Prior to 1930 films were “silent.” The majority of silent films did have musical accompaniment, often live, by anything from pianists or organists, to full orchestras. To help accompanists with music selection, books of music were published with ideas for scene music and many films came with suggestions of music to play for specific scenes.

Birth of a Nation was the first American movie to have a score compiled for the film.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first commercially issued film soundtrack.

In 1933, Max Steiner wrote the first completely original score for King Kong.

The 1950’s marked the entry of Jazz into movie film scores.

While film scores from the 70’s were inspired by the big orchestral sounds of John Williams, the 80’s led to analogue synthesizer, often replacing the orchestra. From there, film scores have used a combination of orchestral sounds and synthesizers to evoke the emotion, intrigue and excitement that make movies so memorable!

From his first work in 1977 to the end of 2019, John Williams has composed more than 20 hours of movie music, including music for 9 Star Wars movies!