IN SPACE EVERYONE CAN HEAR the CHORD CHANGES (Part 2)

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Chapter 7 IN SPACE EVERYONE CAN HEAR THE CHORD CHANGES (part 2)

This chapter carries on from ‘In Space Everyone can hear the Chord Changes’ (chapter 5, vol. 2). We continue to examine how music for ‘space movies’ works, looking closely at stylisation, instrumentation, orchestration and production. We also look closely at the relationship between music and the narrative structure of the films. We look at how music succeeds in telling the stories.

The films and music examined are: Gravity (Stephen Price) Avatar (James Horner) Man of Steel (Hans Zimmer) Alien (Jerry Goldsmith) Armageddon (Trevor Rabin) Prometheus (Marc Streitenfeld) Solaris (Cliff Martinez) Deep Impact (James Horner) Sunshine (John Murphy)

GRAVITY (Stephen Price)

Gravity was directed, co-written, co-produced and co-edited by Alfonso Cuarón. It stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts involved in the destruction of a space shuttle and shows their attempt to return to Earth. Composer Stephen Price, talking to Rolling Stone Magazine , said “we used lots of elements and a lot of layering so that things would move around you all the time.” This is one of the reasons the music’s ‘function’ was markedly different from many other films set in space; some of the music was quite texturally and harmonically dense and harmonically unspecific. Gone were the larger-than-life, overt themes and distinct sci-fi harmonies. This score is not so much about themes but is instead a tapestry of evolving music which is possibly more a product of its ‘sound’. Music is not neccasarily used to italicise a specific moment (although this does happen) but to offer gently suggestive moods which convey feelings of suspense, anxiety, warmth, romance, right through to terror.

Price said “The writing of those elements was always influenced by what Ryan [Dr Stone, played by Sandra Bullock] was feeling and where she was emotionally in the whole thing.” This is an interesting point because often in the various volumes of this book we have spoken about music having a harmonic ‘centre of gravity’. Invariably this happens in most pieces of music and indeed it sometimes can apply across an entire film. But, as Price alludes to, films sometimes have a narrative centre of gravity; it might be a particular event or scene, or, as in this case, a character for which most of the music relates to. Price went on to say that music might change subtly depending on “where the camera was, where things were moving and what point of view the camera was facing, whether it was looking at them or kind of looking through their eyes.” So although the music changed, it was reacting through the character of Ryan.

Talking about how to score fear, Price said “Fear is one of those really primal emotions [in] which you don’t want to have incredibly exciting modulations and complex harmonies and all that kind of stuff.” This approach definitely works for Gravity but can’t be seen to be indicative of all movies. Often abject terror or fear has to be harmonically ‘painted in’ forensically by colouring chords with specific extensions, voicings or instrumentation. There is a famous scene in Exorcist III (the ‘nurse’s station’ scene) where a nurse on duty late at night on a hospital ward looks inside a room, checks it is empty, closes the door, locks it and begins to walk away. As she walks away the camera rapidly pans toward her and we see a huge cloaked figure behind her clutching a giant pair of secateurs. Perhaps not surprisingly, given the film, he uses them to decapitate the woman (something we don’t actually see but instead imagine - which in a way is worse). The point is that during that final moment there is a loud, dissonant, chord played. It sounds calamitous, primeval but without it the scene is less emphatic and a lot less scary.

Returning to Gravity, the questions we ask are to do with the music’s ‘function’: how does the music work, why is it there, what does it do that words and images alone can’t do, how does it make you feel and how does it bring the film closer to you? How does it do all these things? Is it through melody, texture, orchestration, harmony, production? Lets’ begin at the beginning and look at the first track, which is used during the movie’s opening sequence.

Fig.1 Movie opener Audio – ‘Above Earth’ – 00.11

n.c

00.50

Starting with the obvious stuff, we have the textural and harmonic drama of the consistent double octave figure which comes three times underneath a more ‘dreamy’ top line. This cue is harmonically minimal in that we don’t have whole chords being stated; but we do have extensions such as the 9 th (bar two-three) and the 11 th (bar four). This effect, caused by using extensions without the normal accompanying contextual harmony, is something we’ve come across before. It is an effective compositional tool which can draw the listener in; robbed of the usual contextual harmonic surrounding terrain, the listener’s curiosity unconsciously searches the chord for its identity. Thus the effect of extensions without some of the usual context can be greater than when we actually have the usual harmony present (3rds, 5ths etc). In addition to this, is there an emotional hit point; an emotional / harmonic centre of gravity in this cue? We often find such things not, as one might imagine, in the strangest of places, but quite the reverse; embedded in a perfectly normal-sounding sequences. Take a look at bar eight-nine which contains Gm to Bb. This minor-to-major chord manouvre can be hugely uplifting but comparatively rare. Hundreds of thousands of pieces begin on major-to-relative-minor sequences; the sequence has been permanently grafted onto the collective consciousness of most listeners since the dawn of orchestral music and subsequently pop music. But the sequence in reverse is not nearly as popular and yet can offer a sense of mild euphoria and freshness. Whereas Bb to Gm sounds as if it is a natural, predictable sequence, the Gm to Bb doesn’t. Hans Zimmer uses the sequence in Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code to great effect.

Fig.2 Angels & Demons movie opener Audio – ‘God Particle’

Fresh and uplifting

Fig.3 The Da Vinci Code – 02.41.54 Audio – ‘The Da Vinci Code’

Fresh and uplifting

At 00.08.16 into Gravity, well before disaster strikes and as he glances toward the serene and silent view of the earth from space, astronaut Matt Kowalski says to Dr Stone “You got to admit one thing; can’t beat the view.” In order to accentuate ‘the view’, ‘the music’ kicks in. It is an exceptional view but in a film context it needs the music to make people realise and acknowledge that it is an exceptional view. This is music’s great gift; it can accentuate a point brilliantly because it does so in a way that is not literal. No words or extra images, just something that communicates emotion without being understood. So, the ‘function’ of the music is to make the whole scene more poignant and memorable; the link between the obvious drama of the image and the just-as- obvious-but-less-understood emotion in the music becomes synchronised in the mind of the viewer. How does it do it?

Fig.4 Movie 00.08.16 Audio – Above Earth 00.50

rd st G = G = 1 st Bb = 3 Bb = 1 3rd

D = 5 th D = 3 rd Bb =1 st

Bb and G Bb and G = 5 th & = 3 rd & 1st

The section of ‘Above Earth’ where Clooney’s character stares at the earth comes around fifty seconds into the track. The chords are slow, meandering and deliberate. The power of the chords is, as always, in the changes, the manoeuvres, the reactions; but with this piece being so slow and ponderous and with the sounds being so soft and unobtrusive, the sonorities between the different harmonies glide over us like a soft blanket. They do not appear suddenly like most chords; they materialise. As in another movie we looked at (The Impossible) the music manages to make the Eb to Gm sound a whole lot lovelier than it normally sounds because the slowness makes us hear the intervallic changes more (detailed on transcription). With this kind of music we are listening primarily to the intervals, especially when the textures are so dreamy and nebulous.

As stated earlier this track also features the uplifting manouvre from minor to relative majo (bar three to six – Gm to Bb).

In the cue ‘Don’t let go’ (fig.5) there is one moment where the movie’s centre of gravity (the character Dr Ryan Stone) and the music touch each other gently; the change in the music alone is nothing without Stone hesitating and saying, “I had a daughter.” and equally the statement alone is a little dry without the music; the music italicises the moment like words and pictures cannot. As we have discussed at length elsewhere in these books, music manages to paint a different description of emotion than words and pictures do. This is in part because it is less understood than pictures and words, both of which tend to communicate quickly and emphatically to most people. They can be subtle but they cannot help but be understood fairly easily.

Music is only heard by viewers; it is rarely seen or read and understood literally. It lacks the emphatic communicative qualities of language or of vision. But this is its great strength, because it means that emotions, carefully sculptured and crafted by composers, manage to ‘hit the spot’ emotionally without viewers often understanding how it has happened. The communication is effortless but perplexing. It is not perhaps as immediately emphatic as words or pictures but is it more powerful and pliable because we’re not completely able to understand. This means that music isn’t as ‘immediately forensic’ as dialogue or picture in terms of what it imparts to the viewer but it means that the effect can often be more poignant, emotional and tender. The E chord at bar six becomes subtly fuller and sonically warmer and deeper, texturally and harmonically. Again, this simple evolution of the piece, at such a crucial time narratively, serves the film well.

Movie – 00.26.13 Audio – ‘Don’t let go’ 00.38 Fig.5

th maj6th and maj 7 in same chord

Ryan: “I had a daughter”

Moving now to the purely harmonic factors, it is interesting the observe that the change from the first G#m chord to the E/G# chord is quite crucial to the way the sequence ‘sounds’ whilst being created by the physical movement of only one note (the D# moving up to the E note).

