MUSIC 246
Lecture 1
Thursday, January 5, 2012

Week 1: What to Listen For in Film
The musical accompaniment of Narrative Film - tells a story
Stories explain morality, pass on culture's values

Why is the music there and what does it do?

The Cable Guy
Movie with Jim Carrey and Matthew Broderick
Danger music scene

Mediated, changed, manipulated, formed, aimed

Motion pictures are a mirror or reflection of its times


Apollo 13 (1995) Composer: James Horner
Horner also did score for Titanic and Avatar

Wife drops wedding ring down the drain (wife in shower at motel, vulnerable)
Abrupt transition to astronauts suiting up in ready room (suits gives astronauts protection, invulnerable)

Where does the music come in? What doesn't have music (just as important)? Having non-stop music is ineffective.

Music comes in right after wife accepts that she cannot get the ring back.
Transition is made much easier with music. Music comes in right before to makes it less abrupt.

Music makes things bigger, more dramatic, more intense.
If added to shower scene, would have overplayed

Instrumentation - the brass provides feeling of heroism in ready room

Brass: Trumpets, trombones, french horns, tuba
Augmented with low strings (cello)

Instruments have cultural meaning and values with them
Brass is associated with military
Music of the Protestant church, hymn

Instruments: Brass - military - heroism - sacrifice
Style: Chorale - Protesant Hymn - faith - sacrifice
Tempo: Slow - testrained - controlled - professional

Music fades in under shower scene - smoothes transition
Change in musical texture with transition to external scene

What is a movie?
Narrative - tells a story
"Suspension of Disbelief"

Film conventions attempt to minimize anything that threatens "Suspension of Disbelief"
Except for the use of music


Aaron Copland - one of the most influential composers, composed only 5 scores

The Four Functions
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1. Music can create a more convincing atmosphere of time and place
   - historical, cultural, geographical - BUT based on western conventions
2. Music can underline or create psychological refinements
   - the unspoken thoughts of a character or the unseem implications of a situation
3. Music can provide a sense of continuity in a film
   - structure of music "smoothes over" the discontinuous, chaotic nature of film
4. Music can provide the underpinning for the theatrical buildup of a scene and then round it off with a sense of finality
   - music can affect the "pacing" of a scene

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) Composer: John Williams
Functions 1, 3, and 4

Solo Trumpet (Indiana Jones works alone) for main theme
Violin - love theme


Alien Resurrection (1997) Composer: John Frizzell
Functions 2, 3, and 4

Chicken Run (2000) Composers: John Powell and Harry Gregson-Williams
Functions: 1, 2, 3, and 4

Stallok 17
Whistling
