Programme

What Can Popular Music and Library Music Learn from Each Other?

Abstract: Because library music is made with the specific goal of future media use, it might seem incongruous with the broader history of popular music aimed at fans, or irrelevant to challenges facing the popular music industries. Yet both popular music and library music have defined themselves in relation to a shared set of cultural and commercial values, and have adapted to shifts in media production, distribution and consumption. In this talk, I consider how popular music and library music have engaged with notions of art; responded to digitalisation; and invited valuation. A side-by-side comparison reveals similarities and differences between popular music and library music that help us to better understand changes affecting both.

Bio: Bethany Klein is Professor of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds, UK. She is the author of Selling Out: Culture, Commerce and Popular Music (Bloomsbury, 2020) and As Heard on TV: Popular Music in Advertising (Ashgate, 2009), and co-author of Understanding Copyright: Intellectual Property in the Digital Age (Sage, 2015).

The Disappearance of Musical Persona in Italian Library Music (Niccolò Galliano, University of Milan)

Abstract: Feelings by Jay Richford and Gary Stevan (Carosello Records, 1974) is arguably one of the most celebrated records of the so-called “golden age” of library music. According to many commentators, this album epitomizes the funk style of the Seventies, perfectly mimicking the orchestral sound of black musicians such as Isaac Hayes and Norman Whitfield. However, despite its appearance, it was actually produced by two Italian library composers, Stefano Torossi and Sandro Brugnolini, who were credited with English pseudonyms mostly due to legal restrictions. As I will argue, in this case anonymity (or pseudonymity) is not a simple production strategy, but it appears to be a compositional tool frequently employed within the Italian library music industry of that era. Drawing from Allan F. Moore's (2012) and Philip Auslander's (2021) different notions of musical persona, this paper aims to illustrate how musicians constructed vague and fictional personas or deliberately removed them from their music to compose pieces that worked as background music for audiovisual media. Using genre stereotypes and borrowing from other authors, Torossi and Brugnolini managed to create a sense of “already heard” that spans throughout the whole record: as a result, Feelings’ ten tracks sound preexistent even though they are original compositions – sometimes on the edge of plagiarism. Lastly, I will suggest that the main feature of this anonymous music is to encourage peripheral listening, serving as a sonic ground for a figure that consists of the (potential) onscreen images.

Bio: Niccolò Galliano holds a B.A. in Musicology from the University of Pavia and an M.A. in Musicology from the University of Milan. His master's thesis is a cultural study on the Italian industry of library music during the late Sixties and the early Seventies. His research interests focus on repertoires between experimental popular music and contemporary art music, with an emphasis on the production and consumption of recorded artifacts.

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The Shaded Side of Musical Composition: Inquiring About Library Music in Academic Circles (André Malhado and Paula Gomes-Ribeiro, NOVA FCSH – CESEM)

Abstract: Despite being a transnational and powerful branch of the music and audiovisual industries, library music symbolic capital is, in general, extremely reduced. In conservatories, music schools, and academies, the very idea of a functional, commercially oriented music composition, is consigned to oblivion, as if it didn’t exist. Music apprentices, instrumentalists, composition students in academic contexts, are strongly orientated to what is named art, classical or vanguard music. The absence of a process of learning and discussion of essential tools concerning music composition domains assigned to audiovisuals (except cinema, which has been slowly entering the several branches of academy) strongly restricts the professional framework for aspiring composers. Why are the canons of musical teaching, in the digital era, still kept away from practices considered to be predominantly functional, such what concerns library music?

This paper aims to discuss the relationship of specific Portuguese music academic circles with the practice, education and learning apparatus of library music. Our theoretical framework intersects musicological, sociological, and media studies. The research uses in-depth qualitative interviews of a purposeful sample of individuals, in the context of a multimethod research. Respondents are music and musicology trainees, teachers and professionals in the Portuguese music academic field, with advanced practical and/or theoretical musical training.

