The Oxford Handbook of Video Game Music and Sound

The music and sounds of video games have become an inescapable part of our world. Not only do these sonic elements profoundly shape the experiences of billions of players every day, but also the soundscapes of games have stretched out from our living rooms to encompass spaces as diverse as pinball arcades, concert halls, museums, and classrooms across the globe. Research on game music and sound is equally diverse-a vibrant, innovative, and multifaceted field that incorporates approaches from media studies, musicology, sound studies, music theory, psychology, and more. Drawing on the expertise of leading scholars and practitioners from around the globe, The Oxford Handbook of Video Game Music and Sound features nearly 50 chapters on topics ranging from the earliest pinball machines to the latest in virtual reality technology. The resulting volume provides both a comprehensive introduction to the study of game audio and an indispensable resource for experts.

William Gibbons is Dean of the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam, where he also holds the rank of Professor of Music History. Prior to joining SUNY Potsdam, he was Associate Professor of Musicology and Associate Dean of the College of Fine Arts at Texas Christian University. He earned a BA in Music from Emory & Henry College, and MA and PhD degrees in Musicology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard is the Obel Professor of Music at Aalborg University, Denmark. He has published widely across subjects as diverse as sound, biofeedback in computer games, virtuality, the Uncanny Valley, presence/immersion, ultrasound, and IT systems. Mark is series editor for the series Palgrave Studies in Sound, and his books include the anthologies Game Sound Technology & Player Interaction (2011), The Oxford Handbook of Virtuality (2014), The Oxford Handbook of Sound & Imagination (2019), and the co-authored monographs Sonic Virtuality (2015) and The Recording, Mixing, & Mastering Reference Handbook (2019).

Contributor Affiliations Acknowledgments Introduction SECTION 1: DISCIPLINARY QUESTIONS 1. Video Game Musicology in Practice: Fifteen Awkward Questions Tim Summers 2. Ode to Joysticks: Canonic Fantasies and the "Beethoven of Video Game Music" William Gibbons 3. Crossing the Ludo-Cinematic Continuum: Music-Theoretical Approaches to Video Game Music Sean Atkinson 4. Ludomusical Narrativity: Sound and Music as Structures of Play Julianne Grasso 5. A Creative System in Action: Bringing Video Game Music and Sound into Being Phillip McIntyre and J.T. Velikovsky SECTION 2: HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 6. A History of Early U.S. Pinball Sound, 1871-1939 Neil Lerner 7. Selling Play through Music and Sound: Audiovisual Promotion for Early Consoles, Home Computers, and Games to 1983 James Deaville 8. Hard Limitations and Soft Possibilities: A "Systematic" History of Early Video Game Sound Technology Kevin R. Burke 9. Visualizing Music with Video Game Technologies Jonathan Weinel 10. Onna no jidai: Women and Video Game Sound in 1980s Japan Brooke McCorkle Okazaki 11. Surviving the Game: Published Soundtracks as Archives Fanny Rebillard 12. Symbolic Music and Algorithmic Composing: Computer Archaeological Perspectives on BASIC Game Sounds Stefan Höltgen SECTION 3: PERCEPTION AND PSYCHOLOGY 13. Ambiguity and Vagueness in Video Game Sound Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 14. A Functional Approach to the Psychology of Video Game Sound Tom A. Garner 15. How Video Game Music Plays Us: Musical Topics, Modularity, and Compulsion Loops William R. Ayers 16. Auditory Hallucinations and Altered States of Consciousness in Video Games Jonathan Weinel SECTION 4: INTERACTING ACROSS MEDIA 17. Music and Sound in Early Film-to-Game Adaptations William O'Hara 18. Sound, Extended Reality, and the Cinematic-Interactive Dichotomy Tom A. Garner 19. Game Noir: The Functions of Jazz in the Detective Adventure Video Game Jacob Collins 20. Synergy and Syncs: Record Labels, Video Games, and Unending Consumption David Arditi 21. Playground Disco: Playing with Clubs and Aspects of Club Culture in Digital Games Melanie Fritsch SECTION 5: IDENTITY 22. Beyond Nerdcore: Hip-Hop, Race, and the Business of Gamer-Rap Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo 23. Press Start to (Fore)Play: Sex and Sexuality in Game Music Michael L. Austin 24. Indigenous-Designed Pixels, Circuits, and Game Music and Sound Kate Galloway 25. Listening to the Gerudo and the Desert in The Legend of Zelda Series Hyeonjin Park 26. Ludomusical Autobiography and the Indie Composer-Developer William Gibbons SECTION 6: PRE-EXISTING MUSIC 27. Hearing the Renaissance in Video Games Karen M. Cook 28. Claude Debussy's Piano Music and the Evocation of Atmosphere and Humor in Video Games Gurminder Bhogal 29. Pop Shove-It, Pop Music: Tunes, Tricks, and Transmediality in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater James Millea 30. Playing with American Folk Music, Supernatural Encounters, and Perspectives on Death Peter Smucker 31. Taking a Pop at Ludonarratology: Narrative Perspectives on Popular Music in Video Games Andra Ivanescu SECTION 7: MUSICAL PERFORMANCE 32. Video Games Alive: Ludic Liveness and (Re)playful Listenings in Video Game Music Concerts Stefan Greenfield-Casas 33. Video Games Live and the Gamification of the Orchestral Concert Experience Elizabeth Hunt 34. Unreal Performances: Playing in Games/Playing with Games James Cook 35. Of Guitar Heroes and Rocksmiths: Guitars, Games, and Affordance Theory Marc Duby 36. Musical Repetition and Predictive Gameplay in Rhythm Games Stephanie Lind 37. How Musical are Game Players? Exploring Musical Situations in Video Games Costantino Oliva SECTION 8: ACOUSTIC ECOLOGIES 38. Analyzing Navigable Narratives through Multiple Lenses Elizabeth Hambleton 39. Ambient Ecologies: Environmental Music in Video Games Michiel Kamp 40. Semiotics and the Negotiation of Musical Communication in Video Game Music: An Imprecise and Beautiful Art Iain Hart 41. Abstract Representations of Voices in Video Games Elizabeth Medina-Gray 42. Simulating Sounds of Spectators: On the Structure, Function, and Realism of Spectator Sounds in a Sports Video Game Nicolai Jørgensgaard Graakjær SECTION 9: VIRTUALITY/REALITY 43. Auditory Reality and Virtuality: Is Space the Final Audio Frontier for Games? KC Collins and Bill Kapralos 44. Video Game Sound Design and the Fetish of Realism Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 45. Music and Motion in First-Person Virtual Reality Games Kate Mancey 46. Intrinsically Unpleasant Sounds and Player Experience Denis Zlobin 47. The Importance of Sound to the Formation of Presence Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard Index