Hans Zimmer Ostinatos

What is an Ostinato?
Ostinatos are repeating patterns of notes and are used by many Film and TV composers to help create
movement and a sense of urgency in their music. Hans Zimmer frequently makes use of Ostinatos in his
music, so I thought I would dive into some examples of how he constructs and uses them.

Basic Example of an Ostinato

One of my favourite pieces by Hans Zimmer is a piece called 'Chevaliers De Sangreal' from the ending of
‘The Da Vinci Code’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpHkMZxNLV0

The foundation of the piece is this triplet-based Ostinato played in the Violins, which mostly consists of
notes found in a D minor chord - D, F and A. More specifically, you can see Zimmer always returns to the
root note of D after every other note, which acts like an anchor:

To add some variation, he includes a Bb, the sixth degree of a D (natural) minor scale, towards the end of the
bar.

The 1 bar Ostinato is then repeated for a 2nd time, with another slight variation towards the end - a high D
instead of Bb:

These two bars are then repeated, making four bars in total.

You can see the Ostinato is mostly made up of just notes found in the underlying chord/harmony - in
this case, D minor.

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Varying an Ostinato to fit with a chord progression

'Chevalier De Sangreal' is built upon a 4 chord progression which repeats - D minor, F major, Csus4 - C Major
followed by A minor.

Zimmer continues using the Ostinato throughout, but tweaks the notes in the subsequent repetitions, to
reflect the changing chords.

When the underlying chord changes to F major, Zimmer tweaks his Ostinato to fit. The Ostinato has kept the
same shape (including the higher pitch towards the end of the bar), but the 'D's on the bottom have now
been replaced with 'C's. The result is that the Ostinato is made up of the notes of F, A and C, which of course
form the chord of F major:

After another 4 bars, the next chord is a Csus4 chord. Instead of C, E and G, Csus4 is made up of C, F and G
(the ‘F’ being the suspended 4th degree of the C major scale):

Again you can see the Ostinato keeps the same shape, in addition to always returning to the lowest note of
‘C’, but Zimmer makes sure to only uses the notes found in the Csus4 chord.

The Csus4 then resolves to a normal C major (the F moves back down to an E):

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Varying an Ostinato to fit with a chord progression (continued)

Finally after another 4 bars, the harmony changes to an A minor chord, so the Ostinato features a tweak to
the notes:

Again, Zimmer has maintained the shape of the Ostinato, but the ’G’s have been replaced with ‘A’s, resulting
in the notes of A, C and E, all of which make up the chord of A minor.

So overall within ‘Chevaliers De Sangreal’, as the chords change, Zimmer is maintaining the general shape of
the Ostinato, but changing the notes to reflect the notes found in each respective chord.

Ostinatos which stay the same despite chords changing underneath

As well as varying the notes of an Ostinato to fit the accompanying chord, another technique Zimmer uses
is to repeat an Ostinato exactly, whilst the chords change underneath.

A good example of this is from the cue called 'Dream is Collapsing' from Inception: https://youtu.be/
OzLhXesNkCI?t=33

At around 33 Seconds into the piece, Zimmer introduces the 4 bar Ostinato, again played in the Violins:

The underlying chord for the 1st two bars is G minor, with the Ostinato mainly consisting of a single note -
Bb. At the beginning of Bar 2, a single A natural is used, helping to add some brief dissonance.

During the 3rd bar, the Ostinato carries on, while the underlying harmony changes to Gb major (in first
inversion). The A natural at the start of each bar continues to create dissonance.

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The chords then continue to change, moving to Eb major, before ending up on B major (with a major 7th
added). Despite the unusual chord progression (unusual in that the chords are not closely harmonically
related), the 4 bar Ostinato stays exactly the same throughout:

The constant ‘A’s going to ‘Bb’s in the Ostinato help to create tension throughout the 8 Bars, as well as
helping to add the feeling of momentum and movement through the repetitive rhythm.

Ostinatos with minimal change

One of my favourite Hans Zimmer scores is Interstellar, where instead of the strings, he makes extensive
use of an Organ for the playing of Ostinatos.

In the cue ‘No Time For Caution’ https://youtu.be/kpK4cDk2bRs?t=155 at 2:35 an Ostinato high up in the
Organ’s register is heard:

The notes found in an F major7 chord are F, A, C and E, of which Zimmer uses F, A and E. Similar to The Da
Vinci Code example, the Ostinato always returns to a note, in this case an ‘A’ after every other note.

The Ostinato plays for two bars, before the underlying chord changes to and Em7/G (or 1st Inversion):

Zimmer has replaced the ‘F’ in the previous bar for a ‘G’, helping the Ostinato to fit in harmonically with the
underlying Em7 chord. With the minimal change, the Ostinato has also kept the same shape as the previous
bars. Note that the ‘A’s are still present, which are not part of an Em7 chord.

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After another two bars, the underlying chord changes again, this time to Am:

Again the shape of the Ostinato has been maintained, but Zimmer exclusively uses the notes of A, C and E
(all found in an Am chord) to form the Ostinato.

Finally, the chord changes back to an Em7, with the Ostinato returning to the same notes as the previous
bar:

You can see from this example that despite the chords changing, for the most part, the notes, along with
the general shape or contour of the Ostinato, do not change too much (apart from the 3rd chord of Am).

Putting into Practice

So have a go at coming up with some Ostinatos that you can use in your next piece. First try to come up
with a pattern that mainly uses just the notes found in a particular chord (it could be major or minor). You
could try adding a single note not found in your chosen chord for some variation.

Then try experimenting with the Ostinato to fit different chords. Aim to keep the shape of the Ostinato the
same, in order to create some coherence.

Next have a go at writing an Ostinato using only one or two pitches (that repeat). Next try playing the
Ostinato over the top of a chord progression - there will probably be some dissonance/tension created,
which you may like (or not!).

Feel free to send your final Ostinato example to info@composingacademy.com and I will take a listen!