The History of Horn Playing in Los Angeles from 1920 to 1970 begins with the horn players who played in the silent film orchestras and the Alfred Brain's tenure with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. This study details the introduction of soundtracks, the early studio orchestras, the contract studio orchestras, the musician union's role in structuring the work environment, the horn players who played in both the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the studios, major figures from the subsequent freelance period such as Vincent de Rosa, and the local and international influence of the Los Angeles Horn Club.

The popularity of the miscellaneous wind bands in Italian society through the centuries, and the prominent use of the trumpet within these ensembles and as a solo instrument, become evident in the examination of the development of the banda sul palco (the band on stage) in Italian opera. Gioachino Rossini was the first to use the banda sul palco (stage band) with any regularity. Giovanni Paisiello, Giuseppe Gazzaniga, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart must be considered earlier contributors to the growing movement of using instrumental ensembles on stage.

The purpose was to investigate attitudes of successful full-time performing classical singer-actors toward career concerns of the music profession. Five research problems were formulated to: (1) describe attitudes toward control of work conditions; (2) describe attitudes toward entrapment; (3) describe attitudes toward dependency; (4) report attitudes concerning current practices of training the solo singer; and (5) identify commonalities among the subjects regarding demographic, the attitudes described in problems one through four, and demeanor during the interviews.