Edited by:

William S. Rosar, University of California, San Diego

Selected Articles​:​​
Judaism

The Journal of Film Music is a forum for the musicological study of film from the standpoint of dramatic musical art. The analytical tools and methodologies of historical, systematic, cognitive, and ethnomusicology all are relevant and essential to this study, which seeks to both document and illuminate film practice through source studies, analysis, theory, and criticism.

Film, though a product of late 19th century technological innovation, viewed historically as a dramatic art form, only emerged as such after the turn of the 20th century, with a musical practice that underwent almost continual development and changes throughout that time to the present day: The advent of sound in theatrical motion pictures precipitated an adaptation in silent film accompaniment, such that techniques were developed to combine it with onscreen music performance, dialog, and sound effects, while also placing increased value on original composition over the use or adaptation of existing music. The tradition and techniques of this practice carried over into radio, television, computer, and other communications media. In a historical framework, This journal examines film and its allied media and the socio-cultural conditions of its production not only in terms of its own shared tradition, but in terms of its roots, precursors, and parallels throughout music of the theatre and other fields of music, both “classical” and popular, from which it has borrowed: incidental music for plays, 19th century stage melodrama, Vaudeville, opera and operetta, musical comedy, melodeclamation, ballet, dance and music hall, as well as forms of dramatic concert music such as oratorios, cantatas, and tone poems.