Prelude: press any key to start -- Pt I. Fields and interfaces of musical play -- Key 1 Ludomusicality -- Key 2 Digital analogies -- Pt II. Play by play : improvisation, performance, recreation -- Key 3 The emergence of musical play -- Key 4 High scores: WAM vs. LVB -- Key 5 Play again?

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"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 an archaeology 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."--Provided by publisher

English.

Description based on print version record.