Category: Television

Diegetic vs. Non-Diegetic and Comedy vs. Drama

Posted on by filmscore80

I know I’ve mentioned in an older post (funny, I’ve only been at this around 3 months but I’m already forgetting exactly what I wrote at the beginning), but it bears repeating.  We can divide music in visual media into the diegetic and non-diegetc sphere: diegetic being music that has an identifiable source in film world (a record playing, a radio, band, etc.) and non-diegetic is the musical score that the characters in the movie cannot hear.  But what’s interesting is that, as rigid as those definitions are, there can be rather fluid movement between the spaces.

As I discussed in my recent Watchmen review, in the opening scene the song ‘Unforgettable’ begins in the diegetic space, but, as the sound mix indicates, moves into the non-diegetic.  This is clearly used for dramatic effect and is one example of this movement between the two aural spaces.  As a guideline (but not a hard and fast rule), it seems that movement from diegetic to non-diegetic is used for dramatic effect and non-diegetic to diegetic is used for comedic effect.  Some examples should illustrate this nicely.

First is from what is possibly my favorite moment in an episode of Family Guy.  In the recent Star Wars parody episode (entitled ‘Blue Harvest’), we have the classic scene on Tatooine where Luke (played by Chris) is standing dramatically as the binary suns of the planet set and we hear the Force theme being played for (what I think) is the first time in the series.  The mournful french horn solo as Luke expresses his desire to leave his desert planet home.  What happens next in ‘Blue Harvest’ (as the music swells), is that Chris/Luke turns to the camera and says “John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra, everybody!” and the camera sweeps left and reveals John Williams and the orchestra there, in the middle of the desert, playing.  Chris then asks them to play the theme to the People’s Court, which they kindly oblige.

The comedy of the moment is obviously derived from the sheer absurdity of the orchestra playing in the desert.  But it is also a commentary on orchestral scores in general.  One of the functions of a musical score, as pointed out by Royals S. Brown in Overtones and Undertones (probably also said elsewhere, but that’s the one I’ve read) is that the music “mythologizes” the images.  This is exactly the function of the music in this scene.  We have Luke, the loner, fighting against the simple life of his parents, but also fighting against his, then, unknown history as the child of Anakin Skywalker, and it is accompanied by the music that becomes “The Force Theme,” the very birthright he has but doesn’t know about.  And all this complex symbolism is undone by a simple comedic turn of a musical shift from the non-deigetic to the diegetic.

Second is a scene from the pilot episode of a show we (the royal we) all love here at ‘The Temp Track’…Chuck.  At the end of the pilot episode, Chuck turns in his applicator for the Assistant Manager position to Big Mike, and as he walking to the office, we have a dramatic slow walk set to a Morricone Once Upon a Time in the West sounding cue (it could in fact be Morricone, but I didn’t recognize it off-hand, maybe one of you loyal readers recognized it.  As he is walking, he passes his friend Morgan who is standing next to a home stereo display.  Chuck looks at him and he turns down the stereo and the music fades, implying that Morgan had been playing the music all along as added dramatic effect within the store.  Much the same effect as before, the music was mythologizing the image, making Chuck like the hero of the Old West about to stare down the gunslinger in single combat (in this case, rival for the Asst. Manager job Harry Tang).  But it was also meant to be comedic to begin with because Chuck is not Clint Eastwood and the Buy More is not the Old West.  By having the music slide between the non-diegetic and diegetic adds one more layer to the comedic effect.

The last nD-D shift I want to discuss is one that starts out as absurd and moves to a whole new level of absurdity, and who else is the sublime master of the absurd by the man himself…Mel Brooks.  In the seminal comedy film, Blazing Saddles, we are greeted with our first image of Bart as the sheriff and he is dressed in runway fashion clothes complete with Gucci saddle bags and accompanied by the Count Basie Orchestra’s “April in Paris.”  The sheer absurdity of the entire scene (frontier lawman in fancy clothes) is heightened by the anachronistic song.  This effect is taken to a higher level as the camera pans left, as Bart rides by on his horse, and reveals…Count Basie and his Orchestra.  It is annoying that the music and musicians are not perfectly synced, but the implication that they are supposed to be playing live is clear.

The D-nD move for dramatic effect is, in my mind at least, the more common of the two shifts, and as such I am having a hard time recollecting good examples of it.  It is so common that the instances don’t stand out in my mind.  Besides the Watchmen example, the next best one I can think of is Pippin’s song in The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.  He starts out just singing to Denethor solo, but the song then begin to be accompanied by orchestra as the scene starts to cut back and forth between Pippin/Denethor and Faramir leading a fruitless change against the orcs at Osgiliath.  While it’s not a true complete shift from one space to another-since the scene always returns to Pippin singing-the song is used as a dramatic lament to underscore to Faramir’s assault.

