[Commlist] Edited collection on library music: call for chapter proposals

*Call for Chapter Proposals*

*Anonymous Creativity: Library Music and Screen Cultures in the 1960s 
and 1970s (edited by Nessa Johnston, Elodie A. Roy, and Jamie Sexton)*

**

We invite chapter proposals for an edited collection focusing on library 
music in the 1960s and 1970s and its contemporary afterlife.

Library music – sometimes referred to as stock or production music – is 
music created specifically for synchronisation in radio, film, 
television, and other media. Unlike traditional scoring, library music 
is not created for integration into a specific media artefact but is 
designed to capture more general themes or moods. Despite being used in 
a variety of media as far back as the 1920s, library music has yet to 
gain extensive academic attention. This collection aims to historicise 
and theorise aspects of library music production during what is often 
referred to as its ‘golden age’ – the period from the 1960s to the early 
1980s – which witnessed a huge rise in library music production (linked 
to the emergence of television production and an increase in independent 
filmmaking).  Library music composers were key contributors to the sonic 
identity of audiovisual media of the period, providing thousands of 
signature tunes, themes, and incidental music for film and television 
programmes. Despite their ubiquity and enduring cultural resonance, 
their contributions are often unacknowledged, and very little is known 
about the conditions in which library music was written, commissioned, 
recorded, circulated, and used. There has been some important academic 
work on library music (e.g. Nardi 2012; Wissner 2017; Durand 2020), but 
there is still much to be discovered within this relatively overlooked mode.

//

Proposals on library music from this period are welcomed from – but not 
limited to – researchers in the fields of film and television music, 
film history, media studies, fan studies.

Possible themes/topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

·*Labour Relations and Modes of Production*

Examples of which might include:

oRelationship between Unions, publishers, composers, and musicians

oInternationalisation, global interdependencies and country-specific 
modes of production

oHistories / case studies of specific recorded music libraries

oHistories / case studies of recording studios

oPromotion and circulation of library music recordings

·*Creativity, Originality, and Standardisation*

Examples of which might include:

oConstraints and rationalised creativity: briefs, limitations and 
referentiality

oLibrary music albums and distributed creativity: the role of artistic 
directors, studio engineers, sleeve designers, etc.

oChanging techniques, technologies and instruments and relationship to 
technological and industrial resources (e.g. magnetic tape, vinyl 
records, etc)

oCase studies of specific library music composers (studies of female 
composers will be especially welcome).

oModes, genres, and styles (notably experimental forms of library music 
and its relation to popular trends and to the avant-garde).

oThe status of session musicians.

oThe use of pseudonyms and collective names and its implications.

·*The Uses of Library Music*

Examples of which might include:

oAcross various programmes / media artefacts.

oAcross countries.

oCase studies of how specific directors / film genres used library music.

oCase studies on the life cycle of specific library tracks and/or albums.

oLicensing and copyright.

oUses by the BBC and commercial television.

·*Recyclability, Recirculation, and Remediation: Contemporary 
Revaluation of Historical Library Music Cultures*

Examples of which might include:**

oMemorialisation, historiography and heritage practices: the role of 
individual collectors and institutions; institutional and 
non-institutional modes of archiving, documenting, digitising and 
collecting library music.

oArtistic, critical and commercial remediations: reissuing, sampling, 
DJ-ing.

oReception: audiences, fans, collectors, nostalgia, cult value.

oThe material and visual culture of library music and its legacy on 
contemporary music.

This book stems from a Leverhulme funded project which investigates 
British, French, and Italian library music, but is not limited to those 
countries. While we are focusing on library music produced in the 1960s 
and 1970s, we are interested in the use of such music beyond this 
period; for example, older library music is still synchronised in media, 
and has been used as sample material by a range of musicians.

We have received potential interest from Bloomsbury in this collection, 
though we will not formally submit a proposal until we have fully 
confirmed the content of the collection. We currently estimate chapters 
being between 6000-8000 words.

Please send abstracts of 300 to 500 words and a 150-word biographical 
note – as well as any other questions – to 
(jamie.sexton /at/ northumbria.ac.uk) <mailto:(jamie.sexton /at/ northumbria.ac.uk)>

  * Deadline for chapter proposals: September 30, 2022
  * Notification of acceptance: By November 4, 2022
  * We anticipate the deadline for the submission of chapters to be late
    2023.
//

//

*References*

Durand, Júlia. 2020. ‘“Romantic Piano” and “Sleazy Saxophone” Categories 
and Stereotypes in Library Music Catalogues’, /Music, Sound, and the 
Moving Image/, Issue 14, Volume 1, pp. 23-45.

Nardi, Carlo. 2012. ‘Library Music: Technology, Copyright and 
Authorship’ in /Current Issues in Music Research: Copyright, Power and 
Transnational Music Processes/, eds. Iván Iglesias, Pedro Roxo, Salwa E. 
Castelo-Branco and Susana Moreno Fernández (Lisbon: Colibri), pp. 73-83.

Wissner. Reba. 2017. ‘Music for Murder, Machines, and Monsters: ‘Moat 
Farm Murder’, The Twilight Zone, and the CBS Stock Music Library.’ 
/Music, Sound and the Moving Image. /Volume 11, Issue 2, pp. 157-186.


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