Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 March 2009
The use of sound for representation and narrative may go beyond what we might conventionally term musical. Film has gradually brought into focus the practice of sound art as something distinct from music yet existing at the end of a unified continuum between abstraction and representation. Music has gradually been subsumed into the soundtrack as another element of the film sound world, and sound design is often on an equal footing with it. Sound designers are now increasingly exploring the more psychological (as opposed to merely representational) dimensions of sound.