Here are 12 books that Hollywood Harmony fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’ve been interested in classic Hollywood movies for as long as I can remember, starting especially with the MGM musicals, the comedies of Abbott and Costello, and anything by Alfred Hitchcock. When I became a musicologist, I started to understand more about how the music of these films contributed to my interest in them, so it seemed like a natural research project for me to explore the music in more depth. I slowly realized that what made the films of the 1950s unique was the combination of new styles of acting with new styles of music. The films continued to suck me in and now my interest has resulted in this book.
Smith’s comprehensive biography of one of film history’s most prolific composers is a must-read for anyone interested in golden-age Hollywood.
Steiner worked on a vast array of films, such as King Kong, Gone with the Wind, and The Big Sleep, and Smith goes through the production of all of them. He explores Steiner’s life in detail, as well as his production process with his collaborators. Reading this book provides not just the life story of one composer, but an understanding of how film music worked in Hollywood in the 1930s through ‘50s.
During a seven-decade career that spanned from 19th century Vienna to 1920s Broadway to the golden age of Hollywood, three-time Academy Award winner Max Steiner did more than any other composer to introduce and establish the language of film music. Indeed, revered contemporary film composers like John Williams and Danny Elfman use the same techniques that Steiner himself perfected in his iconic work for such classics as Casablanca, King Kong, Gone with the Wind, The Searchers, Now, Voyager, the Astaire-Rogers musicals, and over 200 other titles. And Steiner's private life was a drama all its own. Born into a legendary…
I’ve been interested in classic Hollywood movies for as long as I can remember, starting especially with the MGM musicals, the comedies of Abbott and Costello, and anything by Alfred Hitchcock. When I became a musicologist, I started to understand more about how the music of these films contributed to my interest in them, so it seemed like a natural research project for me to explore the music in more depth. I slowly realized that what made the films of the 1950s unique was the combination of new styles of acting with new styles of music. The films continued to suck me in and now my interest has resulted in this book.
Chion’s book is seminal in the study of film sound (not just music). He challenges the orthodoxy of favoring the visual aspects of film when we talk about it, arguing that we need to consider the sound of a film as well as its images.
He says that we don’t just watch films; we “audio-view” them. Chion draws his examples from an extraordinarily wide range of films. On the same page he might go from Godard to Indiana Jones to Singin’ in the Rain.
He doesn’t judge: if a popular action film is the best example for a point about sound-image relationships, he uses it. Chion introduces a lot of new terminology, but it is all carefully explained and illustrated with examples.
In Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen, French critic and composer Michel Chion reassesses audiovisual media since the revolutionary 1927 debut of recorded sound in cinema, shedding crucial light on the mutual relationship between sound and image in audiovisual perception. Chion argues that sound film qualitatively produces a new form of perception: we don't see images and hear sounds as separate channels, we audio-view a trans-sensory whole. Expanding on arguments made in his influential books The Voice in Cinema and Sound in Cinema, Chion provides lapidary insight into the functions and aesthetics of sound in film and television. He considers the effects…
I’ve been interested in classic Hollywood movies for as long as I can remember, starting especially with the MGM musicals, the comedies of Abbott and Costello, and anything by Alfred Hitchcock. When I became a musicologist, I started to understand more about how the music of these films contributed to my interest in them, so it seemed like a natural research project for me to explore the music in more depth. I slowly realized that what made the films of the 1950s unique was the combination of new styles of acting with new styles of music. The films continued to suck me in and now my interest has resulted in this book.
There are quite a few books out there on movie musicals, many of them full of holes and poorly researched.
Griffin’s is one of the most comprehensive, focusing not just on the famous MGM musicals like Singin’ in the Rain that get the most attention these days, but also on the lesser-known musicals that were hugely popular in their time. In this book you’ll learn about largely forgotten stars like Alice Faye and Jane Powell, and see how they fit into the history of the genre.
Griffith closely examines the whole history of movie musicals from the earliest days of sound film up to the present, without the value judgments that often obscure the history.
A History of the American Musical narrates the evolution of the film musical genre, discussing its influences and how it has come to be defined; the first text on this subject for over two decades, it employs the very latest concepts and research.
