Audiovisual Ethnomusicology: Filming Musical Cultures

The growing interest in the visual dimension of musical performance practice and the use of film as a medium of presentation and research in Ethnomusicology is related to the increasingly wide use of visual ethnographic methods of research and representation and to the technological development of modern visual tools used today in field research. Film can document both the aural and visual dimensions of a musical performance and has the capability to represent the lives of musicians in their physical and temporal context, to analyse musical structures and to have an ethnographic approach of musical performance. All features are related to contextualization that can best be communicated and represented by audiovisual means.

"Audiovisual Ethnomusicology", whose subject is the ethnomusicological film, is being con-figured as a new branch of Ethnomusicology. The main aim of this book is to outline its history, the diverse theoretical and methodological approaches adopted by the ethno-film-makers, as well as the different ways to use the visual medium in the ?re-presentation? of musical cultures.

CONTENIDO:

Preface to Audiovisual Ethnomusicology
I. Framing Sounds. The Audiovisual Representation of Music
II. The Ethnomusicological film
II.1 Research film and documentary film
II.2 The world-music film and the ethnomusicological film
II.3 Typology and modes of filmic representation of music
II.3.a. Expository
II.3.b. Observational
II.3.c. Impressionistic
II.3.d. Reflexive
II.4 Taxonomy of filmic content
II.4.a Thematic world-music/ethnomusicological film
II.4.b Organological world-music/ethnomusicological documentaries.
II.4.c Biographical world-music/ethnomusicological film
II.5 Fiction, docu-fiction, ethno-clip and experimental documentary
II.6 Ethics and representation in the ethnomusicological film
II.7 The ethnomusicologist, the filmmaker and the ethno-filmmaker
II.8 Uses and functions of the ethnomusicological film
II.8.a. Scientific documentaries: The ethnomusicological films as a research tool
II.8.b. Educational documentaries: The ethnomusicological film with didactic purposes.
II.8.c. Informative documentaries: The ethnomusicological films oriented to dissemination
II.9 Audiovisuals as sound footprints
II.9.a. Audiovisual media as a tool for preservation of musical systems and musical cultures
II.9.b. Audiovisual media as a means of cultural transmission
II.9.c. Audiovisual media as a record of musical change
II.9.d. Audiovisual media as a multimedia tool in museums and exhibitions.
II.10 Audiovisual archives: preserving sounding images
II.11 Technological developments of audiovisual recording in fieldwork
III. The Styles of the Ethnomusicological Film
III.1 The IWF style
III.2 The CNRS style
III.3 The NFTS style
III.4 Hugo Zemp
IV. Filming Sounds around the World
IV.1 Filming music in sub-Saharan Africa
IV.2 Filming music in India
IV.3 Filming music in China
IV.4 Filming music in the United States
IV.5 Filming music in Latin America
IV.6 Filming music in Australia and Papua New Guinea
IV.7 Filming music in Southern Europe (Italy, Spain and Portugal)
V. Analysis of Sounding Images
V.1 Visualizing music
V.2 Kubik and the frame-by-frame transcription
V.3 Qureshi and the videographic method
V.4 Zemp and the animation techniques
V.5 Lomax and the choreometrics project
VI. Filming Music in Action
VI.1 Filming musical instruments: an ethno-organological comparative study
VI.2 Filming the musical performance: the processes of musical interaction
VI.3 Filming the transmission of musical knowledge: the oral-aural-visual communication process
VII. Music on Screen
VII.1 The audiovisual representation of music on big and small screens
VII.2 Broadcast media and World Music
VII.3 The routes of music: musical road movies and travelogues
VII.4 Sounds of memory: The reunion-style music documentaries
VII.5 Visualizing expats? music: The transnational music documentaries
VII.6 Back home: The ?repatriation? music documentaries
VII.7 ?Music is the weapon?: the politically engaged music documentaries
VII.8 ?Music for social change?: The socially engaged music documentaries
VII.9 The filmed ethnomusicologists
Conclusions
Bibliography
Filmography
List of Figures
Appendix: Ethnomusicological films listed by content categories.