LibGuides: Electronic and Digital Music Guide: Finding Background Information

Introduction

Reference sources are a great place to start your research when you need to gather initial information about a topic or get a rough overview of a subject so you can decide what areas to research further. Reference books and online tools are also excellent for looking up a quick fact, definition, or date, and they will often direct you to more sources.

If none of the recommended resources are quite what you're looking for, try a search in the library catalog for the subject you're researching and "reference", "handbook", "guide", or "companion" to see what reference materials we might have on the subject. Remember that you can always reach out to a librarian for help if your search doesn't turn up promising results!

Online Reference Tools

Check out the resources linked below to get a broad overview of the topic or composer you're researching. For suggestions for further reading, explore the handbooks and guides included in the box at the bottom of the page.

Oxford Bibliographies Online This link opens in a new window
Offers peer-reviewed annotated bibliographies on specific topics in a growing range of subject areas. There are at least 50 specific topical bibliographies in each subject area. Each of these features an introduction to the topic. Bibliographies are browseable by subject area and keyword searchable. Contains a My OBO function that allows users to create personalized bibliographies of individual citations from different bibliographies.
Oxford Music Online This link opens in a new window
Oxford Music Online (OMO) is the access-point for Oxford music reference subscriptions and products, including Grove Music Online, The Oxford Companion to Music, The Oxford Dictionary of Music, and Encyclopedia of Popular Music.
Biography In Context This link opens in a new window
Provides access to the biographies of over 300,000 people. All time periods and nationalities are covered.

The Oxford Handbook of Computer Music
Call Number: Online Resource
This handbook provides a cross-section of the most field-defining topics and debates in the field of computer music. From music cognition to pedagogy, it situates computer music in the broad context of its creation and performance across the full range of issues that crop up in discourse in the field.
The Oxford Handbook of Algorithmic Music by Alex McLean (Contribution by); Roger T. Dean (Contribution by)
Call Number: Online and MPAL MT56 .O946 2018
Organized into four sections, chapters explore algorithmic music's history, utility, community, politics, and potential for mass consumption. Contributors address such issues as the role of algorithms as co-performers, live coding practices, and discussions of the algorithmic culture as it currently exists and what it can potentially contribute society, education, and ecommerce.
The Oxford Handbook of Interactive Audio by Karen Collins (Editor); Bill Kapralos (Editor); Holly Tessler (Editor)
Call Number: Online Resource
A collection of newly commissioned chapters on interactivity in music and sound edited by preeminent scholars in the field, this book marks the beginning of a journey into understanding the ways in which we interact with sound. The Oxford Handbook of Interactive Audio explores the full range of interactive audio in video games, performance, education, environmental design, toys, and artistic practice.
The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality by Sheila Whiteley; Shara Rambarran
Call Number: Online and MPAL ML74.7 .O946 2016
The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality is the first book to offer a kaleidoscope of interdisciplinary perspectives from scholars around the globe on the way in which virtuality mediates the dissemination, acquisition, performance, creation, and reimagining of music.
The Cambridge Companion to Electronic Music by Nick Collins (Editor); Julio d'Escrivan (Editor)
Call Number: Online Resource
Electronic music has grown to a broad field of investigation, taking in historical movements such as musique concrete and elektronische Musik, and contemporary trends such as electronic dance music and electronica. This updated and expanded second edition includes four entirely new chapters, as well as new original statements from globally renowned artists of the electronic music scene, and celebrates a diverse array of technologies, practices and music.

The Cambridge Companion to Video Game Music by Melanie Fritsch (Editor); Tim Summers (Editor)
Call Number: Online and MPAL ML3540.7 .C363 2021
Video game music has been permeating popular culture for over forty years. This book provides a comprehensive, up-to-date survey of video game music by a diverse group of scholars and industry professionals. The chapters and summaries consolidate existing knowledge and present tools for readers to engage with the music in new ways. Topics include chiptunes, compositional processes, localization, history and game music concerts.
Ludomusicology: approaches to video game music by Melanie Fritsch; Michiel Kamp; Tim Summers; Mark Sweeney (Eds)
Call Number: MPAL ML3540.7 L836 2016
This book suggests a variety of new approaches to the study of game music. In the course of developing ways of conceptualizing and analyzing game music it explicitly considers other critical issues including the distinction between game play and music play, how notions of diegesis are complicated by video game interactivity, the importance of cinema aesthetics in game music, the technicalities of game music production and the relationships between game music and art music traditions.
The Cambridge Companion to Film Music by Mervyn Cooke (Editor); Fiona Ford (Editor)
Call Number: MPAL ML2075 .C3545 2016
Innovative research and fresh interpretative perspectives are offered alongside practice-based accounts of the film composer's distinctive art, with examples cited from genres as contrasting as animation, the screen musical, film noir, Hollywood melodrama, the pop music and jazz film, documentary, period drama, horror, science fiction and the Western.
The Oxford Handbook of Film Music Studies by David Neumeyer
Call Number: MPAL ML2075 .O946 2014
Only in the past thirty years has sustained scholarly attention gone to music in visual media, beginning with the feature film. The Oxford Handbook of Film Music Studies charts that interdisciplinary activity in its primary areas of inquiry: history, genre and medium, analysis and criticism, and interpretation.
The Oxford Handbook of New Audiovisual Aesthetics by John Richardson; Claudia Gorbman; Carol Vernallis (Eds)
Call Number: Online and MPAL P93.4 .O946 2013
Whether viewed from the vantage of televised mainstream culture, the Hollywood film industry, the cinematic avant-garde, or the participatory discourses of "cyberspace," audiovisual expression has changed dramatically. The book provides a definitive cross-section of current ways of thinking about sound and image.