Scoring alien worlds: world music mashups in 21st century sci-fi and fantasy TV, film and video games

Stock, Jonathan P. J.

QR Code Link :
Type :	article
Subject :	M Music
Main Author :	Stock, Jonathan P. J.
Title :	Scoring alien worlds: world music mashups in 21st century sci-fi and fantasy TV, film and video games

Place of Production :	Tanjong Malim
Publisher :	Fakulti Muzik dan Seni Persembahan
Year of Publication :	2021
Corporate Name :	Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris

Abstract : Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris

This article provides three case studies of the use of world music resources to build alien worlds in mainstream screen media with Sci-Fi or Fantasy settings. The case studies—the TV series Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome, the film Avatar and the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) video game World of Warcraft— show how composers and associated music professionals in the early twenty-first century increasingly draw on such sonic materials to generate a rich sense of sonic otherness and note the means they employ to sidestep such music’s existing geographical and cultural references. Each case study explores a contrasting subject position—composer, music consultant and consumer—to better trace not only the creation of such soundtracks but also what senses disparate groups of ordinary listeners subsequently make of them. The examples suggest that outside the sphere of big-budget cinema there is a growing confidence in both the creation and reception of such sonic projections, and that, when sufficiently attracted by what they hear, listeners may actively seek out ways to follow-up on the expressive characterisations put forward in such soundtracks. Three broad types of mashup are uncovered, those that work with world music ingredients by insinuation, integration and creolisation.

References

Alaszewska, J. (2014). Kumi-daiko. Grove music online. https://doi.org.ucc.idm.oclc.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.49402

Bryant, W. (2012). Creating the music of the Na’vi in James Cameron’s Avatar: An ethnomusicologist’s role. Ethnomusicology Review, 17. http://ethnomusicologyreview.ucla.edu/journal/volume/17/piece/583

Cheng, W. (2012). Role-playing toward a virtual musical democracy in The Lord of the Rings Online. Ethnomusicology, 56(1), 31–62. https://doi-org.ucc.idm.oclc.org/10.5406/ethnomusicology.56.1.0031

Collins, K. (2007). Video games killed the cinema star: It’s time for a change in studies of music and the moving image. Music, Sound, and the Moving Image, 1(1), 15–19.

Cooke, M. (2008). A history of film music. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511814341

Donnelly, K. J. & Hayward, P. (2012). Music in science fiction television: Tuned to the future. Routledge.

Fear, D. (2014, March 22). From “Dead” to “Demons”: Bear McCreary on 5 TV-show themes. Rolling Stone. http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/pictures/from-dead-to-demons-bear-mccreary-on-5-tv-show-themes-20140321/battlestar-galactica-0903199

Fujie, L. (2001). Japanese taiko drumming in international performance: Converging musical ideas in the search for success on stage. The World of Music, 43(2–3), 93–101.

Gallope, M. (2020). World music without profit. Twentieth-Century Music, 17(2), 161–195. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1478572220000018

Halfyard, J. K. (Ed.). (2012). The music of fantasy cinema. Equinox.

Hart, I. (2014). Meaningful play: Performativity, interactivity and semiotics in video game music. Musicology Australia 36(2), 273–290. https://doi-org.ucc.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/08145857.2014.958272

Hayward, P. (2004). Sci-fidelity: Music, sound and genre history. In P. Hayward (Ed.), Off the planet: Music, sound, and science fiction cinema (pp. 1–29). Indiana University Press.

Kassabian, A. (2013). Ubiquitous listening: Affect, attention, and distributed subjectivity. University of California Press.

McGonigal, J. (2011). Reality is broken: Why games make us better and how they can change the world. Jonathan Cape.

Papanikolaou, E. (2008). Of duduks and Dylan: Negotiating the aural space. In T. Potter & C. W. Marshall (Eds.), Cylons in America: Critical studies in ‘Battlestar Galactica’ (pp. 224–236). Continuum.

Slobin, M. (2008a). The Steiner superculture. In M. Slobin (Ed.), Global soundtracks: Worlds of film music (pp. 3–35). Wesleyan University Press.

Slobin, M. (2008b). The superculture beyond Steiner. In M. Slobin (Ed.), Global soundtracks: Worlds of film music (pp. 36–62). Wesleyan University Press.

Stokes, M. (2012). Globalization and the politics of world music. In M. Clayton, T. Herbert & R. Middleton (Eds.), The cultural study of music: A critical introduction (2nd ed., pp. 106–116). Routledge.

Sumarsam (1995). Gamelan: Cultural interaction and musical development in Central Java. University of Chicago Press.

Summers, T. (2013). Star Trek and the musical depiction of the alien other. Music, Sound, and the Moving Image 7(1), 19–52.

Taylor, T. D. (2007). Beyond exoticism: Western music and the world. Duke University Press.

Tenzer, M. (2000). Gamelan gong kebyar: The art of twentieth-century Balinese music. University of Chicago Press

This material may be protected under Copyright Act which governs the making of photocopies or reproductions of copyrighted materials.
You may use the digitized material for private study, scholarship, or research.

Back to previous page