The effect is frequently more subtle, restrained th Fig.6a Fig.6b maj 7 and delicate if something so texturally ‘dreamy’ 5th maj th 5th 7 moves intervallically rather than physically. We 5th rd enjoy the experience of something which appears maj 3 min 3rd th min 3rd 5 to have changed and altered when in fact only ( 1 st ) 1st maj rd 1st 3 5th st one note has changed its pitch. To the right ( 5 th ) 1 (fig.6b) shows in bold the note which changes

physically. This physical change of one note re- 3rd orientates the intervallic context of the remaining 3rd notes. We ‘feel’ this change; the subtle change in st st 1 the harmonies is something which, whilst not 1 being obvious, is nevertheless pivotal in how the music communicates. Interval moves but not actual pitch

th In bars four and five we have maj6th and maj 7 intervals in same chord which is a little odd. One way we interpret intervals and extensions is by hearing the character they convey. Because we listen in uniform ways we gain roughly the same sensations from extensions. The maj6 th interval traditionally fulfils a different emotional function to the maj7 th . They rarely appear in the same chord together. The maj7’s ‘character’ relies on vertical space between it and the other intervals (particularly the gap between it and the root and it and the 3 rd ). Similarly the maj6th relies on the unique dynamic between it and the rest of the notes in a chord. The two together create a slightly muddled and indistinct sense of character. In bar four the top D# (maj7) clashes faintly with the 6 th (C#) a 9 th below, but in bar five the clash is more overt with the two being on the top of the chord and a tone apart.

The final cue to look at is titled ‘Shenzou’ and comes toward the end of the movie as Ryan begins to make her descent into the earth’s atmosphere in the Russian spacecraft. Described as euphoric and uplifting, the piece runs for quite some time although essentially it is the same phrase repeating. It is dramatic and climactic but there is also a cyclical, meandering character to it, with a lack of conclusion to the phrasing within the cue. In context of the whole cue, the phrases repeat, but because of the clever way in which it is constructed we don’t really hear the actual point at which it repeats. The phrase doesn’t ‘tie-up’ in the same way something this melodic would normally do.

The whole harmonic and melodic contour in this piece is sixteen bars long (but not divided up into smaller four or eight-bar mini-phrases); normally within a sixteen-bar phrase there would be smaller repeated sections (identical chord sequences or melodic lines).Any sixteen-bar phrase in a song that is ‘written through’ may have problems being quickly rationalised and remembered. But of course film music is not song. There are times when you want a musical presence which creates an emotional response but not one which intrudes and is remembered for all the wrong reasons – as a distraction. So sometimes a more meandering phrase without some of the archetypal ‘road signs’ is what’s required. In ‘Shenzou’ we don’t emphatically recognise phrasing beginning or concluding, even though we are aware of hearing the same chord changes more than once over the entire length of the cue itself. If we contextualise the phrase as beginning properly at bar three (of fig.7) below, and concluding at the end of bar eighteen, this gives us a mathematically neat sixteen-bar phrase; but within that phrase the piece doesn’t repeat anything; so, unlike most sixteen-bar phrases there are no convenient road signs along the way. This is how the piece manages to be meandering and hypnotic without seeming to become boring and repetitive.

Fig.7 Movie – 01.15.44 Audio – ‘Shenzou’ 01.25

MAN OF STEEL (Hans Zimmer)

Man of Steel is based on the back story to the superhero Superman . It was co-produced by Legendary Pictures and Syncopy Films and was distributed by Warner Bros. I specifically mention this because these three corporate logos are crafted into the movie/music intro in quite an effective and overt way.The movie was a commercial success but a critical failure; a common complaint among critics is in reference to the amount of CGI in the film. Some made comparisons to Michael Bay’s Transformers . One wonders what exactly critics thought they would see when walking into a cinema to watch Superman. The special effects are stunning throughout the film; a movie such as this is in many ways bound to be contextualised by CGI. Other critics tended to romanticise the past versions of Superman , in which case their point appears to be not that Man of Steel was bad, just that it shouldn’t have been made.

Critics aside, normal audiences enjoyed the movie; some spoke of being ‘overwhelmed’ by the sonic and audio spectacle which graced the beginning of this film. This is no surprise to Hans Zimmer because this is what he planned when he wrote the music. Most of the first few bars of this cue play out over a sequence of graphics; firstly we have the ‘Warner Brothers’ card, then the ‘Legendary’ card, then the DC Comics card and then the ‘Syncopy’ card. The first actual live-action shot comes just prior to the main theme at bar eleven. I have taken the unusual step of superimposing still-shots of the opening sequencing, alongside timings and above the relevant bars in the music.

Fig.8 Movie opener Audio – ‘Look to the Stars’

00.00.37 00.00.08 00.00.22

Not strictly in tempo

The piece begins with a cluster chord… The chord is quite harmonically dense and ambiguous, which tends to draw out the melodic bass line.

00.00.50 00.01.00 The first live shot comes prior to the melody- proper starting on bar eleven. The melody is ‘double-octaved’, shared between the top line and the lower stave, two octaves lower

00.01.22

As Russell Crowe’s character looks toward his wife, we hit the F chord, which adds a sense of ‘completion’

The first ‘difficult’ chord; the relative simplicity 00.01.43 of the chord symbol name belied the deliberate tensions Zimmer places in the chord thanks to the strange voicing; firstly there is a maj7 between the C and B on the top stave and an identical voicing on the bottom voicing between the octave Cs and the B above

At bar twenty five Zimmer does what he has done a thousand times before to great effect; he goes somewhere you simply don’t expect, by moving to the Ab/C, where the C melody note now becomes the maj3 of the Ab chord.

Then we have what is a dramatic, out-of-key-centre, chord shift from the Ab down to the F chord, where the C becomes the 5 th , then back to the Ab chord, this time dramatised and italicised by virtue of the inverted Eb. Before we look more at the cluster harmonies Zimmer uses in this piece, let’s just take a minute to observe how Zimmer regularly extracts excitement and colour by using the ‘road less travelled’. With Zimmer, as we have said before in previous volumes, expect the unexpected. It is this fundamental ability (to recognise what people expect and then give them something which is different but exciting) that so characterises his music, giving a sense of imagination and evolution. Take a look at the following excerpt, which is abbreviated from a sequence from Pearl Harbour

Fig.9 Audio, ‘I will come back’ 00.29

What chord will follow ….Zimmer goes for the wonderfully anti-climactic Dm the D? Gm? which offers a soothing but sombre feel

We expect a resolution to Gm, but…..

The move from the Am to Ab is slightly similar to his move to Ab

One of Hans Zimmer’s defining characteristics is on the one hand to immerse us in cotton-wool orchestration and dense but soft textures, but on the other hand to take ‘the road less travelled’. This next example, taken from Vo1.1 is from the title track to The Rock. The Asus4 and A chords in bar seven we subconsciously expect to resolve to Dm. Arguably one of the biggest elements of how we listen to music is ‘expectation’. Music is an aural journey that listeners go on, and like any journey, getting lost or going somewhere we didn’t expect isn’t normally part of the deal. But if we were to be surprised by something along the way – something we didn’t expect but something that was a ‘nice surprise’ – this can be a pleasant experience. Instead of resolving to the Dm he goes not to some radical alternative but instead to the Bb/D; this means the melody line remains as we would have expected and so does the bass. What physically changes is one note in the chord; what would have been the A note of a Dm chord has been changed to a Bb, rendering the collective experience a Bb/D (meaning the Ds are now 3rds and the F is the 5 th ).

Fig.10 Movie – 00.00.36 Audio: Hummel Gets the Rockets - 00.22

The excerpt below is taken from Crimson Tide and, as with bars seven and eight of The Rock

Fig.11 Audio – ‘Roll Tide’ features the same harmonic approach in bars nine and ten; expect the unexpected.

Returning to Man of Steel , if we begin to unpick the harmonies we find some imaginative, colourful and abstract writing. One only has to glance at the chord symbols to see that this is anything but normal. Because it is delivered with the velvet touch of dreamy textures we can be forgiven for thinking that its function is almost as an aural, sonic effect rather than as music which has tangible harmonic flavours. But, as always, never underestimate the collective power of harmony. Focussing on the chord on the middle, stave which runs throughout the first section of the piece, it is interesting to note that the chord is actually several chords. Look and you will find an Fmaj7. Then you’ll find a G chord. Then you’ll find a C chord. Then you’ll find an Am chord. The collective name is in bar five (fig.12). Fig.12

As you read through the ‘Look to the Stars’ cue again, you’ll see these individual ‘tributary’ chords cropping up in the bottom stave voicing, underneath the cluster chord.

Fig.13

Possibly we hear this as an Am

The point is that Zimmer writes a piece which covers several ‘normal’ chords and then writes an accompanying chord in the middle, using ‘dreamy’ textures which itself is an amalgam of all the other chords. Clever stuff.