Bios:

Paula Gomes-Ribeiro, NOVA FCSH – CESEM

Musicologist. Professor and researcher, affiliated to the Department of Musicology and the CESEM - Research Centre for Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, NOVA University of Lisbon. Gomes-Ribeiro received a Ph.D. and a Master degree in Musicology from the Université de Paris VIII after having graduated in Musicology from the New University of Lisbon. Specialized in sociology of music and in opera/music theatre studies, her research interests, and publications concern primarily the social, cultural and political roles of music, understood as ordering devices in social life.

André Malhado, NOVA FCSH – CESEM

Ph.D. student in Musicology at the NOVA FCSH in Lisbon and holds an FCT Scholarship (SFRH/BD/145674/2019). Earned a master’s in Musical Sciences with a dissertation on cyberpunk music in audiovisual media, and his work spans the fields of musicology, sociomusicology, digital and audiovisual technologies, and identity. Has presented at multiple conferences in Brazil, Spain, and Portugal, and co-edited the book Log in, live on: música e cibercultura na era da Internet das coisas (Edições Humus, 2018). He is also a producer, composer, music, and cultural critic.

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Cyborg Composers: AI as Collaborative Assistant, as Creator and as Competitor (Hussein Boon, University of Westminster)

Abstract: This presentation discusses A.I. from a number of perspectives drawn from ongoing research on music futures (Boon 2021 and 2022). Haraway refers to the Cyborg as being a 'confusion of boundaries' (Haraway 2012: 174). These boundaries present a number of challenges and outcomes for music creators. Hofstaeder noted that David Cope's EMI 'doesn’t generate style on its own. It depends on mimicking prior composers' (Garcia 2015). Yet what are the differences between machine mimicry and humans, especially where composers are asked to create soundalikes to circumvent license fees or responding to changes in the field (Faulkner 1983: 95)?

The relationship between human and A.I. need not be viewed 'like the accounts of technological determinism destroying “man” by the “machine”' (Haraway 2012: 189) but, instead, one that is potentially radical in nature. Cope referred to his A.I. as ‘something to provoke me into composing’ (Garcia 2015). This presentation situates composers within these various complex situations, where A.I. composition meta-information will be used to both assist and compete. Under consideration will be capture based technologies, black box systems and large thematic sample libraries, where all operate as part of Weber's iron cage of rationality. Irrespective of which position is held, this confirms how digital corporations are central to 'changing experiences, economies, and industries of … music' (Zhang and Negus 2021:2).

Bio: Hussein is a principal lecturer at the University of Westminster. His teaching and areas of interest include music production, performance technologies, songwriting, modular synthesis, live coding and music business. He has worked for various institutions and organisations, was part of the team to establish Rockschool popular music exams and has worked for various artists including Beats International, Alex Parks, Microgroove and De La Soul. His recent publications include using shift registers for semi improvised songwriting and composition; several short fiction stories about AI and music futures; and reimagining the DAW as a design tool.

The Effect of Stock Music vs Custom Music on the Likability and Vividness of TV Adverts (Hannah Cahill, Goldsmiths, University of London)

Abstract: Much research has already been conducted into how different types of music affect advert perception, and it is clear that the fit between music and brand is essential in order to appeal to the desired audience.

What is not yet clear, is whether any music which fits the brand will be effective, or whether custom music has a stronger effect. Recent research has suggested that whilst advertising professionals are affected by perceived music source, consumers are not.

This study aims to address this gap in the research, paring the same adverts with best-fit stock library music, as well as the original commissioned music. The 36 short adverts from 6 different leading brands will be a mixture of social media and tv adverts which were previously aired in various countries, but have not have been aired in the UK.

In an online survey, participants will watch a mixture of adverts with different music sources, which will be rated immediately after viewing, to assess the perceived likability and vividness of each advert, as well as other factors such as whether the music fit the brand and whether or not the participants liked the music.

Results will be analysed using mixed effects regression model on each of the dependent variables (including likability, vividness and fit), on each of the three types of music stimuli. The results should give a better understanding of the differences between these two commonly used types of music.