I’m sure there are numerous other examples of both aural shifts, and even some that go against the general trend that I laid out (nD-D as comedy, D-nD as drama).  But the usage as I laid out here do tend to be the general rule of thumb in visual media.

The Last Frakkin’ Word on the BSG Finale

Posted on by filmscore80

Over the past few days, I’ve read a lot positive and negative comments about the finale of Battlestar Galactica.  As one of the few who were seemingly completely satisfied with the ending, I feel the need to discuss my thoughts in an open forum, and it doesn’t get much more open than the internets (use the Google to find me…God, I hope bashing Bush never gets old)

Anyway, as I’ve said many times over the past year (to anyone who would listen), Ron Moore and David Eick seemed to be following a plan with BSG that took the major plot points of the one season of the classic Battlestar as a template for the new show.  Those major points, and their analogous new episodes I shall list here:

-Fall of the Twelve Colonies: Classic ‘Saga of a Star World,’ New ‘Miniseries’
-Finding Kobol: Classic ‘Lost Planet of the Gods,’ New ‘Kobol’s Last Gleaming, Part I’ through ‘Home, Part II’
-Discovery by Pegasus and Adm. Cain: Classic ‘The Living Legend,’ New ‘Pegasus’ through ‘Resurrection Ship, Part II’
-Ship of Lights/Count Iblis: Classic ‘War of the Gods,’ New…the entire series?

It is the last one that is most closely tied in with the finale of ‘Daybreak’ (both parts).  As it is revealed that the Six that Baltar would talk to that only he could see and hear (like Al from Quantum Leap), and that the Baltar vision both he and Caprica Six would have, are actually some sort of beings who have been helping them and the fleet along, hoping to guide them towards a better future.  And also that Starbuck, after she seemingly died, was brought back for a specific purpose.  I’ll come back to these points in just a moment, because first I want to address what seems to be one of the biggest sticking points:  the decision of the Colonials to renounce their technologies and settle down on our Earth and blend in with the natives.

I think this was a perfectly logical way to end the Colonial’s journey for a few reasons.  I think it does make sense from a pure storytelling perspective and from a practical one.  In context of the story, the entire point of the series has been “All this has happened before, and will happen again” and trying to break out of the cycle.  The final five were revealed to be people from the original 13th colony who had traveled to the 12 Colonies in hopes that they could prevent the terrible destruction that had visited their world (the original Earth), but they were too late.  And in trying to prevent a future war, accidently set in motion the events that would destroy the Colonies.  As Lee Adama makes clear in his little speech on why they should give up the technology, if they were to keep the technology and take over the planet, it would most likely just continue the cycle.  If they were to give it all up, they would give everyone the chance to start again, and hopefully when the civilization once again reached the point of the “Singularity,” the point when true Artificial Intelligence is reached and the systems can learn and evolve on their own (look it up), we will all be in a better position to avert the apocalypse (this anxiety is present in much of our science fiction, look no further than The Matrix and The Terminator films).

So in the context of the story, it makes perfect sense.  From a practical standpoint, let’s play what if.  What if instead of reaching Earth in the distant past, they reach Earth (our Earth) and it’s more recent, or even present day or even near future?  Essentially you would leave open the door for future series in some alternate reality in which the Galactica reaches Earth…then you just have the disaster that was Galactica 1980 all over again.  Instead, the way Moore and Eick ended it, you have a morality tale that squares with our own human history (but what about wreckage of the Raptor that Adama had, etc…I’ll get to that).  As for people who ask the question I just parentheticalled, well, I just say you’re over thinking it, and if you really want an answer, well Adama set the autopilot and crashed it into the Sun like the rest of the fleet.  But again, I think you’re missing the forest for the trees if you get that nitpicky.

 

So with that now settled, I would like to turn my attention to the previously mentioned point, that of the revelation of the true natures of, what had been referred to as, “Head Six” and “Head Baltar.”  Call them angels, spirits, or whatever, it becomes clear that they were operating for some source, power, whatever that had instructed them to do what they did.  And playing against them in this game was the original Cavil cylon, who we had learned earlier, was behind the mind wipes of the final five, planting them in the fleet and many other devious things.  He wanted to wipe out humanity so the Cylons could be ascendant.

