Full Description
This cross-disciplinary collection provides the first comprehensive study of library music practices in the 1960s and 1970s.
Library music was inexpensive, off-the-shelf music available to license for a small fee. It was widely used in television and film as a cheaper alternative to commissioned soundtracks. The book pays attention to the different individuals, groups, organisations and institutions involved in making library music, as well as to its transnational sites of production (from continental recording studios to regional cutting rooms). It addresses questions of distributed creativity, collective authorship, and agency.
Combining empirical and theoretical research, the book unveils the modus operandi of a highly secretive yet enduringly significant cultural industry. By drawing attention to the cultural ubiquity and intersectionality of library music, the collection also shifts emphasis from individual film and TV composers to the invisible community of music publishers, writers, and session musicians. It argues that the latter were collectively responsible for fashioning much of the sonic identity of 1960s and 1970s film and television. As well as providing a nuanced understanding of historical library music cultures, the collection shows how they continue to inform contemporary audiovisual cultures.
Contents
Introduction
1. Carlo Nardi and Elodie A. Roy. 'Industrial Panorama: Visualising Labour Practices in Library Music.'
2. Maurizio Corbella. 'Film Music Publishing and the Rise of Library Music Records in Italy: Between Authorship and Anonymity.'
3. Niccolò Galliano. 'These Titles Do Not Mean Anything: Meaning-Making as Industrial Practice in Italian Library Music Records from the 1970s.'
4. Kaarina Kilpiö. '"Towards this Western, American set-up": Library music in Finnish commercials of 1968.'
5. James Leggott. 'The Benny Hill Waltz and the Blackmail Theme: Library Music and Television Comedy in the 1970s.'
6. Hussein Boon. 'The Sweeney - Library Music Use, Re-use and Cultural Association in the British TV Police Procedural.'
7. Nessa Johnston. '"Funky Fanfare", a Cult Library Music Track.'
8. Alexis Bennett. 'Avant-Stock: Bernard Estardy, Tele Music, and Experimentation in French Library Music.'
9. Mark Goodall. 'Empty Horizons: Library Music and the Occult.'
10. Jamie Sexton. 'Sampling the Obscure: The Recontextualization and Increased Value of Library Music.'
11. Júlia Durand. 'Golden Age Genius and Nameless Hack: Contemporary Views on Past and Present Library Music.'
Endnotes