The most up-to-date text on the subject, with uniquely comprehensive coverage and employing the very latest concepts and research
Surveys centuries of music history from the music and dance of Native Americans to contemporary music performance in streaming media
Examines the different ways the film musical genre has been defined, what gets counted as a musical, why,…
I’ve been interested in classic Hollywood movies for as long as I can remember, starting especially with the MGM musicals, the comedies of Abbott and Costello, and anything by Alfred Hitchcock. When I became a musicologist, I started to understand more about how the music of these films contributed to my interest in them, so it seemed like a natural research project for me to explore the music in more depth. I slowly realized that what made the films of the 1950s unique was the combination of new styles of acting with new styles of music. The films continued to suck me in and now my interest has resulted in this book.
Buhler and Neumeyer’s book is the most comprehensive introduction to film music. While it is meant primarily as a course textbook, it isn’t written in dull texbook-ese; rather, it is readable and engaging.
The authors include chapters on film music history, aesthetics, and theory, drawing from a wide range of films from all over the world. Historical developments and theoretical concepts are described with detailed close readings of various film scenes so that even the tricker ideas are easy to follow through the examples.
The authors will get you interested in all sorts of films you probably weren’t familiar with as they instill a deep understanding of how film music works.
Hearing the Movies, Second Edition, combines a historical and chronological approach to the study of film music and sound with an emphasis on building listening skills. Through engaging, accessible analyses and exercises, the book covers all aspects of the subject, including how a soundtrack is assembled to accompany the visual content, how music enhances the form and style of key film genres, and how technology has influenced the changing landscape of film music.
I've been a working journalist for 50 years, and as a child of TV, especially in the 1960s, I grew up with some of the most memorable TV themes ever written. I started writing about TV in the 1980s, and since moving to Los Angeles in 1986, have used every opportunity to meet and interview all of my favorite composers of movie and TV music. The result is this book, which looks at the history of TV themes and, in a larger sense, music written for TV generally. Every genre of TV, from crime to sitcoms, westerns to adventure, has had fun, often compelling, and truly memorable music, and I've tried to celebrate it here.
Mancini wrote "Moon River," "Days of Wine and Roses," the Pink Panther theme and, for TV, music for Peter Gunn, Newhart, and The Thorn Birds.
He was the first film composer to become a household name in the 1960s and '70s. His cool jazz for Peter Gunn was so popular and influential that every cop and detective for the next 20 years was accompanied by "crime jazz," as it became known.
This is less about Mancini's personal life than about his career (the composer covered that already in his autobiography, Did They Mention the Music?), but I was captivated, particularly with Caps' ability to convey the essence of Mancini's music in descriptive words and phrases.
Through film composer Henry Mancini, mere background music in movies became part of pop culture--an expression of sophistication and wit with a modern sense of cool and a lasting lyricism that has not dated. The first comprehensive study of Mancini's music, Henry Mancini: Reinventing Film Music describes how the composer served as a bridge between the Big Band period of World War II and the impatient eclecticism of the Baby Boomer generation, between the grand formal orchestral film scores of the past and a modern American minimalist approach. Mancini's sound seemed to capture the bright, confident, welcoming voice of the…
I have taught philosophy and film for almost 40 years, first at Ohio State and then at Notre Dame. My focus had been German cinema, but I was drawn to Hitchcock for three reasons: first, he received his origins in Weimar Germany and owes much to German expressionism; second, his films are so cinematically beautiful and effective that I began teaching them again and again, and the students loved them; finally, I thought it worthwhile and a fun project to address the extent to which his films raise deep and engaging philosophical questions.
Music is essential to the meaning of film, and I couldn’t get enough of this book.
Despite its narrower focus, it is a superior work, on a level with the best Hitchcock volumes. If music and film interest you, you will benefit from it. Moreover, Sullivan covers almost half of Hitchcock’s more than 50 films.
For half a century, Alfred Hitchcock created films full of gripping and memorable music. Over his long career he presided over more musical styles than any director in history and ultimately changed how we think about film music. This book is the first to fully explore the essential role music played in the movies of Alfred Hitchcock. Based on extensive interviews with composers, writers, and actors, and research in rare archives, Jack Sullivan discusses how Hitchcock used music to influence the atmosphere, characterization, and even storylines of his films. Sullivan examines the director's important relationships with various composers, especially Bernard…
One reason I became a professor of humanities, teaching subjects like film, theater, and literature, was to share my enthusiasm for the great works of imagination which have inspired people for centuries. Stories shape our lives and pass on our most important values and beliefs to future generations. In my academic career, I have directed plays and have written two novels, but teaching film has been my major passion for the last several years.
