Analysing Musical Multimedia

A theory of the way in which different media music, words, moving pictures and dance work together to create multimedia. Beginning with a study of the way meaning is mediated in television commercials, and concluding with in-depth readings of Disney's Fantasia, Madonna's video Material Girl and Armide, Goddard's sequence from the film Aria.

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Analysing Musical Multimedia is the first study to produce a general theory of how different media - music, words, moving picture, and dance - work together to created multimedia. Though generally associated with contemporary developments, in particular music video and film, a general theory of musical multimedia also encompasses traditional genres such as song and opera. Critical writing in these areas, however, is genre-specific; Nicholas Cook establishes principles, and a terminology for their description, that apply across the whole spectrum of musical multimedia. Beginning with a study of how meaning is mediated in television commercials, Cook concludes with in-depth readings of Fantasia, Madonna's video Material Girl, and Armide (Godard's sequence from the collaborative film Aria). Analysing Musical Multimedia not only shows how approaches deriving from music theory can contribute to the understanding of multimedia, but also draws conclusions from the practice and further development of musical analysis.