Musical Discourse in Television Documentaries: Structure and Functions

Abstract

This article deals with the possibilities of analysing the extra-musical meaning of popular music in television documentaries. After considering the structure of documentaries and the problems involved in analysing them, attention is paid to analyses of film music by musicologists. In particular, the authors focus on a recently developed approach for the analysis of musical discourse in television films. Then, a method is presented to analyse the `preferred meaning' created by the musical discourse in television documentaries. The research tool consists of several diametrically constructed judgement scales. The results of the analysis of several television documentaries, in terms of the affective meaning of the musical discourse, are presented. Finally the reliability, validity and relevance of this method of analysis are reviewed.

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