ALIEN (Jerry Goldsmith)

Alien is a 1979 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott. The lead character is a creature that stalks and kills nearly the entire crew of a spaceship. Alien was and still is quite different from most alien movies in that it offers a subtle, cold, desolate environment rather than the formulaic Hollywood sheen – the razzmatazz, the glitz and the spectacle. It is a slow, plodding, brooding, dark film but one which completely captured the imagination of people who watched it. If Star Wars was the big commercial success and Close Encounters was an art-house film, what was Alien? Alien was essentially a film about a working-class crew on board a spaceship; people argued about bonuses, people smoked, we see the cold, inhospitable inner workings of the vessel. The film doesn’t try and glorify’ Space’ or turn characters into heroes. Ridley Scott wanted to exploit the effect not of what you see, but what you fear you might see. The terror is not the Alien; it is the thought of it, the fear of it. The score for Alien was composed by Jerry Goldsmith and orchestrated by Arthur Morton. Goldsmith created an orchestral score featuring elements of romanticism but including harmonic tension and dissonance. The suspense and fear of Scott’s film owes much of its emotion to the distinctive and communicative music of Goldsmith. Ridley Scott described Goldsmith’s music as “seriously threatening but beautiful”. In volume II we looked at the beautiful but also bleak introductory theme, featuring trumpet. The brief example below features the prelude to that theme; so purely in context of this chapter we ask ourselves, is there a distinct harmonic signature, even within the first few bars? How Film & TV Music Communicate – Vol. III – text © 2015 Brian Morrell

Fig.14 Audio – ‘Main Title’

Looking and listening to the first few bars it is perhaps not easy to see or hear a harmonic identity once the triplet quavers begin, such is the pace of the piece. The glissandos are effective but, again, they possibly prevent us from recognising aurally what, if any, harmonic devices guide this piece. In fact not only does this cue rely on a specific harmonic flavour, it does so in virtually every section of the intro. Firstly we’ll look at the initial chord in bars one to four: when listening to this chord in the track itself, it definitely conjures up difficult and disturbing emotions, but it is subtle too, thanks to the velvet textures of the strings.

The question is why is it scary? The harmony is complex and obviously confounds and confuses listeners. We find it difficult to process and categorise. But there is more; this is not just uncomfortable dissonance. Like other examples we’ve looked at, the dissonance here is forensically planned and executed. There is method and deliberation. Look at the chord from the top down and you begin to appreciate the different layers of harmony conveyed by the notes.

The examples below (fig.15) are of the chord at various stages of assembly. The first shows only the top stave, the second shows four notes from the top, down; the third shows all of the chord barring the bottom note and the fourth examples shows the complete chord. It is of course true that we can’t independently hear only these individual examples when we hear the whole chord; we don’t have the aural or cognitive ability to syphon off part of a chord and somehow simply ignore the rest. But what is true is that the fact that the smaller chords separately ‘stack up’ and ‘make sense’ does play a part when, as listeners, we subconsciously attempt (as we always do, mostly without realising) to rationalise the whole chord. This chord is slow, deliberate and lasts for four long bars. Listeners have plenty of time to subconsciously ponder the notes and attempt to stack them into some kind of order. They never will, but the cognitive ‘event’ of hearing and hearing is one in which we perhaps hear the various fragments as I have laid them out below.

What we hear isn’t rampant dissonance; it is one chord played alongside another chord, all of which have common notes whose intervallic context alters depending on how we hear them. Most listeners are, on a surface level, oblivious to any kind of intervallic context, but of course this doesn’t mean that the intervals don’t exist and nor does it mean that the intervals aren’t having their desired effect on the listener whether the listener is aware or not. These things, like most things in life, don’t stop happening or stop doing what they’re designed to do just because people don’t understand them. In music, happily, you don’t neccasarily need to ‘know’ to get the benefit of the effect or the pleasure it brings. If you are an aspiring film composer arguably you do need to know. How Film & TV Music Communicate – Vol. III – text © 2015 Brian Morrell

Fig.15 1 The added Played from The G# at the 7th This time, if 3rd low C on 9th the top down, Oct bottom re- Oct we read the #11 basses leak 3rd the first three 9th orientates the 9th notated G# as #5 through into #11 notes form a 3rd notes on top. the chord Dadd9 (minus an Ab we This time we th when you the A; the 5 th ). have what 7 #5 have an E9 rd listen to the th It is possible 3 amounts to a 7 chord with the Bb7 with a #5 st final version st that we hear th 1 1 7 on top and (F#) and a #13 and there is the D and the th the 9 being (E) some sonic F# as the the F#. This is dissonance octave and the how we ‘hear’ rd between the maj 3 this chord low C and the Bb above

If we now check out the harmonies in the triplet quavers we can see that each and every entry is made up of a #4 followed by a 5 th . This mixture of the specific flavour of augmentation along with the sterile squareness of the 5th gives the run some real character. Another piece of extra peripheral tension is the fact that the interval between the first and third note of each triplet run is itself a maj7.

#4 Fig.16 5

#4 5

#4 #4 5 5 #4 #4 5 5 5 #4 #4 5 9th

#4 5 #4 5 #4 5 10 th (3 rd ) #4 5

#5 th #4 5 #4 5 5 #4 5 5 7th #4 #4

st 1

Focussing now on the last three bars of the transcription, we have a tuned percussion G chord over the double octave Cs, followed by the exquisite and delicious but ultimately haunting dissonance of a first inversion C#m chord over the octave Cs, followed by the release of the final C chord. The real powerhouse of that entire three chord trick is the G to C#m, which is a slight variation of the more usual G to C# chord trick, which, being a #4 apart, is a regular when it comes to science fiction, specifically ‘space’ films.

ARMAGEDDON (Trevor Rabin)

Armageddon is a 1998 science fiction film. The film follows a group of deep-core drillers sent by NASA to stop a gigantic asteroid from colliding with Earth. It became the highest-grossing film of 1998 worldwide surpassing the Steven Spielberg war epic, Saving Private Ryan . As with Man of Steel the title track begins over a series of corporate logos; firstly ‘Touchstone Pictures’ followed by ‘Jerry Bruckheimer Films’. I mention this because the title track opening chords build gradually to accommodate the logos; halfway through bar three the strings / synths move from the Bm to the G/B, followed by the addition of the 7 th and 4 th to inject some ambiguity, before the sequence resolves and settles on the G chord (bar five) as we hit another logo – ‘Valhalla Pictures’. The aforementioned 4 th and 7 th offer a little whiff of ‘squareness’ into the chord (also the 4 th and 7 th – E and A) give the chord an ‘A chord feel’ alongside the actual Bm feel.

What could be termed the ‘romantic theme’ of the film comes on bar six. This is definitely the centre of gravity for the score; the idea is repeated many times during the film to great effect. It is heroic and majestic but also has more than a whiff of melancholy in it. Although we haven’t seen the movie at this point, we know what it is about; we can be in little doubt as to what is going to happen. Therefore at this point the piece could be said to be ‘nice’ but also portentous. This is one of the many skills good composers have; the ability to place two conflicting emotions into the same piece. Although we can do this with language and pictures, as I have said before, music is the only thing able to convey the blissful effect of realisation without comprehension. Film music’s great ‘ace card’ is its ability to deliver emotion without the reason for it being understood or in some cases, even realised.

Fig.17 Movie opener Audio - Main Title 4th 7 th 1

Resolution

The whole chord changes simply through one note physically changing

The phrase begins properly on bar six. Bar seven of that melodic phrase ‘doubles’ as the start of a new phrase, which avoids the ‘normality’ of conventional structure, where we politely wait for one phrase to end and the next to begin

The same motif comes notably fifty-four minutes into the film. It would pay us to investigate the structure and the harmonies here and try and establish why it is such a convincing theme. This is not a theme that ‘surprises’ or confounds the expectations. The trick here is to deliver an effortlessly simple message in a way which italicises all the right bits along the way.

Fig.18 Movie 00.54.06 Audio - ‘Animal Cracker’

With something this simple what matters is that crucial points in the The interesting thing about great moments in music, if they piece are delivered right. are written, manipulated and delivered properly, is that they rd rd can be anticipated . By the time the Am comes, we wait for The 3 is a romantic, colourful interval. Impaling the melody on the 3 the Bb with anticipation means nobody will miss it ( )

The rich voicing of the Bb and C chords which puts the 3 rd in the middle of the chord

2nd time around the listener sees every one of these notes coming. The 3rds make them expressive and romantic in flavour and the instrumentation delivers the colour

Another interesting track on the album which is used a few times in the film is ‘Russian hero’, which makes its first entry in the movie at 00.25.40, when hero oil driller Harry Stamper walk into a aircraft hangar to view equipment the government intends to use to drill down into an asteroid that threatens the earth.

