhythm and meter in aural skills and traditional music theory classrooms. Using two rhythm games, RhythmPlus and Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage! as case studies, this article proposes modular lesson plans that center on treating the games’ “sync streams,” or a pre-programmed patterning of animated rhythmic tiles, as analytical and pedagogical hypertext as well as a meaningful and interactive feedback learning system. Reverse-engineering both analysis and sync stream programming of a “beatmap” game level, the pedagogical bent of this article touches on Auerbach’s (2010) pedagogical application of Dance Dance Revolution. Grasso’s (2020) ludomusicological use of the “magic circle” is also related to media anthropological concepts of utilizing social circles to propel interactive topics for critical thinking, learning, and discussion.
University of California Press