How Film and TV Music Communicate, Volumes 1 & 2, by Brian Morrell

This is simply an enormous boon to the aspiring film and television composer. Morrell has collected theory, philosophy, musicology, and history into two huge volumes – the first alone is almost 400 pages! It’s hard to think of a topic that he doesn’t cover in this two-part work, but just in case he might have forgotten something, he devotes a final chapter in his first volume on “Film Music in Context.” This last is an exhaustive grab-bag of answers to the types of questions you read on Facebook group threads: “Sampled vs. the real thing;” “How to stimulate your intuition;” and “Relying on the click.” And his advice throughout is sterling, speaking with confidence about every step of the process. It’s simply unbelievable that this much quality information is just sitting there in a couple of PDF’s to read for anyone who wants to click on it.