Uma entrevista com Claudia Gorbman (original) (raw)
Review of Claudia Gorbman, ed., Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music
1990
Reviewed by Richard Littlefield Music analysts who have ventured into film theory, only to be let down by anemic interpretations of film music, will find a refreshing alternative in Unheard Melodies. Claudia Gorbman's book is not another list of composing tips nor set of interviews with representative composers. Written by a film scholar and sensitive musician, Unheard Melodies is a systematic and provocative study of the power of music to shape our perception of narrative. Part I sets out to answer two questions. "What is music doing in the movies, and how does it do it?" (p. 2). The first divides into questions about how music got into movies and what music does to us as we watch them, with "movie" considered a mix of narrative, technology, and social institution. Chapter 2 rehearses the fascinating and uneven transition from (not so) silent to sound film, and the standard explanations for why music is in the movies: pragmatic, to drown out projector noise; historical, a natural outgrowth of opera and vaudeville; aesthetic, to replace speech; psychological-anthropological.
Musica e film - Seconda parte: Le funzioni della musica
Tutti sappiamo che la colonna sonora gioca un ruolo importante in un film. Ma quali specifiche funzioni svolge la musica rispetto agli altri elementi di un film? E come riesce a comunicarci emozioni e a contribuire al significato globale della nostra esperienza cinematografica? Nella seconda parte di questo Laboratorio Interattivo esploreremo le diverse funzioni che la musica può svolgere rispetto all'immagine. La Prima parte: L'interazione tra visivo e sonoro è pure disponibile su Academia.edu
This article focuses on the film music of Alberto Ginastera, a repertoire that remains largely unknown and that the composer produced outside of the space of his officially catalogued works. For many years, logistical difficulties impeded a detailed study of this repertoire since the visual film footage resided in Buenos Aires and the corresponding music manuscripts were housed at the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel, Switzerland, where the Ginastera collection is stored. Recent developments, however, have made it possible to coordinate study of the sources and conceptually bring film and score back together again. This article presents the preliminary results of such an investigation. Here I argue that the film music not only fills in a map of the composer’s uncharted territory, but serves as a site for exploring new critical issues in Ginastera scholarship.
Los Sonidos del cine: Cinematic Music in Mexican Film, 1930-1950
2011
There are several people and organizations that have helped in this long process. First, I express my sincere gratitude to my dissertation committee, Byron Adams, Walter Clark, and my chair, Leonora Saavedra. Throughout my time at UC Riverside, each member has provided much needed feedback, recommendations, advice, and encouragement. I would especially like to thank Leonora Saavedra who always pushed me further than I thought I could go. I am indebted to the music faculty at UC Riverside who have all helped me throughout my graduate career. In particular, I want to thank Jonathan Ritter for his help and guidance particularly in the sections regarding Cuban music, and for his overall good nature. Outside of the music department, I thank Keith Harris from the department of media and cultural studies who was an invaluable source of film history and analysis when I first immersed myself into film music and sound theory.
Collected Essays: Musical and Anthropological Perspectives
Collected Essays: Musical and Anthropological Perspectives, 2025
The MusiCS - Música, Cultura e Sociedade [Music, Culture, and Society in English] research group at UDESC/CNPq, presents a compendium of articles by Prof. Dr. Acácio Piedade, in his honor, on the occasion of his retirement as a professor at the State University of Santa Catarina (UDESC). His academic work in the field of music has encompassed composition, theory and analysis, semiotics, anthropology, ethnomusicology, rhetoric, narrativity, and transculturalism. The sixteen articles selected for this book reflect Dr. Piedade’s significant contributions over the past twenty years (2003-2023).
Tradições musicais da Estremadura
2001
This monumental, hefty volume is the work of someone who passionately loves musical tradition, and believes in documenting and disseminating it; it is hard to believe that the author's full-time "official" profession has nothing to do with music or ethnography. The focus on Estremadura is an unusual and welcome one: while there is always more work to be done on Trás-os-Montes, the Beiras and other regions of mainland Portugal, little attention has been paid to Estremadura. Clearly, the author wanted to get "everything" in, and the result is a multi-faceted picture of musical traditions in this province, a book to return to often, to read, to look at, and CD's to listen to for pleasure and for study. The songs and pieces discussed in the book are divided into three main chapters: (1) work of various sorts, especially agricultural but also street cries and lullabies, and the romances; (2) the religious and ritual repertoire, including Carnival; and (3) love and recreation, including dance music, and instruments. There is a thoughtful prologue by the eminent Lopes Graça, followed by an introduction, which includes methodology and quite detailed musico-historicoethnographic notes on Estremadura. Useful appendices are the musical transcriptions, mostly corresponding to the items on the CD's: texts of romances and prayers; glossary and local terminology; a guide to the three CD's; indices, and a bibliography. The music is discussed in its daily life contexts, explaining the latter in some detail. Among the interesting discussions is a section on popular dance in Lisbon, and respectful attention is given to the wandering balladmongers, to whom scholars are finally paying more of the attention they deserve. More could be explained about why the romances come under work songs, and the remark that the music of the romances has been given far less scholarly attention than the words is valid indeed, but the deep study the author calls for (pp.110-111) does not really take place here. The book includes a wealth of illustrations: colour photos taken by the author, old black and white photos, splendid post cards from the early 20 th century, 17 th century engravings, and more. Together,they attest to the indissoluble association of music with daily life: agricultural tasks, religious and ritual events.The layout makes full use of page space but avoids being cluttered. Full song texts are provided in smaller print and musical transcriptions are at the back; though one could argue for including them with the discussions which
Musicology, Issue 32, 2022
The subject of this paper is the unconventional and highly subversive treatment of musical material of folkloric origin in the films of Pedro Almodóvar: 'Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls on the Heap' ('Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón', 1980) and 'Labyrinth of Passion' ('Laberinto de pasiones', 1982). These films are representative examples of the director's experimental artistic poetics based on the interweaving of local and global cultural features. The focus is, therefore, on the folkloric elements of the Spanish and Catalan musical tradition and their transformation and recontextualisation in relation to the socio-political reality of post-fascist Spain. Consequently, well-known theatrical musical pieces and dances such as the pasodoble, zarzuela and sardana acquire transgressive qualities through an unusual play with traditional and postmodern signifiers, aimed at overthrowing conservative patriarchal authority under the Francoist regime.
Musica e film - Prima parte: L'interazione tra visivo e sonoro
Tutti sappiamo che la colonna sonora gioca un ruolo importante in un film. Ma quali specifiche funzioni svolge la musica rispetto agli altri elementi di un film? E come riesce a comunicarci emozioni e a contribuire al significato globale della nostra esperienza cinematografica? Un Laboratorioo Interattivo in due parti. La Seconda parte: Le funzioni della musica è pure disponibile su Academia.edu