Bio: Hannah Cahill is a music theorist and educator, who has spent the last 15 years teaching music theory, analysis and composition. She holds a BMus (hons) from the University of Edinburgh and is currently finishing an MSc in the neuroscience and psychology of music (Music, Mind & Brain) at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research project, ‘assessing the likability and vividness of stock vs custom music in tv adverts’ looks empirically at the differences between these types of music, as evaluated by consumers, and is being run in conjunction with global sound branding agency, amp, and supervised by Dr Daniel Müllensiefen.

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Music Psychology and the Origins of Mood Tagging in Production Music Libraries (Ravi Krishnaswami, Brown University)

Abstract: Production music is only valuable if it can be found. Lacking the vocabulary and training of musicians and music scholars, how do “non musos” in advertising find the right music for their video? A production music library’s metadata is only as good as its legibility. To return more relevant search results, music libraries have turned to taxonomies of mood, hoping that users will be able to identify the affective traits they seek.

In 1936, Kate Hevner conducted one of the earliest music psychology experiments using the newly accessible phonograph. Hevner’s goal for the study was to demonstrate that major and minor modalities created different affective responses. She only tested classical and romantic composers of European descent, despite the fact that the most popular selling records in the mid-1930s were American pop, jazz and Broadway singers performing music from the “Great American Song Book.” This early attempt to scientifically verify concepts taken for granted in music theory established an enduring model of how to bring music into the lab, playing excerpts and gathering immediate responses, marked by subjects on sheets of paper with groupings of moods, feelings, and other descriptive adjectives.

Through the history of the advertising industry’s engagement with music psychology, I will show how music psychology’s discourses of musical affect and mood have shaped modern production music libraries, prioritizing spotty empirical data over qualitative epistemologies, shaping marketers’ understanding of music, and reinscribing cultural norms.

Bio: Ravi Krishnaswami is a PhD student at Brown University studying how technology, business, and culture intersect in the work of creating music for advertising. He is an award-winning composer and sound-designer for advertising, television, and games, a business owner, and guitarist in NYC’s tribute to The Smiths. His composition work has appeared in the Super Bowl, on networks including ESPN and HBO, and in AAA video game soundtracks such as Fallout and Dishonored. He studies sitar with Srinivas Reddy, and recently premiered works for acoustic instruments and live processing, under the supervision of Lu Wang and Butch Rovan.

Jessica Dannheisser (composer)

Jessica Dannheisser is an Ivor Novello Award nominated composer based in London. Her work is characterised by a flair for combining traditional orchestral colours with imaginative contemporary production. Her passion for narrative music can be seen in her wide-ranging scores for film, television, VR, and theatre, and by her orchestral works that explore musical portraiture.

Jessica’s score for Blitz Spirit with Lucy Worsley was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for Best Television Soundtrack. Jessica’s latest score is for the BBC sci-fi drama series Silverpoint which is currently available to watch on BBC iPlayer. Jessica loves scoring comedy and adventure films, and has worked with David Walliams’ production company King Berton several films for Sky One including Hansel and Gretel: After Ever After, Jack and the Beanstalk: After Ever After and The Queen and I. In 2020-21 Jessica composed the score for 6-part wildlife series Secret Safari | Into The Wild narrated by Andrew Scott and she has collaborated on several of David Attenborough’s projects, including composing the score for Sky VR’s groundbreaking virtual reality experience Hold The Worldand orchestrating the score for A Perfect Planet.

Ravi Krishnaswami (composer and PhD researcher)

Ravi Krishnaswami is a PhD student at Brown University studying how technology, business, and culture intersect in the work of creating music for advertising. He is an award-winning composer and sound-designer for advertising, television, and games, a business owner, and guitarist in NYC’s tribute to The Smiths. His composition work has appeared in the Super Bowl, on networks including ESPN and HBO, and in AAA video game soundtracks such as Fallout and Dishonored. He studies sitar with Srinivas Reddy, and recently premiered works for acoustic instruments and live processing, under the supervision of Lu Wang and Butch Rovan.

Jenny Oakes (Managing Director at JW Media Music)

JW Media is an independent and established provider of Production Music for Broadcast. Working with some of the most talented composers and artists in the field we have a unique sound and a strong identity that makes our music stand out from the rest. Our fast efficient service and ethical take on the production music industry makes us the number one choice for UK production companies and broadcasters alike.

