Introduction: Screened Music, Trans-contextualisation and Ethnomusicological Approaches

Abstract

This paper proposes the use of the term 'screened music' as a means of encompassing a broad range of methodological approaches that emphasise agency, process and context, moving beyond the extant focus on Western musical traditions associated with film music analysis. It argues that perspectives from ethnomusicology offer new possibilities for understanding screened musics in their numerous forms. In particular, focus on practitioner perspectives and self-reflexive ethnography can provide insights into industrial and political processes as well as issues relating to ethics and responsibility. The notion of agency as embedded in processes of de-re-and trans-contextualisation offers new ways to explore the use of 'exotic' or hegemonic musics, as well as the emergence and development of style. This paper also considers issues of representation, including problematic stereotyping of the 'primitive other', national identity, code formation and viral re-signification.

“Purity Is for Chumps”: Filmmakers Reflect on Their Musical Traditions

“… 1. In this sense, the essays that follow complement, albeit in a more compressed form, a number of publications that engage with film music as a means to stereotype or (mis-)represent the Other (Slobin 2008; Mera-Morcom 2009). …”

Hearing the Korean Global: Hallyu in the Music of K-dramas

“…1). Here, in the introduction to the issue, Miguel Mera and Anna Morcom discuss some of the critical issues that ethnomusicologists can take up when approaching film, such as those of representation (for example, of the "other"), processes of signification, semiotics, and the shifting relations between media texts and audiences in a virtual environment where texts multiply (Mera and Morcom 2009). Although still not a big presence, the place of film music in ethnomusicology has shown growth over the years, with recent ethnomusicology conferences slowly revealing more scholars presenting papers on film music-related topics (for example, SEM conferences of 2013 and 2014, as well as the joint conference of 2012).…”