 

This does mesh well with the general tone of the original series’ “War of the Gods” two part episode.  On the one hand there is Count Iblis who is our devil/Cavil figure (originally there had been a scene of him with cloven hoofs, but it was pulled from the aired episode), and he is warring against the beings of the ‘Ship of Lights,’ who are beings who have ascended to a higher plane of existence (if you are familiar with Stargate SG-1 think of the Ancients).  They hope to guide humanity to a better existence.

 

Also like the episode “War of the Gods,” is the obtaining of the location of Earth.  The return of Starbuck at the end of Season 3 leads to this…twice.  First the original Earth, destroyed by conflict of man against machine, and then to the new Earth, our Earth.  Also of similarity is that Starbuck returns in a pristine, shiny viper.  When, in the original series, the pilots who had been taken by the “Beings of Light” return to Galactica, their vipers are in similar condition.

 

From this, it can be seen that Ron Moore, when writing out this ending, had these episodes in mind.  And that all along, he was following the large plot structure of the one season of the original series.  But rather than the rather obvious, in your face, religious angels that we had in the original, we have the rather enigmatic, obtuse, and not always ‘good’ angles of “Head Six” and “Head Baltar.”  In the payoff of the Opera House visions, we do see that all along it was to protect the future of humanity, Hera, who would lay the seeds of our modern humanity (as seen in the tag of the near future and the discovery of our most recent ancestor).

 

But an ending with such religious overtones?  That seems to be a sticking point for some.  In a science fiction show that prided itself on realism, a metaphysical ending?  I didn’t have any problems because the entire show had religious themes.  From the Colonial’s pantheon of Gods, to Roslin’s faith and Moses-like figure, to the Cylon’s one true God, the series is littered with the religious.  The only lingering question for me is: with all of the strong allegory of religious conflict, and parallels to 9/11 and Arab/Judeo-Christian conflict, what, if anything, can we read into this ending?  My initial thoughts are that by the refutation of the name “God” at the end, it is a message of pantheism (if I’m using that term correctly).  That religion is putting a specific name on something which doesn’t want or need to be named (though anthropomorphizing it in such a way contradicts such pantheistic readings seemingly).

 

I’m not an expert in such matters, but a reading of the ending that encourages unity rather than division seems to be perfectly in line with the shows message as a whole.  In the end, in order to survive, didn’t humanity and cylon have to come together?  Wasn’t that the whole point of Hera?  Exactly.

 

So, those are my thoughts.  Yours?

The Music of Battlestar Galactica, Part I – Passacaglia

Posted on by filmscore80

So now that the proclaimed “best show on television” is over (except for a tv movie prequel and the new prequel show Caprica), I feel it appropriate to start talking about some of the music of Battlestar Galactica.  It ironic in a way that a science fiction show that set out to create a ‘naturalistic’ sci-fi and take the ‘opera’ out of space opera ended up creating a show that can now be said to define “space opera” in a way.  We have gritty, real characters acting out a grand, mythical story among the backdrop of the universe, plot fit for Wagner in a way.

And for a musical score that started out not wanting to have “themes” or, dear one say, “leitmotifs,” that very thing has become a defining aspect of the the score.  In the finale, these were used to great effect as all the major thematic ideas come to their end.  Payoff for all the major musical ideas.  It was so satisfying.  Even if you didn’t like the finale (which I won’t discuss here…at least without some warnings), from a musical standpoint I doubt few would argue the satisfaction of the musical conclusions.

Anyway, for what might be the first of several posts dealing with a specific theme or themes, I want to discuss what was the first cue that really made my ears perk up and notice what was going on aurally.  There have been four major iterations of this theme, all unique.  On the Season 1 score disc the tracks are called ‘Passacaglia’ and ‘The Shape of things to Come.’  The two cues bookend the two-part Season 1 finale of “Kobol’s Last Gleaming.”  In Season 2 it is ‘Allegro’ from “Home, Part II.”  And in Season 3 it is ‘Violence and Variations’ from “Unfinished Business.”  What is interesting, I think, about how these cues are used in the show is that, unlike the majority of the themes, this one seems to not have a specific character association.  It is even difficult to make a clear conceptual association, though I will discuss my thoughts on this.

