Customer Reviews

Listening to Movies: The Film Lover's Guide to Film Music

5 star:		(4)
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This is the most thorough layman's book on the art and business of film music that I have read. LISTENING TO MOVIES has a wealth of information on the great and innovative composers for film from the 1930s on, notable films they have done and the styles they have worked within. It also devotes plenty of space to lesser known figures who are usually left out of the discussion.

Fred Karlin, a very successful film composer himself (UP THE DOWN STAIRCASE, WESTWORLD), covers all aspects of the scoring process - how the music is written, recorded and finally "spotted". Film music being a collaborative effort, he gives everyone involved his/her due - not just the composers, but also the arrangers, orchestrators, copyists et al.

Also, music during the Silent Era and many references to major composers of film music outside of the United States. At the back of the book are useful composer/films and film/composer lists.

I have and enjoy other books on this topic. None of them do what LISTENING TO MOVIES does. It's a great reference book.

This is not a book teaching how to write a film score. Instead, it shows how film scores are conceived, created, and recorded, and is written for any enthusiast to enjoy. There are chapters covering who does what, how they do it, the machines involved, and case studies of several films with notable scores. In addition to explaining current practice, the book includes historical material about the legendary film music of the old-time studios and their staff composers and orchestras. The appendix section has guides to various composers listing their works, and a list of movies listing their composers. You can even look up Academy Award winners from each year! This is a fun book to sit and browse through.

This is an absolutely fantastic chronology of film music through the ages... from the silent era to the "John Williams" era to today. This book makes for entertaining and informative reading with quotes from so many in-the-industry sources that your head will spin! It's the most up-to-date reference I've found so far on film-scoring techniques and the problems historically associated with this genre. I'd even recommend it to film-goers with a just a passing interest in music as well

I wrote the above review over 3 years ago, and I think I've re-read this book as many times since then. I *still* can't get enough of it.