A study of the use of pre-existing music in fiction sound film, this thesis fills a gap in the literature by studying pre-existing music as a category of music in film in itself, the premise being that there are conclusions to be drawn about the use of such music that relate to its pre-existing status, regardless of style, genre, and so on. The main questions are as follows: How and why is pre-existing music used in films? What effects can its use have for and on films and their audiences? And what lasting effects does appropriation have on the music? The exploration of these issues draws on concepts and frameworks from fields beyond that of the study of music in film, including literary theory and scholarship on musical borrowing defined more generally, and incorporates discussion of factors such as those of copyright and commerce alongside examination of texts and their effects. The thesis establishes a framework from which future work in the area can more efficiently proceed, and in relation to which previous work can be contextualised. Broadly, pre-existing music is shown to have unique attributes that can affect both how filmmakers construct their works (practically as well as artistically), and how audiences receive them, while film is argued to be a powerful influence in and on processes of musical reception. The thesis is a significant contribution to scholarship on music on film, but can also be seen as a study of the reception of music (both by and through film), and as situated within the fields of scholarship on musical borrowing and musical intertextuality.

Despite the rapidly growing body of critical academic writing around sound and music on screen, and studies of the increasing role of popular music within contemporary films, there has to date been little empirical exploration of audience responses to popular music in film. This thesis investigates how audiences hear and relate to popular music in romantic comedy soundtracks, specifically those of Love Actually (2003, dir. Richard Curtis), What Women Want (2000, dir. Nancy Meyer), and 10 Things I Hate About You (1999, dir. Gil Junger). Building upon a detailed critique of existing theoretical approaches to audiences’ engagements with popular music soundtracks, the findings in this study are based on two rounds of semi-structured interviews. Initially, the selected films were discussed in four focus group interviews, recruited according to age and gender (under-25-year-old men and women, and over-45-year-old men and women). Four subsequent individual interviews with one participant from each focus group concentrated on one particular sequence from Love Actually. A key assumption underlying theorised audience responses within literature on film music is a dichotomy between knowing and not-knowing pre-existing pop music in films: ‘knowing’ the music is seen to result in a more complex reading of a scene, as well as a more critical, distanced mode of engagement with the film; ‘not-knowing’, on the other hand, means the viewer is more immersed in the film and more likely to adopt its ideological messages uncritically (see for example Kassabian, 2001; J. Smith, 1998). The present research challenges this position: interview analyses indicate that patterns of talk are not as unified or consistent as these existing theoretical models suggest. Participants drew on several different modes of engagement in making sense of popular music in film, including: evaluating the music according to a diverse range of criteria and categorisations; relating the music to life stages and personal memories; and managing perceived involvement with the films and their soundtracks. These findings do not easily fall within any singular model of proposed audience responses to film music, but instead suggest that a new way of thinking about film audiences must account for taste processes, accommodate audiences’ vernacular categorisations, and incorporate a broader conception of ‘knowledge’ and ‘ways of knowing’.

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Sound and music, both independently and inside film are sometimes considered to be secondary to the visual. Some disciplines wish to classify them as triggers to neurological systems while some others will emphasise their affect-inflicting capacity; in both cases these remain as secondary functions and in the case of film as nothing but accompanying elements. Yet, observed psychologically sound and music have a unique and wholesome function in the human psyche. Carl Gustav Jung’s analytical psychology opens the door for the understanding of both as images, far beyond the consensual acceptance of image being of a visual faculty only. Understanding music as image puts music in a different position inside a film as well as a stand-alone phenomenon in the every-day life. Analytical psychology, in both original Jungian and contemporary Post-Jungian versions, using the core ideas of archetype, opposites, functions of the psyche and image - supports the very concept of music/sound as image. This thesis will approach the consequent understanding of the role of music in film beyond the decorative-accompaniment task attributed to it and as an image on its own right. The work is divided into three main parts: Part I will introduce general Jungian aspects to build the case of a Jungian psychological account of the music-image. Part II will attempt to combine theory with practice in analysing how the auditory image (mainly music) works (or sometimes clashes) with the visual (picture) to create the ‘film as a whole’ experience. Part III will implement a specific understanding of three individual film cases of different genres, eras and styles as psychologically scrutinised ‘case histories’.