With a catalogue of over 9,000 tracks across all genres (classical to contemporary) in the JW catalogue, and a further 6,000 from our sub published libraries Beatbox, Brilliant and Bing Bang Boom we really are a competitive source for all your production music needs.

It’s hard to watch an evening’s television without hearing Paul Mottram’s compositions at some point such is the popularity of his large 600-700 track portfolio of work for production music libraries Audio Network and Cavendish. His work figures prominently in such well known shows as The Great British Bake Off , The Apprentice, Downton Abbey, Who Do You Think You Are, Panorama, The One Show, Countryfile, Antiques Roadshow and QI and he has written title and incidental music for programs such as Travel Man, Upstart Crow, People Like Us, The Shelbourne, The Big House, Bank of Dave, Vic Reeves Rogues Gallery and Kirstie’s Handmade Britain. His music has also featured in films such as Bad Santa and The Bee movie as well as the trailer to Woody Allen’s Oscar winning film Blue Jasmine.

Paul Mottram was classically trained as a violinist, pianist and composer at the Royal College of Music, Cambridge University and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. With eclectic musical tastes and an acute analytical ear he quickly developed the skills and versatility required to write outstanding music for film and television.

Initially Paul worked as on orchestrator on films such as Chaplin, Shirley Valentine and Rain Man and was also heavily involved with the restoration and re-recording of William Walton and Malcolm Arnold’s “lost” film scores of the 1940s and 1950s.

Soon specialising as a composer, Paul started working in the world of advertising and wrote music for commercials such as Pizza Hut, Tetley, Renault, Hitachi and JVC. From these small but exacting canvasses, Paul started composing music for BBC radio 4 in shows such as In the Red, Babblewick Hall and Rigor Mortis and then television with the hit spoof documentary series People Like Us.

His trademark is a direct yet detailed multi layered compositional style with a strong emotional core that can be brought to bear on whatever the demands of the project in hand. He is equally at home in Classical or Jazz mediums. Melodic writing is another forte and tracks such as Sideways Like A Crab have reached something of a cult status.

He also writes concert music and has composed for musicians such as The Swingle Singers, John Harle, Fine Arts Brass Ensemble, Superbrass and the Dunedin Consort. In 2016, his song cycle Falls was performed at the Snape Maltings by the National Youth Choir of Great Britain and a Gospel Jazz work Come Spirit was premiered by the Chapter House Choir in York Minster.

Visit https://paulmottram.com/ for further info.

"New Blood": A Case Study in Library Music (Ray Russell, Leeds Beckett University and Robert Davis, Leeds Beckett University/Open University)

Abstract: The MCPS website lists over 500 music production companies and with the output of a small production company creating some 20 albums a year added to the world-wide companies there is a production line of thousands of tracks searching for space in television production and beyond. The tracks are all formatted in the same way as mixes, sub-mixes, underscores, and stings. Endless hours of TV are have been filled with format programmes making use of library music made specifically for media use.

Not everything works to formula. In 1987, along with Peter Van Hooke, Ray Russell wrote the track 'New Blood' that became the most played piece of Library music played on American network TV and achieved an ASCAP award in recognition of this. The track was picked up by the music director at Paramount Studios from the Bruton music library. The genesis of the track demonstrates how a mainly improvised work produced at the end of a recording session became an award-winning and popular library track. The choice of this track and the issues that surrounded its inclusion as a key theme for Paramount is discussed by the composer, Ray Russell.

The anecdotal evidence provided by tracks like 'New Blood' provides an opportunity for academics interested in music for TV to focus on the processes involved including the creation, the selection, and the reception of the music.

