Paul asks some very interesting questions.
> Is there a distinction between music and musical? Between that which is
> presented and that which is encountered?
>
> If film music is music, how should one listen to it? Is it to be done
> without the concomitant sound effects and visuals? Is film music to be
> listened to like opera? Is there some form of music that can only be
> listened to or encountered under certain circumstances?
>
I wish I had time to consider them all, but the one I find most interesting
is can film music be listened to like opera? The reasons are that at a
certain stage in Hollywood, opera provided film music composers with a
model; secondly, the music of opera is often doing very different things
from what might be supposed; thirdly, it is also, as I argue about film
music, highly iconic. But in saying this, one should add that traditional
musicology is of no help, since this kind of question is not in its purview,
and while there is interesting work by musicologists on film music, I don't
think they've caught up yet with what the extraordinary range of uses of
music in film, including the way that the modern practice of sound design
extends the idea of composition from music itself to all the elements on the
soundtrack.
Michael Chanan
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