Adding Music and Sounds to a Project in Windows Movie Maker

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Updated on November 12, 2018

Man holding a video camera — Glim / Getty Images

Music makes everything better. You might have an awesome photomontage that you've created in Windows Movie Maker, but adding a little music, or maybe some fun sound effects will really make it come to life.

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Importing an Audio File

Movie Maker screeen showing the audio file icon in the Collections window

Any music, sound file or narration file is known as an audio file.

Steps

Under the Capture Video link, choose Import audio or music.
Locate the folder containing your audio file.
Select the audio file you wish to import.

Once the audio file is imported, you will notice the different type of icon in the Collections window.

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Audio Clips Can Only Be Added in the Timeline

Windows Movie Maker cautions that audio can only be added in Timeline view

Drag the audio icon to the Storyboard.

Note the message box indicating that audio clips can only be added in the Timeline view.

Click OK in this message box.

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Audio Files Have Their Own Timeline

Audio files have their own location in the Timeline to keep them separate from pictures or video clips. This makes it easier to manipulate either type of file.

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Align the Audio With the First Picture

Align the audio file with the first picture in Windows Movie Maker

Drag the audio file to the left to align with the start point of the first picture. This will start the music when the first picture appears.

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Timeline View of the Audio Clip

Timeline shows where music ends in Windows Movie Maker

The Timeline indicates how much time each item takes up over the course of the whole movie. Notice that this audio file takes up a much bigger space on the Timeline than the pictures. Scroll across the Timeline window to see the end of the audio clip.

In this example, the music ends at approximately 4:23 minutes, which is much longer than we need.

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Shorten an Audio Clip

Drag the end of the audio clip to the left to shorten it.

Hover the mouse over the end of the music clip until it becomes a two-headed arrow. Drag the end of the music clip to the left to line up with the last picture.

In this instance, we will have to drag the end of the music clip several times to reach the beginning of the movie due to its size. It is easier to do this if you zoom in on the timeline so that there is not so much dragging. The Zoom tools are located at the bottom left side of the screen, to the left of the Storyboard / Timeline.

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