The Spectre of Sound [antikvár]

Chapter 1 Overview - 'Birdie Sings, Music Sings' The vast majority of us already know much about film music, even if we never take any notice of it. We can recognise musical clichés, the jaunty tune that appears during a happy scene, the sombre dirge that accompanies a flmereal situation. These have become internalised in us to the point that we never reaUy think about them. Yet music on film and television increasingly has become a subject of general interest and of commerce. Now it is possible to buy CDs of old theme tunes and old film scores that have never before been available, while many films and television programmes include the release of musical recordings as an essential part of their production. Apparently, soundtrack album sales increased threefold during the 1990S.1 This is even more remarkable, as it has taken place against a background of consistently falling record sales overall. While I am interested in film music - and to a lesser degree its close cousin television music - as soundtrack CDs, existing outside fdms as cultural items and commodities in their own right, I am most interested in screen music as a unique phenomenon 'inside' films and television. It is the only element of fdm that emanates from outside the film's diegetic world, its 'reality'. As such, it can seem like an artificial element, a vestige from the past or a sop to the MTV generation's desire to watch pop videos in the middle of films. This book's central concern is with film and television music as scores (also known as underscores, background music, incidental music, non-diegetic music) rather than as feamred music performed on screen.^ It focuses on how music works as a subtle medium of manipulation, which, while not consciously registered, undoubtedly exerts a considerable influence on film and television audiences. I am interested in music's apparent but consistently underrated role of invoking emotion in the viewer, where it becomes the carrier of the audience's primary reactions and emotional frailty. Consequently, I am concerned with how film music constitutes a system of control based on its ability to affect audiences in a significant manner,^ and to assent to or validate their emotional reactions.'^ Sound and music have been central components of behaviour-control techniques and experiments, and deserve a sustained study of the aesthetics and effects of music applied to moving images.