The Music of Undertale: Participatory Culture, Video Game Music, and Creating Covers for YouTube

Playing video games is one of the most popular leisure activities across the world. Video game music (VGM) is a musical art form prevalent in popular culture, and there is potential to use it for the music education of students. Using informal music learning (Green, 2002) and online participatory culture (Jenkins, 1992/2013) theories as grounds for inquiry, this multicase study explored how musicians used the music of Undertale-a popular 2015 independent video game created by Toby Fox-to inspire music making by publishing YouTube videos. Twelve case studies were conducted using methods outlined by Robert E. Stake (1995; 2006), each centered around a YouTube channel managed by creators who published Undertale music video covers. Data were analyzed around three themes: learning how to create for YouTube, creating covers of Undertale for publication, and interacting with others within the VGM community. By exploring the processes of VGM cover artists who published on YouTube, music educators may be able to better guide students to develop skills for publishing content on the internet , connecting with others in meaningful ways online.