Description
Book SynopsisHow do keyboards make music playable? Drawing on theories of media, systems, and cultural techniques, this title deals with the genealogy of musical play and its animation via improvisation, performance, and recreation.
Trade Review"Keys to Play" has been called a "game-changer" and "dazzling and daring" by reviewers. It cuts across the traditional sub-disciplines of music studies to offer new and challenging connections between them." Cornell Chronicle
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Prelude: Press Any Key to Start
Part I. Fields and Interfaces of Musical Play
Key 1. Ludomusicality
1–1 Orders of Play
1–2 Beyond Work and Play
1–3 The Sound of Gunplay
1–4 Bits and Beats
1–5 Playing Undead
Key 2. Digital Analogies
2–1 Apollo 1, Marsyas 0
2–2 Notes on Keys
2–3 Interface Values
2–4 (Key)board Games and Temperamental Tactics
2–5 Tristan’s Chord, Schoenberg’s Voice
Part II. Play by Play: Improvisation, Performance, Recreation
Key 3. The Emergence of Musical Play
3–1 Unforeheard Circumstances
3–2 Pantomimes and Partimenti
3–3 From Black Box to Glassy Shell
3–4 The Case of Winkel’s Componium
3–5 The Invisible Thumb on the Scale
Key 4. High Scores: WAM vs. LVB
4–1 Unsettled Scores
4–2 Mozart’s Two-Player Games
4–3 Concerted Action
4–4 Mozart and Mario Play the Field
4–5 Beethoven’s Recursive Feedback Loops
Key 5. Play Again?
5–1 Nintendo’s Brand of Ludomusicality
5–2 Analogous Digitalities
5–3 The Ludomusical Emergence of Toshio Iwai
5–4 High Scores: Nodame Cantabile
5–5 Replay: A Cento
Notes
Bibliography
Ludography
Index