The first scene, our first introduction to this music, isthe very opening sequence of “Kobol’s Last Gleaming, Part I,” it is a montage if you will.  It is also one of the early examples of a BSG opening teaser that is a montage given almost completely over to music.  (Other good examples are the Season 2 episodes “Pegasus” and “Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I.”  Both of these episodes are major structural episodes in the BSG canon, if were we to apply Schenker to them, they would definitely be part of the ‘ursatz.’)  The scenes that the music backs up are of Lee and then Cmdr. Adama sparring, Starbuck and Baltar (wow, this was long ago!) making love, Helo and Sharon/Athena on Caprica and Helo shooting her eventually, and Boomer on Galactica contemplating suicide.  All these scenes are inter-cut with some dialogue, but really, it is a slice of life, setting up the chess board.

What was most remarkable about this cue is that it was the first real usage of a more traditional orchestral sound in the show.  It immediately set aapart this music and this sequence.  It is a very calming theme, but is set against images of the life of our players, and some rather dark moments.  Here is a YouTube video of just the music (I was hoping to upload short clips I made of the themes, but I can’t seem to get that to work, oh well, that’s why the gods invented YouTube):

‘Passacaglia’

The second time we hear the music is the penultimate scene of ‘Kobol’s Last Gleaming, Part II,’ in one of, I think, the shows best sequences.  Baltar and the Cylon Model Six that he can see and hear, but no one else can (which was finally explained in the Finale!), walk towards the ruins of the Kobol Opera House, and when they walk though the archway they are in a vision of the Opera House as it was.  It is here that Baltar learns of humanity’s future and the child that is to come.  But my favorite line is Six’s little musing on music and life: “Life has a melody, Gaius.  A rhythm of notes that become your existence once they’re played in harmony with God’s plan.”  This iteration of the theme is called “The Shape of Things to Come,”  coming from Six’s line that the child, the hybrid of human and cylon is the future.

“The Shape of Things to Come”

Two things to note: first the high held note that starts the cue, this will become a feature of later variations.  Second is the different meter:  “Passacaglia” is in 3/4 while “Shape” is in 6/8.  This is also a hallmark of this particular theme.  Not only is the original “Passacaglia” a variation form, but all the subsequent version are also variations on the original!  Also, the “Shape of Things to Come” variation is used in most of the subsequent visions of the Opera House that are see for the remainder of the series, and is the most common heard form.

Our next version of the theme, now in 4/4, comes in the concluding episode of the whole Kobol storyline in “Home, Part II” and the cue known as ‘Allegro.’  Once again, our theme is used to underlay an opening montage sequence.  We have the erstwhile President Roslin on the surface of Kobol struggling through the rain to reach the Tomb of Athena, all the while grieving the loss of her spiritual adviser, Elosha.  There are some loaded religious imagery here with Roslin being soaking in the rain (rebirth), and going through the Sacred Scrolls, a pilgrim and a leader.  On the other side, we have Adama (back in charge after begin shot by Boomer) planning a mission down to Kobol and hopefully reuniting the divided fleet.

‘Allegro’

It is important to note that all these cues are compelte musical ideas and pieces.  As they appear on the score albums, so they are in the show.

We next don’t get the theme until Season 3’s “Unfinished Business.”  Unlike the previous versions, it is not just used for one scene, but, as the album title “Violence and Variation” indicates, it is used in many different variations throughout the episode.  It even introduces a new overall theme for the very complex and volatile relationship between Lee Adama and Kara Thrace (Apollo and Starbuck).  This episode is set up as a series of flashbacks that fill in some of the time on New Caprica prior to the Cylon occupation, and sets up the love square between Dualla-Lee/Kara-Anders, not to mention the budding Adama/Roslin relationship.  The flashbacks take place within the framework of a Galactica boxing match in which anyone can challenge anyone, rank left at the door.  Here we have the obvious parallel to the original ‘Passacaglia’ with boxing, but there is a deeper level that I’ll discuss in a moment.  This version is in a 12/8 meter mostly, but with some detours.

‘Violence and Variation’

Now, what, if anything, can we say about this theme, if we can even call it a theme?  It is more truly a set of variations set up by the original ‘Passacaglia.’  My thought is that it is the melody of life, as Six indicated.  The music is heard over some of the most human moments of the show.  It accompanies the many complex character relationships, not to mention involving some of our most basic human actions (fighting, loving, crying), and it also points towards the future of humanity in its association with Hera and the Opera House (which was brilliantly culminated in the finale both visually and musically). It is also the penultimate BSG theme heard in the show (last true theme with the exception of the tag on the ending, but I will not say more for fear of spoilers).  So it is the theme that sends our characters on their journey into humanity’s future.  The sequences of notes that create the melody of life when played in harmony with God’s plan (I won’t espouse on the religion of BSG here, but it is an interesting aspect of what the finale brought full circle).

