Virtual Music

Virtual Music

Sound, Music, and Image in the Digital Era

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Book Cover with Grace Jones

About the book

Virtual Music explores the interactive relationship of sound, music, and image, and its users (creators/musicians/performers/audience/consumers). Areas involving the historical, technological, and creative practices of virtual music are surveyed including its connection with creators, musicians, performers, audience, and consumers. Shara Rambarran looks at the fascination and innovations surrounding virtual music, and illustrates key artists (such as Grace Jones, The Weeknd), creators (such as King Tubby, Kraftwerk, MadVillain, Danger Mouse, Bomb the Bass, Radiohead, Massive Attack, Gnarls Barkley), audiovisuals in video games and performances (such as Cuphead and Gorillaz), 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, music industry and music production, or accessible opportunities in creativity, the book offers a fresh understanding of virtual music and appeals to readers who have an interest in this digital revolution.

Published by Bloomsbury (New York, 2021)

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Reviews

“Shara Rambarran has been developing an insightful criticism & analysis of digital music over many years, & it is exciting to read this collection of her ideas & arguments. She investigates the meaning of digital virtual music, its manifestation in remixes, video games, and experimental transformations of material, & discusses its effect on artistic identity & 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

“Love it”

Chris Levine, Contemporary Artist

“Shara Rambarran, co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality, had already made a significant contribution to a discussion that was renewed from March 2020. She now follows it up with a work that could not be more timely”

Field Notes Magazine, Berlin

“Must read . . .”

Steve Hellier, Colorvox and Founder of Death in Vegas

“That wild, divisive moment-when folk & jazz ‘went electric’-finds a worthy remix (and one equally explosive, equally epochal) in this vital study. Here, & traced deftly by Rambarran from its prehistories to its global present, music ‘went virtual, ‘upending old paradigms of art, authenticity & authorship. Virtual Music surveys, brilliantly, how tomorrow comes today”

Benjamin Halligan, Director of the Doctoral College, University of Wolverhampton, UK

“Thoroughly recommended”

Lucinda Hawksley, Author and Broadcaster

“Dr Shara Rambarran offers insight on her new, and very timely book Virtual Music: Sound, Music, and Image in the Digital Era (Bloomsbury) by explaining how music (along with sound and image) shapes virtuality through digital technology, and interactive relationship with its users”

Black History Month, UK

“In a concise, accessible, & yet critical & interdisciplinary approach, Shara Rambarran offers an essential inquiry into the historical, theoretical, technological, cultural, aesthetical, and ethical aspects of music in the virtual age. This book is essential to anyone interested in the relationships between music, technology and other media ”

Serge Lacasse, Professor, Université Laval, Canada

“It’s always a perk of my job when former PhD students get internationally acclaimed books published”

Stan Hawkins, Music Professor, Composer, and Author

““It’s so good, I bought 2 more copies!”

Alan Shacklock
GRAMMY Nominated Music Producer

“The pandemic has changed the balance between the living arts & the virtual arts, but still, virtuality sits on the ‘bass’ of human expression”

Paul Novotny, Bass Artist, Composer, Audio Producer

“Brilliant book. I’ve used it widely in my teaching and writing”

Johnny Hopkins, Music PR Director