New Blood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdIOM7h2oPw

Bios: Dr Ray Russell completed his PhD in 2020 drawing on his extensive studio career as a session musician. As a composer for television and film he has worked with George Fenton and provided music for a wide range of productions but is perhaps most known for Touch of Frost (ITV Yorkshire) and achieve a Royal television Society Award for Best Music in a TV series (2006). He has an extensive catalogue of library music. https://rayrussell.co.uk

Dr Robert Davis has lectured in a number of institutions and most recently taught at Leeds Beckett University where he was director of the MA in Music for Film. Having retired from full-time lecturing he continues to work part time at Leeds Beckett University and as an Associate Lecture at the Open University. As a composer, he has scored a number of animations, shorts and was composer on Mansfield 66/67 (2017) (with James Peter Moffatt).

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Role of Digital Media in Production of Library Music by Amateur Composers in the Context of India (Swati Bute, Jagran Lakecity University)

Abstract: Library music is emerging as a new area of creative work as well as a new source of income for amateur composers and digital media is playing important role in providing a platform to emerging music composers in India. Music and song are integral part of Indian society but is still not accepted as a serious profession or career. People having some music background normally go to the creative field such as singing, music design and music composition. Music composition is considered as an unstable area where there is no guarantee of regular income or work. Many youngsters who have great interest in creative areas specifically in music composition normally do not consider this as a career because of family pressure. Apart from that Indian music industry is not very organized and have dominance of few music companies. But in last few years Indian film, television and music industry has shown tremendous growth as a result it is in providing new opportunities to the amateur composers of library music. Multiple digital platforms are providing content to the local, national and global audiences. for which film, television, advertising and music industry people create content. In India production in regional and vernacular language is also in high demand which is providing local artists and talents an opportunity to compose local music. Library music is not only in demand in India but also in international creative market. These changes are providing scope to amateur music composers to create library music for open market provided by the digital media. Because of technological upgradation music composition is easy now as we do not need sophisticated studios and set ups. This paper will discuss about digital media’s role in providing opportunities to amateur composers in the production of library music in India.

Bio: Dr. Swati Bute is working as an Associate Professor at Jagran School of Journalism & Communication, Jagran Lakecity University, Bhopal. She has eleven years experience of working in academics and eight years experience in industry. She holds Doctorate in Communication and Journalism, which she did from Savitri Bai Phule Pune University and has completed short duration Visiting Fellowship from New Delhi based Government Think Tank ‘Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis’. In the past she worked with Indira School of Communication Pune & at International School of Business & Media Pune as a professor. National Institute of Health and Family Welfare New Delhi & at Amity University Noida as an Assistant Professor and with Shri Vaishnav Vidyapeeth Vishwavidyalaya, Indore as an Associate Professor. She worked with All India Radio (Public Broadcasting Service of India) for 6 years as a casual compeer. At present she is pursuing Post Graduate Diploma in Education Administration from Symbiosis Centre for Distance Education, Symbiosis University Pune. Her two edited books are indexed in Scopus.

Her research interests are communication studies, print & electronic media, digital media communication, international affairs and media, health communication, media and society and cross cultural communication.

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Black Circus’ Score+Production Music: Remotely Composing/Curating Sounds for a Brazilian Documentary Miniseries (Geórgia Cynara Coelho de Souza, University of São Paulo)

Abstract: First-person reflection on the creation of the soundtrack of the documentary television miniseries “Guarany: Black Circus’ Stories on the outskirts of São Paulo” (directed and produced by Mariana Gabriel, exhibited on SESC TV, São Paulo-Brazil, 2021). The aesthetic-narrative and workflow implications (Matos, 2014) from the remote collaborative work and dialogue between the director (São Paulo, southeastern Brazil) and me, the composer (Goiânia, midwest Brazil). Thoughts about the mix of the filmed places’ sounds with original score and production music (Adams et al, 2017), all edited in Logic, at my home studio, during the pandemic years of the Covid-19 (2020-2021).

Divided into four chapters of 20 minutes, the miniseries traces the history of “The Black Circus” in São Paulo (1904-1958), with the purpose of preserving both the memory of the protagonists’ family (The Alves) and this part of Brazilian culture, left by the director’s grandparents João Alves - the Great Guarany Circus Theather’s owner - and Maria Eliza Alves dos Reis - the first Brazilian black woman to act as a circus’ male clown, in the early 1900’s.

