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Playing With Sound: A Theory of

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Popular Music
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Playing With Sound: A Theory of Interacting with Sound

and Music in Video Games. By Karen Collins. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 2013. 192 pp. ISBN 9-780-262-01867-8

Don Knox

Popular Music / Volume 33 / Issue 02 / May 2014, pp 372 - 374

DOI: 10.1017/S0261143014000178, Published online: 08 April 2014

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0261143014000178

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 372 Reviews

Reference
Miller, K.H. 2002. ‘Segregating sound: folklore, phonographs, and the transformation of southern music,
1888–1935’, PhD dissertation (New York, New York University)

Playing With Sound: A Theory of Interacting with Sound and Music in Video
Games. By Karen Collins. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013. 192 pp. ISBN
9-780-262-01867-8
doi:10.1017/S0261143014000178
Game sound is the focus of growing academic interest, inspiring studies which
encompass multidisciplinary perspectives on the player and the role of sound and
music on the game play experience. However, the focus of the majority of text
books in the area is on the wide and varied practical aspects of games audio and
sound design, exploring factors such as sound creation, integration, field recording,
sound processing, music composition techniques, hardware issues and dialogue sys-
tems (Childs 2007; Stevens and Raybould 2011; Marks 2013). Fewer authors have
emphasised theoretical approaches to studying game sound, with notable exceptions
which encompass a mixture of theory and the practical (Grimshaw 2013) and those
who focus purely on the theory (Jorgensen 2009). Karen Collins has been a proponent
for the study of games sound and the adoption of interdisciplinary perspectives since
at least 2008 with From Pac Man to Pop Music and Game Sound: An Introduction to the
History, Theory and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design. The latter was a
broad overview of games music and sound, ranging from hardware limitations to
individual roles in the game production process. This text did, however, introduce
key theoretical issues surrounding the player experience of, and interaction with,
games music and sound – in particular, the non-linear characteristics of games, play-
er interaction with game sound elements, and the player’s resulting perception and
experience. In Playing with Sound, Collins aims to develop a theoretical framework for
the study of games sound from the perspective of the player. The approach she takes
is broad, and ranges beyond the player’s experience of sound and music as they are
playing the game. Rather, the book encompasses in-game interaction, the interper-
sonal and sociocultural interactions which take place around and beyond the game
play context.
Player interaction with games is multimodal in nature and involves sound,
visuals and haptics. The combination of action and sound forges new meanings
for game sound from the player’s perspective (Collins coins the term ‘kinematic
synchresis’). Thus examining sound in isolation is considered meaningless as it is
not experienced by the player in isolation. This concept is extended to adopt
embodied cognition and mirror neuron theory to propose mechanisms explaining
why sound is important to increasing immersion in games. The player has an
embodied reaction to sound in the game. They make the sounds in the game
world through their actions, placing them in the game. Their self is extended into
the peripersonal space which becomes an ‘audio intermediary’ between the game
world and the player. Thus sound bridges the gap between the game world and
the player and is key to immersion in the game and identification with the game
character.
The mental and physical re-enactment of sound explained by mirror neuron
theory is mooted by Collins as being a type of performative activity, where

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 Reviews 373

perception of sound is turned into embodied interaction with sound. This encourages
role-play and enaction of the emotion behind the game action, and therefore
enhances immersion. Thus the player becomes part of the game space through use
of sound: through physical engagement and performance in games such as Guitar
Hero, or in online multiplayer games through the use of voice to act out the identity
of the game character and bring reality into the game world. In Chapter 4 the game is
presented as a site of performance. This encompasses the performance of music by
in-game characters and generation of music through game play; game action and
visuals as machinima and as a backdrop to live electronic music performances; fan
culture of covering and remixing music from games; and use of game hardware, con-
trollers and emulators to create music (chiptunes for example). Although diverting
and informative, this is perhaps the least coherent chapter of the book. The concept
of interaction with game sound is stretched to some fairly tenuous lengths, and the
idea that fans creating songs about games is a desire to pass information on to other
game players in the ‘oral history traditions of folk songs’ is a little toe-curling. The
final chapter turns to game content customisation and modding, where players
play a part in creating content for the game. This is posited as another form of inter-
acting with the game which affects player experience, is a means of collaborating
with other players and as a means by which the ‘fourth wall’ between the player
and the virtual world is breached. Interesting issues are raised around co-creativity
and the idea that use of the player’s own music means games are becoming a new
way of listening to music. In the end, the argument here is that involvement in the
game narrative isn’t the only type of immersion. The player can also become
immersed in the game in the sense of creating content and customising and persona-
lising their game experience.
Playing With Sound is an important contribution toward the development of
theory for game sound and music. The breadth of this text is simultaneously a
strength and weakness. It is unique in its scope in that the broader cultural and
legal implications of game music are presented alongside theories of player inter-
action with sound as they play the game. However, it becomes problematic when try-
ing to present these widely dispersed topics as part of one coherent picture
describing our relationship with all things sonic in games. For example the argument
around liveness feels a little tacked-on and is not convincingly integrated into the
ideas which precede it. As Collins points out, this is an initial step toward developing
a coherent theory of game sound, and poses more questions than it answers. This is
something to be expected in a text that is at the forefront of developing theory in this
area. Key topics such as multimodal interaction, kinesonic synchresis and embodied
cognition of sound will undoubtedly be developed and utilised by those studying the
effects of sound and music on game play experience. Broader concepts of perform-
ance and co-creativity may also inform future research on player experience beyond
the game play context. Overall, it is likely that Playing With Sound will influence
research into game sound for years to come.

