In this Book
- Keys to Play: Music as a Ludic Medium from Apollo to Nintendo
- Book
- 2016
- Published by: University of California Press
-
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
summary
A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program for monographs. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.
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.
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.
Table of Contents
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- Publisher page
- pp. i-ii
- Half-title page
- p. iii
- Title Page
- p. v
- Copyright page
- p. vi
- Dedication
- p. vii
- Opener image
- p. viii
- Acknowledgments
- pp. xi-xvi
- Prelude: Press Any Key to Start
- pp. 1-12
- PART I. Fields And Interfaces Of Musical Play
- Key 1. Ludomusicality
- pp. 15-66
- Key 2. Digital Analogies
- pp. 67-118
- Part II. Play By Play: Improvisation, Performance, Recreation
- Key 3. The Emergence of Musical Play
- pp. 121-177
- Key 4. High Scores: WAM vs. LVB
- pp. 178-235
- Key 5. Play Again?
- pp. 236-274
- Bibliography
- pp. 365-418
- Ludography
- pp. 419-422
Additional Information
ISBN
9780520965096
Related ISBN(s)
9780520291249
MARC Record
OCLC
1139839655
Pages
470
Launched on MUSE
2020-02-11
Language
English
Open Access
Yes
Creative Commons
CC-BY-NC-ND
Project MUSE Mission
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