In recent years, there has been something of an explosion in the performance of live music to silent films. There is a wide range of films with live and new scores that run from the historically accurate orchestral scores to contemporary sounds by groups such as Pet Shop Boys or by experimental composers and gothic heavy metal bands. It is no exaggeration to claim that music constitutes a bridge between the old silent film and the modern audience; music is also a channel for non-scholarly audiences to gain an appreciation of silent films. Music has become a means both for musicians and audiences to understand this bygone film art anew. This book is the first of its kind in that it aims to bring together writings and interviews to delineate the culture of providing music for silent films. It not only has the character of a scholarly work but is also something of a manual in that it discusses how to make music for silent films.

Despite their name, the silent films of the early cinematic era were frequently accompanied by music and other sound elements of many kinds, including mechanical instruments, live performers, and audience sing-alongs. The 12 chapters in this concise book explore the multitude of functions filled by music in the rapidly changing context of the silent film era, as the concept of cinema itself developed. Examples are drawn from around the globe and across the history of silent film, both during the classic era of silent film and later uses of the silent format. With contributors drawn from film studies and music disciplines, and including both senior and emerging scholars, Music and Sound in Silent Film offers an essential introduction to the origins of film music and the cinematic art form.

Silent Films/Loud Music discusses contemporary scores for silent film as a rich vehicle for experimentation in the relationship between music, image, and narrative. Johnston offers an overview of the early history of music for silent film paired with his own first-hand view of the craft of creating new original scores for historical silent films: a unique form crossing musical boundaries of classical, jazz, rock, electronic, and folk. As the first book completely devoted to the study of contemporary scores for silent film, it tells the story of the historical and creative evolution of this art form and features an extended discussion and analysis of some of the most creative works of contemporary silent film scoring. Johnston draws upon his own career in both contemporary film music (working with directors Paul Mazursky, Henry Bean, Philip Haas and Doris Dörrie, among others) and in creating new scores for silent films by Browning, Méliès, Kinugasa, Murnau & Reiniger. Through this book, Johnston presents a discussion of music for silent films that contradicts long-held assumptions about what silent film music is and must be, with thought-provoking implications for both historical and contemporary film music.

In a major expansion of the conversation on music and film history, The Routledge Companion to Global Film Music in the Early Sound Era draws together a wide-ranging collection of scholarship on music in global cinema during the transition from silent to sound films (the late 1920s to the 1940s). Moving beyond the traditional focus on Hollywood, this Companion considers the vast range of cinema and music created in often-overlooked regions throughout the rest of the world, providing crucial global context to film music history. An extensive editorial Introduction and 50 chapters from an array of international experts connect the music and sound of these films to regional and transnational issues—culturally, historically, and aesthetically—across five parts: Western Europe and Scandinavia Central and Eastern Europe North Africa, The Middle East, Asia, and Australasia Latin America Soviet Russia Filling a major gap in the literature, The Routledge Companion to Global Film Music in the Early Sound Era offers an essential reference for scholars of music, film studies, and cultural history.

An exploration of how the introduction of recorded music affected the production, viewing experience, and global export of movies. In Movies, Songs, and Electric Sound, Charles O’Brien examines American and European musical films created circa 1930, when the world’s sound-equipped theaters screened movies featuring recorded songs and filmmakers in the United States and Europe struggled to meet the artistic and technical challenges of sound production and distribution. The presence of singers in films exerted special pressures on film technique, lending a distinct look and sound to the films’ musical sequences. Rather than advancing a film’s plot, songs in these films were staged, filmed, and cut to facilitate the singer’s engagement with her or his public. Through an examination of the export market for sound films in the early 1930s, when German and American companies used musical films as a vehicle for competing to control the world film trade, this book delineates a new transnational context for understanding the Hollywood musical. Combining archival research with the cinemetric analysis of hundreds of American, German, French, and British films made between 1927 and 1934, O’Brien provides the historical context necessary for making sense of the aesthetic impact of changes in film technology from the past to the present. “Movies, Songs, and Electric Sound is an insightful study in the beginning of cinema’s sound era.” —popcultureshelf.com

"Film Music: A Very Short Introduction focuses on the most central issues in the practice of film music. What is film music? How is it composed? How does film music work? Why does film music work? The rich and deeply moving sounds of film music are as old as cinema. The very first projected moving images were accompanied by music around the globe as a variety of performers-from single piano players to small orchestras-brought images to life. Film music has since become its own industry, an aesthetic platform for expressing creative visions, and a commercial vehicle for generating increased revenue. The second edition updates coverage to 2022 and includes attention to recent developments in global film music, women in film music, and African -American and minority composers"--

Intersecting Film, Music, and Queerness uses musicology and queer theory to uncover meaning and message in canonical American cinema. This study considers how queer readings are reinforced or nuanced through analysis of musical score. Taking a broad approach to queerness that questions heteronormative and homonormative patriarchal structures, binary relationships, gender assumptions and anxieties, this book challenges existing interpretations of what is progressive and what is retrogressive in cinema. Examined films include Bride of Frankenstein, Louisiana Story, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Blazing Saddles, Edward Scissorhands, Brokeback Mountain, Boys Don't Cry, Transamerica, Thelma & Louise, Go Fish and The Living End, with special attention given to films that subvert or complicate genre. Music is analyzed with concern for composition, intertextual references, absolute musical structures, song lyrics, recording, arrangement, and performance issues. This multidisciplinary work, featuring groundbreaking research, analysis, and theory, offers new close readings and a model for future scholarship.