After establishing the sound concept and under my remote guidance, the director herself recorded the sounds of the main locations of the circus, and of the family farm where the interviews took place. To these sounds, I, from my home studio in Goiânia, added other soundscapes, foley and sound libraries’ effects. To the original score, composed by me with the recording of analog and digital instruments, I sometimes add rhythmic loops from digital music libraries (catalog music - Durand, 2018), here understood as the set of musical fragments organized into categories - instrumentation, genre, emotion, place, time. and/or others - in digital collections available for use in audiovisual pieces. It is generally marked by the rejection of striking melodies, the constancy of tempo and tonality, the division into stems - families of instruments mixed independently - and by well-defined beginnings and endings, without fades, to facilitate editing with the image.

Bio: PhD and post-doctoral fellow in Audiovisual Media and Processes at the School of Communications and Arts of the University of São Paulo (ECA/USP), Brazil. Master and graduated in Social Communication from the Federal University of Goiás (UFG), specialist in Cinema and Education from the Institute of Philosophy and Theology of Goiás (Ifiteg), journalist, musician, composer and permanent professor of the Interdisciplinary Post-Graduate Program in Cultural Performances at UFG and professor at the Bachelor's Degree in Cinema and Audiovisual at the State University of Goiás (UEG).

This panel addresses how music emerging from the so-called ‘golden age’ of library music – usually dated from the late 1960s to the early 1980s – has grown in appeal amongst a range of niche communities, and how it has been remediated via digital technologies to appeal to contemporary markets. While library music of this era was often held in low regard at the time, its general status has been revaluated via sampling within popular music and a broader cult interest in the music, which has led to the artistic elevation of selected library music artists (and which hence has contributed to the status of the era). The panel looks primarily at three components in the remediation of library music: the digitisation of library music infrastructures; reissues of older library records; and sampling library music from this era.

The Changing Infrastructures of Recorded Music Libraries (Elodie A. Roy, Northumbria University)

Abstract: Recorded music libraries have consistently reinvented themselves across the past sixty years, notably in response to changes in audio formats and to address the rapidly evolving needs of the audiovisual industry. Contrary to commercial record companies which initially resisted the dematerialization and digital distribution of music, library companies were quick to realise the possibilities afforded by the internet and digital tools (both in terms of disseminating and creating music). In some cases, they even helped develop and standardise the use of some important techno-cultural devices such as musical search engines (Taylor 2012, 120). Drawing from archival research and from interviews with former and current library managers, and informed by Bolter and Grusin’s concept of ‘remediation’ (1999), this paper will survey how music libraries have concretely answered the needs for technological adaptation while preserving their symbolic identities – highlighting in particular the endurance of the ‘catalogue’ (which lies at the core of every library).

The paper will further propose that the technologically- (and future-) oriented nature of libraries has had practical implications for the remembering and historicizing of library music. Few companies have preserved a complete set of their physical releases, often destroying the bulk of their vinyl records as compact-discs were introduced, and archival documentation is scarce (especially in the case of smaller companies). It is only in recent years that bigger libraries – most notably KPM and Music De Wolfe in the UK –, have begun capitalising upon their heritage (notably through reissue programmes), indicating a new retrospective phase in the history of libraries.

References:

Bolter, Jay D. and Richard Grusin (1999). Remediation. Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Taylor, Timothy D. (2012). The Sounds of Capitalism. Advertising, Music, and the Conquest of Culture. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press

Bio: Elodie A. Roy is a media and material culture theorist with a specialism in the history of recorded sound. She currently works as a Research Fellow at Northumbria University (Newcastle) as part of the project Anonymous Creativity: Library Music and Screen Cultures in the 1960s and 1970s (PI Jamie Sexton, CI Nessa Johnston). She is the author of Media, Materiality and Memory: Grounding the Groove (Routledge), as well as the co-editor (with Eva Moreda Rodríguez) of Phonographic Encounters: Mapping Transnational Cultures of Sound, 1890-1945 (Routledge).

