The Place Of Music In Movies

It's no news today, of the intense value and use or involvement of music in our lives and the world at large. Ranging from personal purposes to ones beyond just our consumption; entertainment, events, activism, and every other sense that goes beyond the personal use.

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Today, it's perhaps undeniable that music has become a part of everything humanity does, from bad to good, right to wrong, minor to major, simple to luxurious, casual to extensive, and every other form considerable. Safe to say, it has successfully encroached into every space in every way.

Music is just everywhere. It's there on the streets, in homes, corporations, organisations, religious bodies and what have you. And we see it very much involved in one of the entertainment fields or industries, showing the translational power and influence of music. Yes, I'm talking about the movie industry.

Be it Hollywood, Nollywood, Bollywood, or whatever national movie industry, music is there, heavily involved and highly influential to the success of a movie. I need not talk of how much of it is involved in the Bollywood movie industry; where my presumptuous thoughts lead to the conclusion that every actor would have to learn to sing to feature in a movie in this industry.

Whatever the case, whatever the industry, and however it could be involved in the equation of movie production, music has a definite and undeniable role. Come to think of it that some movies are even musicals. To name a few; The Greatest Showman, Pitch Perfect, Let It Shine, Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, and one of the movies that truly and totally embodies the qualities of a musical, The Sound of Music.

The extent of this involvement is seen in animations even, like, Sing, Coco, The Grinch, and the infamous Cinderella, and Snowhite and the Seven Dwarfs, to mention but a few. These all have gone to show that music itself can make a movie and not just be a part of a movie, not something to just spice it up.

However, one can't fail to talk of this matter and not acknowledge how music has shaped and affected movies in the place of background sound effects and songs, in scenes, even not necessarily as a musical. Finding a movie where music isn't incorporated into it would be impossible. At specific scenes, it's involved, be it in sound effects or a song, thereby adding more life to the scenes and ultimately making the movie worthy of a good watch.

I guess it can then be said that the success of a movie to an extent depends on the good work of the sound effects and choice/incorporation of songs. Perhaps then, when a critical check is made into the reasons for the failure of some movies, some hidden and unnoticed outcome could point to music－as song or sound effects－be it that it was wrongly used in scenes, or absent where it was supposed to be used.

I'm not an expert in this, but analysing this has made me realise the deeper role music plays in the level of appeal of a movie. Since it's clear that movies all involve music in one way or another, it goes to show that it's a necessity, and one to be used rightly and purposefully. Hence, the perception that it could be significantly involved in the failure or success of a movie.

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Images were taken from musical movies scenes.

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