News, Publications

New Book Series: Studies in Game Sound & Music

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Studies in Game Sound and Music, Intellect Academic Publishing

Series Editors: Michiel Kamp, Tim Summers and Mark Sweeney

We’re delighted to announce the launch of a new book series for academic peer-reviewed books presenting high-quality research on video game music and sound.

The series includes both monographs and edited collections. It does not seal game audio into a scholarly suburb, but instead seeks to engage game audio practitioners and researchers from a range of disciplines, including anthropology, computer science, media studies, psychology, sociology, sound studies, as well as musicology.

The books present new research, such as analysis, historical studies, practical investigations and conceptual/theoretical issues. However, they are also designed to support the growing number of graduates and undergraduates who study in this field.

Book types that are suitable for this series include, but are not limited to, books about

  • Particular games or game series (e.g. a book on Final Fantasy games)
  • Specific types of games (e.g. a collection on sound in horror games)
  • Distinct sonic phenomena in games (e.g. a volume on audio in MMORPGs)
  • Cultures surrounding games (e.g. a study of fan cultures about video game music)
  • Histories and interactions with other media (e.g. histories of game audio, projects comparing game and film sound)
  • Conceptual issues and approaches (e.g. investigations into immersion and audio in games, perspectives on alterity and music in games)
  • Particular practices of game audio (e.g. explorations of voices and dialogue recording in games)

The books include conceptual, technical and sonic detail, but remain accessible to those with less formal education. Similarly, the authors are asked to ensure that those less familiar with the game medium are able to follow the arguments. Technological discussions are necessary, but they are explained in plain English and in such a way that the sonic implications are clear. The books are easily readable by advanced undergraduate students.

For further information, refer to the proposal guidelines here, or contact us at ludomusicology@gmail.com.

Conferences, Events, News

Registration Open for #Ludo2017

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We’re delighted to announce that registration for Ludo2017 is now open!

Details on registration, travel, accommodation and the preliminary programme are on this page here. To go straight to registration, please click the button below!

Register

We look forward to joining you in Bath for what promises to be a really exciting event!

Melanie, Michiel, Tim, Mark

News, Publications

Just Published! Keys to Play by Roger Moseley

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Although it may been out for a month or two depending on where you live, we would like to draw your attention to the publication of Roger Moseley’s monograph Keys to Play: Music as a Ludic Medium from Apollo to Nintendo with University of California Press. He may not have coined the term ‘ludomusicology’ (that honour goes to Guillaume Laroche), but he has certainly introduced it to the broader field of musicology and to us as a research group. Moreover, Moseley’s work has broadened the scope of ludomusicology far beyond video game music to concern the relation of music to play in general. Keys to Play is the first monograph length publication of this research.

Game music may not be the sole focus of the book, but it plays a crucial part, both as a starting point for Moseley’s research and as an end point for a long history of play, games and music, from the digitality of keyboard instruments to the playfulness of Mozart and Nintendo. The book is also available for free online through Lumimos open access publishing.

The publisher’s blurb:
How do keyboards make music playable? Drawing on theories of media, systems, and cultural techniques, Keys to Play spans Greek myth and contemporary Japanese digital games to chart a genealogy of musical play and its animation via improvisation, performance, and recreation. As a paradigmatic digital interface, the keyboard forms a field of play on which the book’s diverse objects of inquiry—from clavichords to PCs and eighteenth-century musical dice games to the latest rhythm-action titles—enter into analogical relations. Remapping the keyboard’s topography by way of Mozart and Super Mario, who head an expansive cast of historical and virtual actors, Keys to Play invites readers to unlock ludic dimensions of music that are at once old and new.

Roger Moseley is Assistant Professor of Music at Cornell University. Active as a collaborative pianist on modern and historical instruments, he has published essays on the interface of the keyboard, the performativity of digital games, the practice of eighteenth-century improvisation, and the music of Brahms.

Table of contents:
Acknowledgments xi
Prelude: Press Any Key to Start 1
Part I. Fields and Interfaces of Musical Play
Key 1. Ludomusicality 15
1–1 Orders of Play 23
1–2 Beyond Work and Play 33
1–3 The Sound of Gunplay 43
1–4 Bits and Beats 49
1–5 Playing Undead 58
Key 2. Digital Analogies 67
2–1 Apollo 1, Marsyas 0 72
2–2 Notes on Keys 78
2–3 Interface Values 90
2–4 (Key)board Games and Temperamental Tactics 99
2–5 Tristan’s Chord, Schoenberg’s Voice 109
Part II. Play by Play: Improvisation, Performance, Recreation
Key 3. The Emergence of Musical Play 121
3–1 Unforeheard Circumstances 127
3–2 Pantomimes and Partimenti 140
3–3 From Black Box to Glassy Shell 151
3–4 The Case of Winkel’s Componium 159
3–5 The Invisible Thumb on the Scale 167
Key 4. High Scores: WAM vs. LVB 178
4–1 Unsettled Scores 181
4–2 Mozart’s Two-Player Games 188
4–3 Concerted Action 200
4–4 Mozart and Mario Play the Field 212
4–5 Beethoven’s Recursive Feedback Loops 219
Key 5. Play Again? 236
5–1 Nintendo’s Brand of Ludomusicality 243
5–2 Analogous Digitalities 250
5–3 The Ludomusical Emergence of Toshio Iwai 258
5–4 High Scores: Nodame Cantabile 263
5–5 Replay: A Cento 271
Notes 275
Bibliography 365
Ludography 419
Index 423

Links, News

Official Launch of The Society for the Study of Sound and Music in Games (SSSMG)!

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We are very excited to announce the official launch of The Society for the Study of Sound and Music in Games (SSSMG)!

The SSSMG is a network that’s been developed by the Ludomusicology Research Group, the North American Conference on Video Game Music, Audio Mostly, and an extensive advisory board of leading academics and practitioners. The aim is to provide a hub to connect together people working on game audio and to support advances in the understanding of sound and music in games.

The SSSMG helps anyone who investigates game sound and music, whether in an academic or professional setting, to discuss the topic together, exchange ideas and information, and keep up-to-date with new research. Anyone can join, and the members are always looking for new approaches to the subject.

SSSMG will make publicly available:

  • General news
  • General Society contact info
  • Links to other affiliated societies/groups
  • Events Calendar (view only)
  • Newly revised, keyworded and searchable Bibliography

Registered members will have additional access to:

  • Network with searchable, keyworded members’ directory
  • Submit events for publication on the Calendar
  • Share conference presentations and Green OA publications in a subject repository
  • Compose and submit news posts
  • Contribute to Bibliography Project

Further member benefits and services will be added in the future. Visit www.sssmg.org to find out more!

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