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What is film music for?

5 MINUTES READING #1

Composers who work for film and television communicate with potentially the
“Film music should largest audience that any composer has ever commanded, not just thousands,
have the same but millions of people. The impact of a film score, together with the financial
relationship to the
rewards it can bring, means that film music has become a very important
film drama that
somebody’s piano option for composers in the twentieth and twenty-first century music market.
playing in my living Since the earliest days of the cinema, music
room has on the
book I am has played an important role in the overall
reading.” effect of ‘moving pictures’. The use of music
in film is now so much a part of everyday
- Igor Stravinsky
experience that we often forget to think
about it, let alone analyse it, ignoring the
considerable impact it has on audiences, to
say nothing of the immense music industry it supports. There are many
theories about why music is deemed necessary to the presentation of films.
Because the cranking machinery of early projectors was so noisy, some have
regarded the use of music as being merely to drown out the distracting sound,
in much the same way that music in opera or ballet has often been used to
cover a noisy scene change.

Questions to think about: While agreeing with this idea, the Marxist critic Theodor Adorno (1903-69) and
1. What two factors
composer Hanns Eisler (1898-1962) suggested in 1948 that music also had an
often lead to a important psychological impact. For them: “music attempts to establish a
composer writing
film music? layer of human mediation between the reeled-off photographs and the
spectators […] [Film music] seeks, after the fact, to breathe into pictures some
2. What were the
earliest types of of the life that photography has taken away from them” (Adorno and Eisler,
film music
1948, p.50)
designed to “cover
up”?
Music aids (and is sometimes essential to effect) the
3. Do you agree or suspension of our disbelief: film attempts to convince
disagree with
Adorno and Eisler’s us that what we are seeing is really happening, and
reasoning that film
music also has a
music can help to break down any resistance we might
psychological have. It can also comment directly on the film, telling
impact on the
watcher/listener? us how to respond to the action. Music can also
enhance dramatic effect: the appearance of a monster in a horror movie, for
4. Describe two ways
in which film music example, rarely occurs without a thunderous chord! Also, the use of pastiche
enhances the on- (an eighteenth-century minuet or ‘oriental’ music, for example) can help
screen image.
“place” a film in a particular location, period or rather more self-reliantly,
within a specific film genre which carries with it its own musical idiom.
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EARLY FILM MUSIC

5 MINUTES READING #2

The cinema officially began in Paris in 1895

“Beautiful film with the first public screening of Louis
music can be made Lumière’s film The Arrival of a Train at La
relevant to any
Ciotat Station (you can watch this short
period.”
video by searching for this on YouTube®).
- A. R. Rahman Even in those early days the cinema was
never really “silent”, even in the days before
the invention of sound recording. Live musical accompaniments were always a
part of film presentation from the very beginning. Lumière himself, for
example, advertised that a saxophone quartet would accompany a film
presentation at his theatre in Paris in 1897, so it wasn’t just a “cottage piano”
that would provide the music.

As time went on, cinema

orchestras large and small
provided considerable
enjoyment for musicians, so
much so that this was one of
the reasons for the rise of the
cinema organ in the 1920’s by
Questions to think about:
means of which “orchestral”
1. When and where sounds could be produced by
did cinema
“officially begin”? just one performer!
2. Why did cinema The typical method of providing a musical
organs become
popular in the accompaniment was to compile a score from
1920’s?
existing concert, operatic and ballet music. The
3. What three types reasons for this weren’t simply those of cost.
of “existing music”
were first used for
True, it was much easier to use existing music,
providing musical but the main advantage of such an approach
accompaniments
to films? was that repertoire works already carried with
them a host of extra-musical connotations, particularly in the repertoire of
4. Can you think of
any pieces of “programmatic” works from the nineteenth century.
“mood music” that
have been used Various libraries of “mood music” were compiled and included dramatic music
frequently either in
films or the media by composers such as Grieg and Wagner e.g. the horse ride of the Ku Klux Klan
in general? taking place to the accompaniment of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries”. This
approach is still used today with libraries of “mood music” recordings which
are often used in advertising and television.
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How do you start writing film

