From Pac-Man to Pop Music

by Collins, Karen

• ISBN13: 9780754662006
• ISBN10: 0754662004
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-05-01
• Publisher: Ashgate Pub Co

Summary

Digital interactive audio is the future of audio in media - most notably video games, but also web pages, theme parks, museums, art installations and theatrical events. Despite its importance to contemporary multi-media, this is the first book that provides a framework for understanding the history, issues and theories surrounding interactive audio. Karen Collins presents the work of academics, composers and music programmers to introduce the topic from a variety of angles in order to provide a supplementary text for music and multimedia courses. The contributors cover practical and theoretical approaches, including historical perspectives, emerging theories, socio-cultural approaches to fandom, semiotic analyses, reception theory and case study analyses. The book offers a fresh perspective on media music, one that will complement film studies, but which will show the necessity of a unique approach when considering games music.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

Industries and Synergies

The new MTV? Electronic arts and 'playing' music

Marketing music through computer games: the case of Poets of the Fall and Max Payne 2

Ringtones and Mobile Phones

Could ringtones be more annoying?

Indeterminate adaptive digital audio for games on mobiles

Instruments and Interactions

Theoretical approaches to composing dynamic music for video games

Realising groundbreaking adaptive music

The composition-instrument: emergence, improvisation, and interaction in games and new media

Techniques and Technologies

Dynamic range: subtlety and silence in video game sound

An introduction to granular synthesis in video games

Audio and Audience

Chip music: low-tech data music sharing

Left in the dark: playing computer games with the sound turned off

Music theory in music games

Selected annotated bibliography

Bibliography

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.