Terminological History of Music for Cinema

The graph below shows the frequency that various terms used to describe music and cinema appear in the sources contained in Google Books. This was produced using the Google Labs Ngram Reader. I inputted five terms: film music, cinema music, moving picture music, motion picture music and movie music. One of the more interesting aspects of this graph is that it suggests that "film music" does not become the dominant term until after 1930—that is, its terminological dominance coincides with the change over to sound film production.



(Click to see a larger image.)

You can make your own graph and change the variables here.

Music on the Set

"Music—The Soul Behind the 'Movies'" is link to a nice, short article from 1924 on the practice of playing music on the set. The article might be especially good for the purposes of teaching. It appeared in the September 1924 issue of Popular Mechanics, pp. 412-14.

Classroom resources

A pointer to our "Classroom Resources" page on the main HtM website: Syllabi and other materials.

Here's the syllabus for Jim's large section general course based on HtM: UGS303, fall 2010.

Here's a link to David's summer course for which HtM was the textbook: MUS 337, ss 2009.

We're happy to add links to syllabi for courses using HtM. Please send links or write to us (see "Contact us" under Contributors).

Review sites for film books

David Bordwell has written another excellent essay on the state of the field, this time on the mismatch between the volume of publication in film studies and the number of book reviews. Citation: Film History 22 (2010): 257-64. Bordwell mentions two open access online journals that make a serious effort to review film books. Here are links for both of them:

Senses of Cinema.
Screening the Past.