Movie – 00.25.41 Audio - ‘Russian hero’ - Fig.19

1 The piece needs the release valve of the 3/4 bars to accommodate the phrase

The phrase has a jagged anticipatory feel to it, which makes it sound dramatic. Why? - because each group of semiquavers / quavers becomes a motif on its own, semi-detached from the whole phrase, like bullets out of a gun. We feel the rhythm of the phrase but not neccasarily the overall structure, which means that it retains the element of surprise and never ‘settles’. How Film & TV Music Communicate – Vol. III – text © 2015 Brian Morrell

The piece needs the release valve of the 3/4 bars to accommodate the phrase

I have deliberately picked a relatively obscure part of a cue next to try and show how great scoring can sometimes hide away within a film score relatively unnoticed until you actually look at the emotions created by the music and how they serve the film intensely and with forensic accuracy. A section toward the end of the movie comes during the calamitous and disastrous situation on the asteroid’s surface, which sees Harry and his team fighting against all the odds to drill down and lay the explosives which will tear the asteroid apart and render it harmless for the planet.

One exchange sees Stamper say “A.J?” to which A.J replies, “Yeah, I’m okay.” And then, “We lost Gruber – .” The track ‘Rock storm’ dips and then continues just before A.J qualifies his remark with, “Gruber’s dead.”

The pain, anguish and tragedy conveyed by the music really bring this tiny part of the scene to life. What would have been a sombre and a dramatic exchange of information becomes poignant, distressing, touching and moving. Such is the skill in the movie-making and the composing that literally moments after this ‘tender moment’ is finished the film is back concentrating on ‘the mission’. Again, this difficult and rapid transition between radically different emotional states only work when there is something there guiding the audience and telling them how to feel: music; the great manipulator.

Fig.20 Movie – 02.07.34 Audio - ‘Rock storm’ (02.30)

One of the great unsung heroes of harmony is the successive minor- to-major chords over the same bass note (i.e. Am to A, Contrary motion is more profound when Dm to D etc). the destination intervals are colourful

These are relatively rare, fresh and uplifting, and on this occasion are made even better by the inclusion of the 7th in the maj chord. In this example the orchestrators have embellished this sequence by adding some nice horn work on bars one and two of the transcription which results in contrary motion where the bottom horn goes down and lands on the 7 th (G) whilst the top horn goes up and hits the rich mid maj3 (C#). This manouvre is helped by the constant A pedal note in the bass which gives the phrase consistency.

This next cue is dramatic and exciting, rhythmically, texturally and harmonically. It was used in the movie at 00.25.31 but was also used in the trailer for the movie. It possesses the pulsating momentum we often find in trailer music or music that paints a very direct and overt picture.

Movie – 00.25.31 Audio 0.21 - ‘Meteor shower’ – used in trailer -

The sensation of ‘inexorable inevitability’ is a powerful construct of musical drama. Here it is delivered by the ascending bass line and the chords The crotchet line on strings / horns / trombones spans two-and-a-half octaves which fit around it i.e. chords which employ before descending back down and beginning again. This is quite a physically inversions to accommodate the rising bass line strong phrase which has real drama and excitement

Fig.21

There are also some powerful and colourful extensions, not least the #4 and maj7 (over a minor chord). The maj7 over the minor chord of course has clear James Bond connotations but being bookended by the #4 gives it slightly more of a sinister and abrasive edge

PROMETHEUS (Marc Streitenfeld)

Prometheus is a 2012 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott. Although Scott intended this film to stand alone, which it does, nevertheless it is widely viewed as the prequel to the iconic Alien movie Scott made 33 years earlier. Ridley Scott’s ground-breaking science fiction films in the late 1970s and early 80s help shape the genre as we know it today. Whereas the original 1979 Alien was seen by many as essentially an excellent haunted house movie in space, Prometheus asks searching questions about the meaning and origins of life. Prometheus is set in the late 21st century and centres on the crew of the spaceship ‘Prometheus’ as they follow a star map discovered among the artifacts of several ancient Earth cultures. Seeking the origins of humanity the crew arrive on a distant world and discover a threat that could cause the extinction of the human race.

An even bigger issue than the possible destruction of the human race by aliens from another planet, is, how do you follow Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner? Goldsmith’s score to the original 1979 masterpiece was outstanding and Horner’s score for Cameron’s 1986 sequel was equally good; he delivered a masterful score in two weeks and under ridiculous pressure from Cameron, who had overrun the shoot and the edit and eaten into Horner’s scoring time.

Prior to his work as a composer, Streitenfeld had collaborated with Scott as music editor, music supervisor and technical score advisor on several projects, including Matchstick Men, Black Hawk Down and Gladiator . His score for Prometheus has much in common with the moody, dreamy, ethereal scores of Zimmer and Gregson- Williams. Indeed Gregson-Williams is credited with assisting with this project. But in answer to the rhetorical question, how do you follow Goldsmith and Horner, you do it by employing Streitenfeld, who’s score stands easily alongside the other masters who have graced the Alien franchise. His combination of sweeping melodic passages and evocative harmonies serves the film well.

The track ‘Life’- portions of which are scattered throughout the film - comes most fully formed at the beginning of the movie and therefore functions as its ‘main title’. This is a beautifully haunting piece with long, meandering melodic lines that work well in evoking the gravity of the mission, the vastness of space and barren landscape of the planet the scientists travel to.

Fig.22 Movie 00.00.45 Audio - ‘Life’

omit3 E E

A E E

To start at the beginning; people spoke of ‘the haunting horn line’ and said that there was ‘a strangeness’ to the horn melody’. There is indeed a haunting quality to the horn line but if we examine the surrounding terrain we find out that what makes it ‘haunting’ goes far beyond the distinctive quality of horn textures. Look at the horn line again, without the accompanying bass line. As we have often stated in the past, there really is no such thing as unaccompanied melody; if melody is alone, we attempt to make sense of it by putting the notes into some kind of order, so that the notes ‘make sense’. We fill in the intervallic context ourselves. Without its bass line, the in terms of rationalising the melody below, it is a no-brainer. So naturally we would come up with the following intervals, written below the notes. Fig.23

1 5 4 7 6 5 4 8 10 8 1 5 4 7 6 5 4

If, however, we put the bass back in (below), the intervals now become wholly different. I have written the intervals in, some of which are enharmonic. Fig.24

maj7 b5 maj3 maj6 m6 b5 maj3 maj7 b10 maj7

So, what makes the melody ‘haunting’ is, partly at least, the difficulty we have making sense of what appears to be a perfectly normal line, but which doesn’t fit or ‘sit’ right over the sub-bass. If we look again at the example below, which is from bar seven of the original transcription, we can see the ‘crossover’ from the end of the eerily strange horn line (which is, essentially, delivered a semi-tone lower than it would have been if it were to make perfect sense) to where the clarinet comes in and eventually the cellos, which play the theme ‘properly’, ‘in the right key’. Fig.25

b5 b5

1 5 1 5 1 5 1 5 1 5 1 5 1 5 1 5

When the cellos start at bar ten (bar four, above) there is no suggestion of major or minor flavour until the melody arrives at the downward quaver line which hits the 4 th and maj3 rd . The delay makes the arrival all the more effective.

Another very interesting aspect of how and why the harmony and melody communicate so well - especially creating, at the same time both a majestic feeling but also a sense of desolation – is the way the maj7 is ‘treated’ in terms of its voicing.

Whenever we hear extensions such as the 6 th , 7 th , maj7 th , we rely on integral components of the main chord (root/3/5) being present in order to contextualise them in a coherent and colourful way. Without the ‘normal’ harmonies present, extensions can cease to represent the kind of colour they are famous for. The archetypal colour a maj7 exudes is only as good as the voicing that supports it. Without the whole chord, many extension notes do not function in the same way. In terms of ‘normal’ music this is something to watch out for, but in terms of film music, this is yet another way in which the composer can subtly manipulate the precise flavour or colour that an extension note may have. So as far as we’re concerned, the fact that it’s possible to discolour the extensions in this way, to subvert their message, is great because it means more depth of expression is possible. When any of the normal harmonic components aren’t there, it draws us disportionately to the extensions. It exposes them, italicises them, in a way we’re not used to. Check out the chords below:

Fig.26

A voicing The most basic voicing of a The most The most without the Now we have C7 chord – 1, 3, 5 and 7 basic basic 3rd subtly voicing of a Cmaj7 but voicing of followed by one minus its changes the rd a Cmaj7 with no a C6 th 3 , which again, very subtly rd way the 6 Another, softer maj3 . changes how the chord chord – 1, chord – 1, interacts version, this Remember 3, 5 and 3, 5 and 6 with the rest sounds. time with the the ‘maj’ maj7 of the notes same intervals aspect of the once the but with the C name of the ‘glue’ of the low down and Cmaj7 chord 3rd isn’t the maj7 refers to the there to do buried in the 7, not to the rd its usual job middle 3