music?
5 MINUTES READING #3

Composers for film work under considerable pressure of time: both with
“When I’m writing regard to the time available for the composition process itself, and the precise
film music, I feel
more like a timing of the music. Ideas must be summoned very rapidly and the technical
filmmaker than a aspects of the particular film genre demand particular skills.
composer. It’s
more about what A composer must not only have musical ability, but also an understanding of
the film needs. I’m and sympathy for film drama. James Bernard explains how he approaches the
basically part of
that team that’s composition process:
creating a film, “I’ve found it often works very well to use the title of the film, and the best
and the music is a
very important known one [of mine] is obviously “Dracula”, which of course, in the States is
part, but it’s just known as “The Horror of Dracula”, but when it first came out in England it was
one part of many.”
known as “Dracula” – and so the word
- Johann Johannsson
Dra-Cu-La obviously gave me the rhythm
and the theme [...] and then I found that
that seemed to often work, and people
think it’s peculiar, but then, I was
thinking about it the other day, and I was
thinking, well, you take a song by
Schubert, to take a very high example;
obviously he gets the idea for a tune
from the opening lines of the poem he’s setting – I would have imagined that’s
what would have happened, and so I find it works extremely well, often – like
Questions to think about:
“Taste the Blood of Dracula” or “Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed”: they give a
1. Can you think of
any other musical sort of rhythm and they give you something to start with.”
soundtracks to
films where the A similar approach to that of James Bernard was taken by Erich Wolfgang
rhythm of the
words is reflected Korngold (1897–1957) when it came to scoring the Hollywood feature film
in the music or
soundtrack? Kings Row (director Sam Wood, 1942). This film is about the destinies of the
2. What other ways inhabitants of a small town in America. Before he had even read the script, let
do you think
composers of film alone seen the film, Korngold wrote the main theme, inspired simply by the
music can “seek
inspiration” to word ‘King’ in the title. In fact, this theme frequently recurs, modified by
create their music
and soundtracks? differing orchestrations and accompaniments to suit different contexts.

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THE INDEPENDENT
LIFE OF A FILM SCORE
5 MINUTES READING #4

An increasingly important aspect of film composition, but one that has been
“I’m not afraid of
being thought of present since the first sound film, is the independent commercial ‘afterlife’ of
as someone who is
the score. Sometimes a producer will require a ‘hit’ song to help sell the
associated with
film music. Why picture and increase its overall profit – this is often called a THEME SONG.
not? If it’s a good
song, what does it The popular success of a score may not always have been planned by the
matter?”
composer; this was the case with David Raksin’s “Laura”, which was
- Bryan Adams
transformed into a hugely successful ‘hit’ song; but there are many examples
of deliberate attempts at building a score around a ‘hit’ song.

Such an approach was very much the case in all the James Bond films and big
Hollywood films have often exploited theme music to help advertise the film.
For example, the composer John Williams scored a disco version of his theme
for “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (director Steven Spielberg, 1977) to
coincide with the release of the film. There is also the case of concert music
based on film music. Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) transformed his
Questions to think about:
score for “Scott of the Antarctic” (director Charles Frend, 1948) into the
1. Can you think of
any recent films Sinfonia Antartica. William Walton (1902–83) arranged his scores for “Henry
which have had a
popular THEME V” (director Laurence Olivier, 1946) and other Shakespearean films into
SONG which has
been released as a concert suites, while Miklós Rózsa transformed his music for “Spellbound”
‘music hit’ to aid
its popularity? (director Alfred Hitchcock, 1945) into a piano concerto of the same name. In
2. James Bond films Finland, composer Einar Englund (1916–99) took a similar approach with the
often use THEME
SONGS to help folk theme he had used in the film score for The
advertise the films.
Can you name any White Reindeer (director Erik Blomberg, 1952) by
successful ‘hit
songs’ from James using it as the basis for a piano concerto written
Bond films?
three years later. Richard Addinsell’s ‘Warsaw
3. How far do you
agree that film Concerto’ from the film Dangerous Moonlight
music composers
can “rework” and (director Brian Desmond Hurst, 1941) went on to
“resell” their
music? enjoy enormous success as a popular concert piece.
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CULTURAL
REPERCUSSIONS
5 MINUTES READING #5

