music in film #2

Question 1

film sound can be divided into three categories:

Answer 1

dialogue, sound effects, and music.

Question 2

Placements of music in a film

Answer 2

a) music in the opening and closing frames b)music within the narrative

Question 3

music in the opening helps to:

Answer 3

• alert about the beginning of the film
• introduce the dominant musical theme of the film
• present several musical themes that will be heard in the film
• establish the mood of the opening scene or of the film.
• foreshadow significant aspects of the story.

Question 4

When placed at the closing credits:

Answer 4

Reflect the mood.
Create a cheerful ambience for the exiting audiences.
Reprise a number of important musical ideas from the film. It may add a new song, which could lead to a possible Oscar nomination for Best Song and boost potential sales of a soundtrack recording.

Question 5

Music within the narrative:

Answer 5

Can be considered as either source music or underscoring.
Source Music (diegetic music): is heard as part of the drama itself.
Underscoring (non-diegetic music): has no logical source in the drama itself. Performed by an unseen source (orchestra, jazz band, rock group, etc.), it creates an overall mood and guides us emotionally and psychological through the course of a film.

Question 6

Function

Answer 6

-Establishing a Mood, -Supporting the Plot
-Establishing character, setting, point of view, and theme,

Question 7

Establishing a Mood:

Answer 7

music appeals directly to the emotions; therefore it helps to create an overall ambience that serves as a backdrop to the unfolding drama. Sometimes, music depcts a mood that deliberately does not match what is happening in the scene. It is called running counter to the action.

Question 8

Supporting the Plot:

Answer 8

reinforcing its emotional content. Reflects the emotions of a given scene. In addition to suggesting the emotional qualities of a given story, music can also reflect physical movement (slap, object hittin ghe ground, etc) and re-creates natural sounds (splashing water, thunder, ticking of a clock, gunfire, etc.)

Question 9

Styles of music in film

Answer 9

1. Romantic, 2. Popular Music, 3. Modern Music,

Question 10

Romantic music:

Answer 10

Music created during the 19th century. Emphasizes melody, colorful orchestrations, and a wide range of emotions. It is powerful, flexible and relatively unobtrusive.

Question 11

Popular music:
When to expect it?

Answer 11

It includes jazz, rock, etc. Tends to be melody-oriented, have a strong dance-like beat, and incorporate syncopated thythms. It has played a prominent role in films. When to expect it? To accompany the opening and closing credits, to underscore montages, to provide source music and to serve as leitmotif.

Question 12

Modern Music
types:

Answer 12

is not “recent” music. It’s a term prodominantly by concert composers that breaks away from the compositional techniques and styles of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Expressionism : explores continuous dissonance and avoids tonal centers.

Neoclassicism: mildy dissonant harmonic idiom, a reduction in the amount of underscoring and in the size of the orchestra, avoids the excess of Romanticism.

American nationalism: broad melodies with wide intervals, syncopated rhythms, warm orchestrations, and modern harmonic system.

Avant garde: explore the limits of their disciplines in creative, complex and colorful manners.

Minimalism: repetitive style based on simplified melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic qualities.

Historical Music: can help in setting the time and place of the film.

Ethnic Music: music from a non-Western culture.

Question 13

Songs in a film provide:

Answer 13

Provide entertainment, create an ambience or serve as vital component of the story.

Question 14

Unity in the music of a film. What unifies a film score?
what do musical themes represent? What is a leitmotif?

Answer 14

Film scores can be unified by a consistent mood, timbre and style.
Musical themes can represent the overall mood or underlying idea of a film, without any specific connection to the drama.
Leitmotifs: can identify with a person, object or idea in a story.

Question 15

Descriptive music

Answer 15

Music that depicts a general mood suggested in a text, title, and program, or mimics specific physical movements and natural sounds, such as wind, thunder and animal noises.
explicitly describes something or tells a story.

Question 16

Theatrical Entertainments

Answer 16

Opera: , ballet, melodrama

Question 17

Opera

Answer 17

Richard Wagner- sought to bring together the best elements of all the arts “gesamtkunstwerke”

Created a special theater to implement his ideas fully.

Question 18

Ballet

Answer 18

Composers adjust their music to the particular needs of the drama. Because ballet music is essential in relating a story that has no spoken words, it can be seen as closely allied to the music of silent film in particular.
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: excelled at projecting the variety of emotions through his music.

Question 19

Melodrama

Answer 19

Had the most direct and practical impact on the creation of film music. It is a type of stage drama prominent in the nineteenth century.

-Music and Drama in Ancient Greece

-Incidental music.