In the first three bars of the example below I have re-harmonised a section of the original transcription, deliberately making more traditional use of the add2 and the maj7 by supporting them with sympathetic voicings. How Film & TV Music Communicate – Vol. III – text © 2015 Brian Morrell

Now the maj7 has a full chord to support it with the maj3 rd and the earlier add2 is supported underneath by what it, essentially, a passing chord. The whole thing is very pretty. And it is distinctly different from the version in the film (fig.25) where the theme is down an octave and the supportive harmony is minimal. Fig.27

F#m ( E )

One might even venture to suggest that for every extension note we use there is a different ‘version’ of it with fewer contextual supporting harmonies. This ‘other version’ does different jobs and conveys a subtly different shade of colour or meaning when it is applied. The same logic applies to the 5 th of a chord too; without the 3 rd , the 5 th sounds different – bare. Of course, as always, it’s worth remembering that it is our own interpretation of that difference that accords the sound its distinctive flavour. Excerpts from the track ‘Life’ come at different points of the movie, perhaps one of the most poignant of which is when the scientists analyse the DNA of the aliens to discover it is identical to human DNA (00.51.30). At 01.12.05 there is a minor version of the same track where the android ‘David’ is sat in a chair in the alien structure, observing the holographic images of the alien beings. This is closely followed by a fuller, ‘proper’ version of the track.

Moving through the film we come to one of the great motifs in this score; it appears faintly at 00.29.41as the scientists arrive at the location of a structure they believe may alien-built. One of the expedition’s scientific leaders stares up at the giant structure and speaks via her intercom back to the ship, “Prometheus, are you seeing this?” A few moments later we hear faintly the motif below (fig.28). We hear it again, louder this time, at 00.34.45 when David, the crew’s inquisitive android, finds some gel-like deposits. The cue is clearly meant to signify danger or apprehension, and does indeed have a portentous air.

Fig.28 Movie - 00.29.41 and 00.34.45 Audio - ‘Going In’

The combination of orchestral and electronic textures used in this motif is quite disconcerting but the notes themselves are also unnerving, fluctuating as they do between the note of E, it’s major 2 nd (F#) and its minor 2 nd (F). The idea does not settle harmonically into any particular feel, and therein lay its great power to disturb. We are all creatures of habit and conformity and when presented with harmony we can’t categorise or fathom, sometimes it can disturb. Good composers know how to illicit an almost forensically accurate response from listeners; for example, the line above is a single line; had it been accompanied by a chord the effect of the melodic line wouldn’t have been as eerie; it would have detracted from the line.

The cue below (‘Discovery’) provides a backdrop of harmony and texture to accompany a scene which alternately shows the crew on the ship watching a holographic image displaying the ‘mapping’ of the giant alien building and also scientists in the structure itself. There is a slightly ominous and threatening air to the piece but not overt and explicit and overstated.

The root-to-min3 cello line in bars one and two culminate in the final dotted crotchet of the 5/4 bar; this is where each small phrase hesitates over an Ebm6 chord. This is quite a romantic chord which, in this context, has an air of subtle tragedy behind it. The hesitancy which makes the bars into 5/4 lengths is also what prevents the music from becoming too ‘normal’ and ‘regular’. ‘Normal’ (for want of a better word) music is designed with entertainment in mind. It is designed to be something we can remember, something easily digestible that we can hum. Music which occupies a different type of less obvious structure manages not to become too predictable. This is how it manages to blur, fuse and meld with the picture to create one experience for the viewer. How Film & TV Music Communicate – Vol. III – text © 2015 Brian Morrell

If the music was structured like song the simplicity which makes it accessible and makes us smile and tap our foot would also distract from the film; it would be like watching a film with music on top of it, rather than a film that had film music woven into it, dipping at the right time, rising at other times. Often these phrases would have odd bar numbers; either to accommodate a visual acknowledgement in the film or simply to stop the music becoming the main event. So, curiously, sometimes in order to create music that offers something meaningful to a movie but which doesn’t overly advertise itself, we need to create music which is structured in a less than obvious way; that way it sometimes bypasses us as ‘music’ but gets into the fabric of the movie and helps it communicate aurally.

What’s also notable about this phrase, which comes at least twice in the movie, is that it accommodates the ‘James Newton Howard chord change’ we have come across several times in volume one and two. We call it this simply to give it a name, not because JNH is the only one that uses it (although he is arguably the best user of it). The harmonic device we refer to happens in bar three of fig.29 below, where the phrase moves from the Bbm chord to the A. The Db note constitutes the min3 of the Bbm chord and then the self-same sound becomes the C# (maj3 of the A chord). The reason this is notable is that it creates a strange and captivating chord sequence. The strangeness lie in fact that the same sound (Db/C#) ‘means’ two different things (intervals) depending on which notes surround it. We therefore hear something change, but not change. What changes is what the note means as an interval. This is a wholly more subtle experience than a note changing physically. This kind of thing goes on all the time in music, usually without being even noticed. It is so engrained in fabric of what harmony actually is that it happens without being realised. What’s different about these chord changes is the way they italicise the intervallic difference. What’s also odd is that the note that stays physically the same but which changes what it ‘means’ is the 3 rd – the defining interval; the interval that ultimately ‘colours a chord in’.

Fig.29 Movie - 00.31.48 and 01.07.50 Audio – ‘Discovery’ 00.34

At 00.38.47 into the movie a giant door is opened to reveal, firstly, the head which had become decapitated from the body the scientists had found behind the door, and secondly, an enormous human-looking face carved into stone. At this point the phrase below (fig.30) begins. It works well in this context because it is quite understated and low in the mix; it has to be listened to deliberately. Texturally, with the creeping basses and cellos, there is a curious whiff of cliched and dated horror music to the phrase; but harmonically the phrase conjures up a real sense of fear, dread, anxiety and trepidation.

Fig.30 00.38.47

The intervals if the phrase is heard ‘in E’ 1 2 #4 2 7 1 2 1 1 2 maj 3 min 3 1 #4 2 1

As to why it summons up such precise fearful feelings, beyond the textures we need look at the low, deliberate, plodding nature of the delivery and the octave writing, which exemplifies this kind of style. But we need also to look at the implied harmonies in this unaccompanied melody. Unaccompanied melody has no obvious physical accompaniment but any melody that it any way ‘makes sense’ owes at least part of that sense to a feeling of harmonic order within the line; the feeling that it has structure and integrity. That usually means that a harmonic system can be, and usually is, imposed on the notes. By this I mean we rarely hear unaccompanied melody as sound; we hear the intervals the line suggests. For example a line which went F#, A, C# would automatically garner a sense of F#m. We would ‘hear’ that in our heads as the line progresses. How Film & TV Music Communicate – Vol. III – text © 2015 Brian Morrell

Lines which are suggestive of harmony are referred to as ‘horizontal harmony’; they transmit a sense of harmonic colour and consistency and integrity not vertically in groups of notes played simultaneously but horizontally – gradually. This can often be a lot more of a subtle way of writing. With all this in mind, we would hear two distinct harmonic devices in this phrase which would both create colour and also wrong-foot the listener. The colour comes from the #4 and the sense of hearing something unexpected comes from the min3 rd appearing straight after what we hear as a maj3 rd (bar three, fig.30).

But there is more; we often talk about polyharmony and there is a tendency to presume that polyharmony (something which creates a feeling of two simultaneous chords) only happens in vertical harmony. It’s pretty amazing that a single unaccompanied line can even convey one chord but surely it is impossible for a singular line to convey not one harmony but two? Not only is it possible, but it is precisely this harmonic device that is partially responsible for the strangeness in the line in fig.30. Below I have transcribed the same line again; this time in addition the bottom row of intervals that state how we principally hear the notes, there are two separate bunches of intervals which convey another alternate but simultaneous way of ‘hearing’ the notes in that particular bar.

The intervals if these Fig.31 notes are heard ‘in D’ {1} {2} {3} {2} The intervals if these notes (1) (2) (1) are heard ‘in F#’

The intervals if the phrase is heard ‘in E’ 1 2 #4 2 7 1 2 1 1 2 maj 3 min 3 1 #4 2 1

Once again I feel minded to reiterate the fact that this is not just a case of finding a convenient theory that fits the facts; these theories are reason practical reasons as to why this melodic line has so much character embedded deep within it. Such things are, more often than not, simply not visible by looking at the notation. We have to analyse the way the mind interprets unaccompanied melody by imposing on it an intervallic system (albeit subconsciously) and then ask ourselves whether the mind is capable of realising, and benefitting from, a line which implies different and simultaneous chordal accompaniments.

