film score music essay

It is this power that music has over us that film score composers take advantage of when they are writing the music to accompany the movies.. What the average moviegoer does not usually

Film Score Music

To say that music plays a large role in our society would not do

justice to one of the most important and popular art forms of yesterday and

today We underestimate the effectiveness and power that music,

in any form ,

can have over even the most insensitive of people In almost everything we do

and see music is involved in some form or another Be it a piece played at a

wedding, a song played on the radio or even the music played in the background

in a television commercial The music is always there, reminding

us of past

experiences, making us smile and feel exhilaration and sometimes even making us

cry It is this power that music has over us that film score composers take

advantage of when they are writing the music to accompany the movies As

listeners we often do not appreciate that the music that is

scored for films or

played in films is put there on purpose to create a certain

feeling, emphasize a

point, give more life to a character or sometimes to simply add humour What

the average moviegoer does not usually realize is that a great deal of time and

thought goes into writing the score for a film and choosing the background music

for a scene None of the music is arbitrary; themes and sub themes have been

created with specific ideas in mind and have been put in place only to add to

the story and the characters It is also important to

acknowledge that the

evolution into the type of film scoring that we are accustomed to today was not

a quick or easy transition It has taken almost a century to develop the

specific techniques that are used in todays films When the first moving

pictures were seen they were known as silent films, although they were not

actually silent They contained a very primitive type of musical accompaniment

that laid the foundation for what was to later develop As time passed the type

of music found in films developed into a fine art containing specific

guidelines and techniques that most composers tend to follow The average

person does not usually pay astute attention to the music that is being used in

a film, however, if it were to not be there the films would seem empty and as if

something was missing The actors, the writing and the direction

is what is

primarily noticed in a film but the music is the inconspicuous supporter of all

of these elements To create a film that will be effective it is essential that

the film have a thoughtful score, and, as the audience, it is our duty to

acknowledge the music in order to fully understand all that is being displayed

to us in the film

To realize fully the foundation of what we now recognize as an

effective film score it is important to examine the music behind

a silent film

No film was actually ever completely silent There may not have been a

soundtrack that we are accustomed to, however, the music was always essential to

a movie, no matter how primitive it may be In the earliest days

of film the

music was played on a phonograph This was around the time of Edison The

phonograph was an invention that did not last long in the world

of film The

next step was the use of a vitaphone, which also did not play a lasting role in

the movie industry The next step was not the use of a recorded soundtrack but

rather it was the use of live musicians The live music came about as the

movies were becoming a little more common The films began to be played

commercially in Vaudeville houses, cafes, and music halls where musicians were

already hired to play in the musical concerts that evening Because the

musicians were already there they were asked if they would play along with the

film In the Vaudeville houses there was no specific place for them to sit so

they sat seated at the front , in front of the screen Even after theatres were

built to show the moving pictures a space was created at the front where the

musicians were to sit Because the musicians were inexperienced with

accompanying films they played what they liked or what they knew This made it

uncommon that the music actually fit with the action on the

screen The

musicians paid little attention to the film and played

arbitrarily This meant

that often a serious or dramatic scene would be occurring on the screen wile the

musician played something comical or something that belonged to a scene with a

car chase Sound-effects men were soon added to the sounds

behind a film This

would be a man that created noises, erg train whistles and

bells, fire engine

bells, gun shots, explosions, cannon fire, etc in order to add realism to the

film This made movie-going more popular which in turn bettered the standard of

movie-making It was at this point that the musicians hired to accompany the

films began to take the music more seriously Set standards were

created but

the musicians job was to make sure that these standards did not become

monotonous They also began the use of simple motif that would introduce a

character or foreshadow an event The motifs are the elements of the music that

are extremely important in shaping the characters and the theme

of the film It

was the use of these motifs that made the music much more

sophisticated and

people began to take the films more seriously The idea of

motifs did not

disintegrate but rather became an important technique in the scoring of films in

the years to come By this time the music was ceasing to be merely and extra

job for Vaudeville musicians and had actually become an art that needed and was

given thought The house musician, which later became a small ensemble and

sometimes even a large orchestra, was a valued addition to the movie industry

and they could be found in hundreds of movie houses across

America It was from

this point on that films were to always be accompanied by some sort of music

The house musician remained in movie houses for many years,

however they

eventually disappeared to make way for the recorded film score, known as a “

talkie” or “canned music”

