Description
Book SynopsisVideo games open portals into fantastical worlds where imaginative play prevails. Sound Play explores the aesthetic, ethical, and sociopolitical stakes of people's engagements with audio phenomena in video games-from sonic violence to synthesized operas, from democratic musical performances to verbal sexual harassment.
Trade ReviewAs addictive and energetically conceived as its subject matter, Sound Play enables even non-gamers to navigate the sonic waves and kinetic pleasures of story worlds that challenge us to rethink the complexities of human agency, identity politics, and embodied performance. * Maria Tatar, author of Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood and editor of The Annotated Brothers Grimm *
A major contribution from a bold and brilliant new voice with exceptional interdisciplinary range. Cheng is a serious player: his virtuosic flair is fully matched by his technical rigor and depth of interpretive insight. Sound Play confirms that the New Musicology is truly out of beta. * Kiri Miller, author of Playing Along: Digital Games, YouTube, and Virtual Performance *
Compelling from the first page, Sound Play is an engaging and sophisticated study of how audio-whether in the form of music, voices, noises, or effects-crucially shapes our experience of video games, and how gaming deeply informs our engagement with sound. But more than that, William Cheng's excellent new book demonstrates how the interrelation of sound and play in video games challenges us to think deeply about what it means to live in a world in which the virtual and the real are increasingly intertwined. * Mark Katz, author of Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music and Groove Music: The Art and Culture of the Hip-Hop DJ *
Captivating and inspired, probing and nimbly persuasive, playful yet bursting with profound insight, Sound Play is virtually and absolutely indispensable. * Charles Hiroshi Garrett, author of Struggling to Define a Nation: American Music and the Twentieth Century and editor-in-chief of The Grove Dictionary of American Music, 2nd edition *
William Cheng tackles the wild west of game audio and conquers it with a combination of academic scrutiny, coupled by a gamer's unadulterated love of the art. Sound Play could very well be a turning point in the history of video game audio: the day when game audio came of age and inherited the mantle of serious art through the lens of scholarly analysis. With Sound Play, game audio finally has the academic credentials it needs to take its place among the other fine arts. * Christopher Tin, Grammy-winning video game music composer *
Table of ContentsForeword by Richard Leppert ; Introduction ; Chapter 1: A Tune at the End of the World ; Chapter 2: How Celes Sang ; Chapter 3: Dead Ringers ; Chapter 4: Role-Playing toward a Virtual Musical Democracy ; Chapter 5: The Wizard, the Troll, and the Fortress ; Epilogue ; End Notes ; Works Cited ; Index