In the last cue we’re going to examine, we’re going to look at how to write brief, effective bursts of harmony which function almost as sound effects or sonic identifiers, rather than music. We looked at similar cues in the movie Signs (‘Rooftop Intruder’, fig.23, page 29, chapter 1, ‘Science Fiction & Fantasy’) and in the movie Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan (‘Khan’s Pets’, fig.49, page 38, chapter 5, volume 2). This time in Prometheus this burst of sudden colour exerts shock, surprise and fear; all with a three-note piece of dissonance. It comes at 01.10.09 when the scientists inside the alien structure discover the dead body of one of their crewmates. As his body is turned over the camera focusses on the dead scientist’s face inside his cracked helmet. Perfect synergy between film and music comes as the chord in fig.32 is played. Once again, as with so many examples of film and music, it is the music that does two jobs; it confirms your worst fears and it instructs you how to feel. The scene alone is fairly powerful but with music it almost bursts out, alien-like, from the fictional unreality of the screen and onto the actual reality of your life.

Fig.32 Film - 01.10.09 Three-part dissonant semi-tonal clustered harmony stands virtually no chance of being understood by listeners, or indeed anybody. None of the groupings resemble a chord of any kind and the intervals are too close to gain anything from this experience other than the chaos and confusion it is supposed to offer.

SOLARIS (Cliff Martinez)

Solaris is a 2002 American science fiction drama directed by Steven Soderbergh. It is based on the 1961 science fiction novel ‘Solaris’ by Polish writer Stanisław Lem. Soderbergh promised to be closer in spirit to Lem’s novel than the critically acclaimed 1972 Russian film ‘Solaris’, which was itself preceded by a 1968 Russian TV film. Soderbergh’s version is a deep, often dark, meditative psychodrama set almost entirely on a space station orbiting the planet Solaris, adding flashbacks to the previous experiences of its main characters on Earth. The score was another masterpiece of electronic music from Cliff Martinez, who delivered a wonderfully understated score which brought to the film not just ‘music’ but an entire extra level of vivid colour via distinctive clustered harmonies, delivered by the uniquely electronic malleable textures of electronic sounds.

Following problems on the space station clinical psychologist Dr Chris Kelvin, played by George Clooney, is approached by a corporation operating the space station. They relay a message sent from Kelvin’s scientist friend Dr Gibarian, who requests that Kelvin come to the station to help understand an unusual phenomenon. At 00.06.30 Kelvin is asked to embark on a solo mission to the space station. “We feel confident that if you can manage to board the ship you can negotiate their safe return” says one of the team. A good example of Martinez’s writing and how it seeps into the mind of the film’s narrative comes a few seconds later at 00.06.40 as Kelvin looks apprehensive about the trip. This track has a deep, ethereal feel; an eerie, ghostly, otherworldly feel, which benefits the scene and the overall narrative.

The intervals created by the notes in the first chord are listed next to the chord. The intervals created by the self- same chord (in bar three) move down because the inclusion of the low D note recontextualises not just the theoretical name we give the chord or the names we now give to the intervals, but, more importantly, the way the notes actually feel and sound. Referencing theory to make a point doesn’t amount to a hill of beans unless the point being made is actually noticeable and therefore of practical benefit to any composer wanting to learn the craft of film score writing. In bar eleven the self-same notes change their intervallic colour yet again because now they are underpinned by a rich C chord at the bottom. These chord changes sound subtle and understated; almost as if it’s not the chord that’s changed but the ground beneath the chords that has shifted slightly.

Fig.33 Movie – 00.06.40 Audio - ‘Is that what everybody wants?’

A = 13 A = 12 G = 12 G = 11 D = 9 D = 8 A = 6 A = 5 G = 5 G = 4 E = 3 E = 2 C = 1 C = 7

Cluster chords are effective; particularly the t wo separate single The ‘rhythmic counterpoint’ between the top stave line and the third stave tone intervals and the line prevents any feeling of pulse or time developing use of 6/9 for colour

A = 13 G = 12 D = 9 A = 6 G = 5 E = 3 C = 1

There is what could be described as a ‘minor version’ of the piece transcribed in fig.33. This comes 00.31.07 Richinto bottom the film chord in aof track C resonates called ‘can and I contextualises sit next to you’. the sequence

Below is another piece that begins almost as a minor chord version of the previous cue. The chord at the beginning of the ‘Cm version’ (fig.34) sounds profoundly different to the Cmaj version, obviously because the piece is in a different key; but when we look deeply into the issue of why complex / cluster chords sound that much different with just one note changed (the 3 rd ) we find there are many more harmonic dynamics at work.

Fig.34 Movie 00.31.07 Audio - ‘Can I sit next to you’

The ‘local’ chord is Eb

The minor chord with a maj 6 th is one of the Bond chords. This chord is Because of the complex way in which slightly altered by the addition of the D (9th ) the context of harmony guides us, which gives the A-D interval (4 th ) a slightly despite the mass of notes underneath, ‘square’ sound the D, F and G on the top stave ‘sound’ like a Bb6 chord despite having no Bb – this is because we hear the D note as a 3rd . This is largely because the previous chord (Cm6/9) had acclimatised us to hearing notes in a certain way

Whilst this can be deemed purely of theoretical interest, it does leak into practical compositional context because it explains why a relatively minor change sounds so different.

Fig.35 13 How we’re used to rationalising intervals: everything is seen in context of its 12 relationship to the root. Because of the way we’re taught theory we tend to believe 9 that the greatest dynamic worth knowing is the way the intervals interact with the root of the chord; that is, after all, how the various intervals and extensions get their maj 6 name. 5

min 3 1 In the major chord version all that’s changed is one note – the Eb (min 3 rd ) moves to Fig.36 the E (maj 3 rd ) but the difference in the relationships between the maj 3rd (and the 13 rd rest of the notes in the chord) and the min 3 (and the rest of the notes in the chord) 12 is profound. 9

maj 6 5

maj 3

1 Below (fig.37) I have detailed the notes in both chords, not vertically but horizontally, laid out from left to right. We can see that the relationship the maj3 rd has with each of the rest of the notes in the chord of C6/9 is different from the relationship the min 3 rd has with the rest of the notes in the Cm6/9 (detailed in blue). Only one note changes (the E/Eb) but the changes between the 3rds and the rest of the notes are crucial in determining the precise flavour of the sound. How Film & TV Music Communicate – Vol. III – text © 2015 Brian Morrell

Fig.37

th th th 12 13 9 th th rd 6 5 th m3 st 1 13

th th th 13 9 12

th th 6 rd 5 st maj3 1

DEEP IMPACT (James Horner)

Deep Impact is a 1998 American science fiction disaster film. The plot describes the attempts to destroy a 7- mile wide comet, which was to collide with the Earth and cause a mass extinction. Notably, Deep Impact was released in the same summer as a rival, Armageddon , which fared better at the box office despite being, according to scientists, wholly less plausible.

The music is classic James Horner; full of harmonic and textural colour; often the colour is overt and clear but sometimes it is beautifully suppressed, sounding soft, delicate and contemplative. James Horner is a master of the fine art of blending harmonies and textures to create specific mood and colour, in much the same way impressionist painters would create specific mood through the use of actual colour. His music, in films such as A Beautiful Mind, is a triumph of colour. His music does far more than italicise the moments and emphasise the emotions of the films; his music frequently brings new colour and context to movies. His music, in films like Sneakers and Apollo 13 for example, brings the audience closer to the films. He doesn’t just write music; he almost reconfigures the film. When a director is done filming a movie and has extracted every ounce of emotion they think is possible, James Horner shows them what music can bring.

The first cue we’re going to examine is forty seconds into the movie. In particular we’re looking at the way the cue starts, from with the DreamWorks logo to the opening shots of the kids astronomy club gazing innocently up into the night sky; we will look at the way the mood of the music changes in accordance with the visuals. Eventually we’ll examine Horner’s use of harmony and instrumentation to create the emotional backbone of the music. We will look in detail at elements of his writing and arranging technique including chord voicing and distribution of colour and texture.

Fig.38 Movie – 00.00.40 Audio ‘A Distant Discovery’ As the camera pans down on a bunch of teenagers doing a science project, the music is more open and light The horn line, although only ‘accompanied’ by ‘DEEP IMPACT’ on - screen acknowledged by one string note, almost creates the slash chord the crunchy low piano (omit5) (omit5) (omit5) (omit5) chord

E/D E/D

Partial harmony and rhythmic left hand accompaniment gives a light, fresh, vibrant air to the music and therefore to the scene

Outer space shots under DreamWorks logo 8va A/D and G/D tuned percussion through this section

(omit5) (omit5) (omit5) (omit5) #11 9 9 6

I have written ‘feels like G/B’ because the chord is incomplete

#11 9 #11 9 #11 9 9 9 6 9

The first proper close-up face shot of one of the main characters is accompanied by the first proper, full chord

#11 9 #11 9 9 6 #11 9 9 9 6

#11 9 9 6 #11 9 9 #11 9 9 6

If we look once again at bar ten to twenty one we can observe how Horner italicises to great effect how the interval can be employed almost separately to the ‘tune’ and used as a great writing tool. By this I mean that initially the piano motif is used in the key of D (I have placed the intervals over the notes), but the same melody reappears later (bar eighteen) over the chord of G which means that although the notes are the same as before, they now ‘mean’ something new. It is the interval that talks, not the note.