I found Claudia Gorbman’s book insightful in her examination of how film music helps to reinforce the story and enhance the mood of what’s happening on the screen.
Music has a powerful impact on the film viewer, shaping our emotional response to the characters and their triumphs and challenges. Using many examples, this book sharpened my understanding of how music works in a film.
I am an Icelandic writer, best known for crime fiction although I have also written horror and children’s books. From a young age I have been a fan of creepiness and horror. My threshold for the macabre is thus high, maybe best witnessed by me noting that my first crime series featuring lawyer Thora was a cosy crime series, only to be reminded that in the first installment the eyes of a dead body were removed with a teaspoon, in the second a child was killed and the third featured decapitation. Whenever I need a reprise from writing crime I revert to horror, the best received of these being I Remember You.
Anyone obsessing over the disappearance of the Roanoke settlers will enjoy this book. As will those that have never heard of the incident or couldn’t care less. It actually has nothing to do with Roanoke but at its core is the same type of mystery, the disappearance of the inhabitants of a whole town in the past. The pacing of the book is great and the creepiness is all-encompassing while you alternate between two timelines, accompanying a documentary crew in the present trying to make heads of what happened and the past events leading up to the mystery. To be corny, it is unputdownable.
Documentary filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has been obsessed with the vanishing residents of the old mining town, dubbed "The Lost Village," since she was a little girl. Her grandmother's entire family disappeared in this mysterious tragedy, and ever since, the unanswered questions surrounding the dead woman and abandoned baby have plagued her. She's gathered a small crew of filmmaking friends to spend a few days in the quiet village and make a film about what really happened.
There will be no turning back for them.
Not long after they've set up camp, mysterious things begin to happen. Equipment is destroyed. People…
After dabbling in music in my youth, I returned to playing roots music over fifteen years ago. I’ve joined music circles, jammed, made new friends, and learned a lot. My husband Gene and I have recorded three albums and played at bars, festivals, weddings, and listening rooms. Professionally, I’ve spent years as a writing teacher and writer, and I also teach at an annual folk music camp. I wanted to share the joys of music with others, so I talked with dozens of musicians, dug down to find rare resources, and pulled it together into Making Music for Life to make it easier for others to pursue their own musical journey.
This is the best book I’ve seen on understanding music in a practical, accessible way, with an accompanying website full of free support materials such as audio files, music scores, and a huge variety of songs across genres and instruments. It’s aimed at those who play by ear, back-porch pickers, semi-pros, and pros. I’ve tried learning theory in many ways, from college classes to online courses, but I found the approach of this book the best, and I imagine learning from it for years to come.
My tenure as editor-in-chief of Guitar magazine is well behind me now, but it always lights me up to create content for musicians, and to absorb it. These are my people, you see, a community of curious, empathic, chronically late daydreamers and night owls, good listeners all. I’m not qualified to comment on Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory or Stravinsky’s Poetics of Music, but neither do I want to talk about rock-star memoirs or fawning fictionalizations. No fanfare here, thank you. Instead, these are five books in which musicians may recognize some element of their creative self and come away with a little more fuel for the fire.
Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy really, really wants everyone to write a song, and I find it terribly endearing.
I picked up his handbook amid a COVID-era creative block, and with Jeff as my songwriting sherpa, I was eventually able to drop some baggage and make my way up. I had already known that music would pay me back for the effort, but Jeff (I think he’d want me to call him Jeff) patiently walks through directly applicable strategies such as word-laddering, stealing, and the Dadaist cut-up technique for lyric writing.
His encouraging nudge made it easier to leave self-judgment and even good sense behind.
'A guide to rediscovering the joys of creating that we all felt as children.' NEW YORK TIMES
One of the century's most feted singer-songwriters, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, digs deep into his own creative process to share his unique perspective about song-writing and offers a warm, accessible guide to writing your first song, championing the importance of making creativity part of your everyday life and experiencing the hope, inspiration and joy that accompanies it.
'Fascinating.' ROUGH TRADE 'Eloquent.' INDEPENDENT 'Nourishing.' PITCHFORK 'A proselytiser for the act of songcraft.' FINANCIAL TIMES 'A smart,…