I also believe that the Kara/Anders theme ‘A Promise to Return’ (first heard in Season 2’s ‘The Farm’ as Kara is leaving Caprica to return to the fleet and has to leave Anders behind) is related to the ‘Passacaglia.’  Judge for yourself:

‘A Promise to Return’

It starts like many of the ‘Passacaglia’ variations with the lone high note, and the pulsating accompanying figure bears many similarities to the ‘Passacaglia.’  But without close theoretical analysis which I haven’t done yet, I can’t say anything with certainty except that my gut tells me it is related.  If it is, then it fits with the overall way in which the music is used.  It is an indicator of life and the future, the very human side of the show.

So, hopefully this will be the shape of things to come in this blog.  I’m not sure of which theme to do next or when the post will be, but I am open to suggestions.

Note:  Re-reading this, I realize that I neglected to name the composer.  Maybe since I’ve mentioned Bear McCreary’s name so many times in this blog already, I sub-consciously thought it wasn’t necessary to name him again.  Well, Mr. McCreary did the score and will also be scoring the upcoming prequel series Caprica.

YouTube is an amazing thing, Part I

Posted on by filmscore80

So these next two posts might be light on content, but heavy on the video.

YouTube is an amazing thing, and one of the most remarkable creations of the digital age.  More than anything else, it allows people to just marvel at the creative talent (or lack thereof) of…well…just about anyone.  From the Star Wars Kid to crazy/stupid drunk people doing crazy/stupid drunk things, the width and breadth of content on YouTube is sure to allow for hours of unending amusement.  We’ve all be sucked into a YouTube tornado, in which, like its cousin the Wikipedia Abyss, you start out looking for one thing and before you know it an hour has gone by and you wonder what the hell you have just wasted your time doing.  This just happened to me.

So what does this have to do with Film Music, or its child TV Music, or its young cousin Video Game music?  Well, I’m getting to that.  I stumbled onto this video earlier, a re-edited opening for Star Trek: Voyager set to the theme from Battlestar Galactica:

And in short order I had watched many other alternate openings to Voyager set to many different TV themes:

Stargate: Atlantis

Buffy: The Vampire Slayer

Angel

and my personal favorite, Monk

For reference, here is the original opening and theme, with music by the one and only Jerry Goldsmith:

So what is the point of all this?  Besides the creativity of YouTube user Bloempje721, it is how a theme really does set the tone of the show.  All of the above examples, through the use of careful clip selection and video editing effects that closely mirror the originals, give us what would, in theory, be very different shows.  Yet the material, besides the theme, are all drawn from the same show!

Many people may not notice just how much music and a good theme song can set the mood of a show (though I sure none of my loyal blog readers are among those people), but if you doubt it, look no further than these videos.

p.s. – the Word Press spell-checker highlights ‘blog’ as not a real word

Referential Music in ‘Chuck’

Posted on by filmscore80

  Chuck, in my humble opinion, is a great example of how to use pop and pre-composed music very well in a television series (not to mention being a fun show).  Created by many of the same people who did The O.C., the show carries on the same geek chic that was a part of that series, but extends the pop culture references into the aural sphere.  The last two episodes (‘Chuck vs. Santa Claus’ and ‘Chuck vs. the Third Dimension’) are great examples of how they do it.

  Some basic plot is in order.  The series is a spy-spoof/fish out of water in which the title character, Chuck, is thrown into the international spy world when all of the U.S. government’s secrets are downloaded into his head.  He will occasionally ‘flash’ on a person or object, which leads him and his protectors (the stunning Sarah, who is also his cover girlfriend, and the hard-ass John, who poses as a co-worker) to run down the bad guys of the week.  This is all juxtaposed against Chuck trying to maintain his normal life which involves living with his sister and her fiancee and working his job at the Buy More (a thinly veiled Best Buy) with his friends and co-workers. 

  The last episode prior to Christmas hiatus, ‘Chuck vs. Santa Claus’ is an extended homage to Die Hard.  You have a hostage crisis at the Buy More, but, just as in Die Hard, the hostage taker’s real reasons are not those which he states to the police (one of whom is Reginald VelJohnson, reprising his Die Hard role of Sgt. Al Powell).  The Die Hard musical homages are most striking in the scene when Chuck is locking down the Buy More and the music is similar to the analogous scene from the movie as the terrorists lock down Nakatomi Plaza (in fact, the previous episode deals with the sale of Nakamichi Plaza, itself a sideways reference to Die Hard).  The cue, like much of Michael Kamen’s score, is based upon the Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s Ninth.  An astute listener, at this point, will have put the pieces together and figured out what was coming.  The reference comes out full at the end as Sgt. Al Powell and his cousin, store manager ‘Big’ Mike, run to embrace each other at the end, and we are treated to a clip from an actual performance of the Ode to Joy.

