Film music is as old as cinema itself. Years before synchronized sound became the norm, projected moving images were shown to musical accompaniment, whether performed by a lone piano player or a hundred-piece orchestra. Today film music has become its own industry, indispensable to the marketability of movies around the world. Film Music: A Very Short Introduction is a compact, lucid, and thoroughly engaging overview written by one of the leading authorities on the subject. After opening with a fascinating analysis of the music from a key sequence in Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, Kathryn Kalinak introduces readers not only to important composers and musical styles but also to modern theoretical concepts about how and why film music works. Throughout the book she embraces a global perspective, examining film music in Asia and the Middle East as well as in Europe and the United States. Key collaborations between directors and composers--Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann, Akira Kurosawa and Fumio Hayasaka, Federico Fellini and Nino Rota, to name only a few--come under scrutiny, as do the oft-neglected practices of the silent film era. She also explores differences between original film scores and compilation soundtracks that cull music from pre-existing sources. As Kalinak points out, film music can do many things, from establishing mood and setting to clarifying plot points and creating emotions that are only dimly realized in the images. This book illuminates the many ways it accomplishes those tasks and will have its readers thinking a bit more deeply and critically the next time they sit in a darkened movie theater and music suddenly swells as the action unfolds onscreen. About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.

Film Music: A Very Short Introduction

Humor & Entertainment

Kalinak, Kathryn

Movies

Oxford University Press

The rich and deeply moving sounds of film music are as old as cinema. The first projected moving images were accompanied by music through a variety of performers--from single piano players to small orchestras--that brought images to life. Film music has since become its own industry, an aesthetic platform for expressing creative visions, and a commercial vehicle for growing musical stars of all varieties.\nIn this Very Short Introduction, Kathryn Kalinak takes readers behind the scenes to understand both the practical aspects of film music--what it is and how it is composed--and the theories that have been developed to explain why film music works. This accessible book not only entertains with the fascinating stories of the composers and performers who have shaped film music across the globe but also gives readers a broad sense of the key questions in film music studies today. The updated second edition includes the music from film industries in Africa, Asia and South Asia, and Latin America, and focuses on previously under-represented film musicians, in particular women and minority composers.

Film Music: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

"Settling the Score" situates the classical Hollywwod film score and its practice in historical, theoretical and musical context. Kathryn Kalinak examines the conventions and strategies underpinning film scoring in Hollywood, investigating what has been considered the most influential and powerful relationship to have evolved between music and film, the classical Hollywood model. Beginning with the earliest experiments in musical accompaniment carried out in the Edison laboratories. Kalinak uses archival material to outline the history of music and film in America. Focusing on the scores of several key composers of the sound era, including Erich Wolfgang Korngold's "Captain Blood", Max Steiner's "The Informer", Bernard Herrmann's "The Magnificent Ambersons", and David Raskin's "Laura", Kalinak concludes that classical scoring conventions were designed to ensure the dominance of narrative exposition. Her analyses of contemporary work such as John Williams "The Empire Strikes Back" and Basil Poledouris "Robocop" demonstrate how the traditions of the classical era continue to influence scoring practices today. Underlying the author's historical investigation is an inquiry into the nature of film music itself. Exposing the visual bias in western culture in general and in film studies in particular. Kalinak argues that music is a fundamental part of the filmic exerience. She constructs a model for the perception of film that takes into account the shared power of image and sound in shaping response. Using contemporary theoy, "Settling the Score" makes the case that music should be an integral part of film analysis.

Settling the Score: Music and the Classical Hollywood Film (Wisconsin Studies in Film)

Arts & Photography

Music

University of Wisconsin Press

Music in film may seem incidental, but Kalinak shows its extreme importance as both 'articulator of screen expression and initiator of spectator response'. Who can forget the theme from Jaws, which turned a peaceful ocean scene into a threatening nightmare? . . . This major work on scoring goes a long way toward proving the importance of music in film. -Library Journal "Settling the Score is intended for general readers with minimal technical musical and contemporary theoretical skills. [Kalinak's] goal is, in fact, to 'settle the score' between the cinematic visual and aural, to promote music as an equal partner to the visual. In order to do so she provides a brief but illuminating historical summary of sound and music in film. Kalinak's strongest sections include a detailed discussion of the differences between music for silent films and sound films, and analyses of several different stylistic approaches toward musical composition in the Classical Hollywood film". --Bill Thornhill, Hitchcock Annual Beginning with the earliest experiments in musical accompaniment carried out in the Edison Laboratories, Kathryn Kalinak uses archival material to outline the history of American music and film. Focusing on the scores of several key composers of the sound era, including Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Captain Blood, Max Steiner's The Informer, Bernard Herrmann's The Magnificent Ambersons, and David Raksin's Laura, Kalinak concludes that classical scoring conventions were designed to ensure the dominance of narrative exposition. Her analyses of contemporary work such as John Williams' The Empire Strikes Back and Basil Poledouris' RoboCop demonstrate how the traditions of the classical era continue to influence scoring practices today. "A strong original contribution that manages to convey a great deal of information about film music to readers with relatively little knowledge of music. It is likely to be one of the small