I have written ‘feels like G/B’ because the chord is incomplete Fig.39 Played over these chords the melody is simple….

1 5 8 3 1 3 1 8 5 1 5 8 3 1 3 1 8

Played over these chords the melody lights up 5 9 12 #11 9 10 8 9 6 5 9 12 #11 9 10 8 9

Looking at bar eighteen-twenty one (transcribed separately, below) we can see the chordal accompaniment clearly. But we can also see that although the chord on the lower stave (strings, woodwind, brass) is a G add2 the string voicing (with the add2) and the horn line manage to inject the feeling of an A chord alongside the G chord. This gives it a very transparent, open and vaguely polytonal feel (fig.40) Fig.40

C# A E C#

A A

The next cue to listen to and analyse is the grand, majestic and almost stately theme which accompanies the launch of the Messiah, the rescue ship tasked with destroying the asteroid hurtling toward earth. The same theme also manages to sound faintly anxious and uneasy. The reason it manages to fulfil both functions quite well is, once again, down to the subtleties of chord choices, voicing and orchestration. Looking at the transcription below we can see Horner employs a selection of voicing approaches. He also uses the same kind of ‘lumpy’ harmonies and sonically ambiguous voicings he has used in many films, including Apollo 13, Sneakers and A Beautiful Mind . Also if we look closely we can see the contrary motion between the horn / woodwind line and the bass contour; this gives the piece more fluency and helps it breathe properly. One final thing; the tensions Horner injects into his music are subtle but effective; check out the subtle clash between the G melody note (4 th ) at the beginning of bar two of fig.41, and how this subtly clashes with the F# (inverted bass of the D chord). Under normal circumstances you would barely feel the brief sus4 passing note but placing it on top of a chord inverted over its 3 rd ensures we will feel the tension.

Fig.41 Movie - 00.38.00 and 01.56.18 Audio - ‘A crucial rendezvous’ 0.30

Inversion Bare, Root, 5 th and Inversion Bare, Bare, with Filmic chord Type of chord / square 3rd gives the with square square lumpy change voicing chord to chord lumpy chord chord voicings D - Am start the resonance voicings phrase at the at the lower end lower end

The next, and final, cue from Deep Impact to analyse is a track entitled ‘Our best hope’, which, again, is resplendent with the kind of colour we associate with Horner. This comes in the film subsequent to the launch of Messiah when the ship is preparing itself for its mission. The first few bars accompany routine conversation but during the cue at the same time as members of the crew glance out of the window to observe the sight of the asteroid, causing one to say “Jesus, that’s big” and another to say “Holy shit”, the flavour and character of the cue subtly changes from one of routine to one of excitement and anxiety. This kind of attention to detail is easily missed by viewers because of the ease with which the change grafts itself onto the movie. People would miss the music but if the same scene were played minus music, or with lesser music, it would be obvious. Thus sometimes music does not really function ‘as music’ in a conventional sense; it is so completely and convincingly buried in the narrative of the movie that the character of the harmony becomes part of the character of the film; indeed it guides the way we interpret the film. In that exact moment when the crew glance out of the music, listen for the change in the music, not to the movement or the architecture or the texture, but to the harmony, which shifts in gear slightly, almost imperceptibly, to become ‘anxious’.

Fig.42 Movie - 00.40.03 Audio - ‘Our best hope’

Notice that the piano plays a different version of the Dm, adding the 4 th and 11 th while the strings play the chord straight. This is an important point; usually when instruments are lightly orchestrated there is little duplication. Instruments play subtly different versions of the chord to italicise different aspects or expose different colours.

The change

Let’s take a closer look at the change in character again. Bar one, below, is the last bar before the change and bar two is bang on the change. The chord goes from Dminor to D+5 (aug 5 th ).

If only the 5 th If only the But if the 3rd and the 5th Fig.43 The change is raised on 5th is raised are raised on a minor the Dm on a major chord the chord goes chord then it chord it from minor to major, with becomes a becomes the major also having an Bb/D augmented aug5.

This is a This is a normal chord normal chord This is not a normal chord Analysis of change change change; minor to major with an harmony augmented 5 th represents two big shifts. This is what gives the transition the ‘larger-than-life’ exciting but anxious feel

One final observation is that when the chord changes to D+5, alternate chords feature a C+ over a D+, which gives the sequence an almost mystical, magical quality which is the result of simultaneous augmentation and polyharmony

SUNSHINE (John Murphy / Underworld)

Sunshine is a 2007 British science fiction film directed by Danny Boyle. In 2057, with the Earth in peril from the dying Sun, the crew is sent on a mission to reignite the star with a gigantic nuclear bomb. The story is more to do with the psychological journey encountered by the characters than a ‘space disaster movie’. Seen by many as a romantic homage to 70s Science Fiction cinema, certainly it shares some of the Alien spirit in that it offers a subtle, ordinary, working environment rather than glitz and the spectacle. Like Alien it is a brooding, dark film which doesn’t try and glorify ‘space’ or turn characters into heroes. Previous science fiction films that Boyle cited as influences included Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey , Tarkovsky’s 1972 film Solaris , and the 1979 science-fiction horror film Alien . Science Fiction cinema has enjoyed a commercial renaissance over the past couple of decades and films like Sunshine are the reasons why. It was ambitious conceptually and featured some stunning imagery. The soundtrack complimented the film beautifully by providing a mixture of pure texture and traditional composition; a wonderful combination of contemporary ambient music with some traditional romantic harmonies. Like some other notable science fiction movies, Sunshine has a noir feel to it. What is often overlooked is that the ‘noir feel’ is at least partly created by the music.

The music for the film is written by John Murphy and electronic band ‘Underworld’. Some tracks were collaborations whilst some were exclusively written by one or the other. ‘Underworld’ has collaborated with Boyle before, having featured on the soundtracks to Trainspotting , A Life Less Ordinary , and The Beach. There was a significant delay to the digital release amid rumours of legal/copyright issues between ‘Underworld’ and Murphy.

The first track we’ll look at is one entitled ‘Capa’s Last Transmission’. This track is typical of the excellent ambient vibe but also the distinctive textures which help the chords and various lines interact with the movie and communicate to the audience.

Fig.44 Movie 00.06.00 and 01.34.50 – Audio track 2 ‘Capa’s Last Transmission’ by Underworld

D 9

G D A G

add4 Bm7 A

There are several contributory factors to the effectiveness of this music. We’ll deal first with how it interacts with the context of the scenes it accompanies and secondly with what harmonic and textural factors define its character. It comes first around six minutes into the movie after the crew learns they will soon be out of range of earth contact, in the ‘dead zone’. How Film & TV Music Communicate – Vol. III – text © 2015 Brian Morrell

One of the crew delivers a message to his family. The message is curious mix of bravado, pride, reassurance but there is also a melancholic, worried, even mournful air in the sequence. The music captures this not in an obvious way but it has a slightly dreamy quality, texturally, and a monotonous pedestrian quality structurally, which creates an almost dream-like weariness. The accompanying chords bleed into each other creating some harmonic ambiguity which aids the hypnotic feel

Musically the piece benefits from tiny pockets of clusters in the top line from bar three (highlighted below). This creates a sense of blurred harmony which is also helped by the piece seeming to have no palpable sense of timing; because the 3/4 framework is not italicized we hear the relentlessness of the quavers but not a greater sense of rhythmical unity or structure. This enhances the effectiveness of the combination of the quavers and the clusters.

Repetition is created by the consistent C chord on the third line down, which remains throughout the piece. There is an effective moment on bar three when the quaver line on the second stave down, kicks in; because the line begins on the low D, the notes contained in the C chord (third stave down) are recontextualised. The notes don’t change; what they mean changes. As we have established before, notes have two characteristics; what they are (their sound/note) and what they mean in a greater context. If you play a chord of C with your right hand and then add a low D bass note, the notes in your right hand assume a new harmonic identity. Likewise if you play a C chord with your right hand and then add the F with your left hand, the right hand notes assume a different flavour. This is one of the fundamental ways in which harmony operates. The crucial thing when notes change their identity without moving physically is that our own interpretation is more a factor. With a physical note move, the contextual change is done for us; when the change is purely intervallic our own perceptions are central to our own ability to notice the difference.

