ABSTRACT
The question of the relationship between sound and music on one hand, and narrative and narrativity on the other, has long been at the center of our field. But we are at a very important moment where, for the first time, audiovisual narrative is shifting away from film as the dominant medium toward a wide array of forms, most significantly video games. There are important shifts in disciplinarity, too: the first generation of thinkers about film music, for instance, came from film studies, followed by historical musicologists and some music theorists (known as analysts in the UK). Video-game music scholars seem more often to have music as their home discipline, but there is also a noticeable return of researchers from media studies, which is very welcome indeed. For all these reasons, it seemed like a good time for a discussion about what is happening and what can and should be in our future.
