More than just a diatribe on game music as art, Schartmann unravels a complicated history of “Game Music” going back to Boardwalk Penny arcades and Pre-Pinball cabinets through an thoughtful, music-theory based analysis of how music has become an integral part in participatory games culture and presentation.

Primarily an academic piece of writing, Schartmann’s Maestro Mario reads much like a dissertation. I would hazard a guess that it was at one point, in fact, a dissertation. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as it grounds the wealth of research and theory in the text with the through-line of academic thought. Schartmann’s analysis mirrors Huizinga’s Homo Ludens in many regards, most notably in the fact that Schartmann attempts to wrangle the various new, difficult concepts that make up “game music” into the linguistic terminology we’d expect of “typically academic” studies; oftentimes the text seems to want to break from this mold and just speak in terms its presumable audience — game players — would understand, but this never complicates the text or voice.

As a side note the book is prefaced by a brief discussion on the nature of the research done for the text, also written by Schartmann. He discusses the nature of Games as a medium and the nature of “games” as sources, and criticizes the anti-internet sourcing mindset throughout much of Academia. As a result, Schartmann’s work itself is a sort of rebellious, “mold-breaking” assertion that As mediums like Video Games become more prominent, too will the sources with which academic texts about them are written. To seal this package, Schartmann’s book is available only as an E-Book and Audiobook, and serves as an example for the technological advances with which he documents in his research about the evolution of games sound. It’s an ambitious, somewhat amusing academic joust, fitting for the characterization of the author the writing style provides.

All in all, Schartmann’s work is a pleasant, light read that challenges quite a few notions — both academic and casual — about the nature of Games and their studies. The Audiobook clocks in at roughly 3 hours, and the text is short and to the point. It’s cheap too, presumably in an attempt to deconstruct the “Academic Barriers in Game Studies” Schartmann discusses in his introduction. Overall, Maestro Mario is an interesting and valuable historical analysis of sound and how it has changed games and the people who play them.

I couldn’t help but think while reading, “This would have been great for class.”