ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the bumpy terrain of contested and ambiguous terminology by exploring the origins of this new practice and aims to focuses on its different manifestations and the contexts that have enabled it to flourish. It argues that one factor that affects all manifestations of the 'integrated soundtrack' is the musical approach applied by practitioners to the film medium in general and to film soundtrack in particular. The chapter shows that this is a noteworthy development in soundtrack practice which, despite numerous changes in so-called post-classical cinema relating to various formal and narrative strategies has remained predominantly classical in terms of the established roles of, and relationships between, soundtrack's constitutive elements. It suggests that the seeds of the 'holistic' approach to film soundtrack were planted at the birth of sound cinema. Considering all the circumstances and influences, it is clear that soundtrack integration based on erasing the difference between music and sound design was inevitable.