Music in the Western: Notes from the Frontier presents essays from both film studies scholars and musicologists on core issues in western film scores: their history, their generic conventions, their operation as part of a narrative system, their functioning within individual filmic texts and their ideological import, especially in terms of the western’s construction of gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity. The Hollywood western is marked as uniquely American by its geographic setting, prototypical male protagonist and core American values. Music in the Western examines these conventions and the scores that have shaped them. But the western also had a resounding international impact, from Europe to Asia, and this volume distinguishes itself by its careful consideration of music in non-Hollywood westerns, such as Ravenous and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and in the “easterns” which influenced them, such as Yojimbo.  Other films discussed include Wagon Master, High Noon, Calamity Jane, The Big Country, The Unforgiven, Dead Man, Wild Bill, There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men. Contributors  Ross CareCorey K. CreekmurYuna de LannoyK. J. DonnellyCaryl FlinnClaudia GorbmanKathryn KalinakCharles LeinbergerMatthew McDonaldPeter StanfieldMariana WhitmerBen Winters The Routledge Music and Screen Media Series offers edited collections of original essays on music in particular genres of cinema, television, video games and new media.  These edited essay collections are written for an interdisciplinary audience of students and scholars of music and film and media studies.    

Music in the Western: Notes From the Frontier (Routledge Music and Screen Media Series)

Routledge

Music in the Western: Notes from the Frontier presents essays from both film studies scholars and musicologists on core issues in western film scores: their history, their generic conventions, their operation as part of a narrative system, their functioning within individual filmic texts and their ideological import, especially in terms of the western’s construction of gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity. The Hollywood western is marked as uniquely American by its geographic setting, prototypical male protagonist and core American values. Music in the Western examines these conventions and the scores that have shaped them. But the western also had a resounding international impact, from Europe to Asia, and this volume distinguishes itself by its careful consideration of music in non-Hollywood westerns, such as Ravenous and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and in the “easterns” which influenced them, such as Yojimbo. Other films discussed include Wagon Master, High Noon, Calamity Jane, The Big Country, The Unforgiven, Dead Man, Wild Bill, There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men. Contributors Ross Care Corey K. Creekmur Yuna de Lannoy K. J. Donnelly Caryl Flinn Claudia Gorbman Kathryn Kalinak Charles Leinberger Matthew McDonald Peter Stanfield Mariana Whitmer Ben Winters The Routledge Music and Screen Media Series offers edited collections of original essays on music in particular genres of cinema, television, video games and new media. These edited essay collections are written for an interdisciplinary audience of students and scholars of music and film and media studies.

Music in the Western (Routledge Music and Screen Media Series)

James Stewart once said, "For John Ford, there was no need for dialogue. The music said it all." This lively, accessible study is the first comprehensive analysis of Ford's use of music in his iconic westerns. Encompassing a variety of critical approaches and incorporating original archival research, Kathryn Kalinak explores the director's oft-noted predilection for American folk song, hymnody, and period music. What she finds is that Ford used music as more than a stylistic gesture. In fascinating discussions of Ford's westerns—from silent-era features such as Straight Shooting and The Iron Horse to classics of the sound era such as My Darling Clementine and The Searchers —Kalinak describes how the director exploited music, and especially song, in defining the geographical and ideological space of the American West.

How the West Was Sung: Music in the Westerns of John Ford

University of California Press

Sound Dialogue Music & Effects

Sound in cinema is a fascinating area that is just beginning to get the attention it deserves. This innovative book highlights the workers who collaborated inside and outside Hollywood to produce dialogue, sound effects and music for motion pictures. It demonstrates the transformative powers of sound as they shape the specific ways in which film meaning is made. It interrogates the statement that 'the silent screen was never silent', shows how Altman & Malick pushed the boundares of dialogue, what Dolby did to movies, how Walter Murch, Alfred Newman, John Williams and many more scored and composed and how cinematic sound is adapting to digital exhibition on computer screens and smartphones. The overall objective is to make it hard for us to see films in the same way again.

Sound: Dialogue, Music, and Effects (Behind the Silver Screen)

IB Tauris

Musica da film. Una breve introduzione

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Books by Kalinak, Kathryn

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kalinak, Kathryn. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Film Music: A Very Short Introduction

Film Music: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

Settling the Score: Music and the Classical Hollywood Film (Wisconsin Studies in Film)

Settling the Score: Music and the Classical Hollywood Film (Wisconsin Studies in Film)

Music in the Western: Notes From the Frontier (Routledge Music and Screen Media Series)

Music in the Western (Routledge Music and Screen Media Series)

How the West Was Sung: Music in the Westerns of John Ford

Sound: Dialogue, Music, and Effects (Behind the Silver Screen)

Musica da film. Una breve introduzione