The notes on the top line from bar twelve are identical physically but change what they mean due to the intervallic change (highlighted below). The final thing to mention on this track is the way the chords on the lower stave (bar twelve onwards) are played on ambient, spatial sounds which makes the chords glide into each other. Thus the G chord hangs over into the D and the D chord bleeds into the A chord, making for a curious sense of ‘dreamy’ polytonality. Fig.45

D 9 Tiny pockets of clusters 9

Monotony of repetition

th E – 10 th th E – 9 C – 8 th th C – 7 G – 5 th st G – 4 C – 1 th C – 7

5 9 9 5 9 9 5 9 1 5 5 1 5 5 1 5 8 4 8 8 4 8 8 4

5 9 9 5 9 9 5 9 1 5 5 1 5 5 1 5 1 4 1 1 4 1 1 4 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 411 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 11 11

Chords glide into each other. ‘Chords’ do not make music; they are simply static groups of notes. It is the relationship between chords that make them into music. How Film & TV Music Communicate – Vol. III – text © 2015 Brian Morrell

The following track comes just over fourteen minutes into the movie when the crew is gathered round watching the planet Mercury fly in front of the Sun. Visually the sequence is stunning, benefitting from some excellent special effects and photography which make the scene completely convincing. Again, the accompanying music possesses a similar, ethereal, dreamlike ‘spacey’ quality. The gritty guitar sound works well, lending the sequence a low-fi vibe. The chord change from G to Em9 works well with the pictures, coming just before a side shot of a female crewmember gazing out of the ship. The piece has some interesting harmonies in that, for a piece that sounds quite simple, there are a few notable omissions involved which take valuable components from chords. Bar one contains octave Gs. Bar two features a prominent maj3 rd on top but bars three to five are all ‘omit3’ chords, which gives the harmony a slightly fragmented, partial feel, which create a slightly mysterious, sterile vibe. This then makes the eventual move to the Em9 feel expansive and spacious, not to mention colourful. Harmony is all about relationships; reactions and responses. An Em9 chord on its own is one thing, but an Em9, voiced spaciously, coming right after a Gomit3 will sound spectacular; it will sound as if someone has just flooded the piece with harmony.

Fig.46 Movie 00.14.36 Audio track ‘Mercury’ 00.23 (John Murphy / Underworld)

The track ‘Freezing Inside’ comes about 01.21.45 into the film during a tense part of the story which sees one of the characters stuck inside a freezing cold chamber. There is no conventional ‘melody’ as such; the melodic lines are counterpoint and function as extensions to the chords. Drama is created by an inexorable feeling of the harmonies ‘rising’; but this is only half the story. A combination of rising top line counterpoint together with ‘square-sounding’ intervals between the two notes and colourful extensions being hit is what conspires to make this a particularly exciting piece. If you look closely at the transcription though, it is only ever the top stave notes which ascend; the bottom stave notes are static.

Fig.47 Movie - 01.21.45 Audio - ‘Freezing Inside’ (John Murphy)

01.21.57

th th th th 5 and # 4 intervals 5 and4 intervals 5th and4 th intervals between the note s between the note s between the note s

Octave melody regularly hits colourful extensions such as 9 th , 7 th , maj6 (over a minor chord), major7)

The last track from Sunshine and from this chapter is entitled ‘Adagio’. Like the last track we looked at, this too has an insatiable sense of direction and a sense of inexorable inevitability. Unlike many films we have looked at, but similar to a few we have analysed, the music for Sunshine doesn’t succeed in confounding the expectation of the listener; rather it plods slowly through a series of unremarkable chord changes. What galvanises listeners and draws them into the musical world created by Murphy on this track is the way he has sculptured simple chord changes by adding in an almost constantly evolving and ascending ‘melody line’ (which is, essentially, the top note of each chord). Listeners are drawn to the lines Murphy has drawn into the chords by often giving them top and bottom lines that are contrary; there are a few occasions when the top line and the bass line go in opposite directions; this adds to the sense of movement in the piece.

Fig.48 Movie - 01.26.14 Audio - 00.40 ‘Adagio in D minor’ (John Murphy)

As the piece moves on and becomes louder in volume and intensity, so the top lines move ever-upwards. Like most great film music though, this is only half the story; the scene is the rest. A good composer leaves the pictures to fill the creative space he/she deliberately leaves; if composers create/duplicate the entire mood of a scene then effectively they are composing a musical version of it. This is usually overkill; at best it will simply replicate what the director did and at worst you will confuse the story. Generally speaking with incidental music it should complement, not overshadow. It should not seek to tell the same story through music; it should add to the story in a way words or pictures cannot.

Music is capable of producing emotions in a way that pictures or words simply cannot achieve. The subtle nuances created by something people love but don’t understand will always add a dimension that wasn’t there before. M.Night Shayamalan said he crafts what he believes to be the perfect movie, a movie which doesn’t need anything else adding; one which is complete. Then he gives it to James Newton Howard, which of course proves that there was something left to do; something there to italicise, to expose; to acknowledge. Directors often say they are overwhelmed by the addition of well-crafted music to their movies; they say that they simply never realised more could be added. How could they? How can you hear what’s not there yet?

But in one sense at least, this is exactly what composer have to do; they have to imagine something that’s not there. They have to create something that others will only ever experience as ‘finished music’ but which they have to create from imagination, thought and process and then assemble in their heads, on paper or in a sequencer, or both. Then they may have to add a live orchestra. Only when it finally becomes ‘music’ does it confirm the composer’s expectations. Hopefully.

LAST DAYS ON MARS (Max Richter)

Scientists are about to finish a six-month stay on Mars. This well-made film is based on the 1975 short story ‘The Animators’ by Sydney J Bounds and is essentially a neo-zombie film set on Mars. This does not glorify the role of astronauts and concentrates at first on the banal, day-to-day existence of the crew in the same way as Alien did. The spacecraft Aurora is inbound from Earth to collect the team by lander from a prearranged site but scientist Marko Petrovi ć has found samples that may point to life on the planet. He visits the site of the discovery, after which a fissure swallows him. Later a Martian biological agent mutates members of the crew into aggressive, zombie-like creatures with blackened skin and no trace of their original personalities. The music is written by Max Richter, whose work we looked at separately in the movie A Perfect Sense . The score for Last days on Mars is typical of his ambient, effective, laboured and elongated music which has worked so well in underscoring the subtext of the films he’s done over the past few years, such as A Perfect Sense , Shutter Island and the TV series The Leftovers.

The first cue to examine comes 00.07.22 into the movie following a scene showing an astronaut/scientist venting her frustration about having to finish science experiments and return to the transport vehicle and return to the base. Following a terse exchange the camera shows firstly the Marian landscape from the inside of the Rover and then various shots of the inside of the base without dialogue until we hear characters talking around 00.07.50

Without the music these are essentially simply shots of the inside of the base, but the context of the frustration shown in the previous conversation, together with Richter’s music, lends the scene a sense of melancholic contemplation, reflection and thoughtfulness. The music is light, wistful, vaguely sad and slightly pensive. The music alone doesn’t manage these emotions; the perfect relationship of the music with the pictures and the context of the film is what deliver this perspective. Once again we see the dynamic created by, on the one hand things which can be easily rationalised and understood by the viewer – i.e. the pictures and the words, which are literal and unambiguous, and the music, which although simple in construction, lacks the literalness and absoluteness of a more literal / visual form of communication. This vagueness, this lack of a distinct, absolute message and therefore the need by the listener/viewer to interpret and translate, is what creates the dynamic that allows people into the story.

Fig.49 Movie 00.07.22 – Audio track ‘Lost in Space’

The harmony is horizontal, not ‘chordal’, which means the colour is distributed gradually, cumulatively

Richter uses a well-known harmonic device, one which, as an example, James Newton Howard uses, in the same key, in ‘Signs’. This is where the chord goes from Cm to B (with the Eb is the min 3 rd ) to B (where the same note is now the D# (the maj 3 rd ). The point is that the sound doesn’t change, just our interpretation of it, caused by the shifting surrounding harmonic terrain.

The cello enters in bar seventeen; on bar eighteen it hits the G note which functions intervallically as a rich major 3rd . This same note then shifts to become the 5 th of the Cm

The next cue comes just over ten minutes into the movie after the mission leader has reluctantly given in to a request from a scientist to go outside for one last journey to a dig site he’d been analysing. As he and his assistant sit in the airlock and prepare to go outside, the track ‘airlock’ starts. It is an extremely atmospheric track and used as it is, with pictures but no dialogue, it serves to underscore the tension beautifully, not with duplicative music which would simply replicate, but with an effective and simple, serene, chord trick; C to Em. The bass line is quite effective too, lending the piece a sense of subtle rhythm. The rich 10 th interval creates a real sense of warmth; this is slightly juxtaposed by the rather busy bass line.

Fig.50 Movie 00.10.43 – Audio track ‘Airlock’