Tuesday, 22 November 2011

Soundtrack Research

A soundtrack can be recorded music complementing and synchronised with the images of a piece of action, a book, television programme or a video game. It can be a commercially released soundtrack album of music featuring in the soundtrack of a film or television show; or the physical area of a film that contains the recorded sound.

The use of soundtracks in films only started to be used regularly in the early 1950s. They were first created by movie companies as “music from the original motion picture soundtrack.” This phrase was shortened to just “original motion picture soundtrack.” Such recordings usually consist of isolated music from a film, not the sound track with dialogue and sound effects.

In the soundtrack genre there are three types of recordings:

1.     Musical film soundtracks which concentrate primarily on the songs (eg. Grease, Singin’ in the Rain).

2.     Film scores which showcase the background music from non-musicals (eg. Star Wars, Exodus).

3.     Albums of pop songs heard in whole or part in the background of non-musicals  (eg. Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally).

The expression soundtrack generally refers to the music used in a movie or television programme, and to an album which is sold containing that specific music. Sometimes, the music has been recorded just for the film or album (e.g. Saturday Night Fever). Often, but not always depending on the genre of the movie, the soundtrack album will contain portions of the score, music made for dramatic effect as the movie’s plot occurs. In 1908, Camille Saint-Saens composed the first music especially for use in a motion picture (L’assasinat du duc de Guise), and releasing recordings of songs used in films became common in the 1930s. Henry Mancini, who won an Emmy Award and two Grammys for his soundtrack to Peter Gunn, was the first composer to have an extensive hit with a song from a soundtrack. A soundtrack record can conventionally contain different kinds of music appearing in the movie; the score contains only music by the original film’s composer(s).

Source used: Wikipedia

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