In many cultures, weddings are the most important event in people’s lives. Greek Cypriots use weddings as a means of expressing their identity and linking themselves to their roots, with the conscious aim of preservation of their musical tradition and customs. As a result, weddings are especially important in their musical culture because of the threats to their identity posed by the island’s long history of foreign rule and colonisation. However, an upheaval has occurred in the folk music and customs of Greek Cypriot wedding ceremonies over the last ten years, creating an urgent need for a study of these customs in relation to social, historical and cultural developments in Cyprus. This study has revealed a movement towards music revival that links contemporary practice with the ‘living memory’ of the mid-twentieth century. The thesis is structured in two parts, progressing from the directly observable wedding practices of contemporary Greek Cypriots to the remembered and reconstructed forms of the Greek Cypriot wedding that is now regarded as ‘traditional’. Part One analyses contemporary wedding ceremonies and the choices that newlyweds make in the customs and music of their weddings. Part Two attempts to reconstruct in detail the music and customs of Greek Cypriot wedding ceremonies of the mid-twentieth century from the testimonies of veteran folk musicians and from documentary sources. Besides documenting a tradition that is little known and fast transforming, the study contributes to current discussions in ethnomusicology on themes such as ‘music revivals’ and ‘tradition and identity’.

The history of witchcraft has been studied and written about at length over the centuries and particularly in the last few years. It has a place within the pagan movement that is generally accepted as being of prime importance, notably within modem paganism. However, the subject has not been explored in depth from a musical perspective despite music being used in rituals throughout the pagan movement and especially in witchcraft. This study makes use of historical sources and contemporary journals and books to investigate the extent to which music was used in witchcraft ceremonies in the past and the types of music allegedly used. Further to this practising covens and hedgewitches have been contacted by post asking them for details of music used in their rituals and the changes they believe that take place because of the music used. When replies were forthcoming a questionnaire was sent asking for further details and in some cases the people concerned were visited. A cassette tape of music representing pagan themes was sent to them for their opinions as to the suitability of the music recorded. The results of this study are analysed to ascertain whether specific music is commonly used in Wiccan culture and rituals or whether there are differences purely according to the musical tastes of the individuals and reasons for the choice of music are sought. A study was also made of music from the classical repertoire that claims to represent witchcraft in fictional or mythological situations. This music is analysed to seek similar characteristics with the music used in actual Wiccan culture and a tape of music has been included in an appendix that provides representative examples of the music encountered with analysis. The results bring together information on two subjects that have not previously been seriously linked.

This research project describes the performance techniques of the reggae sound system crew in the dancehall session. These are held until dawn every night of the week on the streets of inner city Kingston, Jamaica. The research question asked is: how does a sound system work? The methodology is one of participant observation - what the crew do, with what, and with whom - as well as participant listening. This attunes the research to the auditory qualities of the sounds that the crew describe in recorded interviews, as well as the nuances of the idiomatic expressions they use and their tone of voice. Taking Jamaica's longest running and best-established sound system, Stone Love Movement as a case study, the research concentrates on the roles of three crewmembers in particular. These "sonic bodies" are: the audio engineers who design, build, finetune and maintain the hugely powerful sound system "sets" of equipment; the selectors responsible for the choice of recorded music played to the "crowd" (audience) in the session; and MCs (or DJs) who introduce the music and "build the vibes. " The crew's skilled performance techniques are investigated in relation to the phonographic instrument of the "set" of equipment for making sound, together with the media of sound, music and voice for diffusion of the vibrations to the crowd. These occur at three vibrating frequencies: the material waveband of the mechanics of auditory propagation and hearing itself; the corporeal waveband of the embodied kinetic rhythms of the crowd's dancing and crew's performance; and the ethereal waveband of the "vibes" or social and cultural meaning of the dancehall session and entire scene. Rather than the conventional technological, cultural and social "factors, " it is suggested that the crew's skills and techniques "make sense" of all these frequencies with expert evaluations, as the basis of their connoisseurship (Polanyi) or their logic of practice (Bourdieu). The engineer "just knows" when their fine-tuning is complete; the selector has a "gut feeling" when to repeat a track; and the MC "judges" the exact timing of the punch line. It is concluded that the crew's techniques are best understood as embodying a kind of rationality that pivots on ratio, analogia and proportion, rather than concepts of disembodied logic, representation or calculation. Thus the crew's evaluative techniques provide evidence for understanding the workings of the sound system as an apparatus for the propagation of vibrations.