Film music is often created by composers who also work in the field of art
“Without the music, where they are creating compositions that are very different in style
knowledge of
music, it would be from that demanded by the commercial cinema. Are such composers in some
very hard to write way undermining their attempts to make experimental styles more acceptable
film music. There
are so many films by writing in more traditional, or
and each one has a at least eclectic, styles, in their
different historical
background and work for the cinema?
everything.” Some composers specialize in film
- Ryuichi Sakamoto music; others work in film but
come from popular music
backgrounds. A film score, then,
is very much a cross-over point. It is a highly eclectic art form, bringing
together many different traditions and is uniquely situated between the
cultural divide of popular and what is now termed ‘classical’ music.
Composers of art music reach audiences through film which they would never

Questions to think about: dream of reaching in their concert works. The same could be said for

1. Why do we expect composers from the popular music world. The fact that film music is designed
conductors to
‘interpret’ for only one performance and one rehearsal raises some interesting questions
Beethoven in their
own manner, but about performance practice in general.
are quite happy to
accept that a film
score should only
be played in only
one specific way?

2. Does a film music

composer just
have to write and
compose music for
films or would you
expect them to
create music in
other styles of
genres?
Music in a film must be composed with a strict regard as to how long it will
take to play, but performances of a Beethoven symphony will vary
considerably in speed and length.
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THE PURPOSE OF FILM MUSIC

5 MINUTES READING #5

Music aids (and is sometimes essential to effect) the suspension of our

“When you’re disbelief: film attempts to convince us that what we are seeing is really
working on film
music, you’re only happening and music can help break down any resistance we might have. It
working on 20, 30- can also comment directly on the film, telling us how to respond to the action.
minute sections at
a time.” Music can also enhance a dramatic effect: the appearance of a monster in a

- Howard Shore horror film, for example, rarely occurs without a thunderous chord! Sound
effects (like explosions and gunfire) can be incorporated into the film
soundtrack to create a feeling of action and emotion, particularly in war films.
It’s also often the composer’s job to create a feeling of something being there
that’s not on screen. Horror or Science Fiction films are often set in strange
places –maybe even another planet! Film music composers need to “transport
the audience” to a weird reality, where nothing is quite what you’d expect!

Sometimes filmmakers want to include music within the story for the
characters (as well as the audience) to hear – this is DIEGETIC MUSIC.
DIEGETIC MUSIC originates from something on screen e.g. a car radio, a band
Questions to think about:
in a nightclub or sound effects such as guns in the distance or screeching car
1. “The appearance breaks. DIEGETIC MUSIC is also knows as SOURCE MUSIC or IN-VISION MUSIC.
of a monster in a
horror film rarely
occurs without a In most films, the music is NON-DIEGETIC – it’s not actually part of the story
thunderous
chord!” – this is and is put “over the top” of the action to increase the effect of the film and for
an example of a
MUSICAL CLICHÉ. the audience’s benefit and which the characters within the film can’t hear e.g.
Can you think of
any other musical music to accompany a car chase of to highlight the emotions of a conversation
clichés commonly
used by film between two characters. NON-DIEGETIC MUSIC is also knows as UNDERSCORE
music composers?
or INCIDENTAL MUSIC.
2. Can you think of
any other
examples of DIEGETIC and NON-DIEGETIC MUSIC can be used together within a film e.g. a
DIEGETIC MUSIC
in films other particular theme or song can be used as NON-DIEGETIC MUSIC being heard ‘by
than the
examples given? the audience’ through a particular scene and then a character within the film
could switch on a radio and the same theme can be heard. Now being listened
to by the actual characters in the film, the music becomes DIEGETIC MUSIC.

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