Musicology 3

According to Copland, music

• Conveys a convincing atmosphere of time and place

• Underlines the unspoken feelings or psychological states of characters

• Serves as a neutral background filler to the action

• Gives a sense of continuity to the editing

• Accentuates the theatrical build-up of a scene

Terminology

• Cue: stand alone section of music within a film.

• Diegetic: music emanating from within the film

• Non-diegetic: emanating from outside the film itself

• Leitmotif: theme to associate with a character on screen

• Underscore: to compose and add music to a film. Usually music which underpins and enhances the action and mood of the film.

• Image system: a director’s visual interpretation of a concept or storyline

Claudia Gorbman’s sevenprinciples

• Invisibility: the technical apparatus of nondiegetic music must not be visible

• Inaudibility: music is not meant to be consciously heard –should be subordinate to dialogue and visuals

• Signifier of emotion

• Narrative cueing: referential (narrative cues) and connotative (interprets and illustrates events)

• Continuity: fills gaps

• Unity: through repetition and variety, can provide formal and narrative unity

• A film score may violate any of the above principles, providing this is at the service of other principles

Film production

• Producer

• Director

• Art department

• Hair and make-up

• Wardrobe

• Camera

• Production sound

• Electrical team

• Editorial team

• Visual effects

• Sound/music team

Sound/music team

• Sound designer

• Sound editor

• Re-recording mixer

• Music supervisor

• Composer

• Copyist

• Conductor

• Performers

Process

• Rushes: unedited film clips

• Spot: to watch scenes in order to insert music

• Temp Track: a piece of extant music laid against picture to give the composer an idea of what the director requires, or to fill the soundtrack until the composer has recorded the commissioned cue.

• Clicktrack: metronomic tempo click which aids musicians and conductor (if there is one) during session rehearsals and performance takes.

• Dub: the final sound mixing session which combines dialogue, effects and music.

• Fine Cut: the final picture edit (and to a limited extent, sound edit) of a film.

More Terminology

• Accenting (also known as 'Highlighting'): musical emphases which accent particular events or elucidate dramatic moments.

• Ambient Sound: background sound such as distant traffic or wind noise.

• Bridge/Link: short cue which links two scenes or sequences.

• Hit/Hit Point: a specific dramatic point or action in the narrative that requires the music to give it a synchronous impact.

Terminology Continued

• Incipience: the point of beginning or becoming apparent. The point, for example, that the image is flashed onto the screen.

• Main Titles/Titles/Credits/Opening Credits/Closing Credits: description of a music cue which covers the opening titles/credits or closing credits.

• Pad: sustained bed of a single chord or simple progression of harmony e.g. As in ‘string pad.

• Parallelism and Counterpoint: film score which either follows the film's narrative or works against it in some manner.

Terminology Continued

• Segue: to proceed from one music cue, without a pause, into the next music cue. Usually at a change of scene or sequence point.

• Soft Sync: the deliberate placing of the music several frames earlier or most usually later than the obvious sync point between image and music.

• Sting: short musical motive usually no longer than a few seconds which 'hits' or 'stings' a specific picture event.

• Titles Music/or 'Main Titles/or Signature Tune: the music which opens a film or marks the opening title credits and actor/production credits. In TV music more commonly called a Sig Tune.

Use of Music

• 1. DIEGETIC OR SOURCE

• 2. FEATURED

• 3. SONG

• 4. LOCATION

• 5. TEMPORAL

• 6. EMOTIONAL IMPACT

• 7. DRAMATIC IMPACT

• 8. ANTICIPATION

• 9. SYNCHRONIZATION

• 10. HIGHLIGHTING OR ACCENTING

• 11. MOOD AND ATMOSPHERE

• 12. NEUTRAL BACKGROUND

• 13. ILLUSION OF CONTINUITY

• 14. CHARACTER MOTIVE/THEME

• 15. PSYCHOLOGICAL

• /SUBLIMINAL

• 16. HUMOUR

• 17. CHANNEL AND COLLECT PREVIOUS CONTENT

• 18. MEANING AND SIGNIFICATION

Early years

• 1896-1927: live music to accompany film •Primarily non-diegetic

• Music provided ‘Mickey-Mousing’ – imitation of screen action through musical devices

• 1909: emergence of ‘cue sheets’ – sheet music published to accompany (and fit) a film or a series of films

• Erno Rapée, Encyclopedia of Music for Pictures (1925)

• Hans Erdmann and Guiseppe Becce, AllgemeinesHandbuch der Film-Musik

Into Sound

• Cinema music ranged from a pianist to a full orchestra

• Birth of a Nation (1915): score by Josef Karl Breilto be performed alongside the film

• Don Juan (1926): used discs for music

• The Jazz Singer (1927): synchronisedperformances of songs and dialogue

• Non-diegetic music: practice established by Max Steiner in Symphony of Six Million (1932) and King Kong (1931)

1930s

• A composer and MD would be assigned to a film after it had been shot

• They would ‘spot’ the film by watching the ‘rushes’ to gauge appropriate moments for music

• A click track would be used to synchronise screen action with music

• Both Max Steiner and Korngold used the ‘leitmotif’ to associate a theme with a character on screen

1940s and 1950s

• Bernard Herrmann: Citizen Kane (1940) and Vertigo (1958)

• Jazz in film scores: Alex North’s music for A Streetcar Named Desire

• Epic films: Miklos Rozsa’s music for Quo Vadis (1951) and Ben Hur (1959)

• Leonard Rosenman: modernist score for East of Eden (1955)

1960s and 1970s

• Psycho (1960): Herrman created a string ensemble to heighten the tension

• Emergence of Morricone

• Jerry Goldsmith: more lean and sparse scores (e.g. for Chinatown)

• Use of existing music in film: such as Mahler in Visconti’s Death in Venice and Strauss and Berioin Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

• Pop music by Michel Legrand in Thomas Crown Affair (1968)

1980s onwards

• Emergence of ‘cross-licensing’: films like Pretty in Pink and Breakfast Club and St Elmo’s Fire contained tracks from artists contracted to the sister companies of the film producer (A&M Records)

• Emergence of compiled scores and music supervisor

• Emergence of electronic music in films (initially involving composers such as Maurice Jarre and Gerry Goldsmith)

• Director-composer collaborations – e.g. Nyman and Greenaway or Knieper and Wenders (Wings of Desire, 1987)

Sources• Buhler, James. 2000. Music and

Cinema. Wesleyan UP

• Cook, Nicholas. 1998. AnalysingMusical Multimedia. Oxford: OUP Eisenstein, Sergei. 1986. The Film Sense. London: Faber

• Eisler, Hans and Theodor Adorno. 1995. Composing for the Films. London: Athlone

• Gorbman, Claudia. 1987. Unheard Melodies. Indiana: Indiana UP

• Kalinak, Kathryn. 1992. Settling the Score. University of Wisconsin Press Morgan, David. 2000.

Knowing The Score. New York.

• Mera, Miguel and David Burnand. 2006. European Film Music. Ashgate

• Prendergast, Roy. 1977. Film Music: A Neglected Art. New York: Norton

• Reay, Pauline. 2004. Music in film : soundtracks and synergy. London: Wallflower Press

• Schelle, Michael. 1977. The Score: Interviews with Film Composers. Los Angeles