  This week’s episode, ‘Chuck vs. the Third Dimension,’ has three major musical references: 80s rock anthem ‘The Final Countdown’ by Europe, ‘Sul Aria’ from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, and a coy musical allusion to John Williams’ March from Raiders of the Lost Ark.  The first two are used during the episode’s back up story which involves a series of contest to determine who will accompany Morgan (a co-worker and friend of Chuck’s at the Buy More) to the back stage of a rock concert.  Taking part in this competition is a new employee and friend of ‘Big’ Mike’s who has just been released from prison.

  ‘The Final Countdown’ accompanies the challenge scenes and obviously, thanks to the 80s synth driven sound, harkens back to the multiple montage and other scenes from sports films.  The song has also enjoyed renewed interest in this decade thanks to its inclusion in the show Arrested Development as the intro music for a character who was a (terrible) magician (also of note is that an actor from Arrested Development is currently starring on Chuck).

  After the competition is won, Morgan rethinks his decision and decides to give the ticket to the man who is just out of prison.  In wonderfully overdone scenes involving him discussing how the ex-con should enjoy his new freedom, we hear Mozart’s duet from Marriage of Figaro, which was most famously used in The Shawshank Redemption, where it was played to the prisoners and we hear Morgan Freeman narrate:  “I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don’t want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I’d like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can’t be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.”

  Finally, the end of the episode, as the team leaves for another mission, we hear the familiar chords and rhythms of the Raiders March, though it has been altered so that after the familiar opening it doesn’t exactly mimic the piece (probably due to copyright or costs or whatever).  Just as at the end of the Indy films, he mounts up or leaves to go on his next adventure, so do our heroes.  Chuck, after some trauma at the end of the previous episode, is back in a better head-space, and all is, mostly right with the world.  And as the episode closes, we have a visual reference to Back to the Future, as the words ‘To Be Continued’ are shown on screen in the same font as from the closing of those films.

  As I have hopefully shown, Chuckis a pop culture savvy show, whose numerous allusions, both visual and aural, help to enrich a viewer’s appreciation of the show, and the geek culture embodied by the title character.

Musical Identity on Television

Posted on by filmscore80

Identity 1. a. The quality or condition of being the same in substance, composition, nature, properties, or in particular qualities under consideration; absolute or essential sameness; oneness.
-Oxford English Dictionary

  Much music on television is derided for lacking much musical substance, and in large part, the critics are not wrong.  The problem is endemic of the entire format: where a two hour film has months, maybe even a year, in which they go through the entire pre-production, filming, post production process, television does the same thing in maybe a month (with a week for each process), if that.  Not to mention, most of the three stages are going on at the same time.  So where in film, music is often left until the end, and the composer has maybe a few weeks to write, and then they hit the scoring stage, the television composer has but a matter of days usually.  Though one must also bear in mind that usually TV scores have much less music than your average film.

  Out of this, there are two main points I would like to bring out.  On a television series, within a given season, music can be and is reused from previous episodes, and also on many shows, the score is synthazied or computer generated.  Think of your standard procedural show (Your CSI or Bones) or even the action-epic 24, and you can get a sense of what I’m talking about.  But also now think if the music sticks in your head, or adds much except for ratcheting up tension as the show nears a commercial break.  If anything, with CSI, the main musical hook for the three versions is what song by The Who is used for the main titles. 

  This is not to put down the efforts of the composers of those shows, I’m sure they are providing exactly what the show runners want.  It adds to the dramatic tension, helps to hook people going into the commercial break to hopefully make sure they don’t “touch that remote.”  But at the same time, you could interchange a lot of the cues between CSI shows and not many would notice.

  But what I would like to spend time on here are two current TV scores that I feel are just as much a part of the show’s identity as the actors and the story.  As mentioned in the previous post, the scores for Lost and Battlestar Galactica (in my opinion the top two shows on the air currently) are stand outs amongst the current crop.  The reason for this is that they give the show a musical identity such that a person will know the show just by hearing the music.

