This article explores how the priestly wilderness shrine functions as a monumental space in the sanctuary construction account of Exod 25–31, 35–40. It draws on spatial theory and studies of monumental architecture to identify five features of the tent of meeting that infuse it with monumentality: first, its significance in negotiating the pat…[Read more]

The aesthetics of early feature-film scores were shaped by narrational problems introduced by multi-reel features and their longer durations. Using The Patchwork Girl of Oz, I show how stylistic devices like silences and musical pun- ctuation were used to address the coherence and pacing of multi-reel storytelling.

This article details the historical factors that shaped Hollywood’s adoption of magnetic recording during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It draws upon economic theories of technological change, archival correspondence, technical records, analyses of postproduction workflows, and delineations of the structural constraints that limited how the f…[Read more]

This chapter investigates how the introduction of stereo complicated Hollywood’s vococentric practices. It also reveals how sound technicians developed mixing techniques that preserved the salience of dialogue in multi-channel soundscapes. The author refers to such techniques as monocentrism and illustrates monocentric norms by analyzing the c…[Read more]

Without fail a study in any depth of our fondness for music must eventually address the issue of consonance and dissonance. Past approaches to this issue have been bounded by a limited knowledge base and, further, marred by logical flaws, occasional hand waving, and the myopia of reductionism. Despite the explosion of progress in the last few…[Read more]

Publications on form in popular music have largely assumed the formal sections germane to pop-rock to be the formal designs of “popular music.” But the most popular music of our time—music charting on the Billboard Top-40—has absorbed the influence of electronic dance music (EDM) in a way that has fundamentally changed its formal structu…[Read more]

Tritones sounding over subdominant harmony, either as suspensions, accented passing tones, or incomplete neighbors, constitute a class of sonorities regularly heard in film and television music. I collectively refer to these phenomena as “subdominant tritones” (SdTT), and theorize a link between the SdTT and emotions it engenders. The article pre…[Read more]

This is pre-publication preview introduces the major questions, methods, and insights of my book When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis & the Reproduction of Species (UC Press, 2023).

Without fail a study in any depth of our fondness for music must eventually address the issue of consonance and dissonance. Past approaches to this issue have been bounded by a limited knowledge base and, further, marred by logical flaws, occasional hand waving, and the myopia of reductionism. Despite the explosion of progress in the last few…[Read more]

(Sobre el «Discurso a Diogneto» y la literatura cristiana primitiva).
En este trabajo, se lleva a cabo un concienzudo estudio del «Discurso a Diogneto» o «Epistola a Diogneto» (como queramos llamar a este texto). Y en él, su autor destaca como rasgos fundamentales:
—El carácter muy temprano de este texto, que intentó armonizar la Iglesia co…[Read more]

This article corrects misconceptions regarding the history of film stereo. I show that the technical and aesthetic innovations regularly credited to Dolby Stereo, to sound designers like Walter Murch, and to films like Apocalypse Now (1979) were not revolutions but extensions of surround-sound practices that Hollywood codified in prior decades. I…[Read more]

In the 1930s, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences implemented a technical standard—known as Academy Mono, or the Academy Curve—that dramatically impaired the sound quality of motion pictures. This article accounts for why the major studios agreed to this restrictive standard. I argue that they adopted Academy Mono to curtail the pow…[Read more]

This article corrects misconceptions regarding the history of film stereo. I show that the technical and aesthetic innovations regularly credited to Dolby Stereo, to sound designers like Walter Murch, and to films like Apocalypse Now (1979) were not revolutions but extensions of surround-sound practices that Hollywood codified in prior decades. I…[Read more]

In the 1930s, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences implemented a technical standard—known as Academy Mono, or the Academy Curve—that dramatically impaired the sound quality of motion pictures. This article accounts for why the major studios agreed to this restrictive standard. I argue that they adopted Academy Mono to curtail the pow…[Read more]

Through the example of Barry Jenkins’ choices for Moonlight (2016), this chapter argues that pre-existing musical cues can link a film’s themes to other minority filmmaking traditions. The song at the center of this chapter, “Cucurrucucú Paloma,” exemplifies the kinds of cultural translations common in transnational queer cinema. It was orig…[Read more]