Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-31T18:20:02.874Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 April 2021

By
Melanie Fritsch  and
Tim Summers
Edited by
Melanie Fritsch  and
Tim Summers
Melanie Fritsch
Affiliation:
Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
Tim Summers
Affiliation:
Royal Holloway, University of London
Get access

Summary

Video game music has been permeating popular culture for over forty years, at least since the titular aliens of Space Invaders arrived in 1978, accompanied by an ever-accelerating musical ostinato. Now, reaching hundreds of millions of listeners, game music has grown to encompass a diverse spectrum of musical materials and practices. Its instrumentation ranges from orchestras to rock bands, its contexts from bedroom televisions to concert halls, its materials from ‘art music’ to Top-40 pop, and its systems from generative music technologies to carefully handcrafted idiosyncratic musical structures.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Video Game Music , pp. 1 - 4
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Introductory Reading

Collins, Karen. Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fritsch, Melanie. ‘History of Video Game Music’, in Music and Game: Perspectives on a Popular Alliance, ed. Moormann, Peter. Wiesbaden: Springer, 2013, 11–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grimshaw, Mark. ‘Sound’, in The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies, ed. Perron, Bernard and Wolf, Mark J. P. (London: Routledge, 2016), 117–24.Google Scholar
Jørgensen, Kristine. ‘Left in the Dark: Playing Computer Games with the Sound Turned Off’, in From Pac-Man to Pop Music: Interactive Audio in Games and New Media, ed. Collins, Karen. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008, 163–76.Google Scholar
Whalen, Zach. ‘Play Along – An Approach to Videogame Music.’ Game Studies 4, no. 1 (2004).Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×