  First, Bear McCreary’s score Battlestar Galactica.  The big picture aesthetic is that he has thrown just about every kind of instrument into an orchestra that creates a sound that is both alien and familiar at the same time.  He uses non-Western instrument such as Taiko drums from Japan, Gamelan from Indonesia, and the duduk (an Armenian instrument that is over 1500 years old).  Together, these instrument are used alongside traditional Western strings, and even guitars and electric bass.  Granted, not all are used at the same time.  In musical terms, he draws heavily on Middle Eastern and Indian styles along with rock idioms and traditional Western Art music.  He blends all these styles together into a score that creates the aural tapestry upon which the space opera of BSG is woven.  This diversity extends into the vocal songs written for the score that are sung in languages such as Italian, Sanskrit, and Latin.

  As I assert, this creates an effect of making a score that is familiar to us (in that everything is taken from an Earth culture), but the way it is remixed creates a new sound that, one could infer, is native to the 12 Colonies that make up the native culture in BSG. 

  The music itself is made up of a complex of character and concept themes that are used much like a traditional Hollywood score (think Star Wars or Lord of the Rings) and are deployed in varying arrangements in the traditional manner.  The fact of having so many themes in and of itself makes the show an exception among TV programs.

  Unique orchestras and use of themes are something that link the BSG score of McCreary to that of Lost by Michael Giacchino.  In the first season of the show, Giacchino actually used pieces of the airplane wreckage that was purchased for the show’s set in the score, but by the second season (when the wreckage had all slid into the ocean) that element was largely dropped.  He uses mainly traditional Western instruments, though with a large battery of percussion, but the score itself is anything but traditional Hollywood sound. 

  Take such cues as the first season’s “Life and Death.”  It is very sparingly scored, with solo piano and solo cello dominating, though at times supported by quiet strings.  The theme itself has come to be used in the show for many moments of death (which there is a lot of).  Many cues, though, border on the atonal, with the well known (and at times overused) dramatic trombone and string cluster that many times is used to underlie a dramatic cliffhanger that will lead to commercial or close the show (on the Season 4 DVD release, in a special feature on the music, they make fun of it).

  But, again, the orchestral sound marks it as Lost.  Giacchino’s writing and scoring is unique to the show and sounds like nothing else on television.  Some of the best cues (like “Life and Death”) underlie many of the show’s best moments, and it is a testament to the music that the producers feel comfortable many times letting the music speak for the show in some of the best musical montage sequences on TV (musical montage, especially with a pop song, has become almost a cliche thanks to The O.C.).

  The big picture idea, to get back to the definition at the head, is that the scores are just as much a part of the identity of the show.  It is part of the same substance that makes the show what it is.  This is, of course, in contrast to many scores that do not add much, if anything, to the substance of the show, McCreary and Giacchino add something critical that is an essential quality to the mixture.  Their scores indeed help to raise the quality of the program to the high levels of acclaim they both enjoy today.

Narrative and Interactive Music in Media: an Overview

Posted on by filmscore80

So as I indicate elsewhere in this blog, I intend to address not only film scores, but also those of television and video games.  The thing about these three categories is that, while they all share similar underpinnings, they are quite different types of media.

Film is the granddaddy of them all (well, if you want to get technical, the true father was Greek Drama, but lets only consider the last 100 or so years, shall we?), so most of the music pf television and video games are based on the codes and models of it.   Specifically,  much of it is based on the “classic Hollywood sound” of the 1940s and 50s (Hermann, Korngold, etc.), which itself was influenced heavily by Romantic era classical music.  This how we can trace from Wagner to Korngold to John Williams.  But I’m not really saying much new here.

Television is a different beast.  With smaller budgets and less time, many times the scores aren’t for full orchestra, in fact it might only be a few instruments, or maybe only the composer at a synthesizer and computer.  Then there is music that is canned and recycled (come on, lets all now sing the Captain Kirk fighting whomever with a ripped shirt music…da da daa daa daa daa daa da dum da), so it is the exceptional show that has almost all newly composed music for every episode.  Some good recent examples are the scores for Battlestar Galactica (by Bear McCreary) and Lost (by Michael Giacchino).

Then there are video games.  In the almost 30 years now of the home console and computer video game market, we’ve gone from beeps and bloops to fully orchestrated and recorded music, but the truly remarkable thing is that this music has to be adaptable.  Able to change with the situation.  I would like to meditate on this for just a moment.

Think back to Super Mario Bros., until recently the top selling game of all time (thanks in no small part to being included with the Nintendo Entertainment System console).  Within just the first level of the game, one could hear some 6 different musical cues: the basic world music (the ubiquitous Mario Bros. theme music), the underworld thme after one has gone down a pipe, the “Star Theme” when one obtained the invincibilitystar, if one was running out of time there would be a short transition to a sped up version of the basic theme, the short musical tag if you died, and then the completing the level tag.  And while the quick musical transition between the sections (like the going down the pipe sound) might have been crude, the fact that the composers and programmers actually entered into the game code these various themes and transitions paved the way for more complex systems.