The 1930's was the time that saw the rise of the symphonic film

score This was the time in which many great composers began to write the

scores for films The scores were not simple little symphonies

or pieces but

rather enormous projects that took a great deal of time and

thought It was

also in this era that the click track was developed This was a technique first

used in the scoring of cartoons, however as the scoring for life action movies

became more complex the click track became vital to the

preciseness of the score

A click track works to synchronize the music with the action of the film with

the use of mathematics The exposure of films is measured in frames and there

are 24 frames a second, 1440 frames a minute Holes are punched into the film

to click at any given metronome beat The composer measures this beat by

dividing the figure, 1440, by whatever metronome speed that he wants and the

resulting figure is the frame click beat For example, if the composer want the

metronome beat to be at 144, than he divides the figure 1440 by

144 and the

resulting figure is 10 This means that the holes punched in the film should

click every 10 frames The studio musicians would wear headsets through which

they would hear a constant clicking sound, thus keeping them precisely with the

score

The major film score composers of this time were

actually European,

arriving in Hollywood to compose great works for film The

European influence

gave the films scores that many of the elements found in the romantic style of

the Viennese opera, eg large orchestras, complex parts, lush harmonies,

doubling of parts and full string parts, as well a influence from many European

composers, for example, Richard Strauss The composers that sat

at the

forefront of film scoring at this time were Max Steiner, Erich Wolfgang

Korngold and Bertrand Hermann These men wrote the scores for many of the

famous films that came out of that era, eg The Informer, Since You Went Away,

King Kong, Casablanca, and Gone With The Wind (Max Steiner), The Prince and the

Pauper, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Private Lives of

Elizabeth and Essex,

and A Midsummer's Nights Dream (Erich Wolfgang Korngold), and by Bertrand

Hermann the infamous Citizen Kane The films required a great use of leitmotifs,

themes, and sub themes It was these characteristics that gave the music such

importance and helped make these films of the thirties become the memorable

classics that they are Some examples of the effective use of themes and sub

themes can be found in the scores of Max Steiner's The Informer, Since You Went

Away, and Gone With The Wind Each of the scores that accompany these films

have an enormous orchestration and key motifs as well as a blend

of different

types of music that creates a particular feeling or accentuates a point The

Informer is a film set in Ireland and tells the story of Gypo Nolan who is the

tragic main character who is ultimately gunned down in the

street The motifs

used in this film are of this tragic genre with Irish folk

melodies intertwined

with many of the main themes One of the most effective uses of symbolism in

the music of this film is found at the end when Gypo finally meets his death

After he is shot he makes his way to a small church nearby with the sound of

heavy brass chords imitating his every plodding step When he reaches the

inside of the church he collapses only to see a nun who he thinks

in the Virgin

Mary At the this point his face moves from darkness into the light and a soft

hymn, “Sancta Maria”, written by Steiner himself emerges as the more dominant of

the musical sounds This whole scene symbolizes the passing of

Gypo into heaven

and the final acceptance of his soul by God It would lose all effectiveness if

the music was not as dominant as it is

The film, Since You Went Away, has many similar

elements in the music

that make us feel and understand the feelings of the characters This film

contains a scene in which a young woman, Jennifer Jones, races along the railway

platform alongside the train that is carrying her true love off

to war Steiner

chose to use elements from familiar songs, “I'll Be Home For Christmas”, and

Irving Berlin's “Together”, intertwined with a military sounding symphony part

to exemplify to us the thoughts that were racing through the minds of these two

character as they left each other , not knowing if it was to be for the last

time The effect that this music had on those who saw the film was

unforgettable as Steiner portrayed emotions so poignantly through his

orchestration

Probably the most memorable film score to arise out of the

1930's was the music to the epic Gone With the Wind This film begins with

many different themes being introduced, the most famous of which

is the theme

for Tara, intertwined with the strains of the Old South Steiner worked closely

with the producer David O Selznick when he was writing the score for this film,

however little of what Selznick asked for in the score actually appeared in the

final movie Selznick encouraged Steiner to use little original score but

rather use prerecorded classical music with some Old South tunes mixed in;