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Towards a Theory of Digital cultification of 1960s and 1970s Library Music (Nessa Johnston, Edge Hill University)

Abstract: This paper explores examples of library music of the 1960s and 1970s from De Wolfe, KPM, Bruton Music, and Themes International that repeatedly resurface in a range of media contexts, and analyse the ways that online users and fans engage with and celebrate these cues. Web content ranging from YouTube videos to niche discussion boards and record trading sites, play host to discussion that includes contributions from specialists and nostalgic memories from fans, viewers and listeners. These contributions range from glib, throwaway comments to lengthy and involved discussions. Often there is a fascination with multiple uses of cues in widely different film and TV contexts. Many comments connect with cultures of record collecting, broadly established from the 1990s onwards, with online presences increasing in importance.

I will propose a theory of digital cultificaton of library music, which acknowledges the economics and affect of cult, and takes as a starting point a question posed by James Wierzbicki in relation to music and cult cinema: “For a fragmentary cultural object to be a ‘cult’ object, is it enough that it be somehow recycled?” (Wierzbicki 2019: 308). Any answer is hardly straightforward, and I will argue that in the case of this ‘vintage’ library music, the discourses articulated online in relation to musical and visual style and cultures of collecting, can be clarified as cult using Raymond Williams’s concept of ‘structure of feeling’; emotionally evocative of past states of being, yet elusive prior to engagement in these dynamic and shifting online discourses.

References:

Donnelly, K. J. (2002) “Tracking British television: pop music as stock soundtrack to the small screen,” Popular Music. Cambridge University Press, 21(3), pp. 331–343. doi: 10.1017/S0261143002002210.

Hollander, David (2018) Unusual Sounds: The Hidden History of Library Music, New York: Anthology Editions.

Wierzbicki, J (2019) “Cult Soundtracks (Music)” in Mathijs, E. and Sexton, J. (eds) The Routledge Companion to Cult Cinema, London: Routledge, pp. 307-314.

Williams, Raymond (1977/2015) “Structures of Feeling” in Sharma D. and Tygstrup, F. (eds) Structures of Feeling: Affectivity and the Study of Culture, Berlin: De Gruyter.

Bio: Nessa Johnston is Senior Lecturer in Media, Film and Television at Edge Hill University, and author of The Commitments: Youth, Music and Authenticity in 1990s Ireland (Routledge). Her research is in sound and music in screen media, cult cinema, media technologies, and media industries. She is co-investigator on the Leverhulme funded research project ‘Anonymous Creativity: Library Music and Screen Cultures in the 1960s and 1970s’ and a 2020 Fellow of the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas (Austin).

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Library Music, Sampling, and Hip-Hop (Jamie Sexton, Northumbria University)

Abstract: This paper will investigate the continuing appeal of library music from the late 1960s to the early 1980s via an examination of sampling, particularly within hip-hop productions. In the 1990s several hip-hop producers, as well as other electronic music producers, became drawn to library music as sample material (Schloss 2004; Cameron 2020). Obscurity was important: many DJs would crate-dig to find samples that hadn’t become overused. Since this point, library music has been used consistently as a sampling resource, and it tends to be the period mentioned that is still the most revered. Examples of artists who have employed library music samples from this era include Drake, MF DOOM, Madlib, and Nas.

The growing cult interest in library music (from this era in particular) has further been recognised by certain library production companies, particularly larger ones such as De Wolfe and KPM, who are increasingly highlighting their appeal to producers/DJs in addition to their synchronisation usage. Library music companies sometimes release compilations from their libraries, and very often these will be aimed at modern producers looking for samples. De Wolfe has now created a new sublabel called Bite Hard which focuses on modern releases which sample from their back catalogue. KPM, meanwhile, has also recognised the cult appeal of its back catalogue – particularly the KPM 100 series (commonly referred to as Greensleeves) – and has licensed several of its albums for repress in the past decade.

References:

Cameron, Stuart (2020). An Economic Approach to the Plagiarism of Music. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

Schloss, Joseph G. (2014). Making Beats. The Art of Sample based Hip-Hop. Wesleyan University Press.

