FILM COMPOSER BLOG

A couple of years ago I saw a performance of Giacanto Scelsi's Hymnos at the San Francisco Symphony. It was paired with one of Mahler's symphonies, so the program was the 14-minute Hymnos, then a 30 minute intermission, then Mahler's 5th, which is over an hour long.

Scelsi is an Italian 20th century composer with an unusual personal story, but the bottom line is that he wrote pieces in the 1960s which were basically all one note. There appears to be something of a 60s psychedelic thing going on here, and perhaps minimalism. Definitely his pieces are more way fun to listen to than something like Revolution No. 9. Listening to a one-note piece like this opens your mind, it's like staring into a marble and you can see a whole universe in there. Or something.

Anyway, from Alex Ross' profile:

The music is anything but monotonous; it seethes with change. In the quartets, the players use every trick in the book to transform those long tones, varying the degree of vibrato, bowing over the fingerboard or close to the bridge, adding steel mutes, scraping with maximum pressure. As the tones shift, split apart, and fan out, surprising shapes emerge. In the last part of the Fourth Quartet, a cluster of pitches creeps ever upward, and, in the process, major and minor triads materialize out of nowhere. 

...

Scientific researchers have recently observed a musical event that employs a curiously familiar style: a black hole in the Perseus cluster of galaxies is emitting a B-flat fifty-seven octaves below middle C.

It makes for great temp music, by the way, in a film or video game. It's worthy of study for composers doing horror cues, there are a lot of techniques at work here with rhythm, dynamics, extended playing techniques. This one-note motif is good for something primordial or ancient.

Here's Hymnos. Be warned, it's not elevator music!

Can you believe this synthy score is Ennio Morricone? It came out in 1982, the same year as Vangelis' Blade Runner score, so perhaps everyone was excited about synth scores at the time.

(I have to admit, that stabby bass patch still sounds pretty good. Just update that organ-string patch and you have a pretty decent video game stealth cue.)

In December I wrapped up the first of two semesters at the USC Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television program (SMPTV). The final recording session was for string orchestra.

Working only with strings is like painting with a limited set of colors. On one hand that seems limiting, but on the other hand they blend so well you get a sound with lot of purity. Since I was writing to the opening funeral scene of The Village, I figured to use that pure sound to suggest fait, prayer, and the church.

The Village is about some very seriously damaged people, so the music also needs to set up themes of deep personal loss and the guilt and pain that go with that.

I asked the players to play with their mutes; this makes the strings sound less bright and a bit far-off, but they're not really any quieter, and we got a nice fortissimo sound at the session. Also, this piece happens to be very easy to sight read and play; we got the take in just six minutes.

 Here Lies Daniel, 1890-1897 by jpiscitello

I didn't label this clip in the "Awesomeness" category, mostly because I haven't actually seen The Green Lantern movie. But this cue sort of turns a lot of the conventional epic action cue cliches on their side a bit.

What you usually hear these days are string ostinatos, but this one puts the ostinato on the brass right from the start. Huh.

Then there is this low-brass rhythmic figure - da-dah, da-dah - sounds like a cimbasso. Very prominent in the mix. It's brash and unusual, almost so aggressive I would think it risks taking the audience out of the scene. Again, I haven't seen it, and if it works, wow, that's a cool original sound. Check it out:

I liked this short video on editing continuity...

This LA Times article about the tuba is worth noting:

In 2007, as demand for tubas was beginning to grow, Tucker persuaded half a dozen of the region's best banda players to insist on $80 an hour, up from $50.

"A lot of band leaders didn't like it," he said. But they paid it. Banda tuba players now earn more than $100 an hour.

With wages like that, players began leaving their groups to freelance because they can get more gigs. Playing with different bandas enriched them as musicians, raising the talent bar.

$100 an hour? That's a serious renaissance. And let's remember Jimmy Fallon's show has The Roots, which features a tuba instead of a bass player.

More here.



And here is a version of Mi Gusto Es:

What is remarkable about this cue is how musical it is for a combat cue. Lots of combat music is a confusion of changing time signatures and disjointed figures. 


John William's Battle of the Heroes is 2 basic ideas which we hear right up front - a fast string ostinato, and a horn playing the battle motif. There's not much else aside from punctuations between statements of this theme.


We hear the motif with a chorus singing unison, then the chorus harmonizes, then the horns play it as an ensemble. We hear it at half-speed around the climactic moment of the cue, and towards the end, as a canon.


With each restatement, John Williams adds variations and development. It is decorated with many of his trademark  Star Wars musical textures - rapid triplet horn lines, harp runs, xylophone doubling the strings, all with a grandeur that softens the idea of combat and makes it something operatic. 

This one cue from Up was probably what won Giacchino the Oscar. Everyone was crying their eyes out in the theater during this scene when I went, the montage showing the married life of Carl and Ellie.

Listening again I've noticed how the piece uses orchestration to tell the story.

The melody is carried by sounds from the 40s - muted trumpet and solo violin. Later we hear vibes,  probably suggesting domestic life in the 50s. Notice how the pizzicato strings are used in a way that sounds like the 50s.

What we never hear is a sweeping section of violins carrying the melody. This is no John Barry score from Out of Africa. That's because Carl and Ellie never got to have their travel adventures. Flourishes of strings are limited to transitional effects and counter melodies.

This restraint keeps the cue focused on the relationship of Carl and Ellie and sets up Carl's motivations to fly to South America.

By the time we hear the solo piano at the end (and everyone is bawling), we've heard the hook 8 or 12 times, showing there is nothing wrong with a lot of repetition.