Bloomsbury Academic Virtual Music: Sound, Music, and Image in the Digital Era

Virtuality has entered our lives making anything we desire possible. We are, as Gorillaz once sang, in an exciting age where 'the digital won't let [us] go...' Technology has revolutionized music, especially in the 21st century where the traditional rules and conventions of music creation, consumption, distribution, promotion and performance have been erased and substituted with unthinkable and exciting methods in which absolutely anyone can explore, enjoy and participate in creating and listening to music.Virtual Music explores the interactive relationship of digital virtual music and its users (musicians/performers/audience/consumers). Areas involving the historical, technological, and creative practices of digital virtual music are surveyed including its connection with musicians, performers, audience and consumers. Shara Rambarran looks at the fascination and innovations surrounding digital virtual music, and illustrates key artists, creators, audiences, and consumers that contribute in making this musical experience a phenomenon. Whether it is interrogating the (un)realness of performers, modified identities of artists, technological manipulation of the Internet and music industry, or accessible opportunities in creativity, the book offers a fresh critical understanding of digital virtual music and appeals to readers who have an interest in this cultural revolution. Review Shara Rambarran has been developing an insightful criticism and analysis of digital music over many years, and it is exciting to read this collection of her ideas and arguments. She investigates the meaning of digital virtual music, its manifestation in remixes, video games and experimental transformations of material, and discusses its effect on artistic identity, creators and fans. This book is warmly recommended as a stimulating account of the ways in which music has been shaped by virtuality and digital technology.Derek B. Scott, Professor of Critical Musicology, University of Leeds, UK, and editor of The Ashgate Research Companion to Popular Musicology About the Author Shara Rambarran is Assistant Professor of music at BISC UK (Queen's University, Canada). Her research interests include musicology, postproduction, digital technology, music industry, education and law. She is an editor on the Journal on the Art of Record Production and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality (Oxford University Press, 2016).