Bio: Jamie Sexton is Senior Lecturer in Film and Television at Northumbria University. He is currently PI for the

Leverhulme funded research project ‘Anonymous Creativity: Library Music and Screen Cultures in the 1960s and

1970s’. His publications include Cult Cinema (with Ernest Mathijs, 2011) and a forthcoming monograph, Freak

Scenes: American Indie Cinema and Indie Music Cultures (2023).

Sounds Suitable for Any Situation: Television Music Library Books in the Early Network Era (Reba Wissner, Columbus State University)

Abstract: The new medium of television in the late 1940s and early 1950s found a natural pairing with music and networks had to build music libraries to accompany different type of shows. The focus of many programs was on the singers and dramatization of the music rather than on an instrumental ensemble or even the song. Instead of having recorded library tracks, music publishing companies such as Sam Fox and music rights organizations such as Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) published sheet music collections for television networks to be performed live in these variety shows, sometimes with suggested sketches to accompany them. BMI also published two reference books—Recorded Bridges, Moods, Interludes and BMI Categorical Index—that listed music that could be used as library music for shows that were not related to variety programs, referencing recordings that could be used that were not specifically library cues. Recorded Bridges, Moods, Interludes was advertised as “a classified and cross-indexed reference book, particularly helpful wherever descriptive mood music is necessary.” The BMI Categorical Index, published in 1949, was billed as “for setting musical scenes and selecting appropriate music for countless script situations.”

To date, discussions of library music have focused on recordings rather than printed music or catalogues. This paper discusses the television music library books that were disseminated specifically to networks for television use. It will illustrate how music publishers and performing rights organizations thought of music libraries in the early network era and how networks implemented this material into their programs.

Bio: Reba Wissner is assistant professor of musicology at Columbus State University. She is the author of A Dimension of Sound: Music in The Twilight Zone (Pendragon Press, 2013), We Will Control All That You Hear: The Outer Limits and the Aural Imagination (Pendragon Press, 2016), and Music and the Atomic Bomb on American Television, 1950-1969 (Peter Lang, 2020). Her fourth book, David Lynch: Sonic Style, is under contract with Routledge. Her television music research can be found in journals such as American Music; Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television; Music, Sound, and the Moving Image; and edited collections.

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Taking Stock: Music in the Quota Quickies (Alexis Bennett, Goldsmiths, University of London)

Abstract: At the very moment that the techniques of the classical style of filmmaking and its scoring practices were beginning to consolidate themselves and exert their influence in the UK, a stream of British low-budget pictures emerged which ignored many of those same principles. Quota quickies—or simply ‘quickies’—were low-budget British films made largely as a result of government legislation in the 1930s. Over 700 films that can be categorised as such

were made in the 1930s.

Most of the quickies were dramas, thrillers, or comedies, with few opportunities for songs or ambitious dance sequences, and rarely any substantial original underscoring. For this reason, the apparent use of what was then known as ‘stock’ music (library or production music), and a device I describe as ‘bookending’, does often characterise the sound-world of the quickies. But it is crucial to bear in mind that musical aspects of these several hundred films—at least those that survive to be analysed—varied as much as the films themselves, ranging from a complete absence of music, to minimal deployment of stock cues, to more pervasive original music. For the scholar, the most obvious hindrance—where music exists on the soundtrack—is the absence of surviving written scores, manuscript or otherwise, so the sources are in all cases the films themselves alongside their cuesheets where available. This paper will discuss the use of music in a pair of mid-decade ‘quota quickies’: The Phantom Light (Michael Powell, 1934) and The Crimes of Stephen Hawke (George King, 1936).

Bio: Alexis Bennett is Lecturer in Music at Goldsmiths, University of London, and a visiting supervisor at the University of Cambridge. He was Edison Fellow at the British Library Sound Archive 2015-16. He is reviews editor of Music, Sound, and the Moving Image, published by Liverpool University Press. He has published in Popular Music (Cambridge University Press), Music, Sound, and the Moving Image (Liverpool University Press) and Journal of Film Music (Equinox). Alexis is also a media composer and performer specialising in folk and early music.