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The Distinguished Lecture Series in Musicology presents a public lecture by Dr. Neil Lerner, Professor of Music, Davidson College, Free and open to the public.

Though the computing technology of the 1970s was primitive, even the earliest of video games supplied some kind of audible component, and what began as formless bleeps quickly became recognizable melodies as early as 1977. Examining music from these early attempts at video game sound reveals a series of similarities with the ways music was deployed in early cinema accompaniment. Examples will include clips from Circus (1977), Space Invaders (1978), Phoenix (1980), Scramble (1981), and Donkey Kong (1982).