This thesis explores the electronic music and sound created by Delia Derbyshire in the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop between 1962 and 1973. After her resignation from the BBC in the early 1970s, the scope and breadth of her musical work there became obscured, and so this research is primarily presented as an open-ended enquiry into that work. During the course of my enquiries, I found a much wider variety of music than the popular perception of Derbyshire suggests: it ranged from theme tunes to children’s television programmes to concrete poetry to intricate experimental soundscapes of synthesis. While her most famous work, the theme to the science fiction television programme Doctor Who (1963) has been discussed many times, because of the popularity of the show, most of the pieces here have not previously received detailed attention. Some are not widely available at all and so are practically unknown and unexplored. Despite being the first institutional electronic music studio in Britain, the Workshop’s role in broadcasting, rather than autonomous music, has resulted in it being overlooked in historical accounts of electronic music, and very little research has been undertaken to discover more about the contents of its extensive archived back catalogue. Conversely, largely because of her role in the creation of its most recognised work, the previously mentioned Doctor Who theme tune, Derbyshire is often positioned as a pioneer in the medium for bringing electronic music to a large audience. Both perceptions of the workshop and Derbyshire are problematised here, because while they seem to contrast, they are both posited upon the same underlying method of attributing positive value to autonomous music, rather than viewing them on their own specific terms within broadcast media. While it is shown that Derbyshire certainly aspired towards the role of composing contemporary classical music and had an interest in integrating its aesthetics and ideas into her work, she also had an ambiguous relation to it and was not fully able to explore her interest because of her socio-cultural circumstances. Further, the mass of difficult-to-access archived material precludes particularly firm conclusions about Derbyshire’s role in any history of electronic music in Britain—which is itself still very much under construction— with much further research suggested. Thus, the selection of material here is patched together into three different themes raised by her in interview, within contextual frames of relevant aesthetics and techniques, rather than into a coherent chronological, biographical or historical narrative.

This thesis provides an in-depth study of the ‘Golden Age of Malay Film’ (1950s to 1960s) by analysing the musical practices and discourses of commercially-produced vernacular Malay films. In exploring the potency of such films and music, it uncovers the relevance of screened music in articulating the complexities and paradoxes of a cosmopolitan Malay identity within the context of mid twentieth-century capitalism, late British colonialism and Malaysian and Singaporean independence. Essentially, I argue that the film music produced during this period articulates a cosmopolitan aesthetic of postcolonial nation-making based on a conception of Malay ethnonationalism that was initially fluid, but eventually became homogenised as national culture. Drawing theoretically on how cosmopolitan practices are constituted within discursive and structural contexts, this thesis analyses how Malay film music covertly expressed radical ideas despite being produced within a commercial film industry. While non-Malay collaborators owned and produced such films that were subject to British censorship, Malay composers such as P. Ramlee and Zubir Said helmed the musical authorship of such films; thereby, enabling an expressive space for their Malaynationalist aspirations. Methodologically, the study unravels the complexities and paradoxes of emergent nation-making through an intertextual analysis of Malay film music; drawing on film narratives, musical and historiographical analysis, literature surveys, and ethnographic fieldwork. I argue that Malay film music from the independence-era could not be confined by rigid ethno-national boundaries when its very aesthetic foundations were pluralistic and contemporaneous with the history of constant change, exchange, interactivity and diversity in the Malay world. This thesis reveals that despite the forced homogeneity of Malay nationalism, Malay film music from the independence-era challenged a limited conception of ethno-national identity. The aspiring and inspiring cosmopolitan ‘frameworks’ of P. Ramlee’s and Zubir Said’s music reverberates in new interpretations of identity, independence, and musical expression in the Malay world.

The goal of this thesis is to explain the unique aspects of composing music for film and the unusual challenges facing the composer in writing music that supports on-screen dramatic action and dialogue. Besides my work as a composer in the film industry, I have always been active as an educator in the field as well. In my experience, I have found that there are a number of instructional texts that discuss many of the technical aspects of film composition, such as calculating timings and techniques of synchronization of music to film, however, I have found that there is very little information on the compositional technique of film scoring. For example, one of the common aspects of film composition is that very often a composer must write in what might be called ‘nonconventional musical form’ or odd phrase lengths. However information on the technique of how to write musical phrases with unusual numbers of measures that sound natural is difficult if not impossible to find. One does find references to this in many texts, however the thought process and/or technique that the composer used is not explained. Once I began teaching, I realized that I would have to codify some of the techniques that I use in order to teach my students methods to deal with these issues. Many of the techniques originated from personal observation working as an orchestrator, conductor, or ghostwriter for other, more experienced, composers. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity in my career, to work for some very talented and experienced individuals and to learn ‘on the job,’ and in many cases getting the chance to practice, develop and test these methods in a professional working situation. My thesis also includes chapters on the working process - walking through the steps of scoring a motion picture, which I feel certain many readers will be unfamiliar with. My ultimate goal is to expand this thesis into a textbook that can be used to teach the craft of film composition as I feel that such a text, which makes an effort to codify some of the techniques of film scoring, is needed. To demonstrate the methods and concepts that I discuss, I make use of examples from my own personal body of work including scores and audio and video examples included on the accompanying CDs.