This book approaches music in audiovisual culture as a complex merged signal rather than as a simple ‘addition’ to the images of film. The audiovisual is central to modern culture, with screens and speakers (including headphones) dominating communication, leisure and drama. While this book mostly addresses film, it also deals with sister media such as television and video games, registering that there is a ‘common core’ of synchronized image and sound at the heart of these different but related media. The traditions of sound and what Michel Chion calls ‘audiovision’ (1994), including principles of accompaniment and industrial processes from film, have been retained and developed in other media. This book engages with the rich history, and varied genres, different traditions and variant strategies of audiovisual culture. However, it also points to and emphasizes the ‘common core’ of flat moving images and synchronized sound and music which marks a dominant in electronic media culture (what might be called ‘screen and speaker/diaphragm culture’).
Addressing music as both diegetic and non-diegetic, as both songs and score, the analyses presented in this book aim to attend the precise interaction between music and other elements of audiovisual culture as defining overall configurations. While many writings about music in audiovisual culture focus on ‘what it communicates’, its processes are more complicated and can form a crucial semi-conscious (or perhaps unconscious) background. While music’s effect might be far from simple and unified, part of screen music’s startling effect comes from its unity with the image. Cross-modal ‘crosstalk’ between sound and image forms a whole new signal of its own. Each chapter marks a case study making for a varied collection that embraces rich history and different traditions, as well as the distinct aesthetic boldness of different genres and formats.

lgrsnf/Hearing Eyes, Seeing Ears.pdf

Springer Nature Switzerland AG

Switzerland, Switzerland

Contents
List of Figures
1 Introduction: Conceiving Music’s Relationship to Image
What is Audiovisual Culture?
Sound Plus Image = Double Plus Good
Audiovisual Models of Sound-Image Relations
Book Chapters
Final Statement: Image Redefined by Music
Notes
2 Occult Aesthetics
The Dynamic of Synchronization
Synchronizing Soft Machine(s)
Conclusion
Notes
3 Audiovisual Space
Experiencing Audiovisual Spaces
Rural Sights and Sounds
Nonindifferent Nature
Conclusion
Notes
4 The Audiovisual Elsewhere
Widening Superfield Theory
Audio That Implies Visuals
Technology and Intelligent Sound Design
Conclusion
Notes
5 African American Film Music: Blaxploitation
Genre and Industry
Music
Defining Films
Conclusion
Notes
6 Adapting Stage Musicals in Britain
Traditions
Three individuals: Coward, Newley and Lloyd Webber
Conclusion
Notes
7 New Music for Old Movies
Old Films, New Music
Case Study: Metropolis (1927, Fritz Lang, UFA)
New Synergy, New Psychology
Conclusion: Audiovisual Meditations on History
Notes
8 From Video Game Music to Film Music: Silent Hill
Silent Hill Adaptation
Silent Hill Game Sound and Music
Silent Hill Film Sound and Music
The Integrated and Unified Soundtrack: The Game-Film Continuum
Conclusion
Notes
9 The Triple Lock of Synchronization
Synching Everything Up
Finger on the Trigger
Conclusion
Notes
10 Doctor Who: Britain’s IRCAM and Darmstadt
Relative Histories (1963–89)
BBC Radiophonic Workshop
The Space Between Functionalism and Experimentation
Conclusion
Notes
11 Experimental Music Video: “Why Do I need TV When I’ve got T-Rex?”
Promo History
Promos and Their Makers
Art and the Promo
Conclusion
Notes
Afterword
Index

2025-01-25