Don Knox
Glasgow Caledonian University, UK
D.Knox@gcu.ac.uk

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 374 Reviews

References
Childs, G.W. 2007. Creating Music and Sound for Games (Boston, MA, Course Technology Inc)
Collins K. (ed.) 2008a. From Pac-Man to Pop Music: Interactive Audio in Games and New Media (Aldershot,
Ashgate)
Collins, K. 2008b. Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory and Practice of Video Game Music and
Sound Design (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press)
Grimshaw M. (ed.) 2011. Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments (Hershey,
PA, Information Science Reference)
Jorgensen, K. 2009. A Comprehensive Study of Sound in Computer Games: How Audio Affects Player Action
(Lampeter, Edwin Mellen Press)
Marks, A. 2013. The Complete Guide to Game Audio: For Composers, Musicians, Sound Designers, 2nd edn
(Oxford, Focal Press)
Stevens, R., and Raybould, D. 2011. The Game Audio Tutorial: A Practical Guide to Sound and Music for
Interactive Games (Oxford, Focal Press)

Jazz/Not Jazz: The Music and Its Boundaries. Edited by D. Ake, C.H. Garrett
and D. Goldmark. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2012. ISBN
978-0-52027-104-3
doi:10.1017/S026114301400018X
Definitions of jazz have been contested since the word first came into usage. Debates
about what is included in and what is excluded from ‘jazz’ intensified in response to
the neotraditionalism of the 1980s, and Scott DeVeaux’s (1991) influential essay
‘Constructing the jazz tradition: jazz historiography’ led many jazz scholars to
reassess received wisdom about the music’s history. Jazz/Not Jazz: The Music and
Its Boundaries does not aim to present a definitive history of the form: instead it
offers the reader, through a series of 12 essays, a range of diverse perspectives on
jazz history, each examining different ways in which jazz has been (and continues
to be) conceived of and historicised, and paying particular attention to what lies
at its peripheries. While focused geographically on the USA, the subject matter
is not constrained in terms of time period, musical genre, or cultural or ethnic
boundaries.
The book is organised into three sections. Part 1 deals with categorisation. Eric
Porter’s essay addresses the relationship between jazz and jazz studies, ultimately
arguing that scholars in the field may still have a lot to learn from practitioners.
Porter also observes that jazz is itself historiographical, constantly engaging with
and reinterpreting material from its own past. Elijah Wald determines that Louis
Armstrong’s enduring affection for the ‘sweet’ music of Guy Lombardo serves to
illustrate the extent of Armstrong’s musical understanding; he then underlines the
wider appreciation of (and achievements in) ‘white’ musical forms, such as classical
music and ‘sweet’ jazz, among African Americans in the early 20th century. Charles
Hiroshi Garrett outlines philosophical understandings of humour, before developing
David Huron’s study of humour in classical music and describing five ways in which
humour can be produced in jazz. Ken Prouty leads the reader on an intrepid excur-
sion into the dreaded ‘bottom half’ of the internet, where forum discussions and
Wikipedia edit logs are shown to be a rich source of information about how online
communities – their own boundaries often a source of contention – negotiate the
boundaries of jazz. Finally, Christopher Washburne addresses the reasons behind
the marginalisation of Latin American and Caribbean musical forms in jazz, using
the careers of Arturo O’Farrill and Ray Barretto as contrasting examples of how
musicians can exploit or mitigate their own marginality.

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