Steiner disagreed with his ideas This was and is a common

occurrence with the

producers and the composers of movies, they rarely agree on the same ideas for

how the movie will be scored The producer wants to put his ideas forth but

really, as producers, they are not adequately qualified and the composers just

want to be left alone to do their what they were hired to do as effectively as

they can This disagreement during the scoring of Gone With The Wind became so

intense that Selznick actually hired an additional composer to write another

score in case he did not approve if what Steiner had written In the end

Steiner's extraordinary composing ability prevailed and it is his fantastic

score that appears in this epic drama In this score Steiner manages to create

seven themes for the important elements of this film: Scarlett O'Hara, Rhett

Butler, Melanie, a love theme for Melanie and Ashley, another

love theme for

Scarlett and Ashley, Scarlett's father (Gerald O'Hara), and

finally a theme for

Tara The theme for Tara is the most effective because this old plantation and

it's collapse in essence symbolizes the collapse of the Old South after the

Civil War This theme recurs throughout the film each time is is modified

slightly to show to the audience the undying strength and

endurance of the proud

tradition of the Old South in the minds of the Southerners, even

if it's

foundation had crumbled The music of this film is extremely effective and

important even if we do not always notice that it is there From the beginning

of the film until more than twenty minutes into the picture the music does not

stop We often do not notice the music when it is there,

however, we would

surely notice it if were to be gone

To construct an effective film score there are no real rules but

rather a patterned set of guidelines that have become tradition over time

Certain types of musical themes have been used time and time again to create the

style, mood or feeling of the film For example, the type of music that would

be used in a Western, or a Suspense-Drama or a Love Story varies very little

from picture to picture A theme found in a Love Story will not always be the

same as the one before it, however, it will have the same style

or feeling to it

that creates the emotion of love in our minds These ideas are often modified

because of the intensity or seriousness of the film, however, they are

essentially similar The key to a memorable score is the

creation of an

effective main theme with equally effective sub themes This main theme should

be the connecting link between scenes but should not be over used

as not to

saturate the audience with it's melody so they become bored and annoyed with it

The introduction of the main theme followed by lesser sub theme that are

juxtaposed and varied enough to teas the audience until it

reaches a climactic

final statement of the theme in it's entirety The use of

leitmotifs to

represent characters and the intertwining of one character's theme with another

is instrumental in telling the story of the film and giving a full portrait of

the character and their relationship with others It is also important to

realize that different instruments and different colours of music are used to

create a certain feeling There are certain sounds that we are used to hearing

that are effective in adding to the mood or feeling of the film Nothing in the

creation of a film score is arbitrary all of the music that we hear has been

composed specifically to accentuate or punctuate what the main idea that the

writing, acting and directing of the film is trying to show to us

Another aspect of the soundtrack to a film that is not randomly

chosen is the use of source music and the unoriginal score Source music is

the music that can be heard coming from a radio, a dance club band , a marching

band, etc The music that is chosen to be played in these scenes

is put there

to accentuate the point of the scene, to add humour or even to make the scene

seem ironic This source music can also be used to foreshadow upcoming events

and prepare us for the next scene The unoriginal score is music that has been

written by somebody else but has been placed in the scene to add effect The

music can be a part of the scene as in the scene with Tom Hanks explaining the

story of La Mamma Morta to Denzel Washington in Philadelphia The music in this

scene has been added to create depth in Tom Hank's character and

to create a new

special bond between the two men The other way that the

unoriginal score can

be used effectively is if the music is not actually in the scene but is still

playing in the background as if it were in the minds of the

characters in the

scene An example of this can be found in the film True Romance where Dennis

Hopper's character is speaking to Chrisopher Walken and we know that Dennis

Hopper's characters going to die The music that is being played

in the

background of this scene is a faint opera, that adds peace to a scene that

should not feel peaceful The beauty of the music adds a certain grace to the

scene and gives it more character

To listen to the score of a film is to appreciate fully exactly

what the film makers were trying to point out to us The acting and directing

and the writing are the element that primarily we remember,

however,

subconsciously we remember more that we give ourselves credit for A movie can

be seen once and already the themes are ingrained in our minds and if we were to

hear them elsewhere we could identify them Many themes of films today are so

memorable that we can often sing them on cue, for example, the themes to The

Godfather, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Jaws, Jurassic Park, etc Each of these

films has a theme that we remember even if we do not make a

conscious decision

to do so It is far to often that the power of music is

underestimated and not

enough credit is given to the thought that was put into creating

an effective

film score As an audience it is our duty, not necessarily to always enjoy, but

to at least appreciate all elements of the film making process The scoring of

the film has always been a cornerstone to the success of the film, no matter how

primitive the music may be

Bibliography

Bazelon, Irwin Knowing the Score Van Nostrand Reinhold Co, New York

Hoffman, Charles Sounds for Silence DBS Publications, New York

Kalinak, Kathryn Settling the Score The University of

Wisconsin Press, U.S.A

Manrell, Roger and John Huntley The Technique of Film Music Focal Press, New

York

McCarty, Clifford Film Music Garland Publishing Inc., New York