International Seminars in Ethnomusicology
The theme chosen for the 14th ethnomusicology seminar –Visual ethnomusicology – has multiple meanings: from allusions to cinema techniques involved in rendering the sounds and images of a musical event, especially in oral traditions, to more general
theoretical considerations with possible interactions between different languages and forms of communication.
For three days the seminar will discuss how cinema can attempt to grasp the overall expression of music. The relation between sound and filmed image will be assessed starting from the presentation of some of the most interesting recent examples of visual ethnomusicology and in discussions with their directors. The seminar will also provide the opportunity to update the participants’ knowledge as regards the use of new digital filming technology and editing for the purposes of ethnomusicological research.
If music is primarily organised sound, as it is defined today, it is also sound in movement: not only because it can be realised and perceived in its time dynamics, but also insofar as it is the outcome of an action. Moreover, the musical sound materialises and propagates in a physical and social space, in which individuals and groups are organised and interact according to modes variously encoded and formalised. In this sense, music in action is an overall perceptive experience, situated in a crossroads between various languages: linguistic-verbal, nonverbal sound, spatial-gestural, playful, ritual, etc. Naturally cinema captures and shows the audio-visual experience, also for the purposes of analysis, in a much more realistic way than a straightforward sound recording.
From this point of view, as Diego Carpitella was fond of saying, when film has the right syntax and grammar it can
replace books of words.
| Visual ethnomusicology | |
 |
|
| Information | |
| Intercultural Institute of Comparative Music Studies | |
| Island of San Giorgio Maggiore – 30124 Venice | |
| tel. +39 041 2710357 – +39 041 5230555 | |
| fax +39 041 5238540 | |
| e-mail: musica.comparata@cini.it | |
