Music on Screen
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Music on Screen From Cinema Screens to Touchscreens Part I Edited by Sarah Hall James B. Williams Musicology Research Issue 2 Spring 2017 This page is left intentionally blank. Music on Screen From Cinema Screens to Touchscreens Part I Edited by Sarah Hall James B. Williams Musicology Research Issue 2 Spring 2017 MusicologyResearch The New Generation of Research in Music Spring 2017 © MusicologyResearch No part of this text, including its cover image, may be reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or others means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from MusicologyResearch and its contributors. MusicologyResearch offers a model whereby the authors retain the copyright of their contributions. Cover Image ‘Supreme’. Contemporary Abstract Painting, Acrylic, 2014. Used with permission by artist Elizabeth Chapman. © Elizabeth Chapman. http://melizabethchapman.artspan.com http://melizabethchapman.blogspot.co.uk Visit the MusicologyResearch website at http://www.musicologyresearch.co.uk for this issue http://www.musicologyresearch.co.uk/publications/ingridbols-programmingscreenmusic http://www.musicologyresearch.co.uk/publications/pippinbongiovanni-8-bitnostalgiaandhollywoodglamour http://www.musicologyresearch.co.uk/publications/emaeyakpetersylvanus-scoringwithoutscorsese http://www.musicologyresearch.co.uk/publications/salvatoremorra-thetunisianudinscreen http://www.musicologyresearch.co.uk/publications/andrewsimmons-giacchinoasstoryteller http://www.musicologyresearch.co.uk/publications/elenaalekseeva- anexplorationofinterdisciplinarydialoguesbetweensoundvisionandmovement http://www.musicologyresearch.co.uk/publications/jessicashine-oneminuteofeverythingatonce http://www.musicologyresearch.co.uk/publications/emilioaudissino- agestaltapproachtotheanalysisofmusicinfilm http://www.musicologyresearch.co.uk/publications/katebolgarsmith-findingaspacetodance http://www.musicologyresearch.co.uk/publications/petegofton-musicmemesandmeaning Full e-Journal PDF download: http://www.musicologyresearch.co.uk/publications/issue2-spring2017 MusicologyResearch The New Generation of Research in Music Contents Acknowledgements vii Contributors ix Abstracts xi Editor’s Foreword 1 SARAH HALL 1 Finding A Space to Dance: Screening Popular Music 7 in American Honey (2016) and Bande de Filles (2014) KATE BOLGAR SMITH 2 Music, Memes and Meaning: A Semiotic Analysis 27 PETE GOFTON 3 “One Minute of Everything at Once”: How Music 47 Shapes The World of BBC’s Peaky Blinders (2013—) JESSICA SHINE 4 A Gestalt Approach to the Analysis of Music in Film 69 EMILIO AUDISSINO 5 Giacchino as Storyteller: Structure and Thematic 89 Distribution in Pixar’s Inside Out (2015) ANDREW SIMMONS 6 Scoring Without Scorsese: Nollywood’s Divergent 117 Creative Process EMAEYAK PETER SYLVANUS v 7 An Exploration of Interdisciplinary Dialogues 141 between Sound, Vision and Movement: A Music Composition Methodology for Interactive Media (Video Games) ELENA ALEKSEEVA 8 8-bit Nostalgia and Hollywood Glamour: The 159 Modern Autonomy of Video Game Audio PIPPIN BONGIOVANNI 9 Programming Screen Music: The Case of British 183 and French Symphony Orchestras INGRID BOLS 10 The Tunisian ʻūd in Screen: A Nostalgic Revival 201 SALVATORE MORRA Biographies 225 Contributor’s Review 233 vi Acknowledgements First and foremost, I lend my upmost gratitude to my colleague and friend James Williams for his unwavering support in co-editing this issue of Musicology Research with me. Since James founded Musicology Research in 2016, I feel privileged to have witnessed this journal steadily grow in size and reputation and to have had the opportunity to work alongside him on this exciting journey. Since the Call for Papers for this issue was sent out earlier this year, I have been delighted with the number and range of excellent submissions centred around the theme of Music on Screen. The fact that the articles submitted in response to the Call for Papers have needed to be divided into two volumes is a testament to the high quality of work we have received. So secondly, I would like to thank the contributors for their enthusiasm, hard work and dedication, as well as the reviewers on this issue’s panel for their time, patience and expertise. I feel proud to have worked with you all. vii This page is left intentionally blank. viii Contributors ELENA ALEKSEEVA is a PhD candidate at Royal Holloway, University of London. EMILIO AUDISSINO is a post-doctoral researcher, University of Southampton. INGRID BOLS is a PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow. PIPPIN BONGIOVANNI is a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh. PETE GOFTON is a PhD candidate at