One of the early examples of a more complex system that figured heavily into my childhood is the iMuse engine used in many of LucasArts games in the 90s.  For me, it was its use in their classic adventure games that, while at the time I was not as musically astute, are still with me.  Music from such games as Sam & Max Hit the Road, Full Throttle, The Dig, Curse of Monkey Island, and  Grim Fandango still linger in my brain just waiting for me to start humming them at random, and in many occasions inappropriate, times.  What the iMuse did was to help to smooth out the transitions and make the switches between cues more seamless, the basic ideas that is still in use today.

If you want more info, surf over to iMuse Island, a rather detailed website about the system.  A similar system was also used in the computer game series Wing Commander, which I also played fairly obssively while growing up.

But if there was one video game score that floored me like no other it was Final Fantasy III (though actually the sixth game of the series, but was released as III in the states because numbers II, III, and V didn’t see release here until much later).  The album release of the score is three CDs long, and despite it being MIDI generated, it still holds up against many scores of today’s games.  Each of the 14 playable characters has a distinct theme, and the music itself is epic on a grand scale, with MIDI doing its best to represent an orchestral sound complete with choir and organ.  And if that wasn’t enough, composer Nobuo Uematsu even had to write an mini opera for a central plot point during the game.

To a 13-year-old, this was amazing.  Right up there with John Williams and Star Wars, why Uematsu wasn’t famous like Williams was a mystery to me back then.  I know now that among video game music fans, Uematsu is Williams.

I lament the fact that I cannot comment much on the current state of music in video games, but it is my understanding that on a level of basic technique, much hasn’t changed, the idea of writing cues that can be cut up to be transitioned between to suit a player’s actions is still there.  The major change is the switch from MIDI or more sophisticated computer software to, in many cases, digital recordings of live musicians.  Due to the large memory capacity of the media now involved, this is used more and more often.

Then there are games like the Grand Theft Auto series which use music in a very unusual way.  The gamer essentially selects the soundtrack by switching between radio stations in the stolen vehicles, and depending on what mood the player is in can determine what they listen to (Rap, Reggae, Classical, Talk, etc.).  I won’t say much more than that, but I do direct readers to an excellent recent article by Kiri Miller from the Fall 2007 issue of the journal Ethnomusicology for more on this.

I know that this isn’t very deep information, much is synthesized from my own readings of other scholars, but if one is new to musical scores in media, this might give some basics.

Music and Ritual

Posted on by filmscore80

As some may know, one of my papers last semester dealt with describing film as a ritual activity and analyzing scores in that context.  My ideas are still very much a work in progress, but here are some thoughts I’ve been jotting down the last few days.

Music, Western music, especially classical music, used to be consumed in a primarily ritualized manner, i.e. the concert.  Recording technology changed that, but the process of listening to classical music at home still had ritualized tendencies.  Then along came the pop explosion, and more importantly, radio airplay.  The digestion of short, disposable songs made the music less valuable because much of the ritual was taken out of it.  It was less about the journey of the music, the piece moving the listener with it, then about the commercial viability of the single.
Album-oriented rock held onto some of the ritual elements.  The listener, to gain the full impact, had to sit, listen, digest.  It was about a ritual journey again.  Now once again, with iTunes and other similar services, we are again faced with a focus less on the whole and more with the catchy and disposable.

But will music as a listening ritual every really die?  The marketplace will always have it’s “pop.”  Folk music, lieder, etc. down through the centuries is a testament to the fact that for every mass, opera cycle, symphony there has always been the motet, madrigal, piano prelude, and Billie Jean.  But as long as individuals keep listening, and artists keep writing with the album as a conceptual whole, the ritual of listening will be around.  Whether in your car, your iPod on the bus, or on your favorite home stereo, people still treat these things as rituals.

But these are examples of ritual activity in which music is the focal point of the ritual.  What about rituals in which music is just a component?  What effect does music play?  How does it inform the ritual?  More to the point, how can film, television, video games fit within the scope of ritual activity and how does the musical score effect it?  Alter our perceptions?  And most importantly, why is seeing it within the context of the ritual process useful?

My primary thought is that, to my satisfaction, the question of why music is associated with such visual storytelling mediums has never been answered.  I believe that such an analysis through the ritual process can illuminate this question.