Klepacz 1

Jeffrey Klepacz

English comp II

Dr.Cassel

10/5/19

Music as a science

I am maybe a little critical of music. I know I have no right to be, I play no instrument

and my singing isn’t very good, but I know when something like a piece of music fits in the

given part of a movie or film. I could talk on and on about the specific pieces that go into making

something like music as intrinsic as it is in the media today, but there is just one problem. I

didn’t really care for music at all.

I was never really all that into music when I was a child. I would usually listen to

anything that my mom or sister had on the radio, but never did I really listen to the lyrics that I

was hearing or what genre was on. Though there were some very interesting ones that I enjoyed

the rhythm of, they had a type of boom that just made me feel all the way to my heart. The

problem was just the fact that I couldn’t find music that had a feeling that would stay like that,

something that pushed back at you. That being said my dad and me in the winter usually went to

a gym to practice baseball, it was on these outings I would get to scroll through the radio trying

to find something. I landed on a station that only played classic rock from the 80’s, and this was

something that had what I needed. The song that was on if I remember was “carryon my

wayward son” and it had the same core shaking impact that I was looking for. It had this shaking

impact that went right to my brain and made me keep listening.

Rock was my gateway to the new type of love that I would have. The 80’s music was my

type of jam, it was the start of my new understanding of music. As I kept listening, I started to
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find some people who were just the same as the music I was listening to. Thankfully I was able

to find them, in the form of Fall Out Boy and Panic at the Disco. Now I start having more

moments in the car when my family is on a trip, where I say “I like that song”, as there going

through the radio. It was such a change that when i would go onto that station or stop on a song

from the 80’s my mother would say, “I didn’t know you like rock”, being this was the first real

time she has ever noticed me taking a liking to music.

Now why would this be important to my current situation, well it's because the music that

I listen too really made me think about what story the music can tell, the song that was the reason

for this was Jukebox Hero. The song talks about a guy not being able to get into a concert

because he couldn’t buy a way in, when he listens in, one of the guitars blares, this gives him the

idea to go and get his own guitar and start his own band. Now while this is a simple song with

simple lyrics, it was the way the song felt like it fit the setting that it was trying to make. This

little bit of evidence made me start looking into some of the big themes used in major movies or

tv. I notice that nowadays I can really tell how much craft and love is put into sound design in tv

and movies nowadays, and that all started just because of a simple 80’s song. A recent example

is how in the movie Avengers Endgame, the swelling score in the end of the final battle brings a

joy and enchantment to you that makes all the build up so much more worth it. Moments like

that are why music has become such a passion for me, it now has become a show of just what

can be done to make any scene even more amazing.

Moving even further into my investigation of how music is used in the media today, I

went to see what each culture sees in music and how there used. One of the more interesting

finds that I had was how the west and east view theme songs or openings for shows. The western

media uses a theme as a hype up for the show to help get you excited for the adventure or drama
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that is about to happen. This is a very different take then what it is that a theme represents in the

eastern media. Shows in that culture can have 1-4 different types of covers and openings to

shows, this comes from a very interesting cultural difference, eastern media chooses or makes

intros that describe the emotions and themes of the show rather than just to hype up the show

itself. This isn’t really a better or worse choice really it is a cultural change that works for both

aspects and I would have never known that without going and looking into it myself.

When talking about movies and tv we can talk about the themes and sound design, but we

I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the work that is put into the specific choices when it

comes to sound design in certain points of films. The film that helped me to see this is “The

Princess Bride”, this movie has some of the best musical sound design that I have ever heard in a

movie before. Even though I still find the timing of music in Endgame better, the design of the

music choices are much better in this. Examples are that when a sword slices into someone, a

string plays as it slides across, like a slicing move. Drums bump when a thud or hard hit come

out, but one of the most impressive if not best use of musical sound design comes in one of the

final duels of the whole movie. The moment comes from only 3 sword clashes but it comes in

such quick succession that it's hard to hear. Each clash has a trumpeting loud boom to it that is

inspirational and explosive, which help to lead into the final blow of the duel so much more than

it could regularly.

With all this being said it is really surprising to me how cool music has become over the

years, from simple songs that were listen to on the radio to now themes that have become iconic

to not only its medium but also to the shows that it exists with. Music has become its very own

science and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I am thankful that I was able to get into it

as much as I have.
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