What does OST mean? Classification, history and purpose of soundtracks

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What does OST mean? Classification, history and purpose of soundtracks
What does OST mean? Classification, history and purpose of soundtracks

Video: What does OST mean? Classification, history and purpose of soundtracks

Video: What does OST mean? Classification, history and purpose of soundtracks
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Often after beating a computer game or watching a movie, there is a desire to find the track you like that was used in the game or movie. Such tracks have the abbreviation OST, and recently they have begun to stand out even as a separate class of music.

What does the abbreviation OST mean?

OST stands for original soundtrack or official soundtrack. These phrases can be translated literally as "original soundtrack" or "official soundtrack".

In a broader sense, OST is music for any multimedia content (movie, cartoon, video game, series, advertisement, etc.) In addition, an OST collection can also be created specifically for the process of reading a particular book, for example, John Tolkien ("The Lord of the Rings", "The Hobbit").

Often OST can be found in the title of various pieces of music next to the name of the movie or game. OST in songs means that this composition was used as a soundtrack for title of the track to the movie and/or game.

ost what does the abbreviation mean
ost what does the abbreviation mean

OST classification

Having explained what OST means, let's present a conditional classification of soundtracks. All existing ones can be divided into two groups: by content and by the method of creation.

According to the method of creating OSTs, there are:

  • Official or original. These are tracks that were used directly by the authors or developers of this or that content for the musical accompaniment of this. These may include popular songs from different groups and individual composers, or tracks created specifically for a particular game, movie, etc.
  • Unofficial or non-original (unofficial). In this case, OST means that it is an alternative collection of tracks collected by fans or fans of this or that content as its musical accompaniment. Unofficial tracks can be official tracks from other movies and games, or just some songs from different artists. Basically, these are created for various computer games.

According to the content of OST there are:

  • Music while reading a book.
  • Part or complete version of the musical presented as an audio track.
  • Background music sounding in the movie, series.
  • Background music from a video game.
  • A track that sounds in the film from a popular band or individual composer. Often such tracks have dialogue, excerpts from the movie to which they refer, and can be in the formcollection.
  • A video game track from a popular band, a separate composer.
what does ost mean
what does ost mean

OST story

Tracks to the cartoon "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" by W alt Disney Studios (1938) became the first soundtracks in history. At the time, the OST meant that it would be a LP containing several tracks from the film.

what does ost mean in songs
what does ost mean in songs

After the advent of the first computer games and their subsequent popularity, composers began to appear who wrote music specifically for specific games. The first of these were Rob Hubbard and Martin Galway (1980s).

Purpose of creating OST

Initially, the idea of creating soundtracks was intended to promote a particular film and increase interest in it. With the development of technology, when it became possible to use high-quality musical accompaniment in computer games and films, soundtracks began to be used as advertising for the composers themselves and their songs. Thus, various affiliate programs were formed. One example of such cooperation is EA Trax, a license agreement for the computer game studio Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) with major music labels. All copyright songs used in Electronic Arts games are united by the common name EA Trax.

Besides advertising, soundtracks also have purely financial implications. Fans of various computer games and film series (e.g. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars) are happy to purchasecollections of official soundtracks from your favorite games and movies.

In this article, we have analyzed what OST means, classification, history and purpose of creation. We hope you found it useful.

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