David Huron
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780262034852
- eISBN:
- 9780262335447
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262034852.003.0014
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition
Musical passages exhibit a wide range of textures. These can include monophony, tune-and-accompaniment, homophony, close harmony, polyphony, pseudo-polyphony, heterophony, and a wealth of specially ...
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Musical passages exhibit a wide range of textures. These can include monophony, tune-and-accompaniment, homophony, close harmony, polyphony, pseudo-polyphony, heterophony, and a wealth of specially tailored arrangements with various hierarchical structures. Introductory music theory textbooks generally focus on Baroque voice-leading rules to the virtual exclusion of other types of part-writing. Although most music-making bears little resemblance to Baroque-style four-part chorale writing, there are excellent reasons why this particular practice has formed the core theory curriculum for so long. The evidence suggests that late Baroque practice most closely reflects known principles of auditory scene analysis. The perceptual principles underlying voice leading provide an important entry point for understanding any musical texture—no matter what the style, culture, or genre of music-making. Like a theatrical stage, composers set a “musical scene.” Auditory scene analysis is the process by which listeners subjectively apprehend that scene.Less
Musical passages exhibit a wide range of textures. These can include monophony, tune-and-accompaniment, homophony, close harmony, polyphony, pseudo-polyphony, heterophony, and a wealth of specially tailored arrangements with various hierarchical structures. Introductory music theory textbooks generally focus on Baroque voice-leading rules to the virtual exclusion of other types of part-writing. Although most music-making bears little resemblance to Baroque-style four-part chorale writing, there are excellent reasons why this particular practice has formed the core theory curriculum for so long. The evidence suggests that late Baroque practice most closely reflects known principles of auditory scene analysis. The perceptual principles underlying voice leading provide an important entry point for understanding any musical texture—no matter what the style, culture, or genre of music-making. Like a theatrical stage, composers set a “musical scene.” Auditory scene analysis is the process by which listeners subjectively apprehend that scene.
Todd Decker
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520282322
- eISBN:
- 9780520966543
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520282322.003.0009
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Post-Vietnam Hollywood combat filmmakers set aside the most common musical trope of earlier war movies: the military march. Instead, new musical tropes were developed, initially in the 1980s Vietnam ...
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Post-Vietnam Hollywood combat filmmakers set aside the most common musical trope of earlier war movies: the military march. Instead, new musical tropes were developed, initially in the 1980s Vietnam cycle. A particularly unstable musical register, here called veil music, uses musical texture rather than melody or meter to expresses a range of equivocal combat states, most related to the foreignness of the battlefield for the American soldiers at the center of these films. In the Vietnam cycle, veil music is connected to moments of moral liminality, when surprising acts of violence might be done. Examples from Platoon and Full Metal Jacket are discussed. Veil music in war films set in the Middle East often characterize the Arab other by way of untranslated singing voices, putting exotic musical tropes to rather generalized uses characterizing the foreign other. Examples from The Hurt Locker, Black Hawk Down, and Three Kings are analyzed.Less
Post-Vietnam Hollywood combat filmmakers set aside the most common musical trope of earlier war movies: the military march. Instead, new musical tropes were developed, initially in the 1980s Vietnam cycle. A particularly unstable musical register, here called veil music, uses musical texture rather than melody or meter to expresses a range of equivocal combat states, most related to the foreignness of the battlefield for the American soldiers at the center of these films. In the Vietnam cycle, veil music is connected to moments of moral liminality, when surprising acts of violence might be done. Examples from Platoon and Full Metal Jacket are discussed. Veil music in war films set in the Middle East often characterize the Arab other by way of untranslated singing voices, putting exotic musical tropes to rather generalized uses characterizing the foreign other. Examples from The Hurt Locker, Black Hawk Down, and Three Kings are analyzed.