Goldsmiths, University of London. SALVATORE MORRA is a PhD candidate at Royal Holloway, University of London. JESSICA SHINE is a lecturer at Cork Institute of Technology. ANDREW SIMMONS is a PhD candidate at City, University of London. KATE BOLGAR SMITH is a research associate at SOAS, University of London. EMAEYAK PETER SYLVANUS is a PhD candidate at City, University of London. ix This page is left intentionally blank. x Abstracts Alekseeva An Exploration of Interdisciplinary Dialogues between Sound, Vision and Movement: A Music Composition Methodology for Interactive Media (Video Games) This paper describes my compositional approach to interactive media (video games). The ways in which musical composition (including arrangement, sound design and production) corresponds or responds to images through movement, gestures in real or virtual environments, and vice versa, is examined, as well as how visual objects and media environments can respond to and interact with musical and sonic materials. The dynamics of these relationships, the nature of and interplay between elements that are plastic and flexible versus those that are more or less fixed, and the dialogue between interactive media with music and sound is explored. Contemporary mobile and VR (virtual reality) games can be limited in relation to musical soundscapes and their development. This can be due to physical limitations of storage/memory space. However, in my opinion (from a composer’s point of view), the main issue is misunderstanding the technical process of sound application into the game environment. In my developed methodology I explain the technical application process and discuss the variety of possibilities available to composers that can help improve their musical ideas situated in an interactive media space. My compositional approach focuses on musical development throughout xi gameplay, in order to expand the possibilities of movement-based musical structures and variations. The range of player’s possibilities informs the way the music soundtrack is conceived and constructed. I employ compositional techniques that combine hybrid film music underscoring for interactive cues, synchronisation points, structural overlapping of textural sequences (in the manner of commercial EDM music styles) and sound design. Underscoring can suggest emotions through the manipulation of listener’s expectations (via harmony, dynamics, tempo etc.) in response to the narrative. Sound effects (SFX), suggest and punctuate audio-visual dialogue, and are used to emphasise the physicality, gestures and/or actions on screen. Audissino A Gestalt Approach to the Analysis of Music in Film In the field of film music studies, Cognitive Psychology remains perhaps the stronger approach as an alternative to Post-Structuralism and Cultural Studies. Yet, Gestalt Psychology has recently seen a revival of interest. (Donnelly, 2014; Kulezic-Wilson, 2015) Gestalt can offer enlightening concepts not only to theorise how music and visuals combine in an audiovisual whole, but also productive tools to analyse concrete instances in films. While Cognitivism tends to be concerned with single mechanisms of how the brain processes the perceptual data and gives much salience to the higher cognitive operations, Gestalt is concerned with the holistic nature of our experience and attributes more importance to the lower perceptual operations. As Donnelly points out, the combination of sound and visuals into an audiovisual whole has not so much to do with cognitive elaborations as with that hard-wired orientation of our mind towards completeness and stableness that is studied by Gestalt. (Donnelly, 2014: 22-24) Employing the Gestalt concepts, I shall propose an analytical approach based on the similarity/difference between the configuration (gestalt) of the music and that of the other cinematic components (cinematography, editing, acting, lighting, colour palette...). A stabilised experience of the xii audiovisual whole – the basis for both a formalistic analysis and a critical interpretation – is reached when their encounter makes the gestalts of the cinematic components reciprocally reconfigure and fuse to produce a wider all-including gestalt: the macro-configuration of the audiovisual experience. This Gestalt approach – being based on the fusion of the aural and visual factors into a whole that is 'different from the sum of its parts' (Koffka, 1935: 176) – is also helpful to supersede the long-standing visual bias that influences Film Studies (Altman, 1980; Kalinak, 1992: 20-39), which leads to think of music as something that is externally added to either reinforce or contradict what is already there in the visuals. An analysis of excerpts from A Clockwork Orange (1971) and