Writing Theme Songs & Understanding Their Impact on the Audience

By Rosie Record

B&H article available here

Jaws, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, Star Wars; you can probably hum the theme song to all of these films. John Williams is the master of composing iconic and memorable themes that transcend time. Gladiator, Inception, Interstellar, The Dark Knight; Hans Zimmer’s themes are immediately recognizable and stunning. Themes are an incredibly powerful tool within film. They can add another dimension of emotion, meaning, and interconnectedness to the story and characters if executed properly. This synergy creates an enhanced experience while the audience watches a world unfold before them on screen.

So how do you create a powerful theme song? Keep it simple, create a good foundation, play with variations while keeping it cohesive; but also, seeing music as a language of its own and utilizing the question-answer formula creates dynamism in a score. When a theme is associated with a character or concept in the film, and referenced effectively, it can have an incredibly powerful impact on the audience. Being aware of the different psychological effects music has when combined with the visuals will also help you carve out the perfect viewing experience for your audience.

Question-Answer Formula

When I started composing and researching music, my background in linguistics came to the forefront. I remember staring at my DAW and realizing how writing music can be likened to speech cadences and sentence structuring. And I’m not the only one seeing this connection, Daniela Sammler, Cognition and Neuroscience researcher at the University of Leipzig, has been conducting research into this topic and has found there to be an innate connection between music, language, and communicating. Now, you can do a deep dive into music theory and neurocognition in music, or you can try this:

Try playing a song you’ve never heard before and pausing it in the middle. Does it feel resolved? How can you listen to something you’ve never heard before and know it’s incomplete? It’s similar to when you’re half-listening to someone and you realize they’ve asked you a question. And why would you pick up on when someone has asked you a question? Have you ever noticed when someone asks a question there’s an upward inflection at the end to denote this? Did your internal voice just go up as you read that? When you’re half-listening to someone and there is a change in the speaker’s intonation, your mind picks up on the difference. This same inflection transcends speech and can be applied to music in what’s often referred to as the question and answer. Likewise, it can catch the audience's attention, just like a half-listening husband realizing his wife asked him if he has been listening.

The question-answer formula is a sequence of two distinct musical phrases, where the first phrase ends in a question inflection and the second phrase is a direct response or answer to the first. To accomplish this question inflection you need to know your key signature and your home note or tonic. For instance, a C Major key signature would start the scale on C, and C would also be the home note. The question of a theme goes up (or down) from the home note of your scale, while the answer generates a completed feel as it finds its way back to the home note. Now this formula is meant to be played with, not a simple 2 bar question, 2 bar answer. You can have any combination of questions and answers thus creating a conversation, and it could even end in a question if it fits the visuals. Being aware of this grammatical approach to music will add a lyrical interest to any melody. So explore the question-answer formula, know your home key, and try to create a conversation within your music.

A theme has the power to make an audience feel like they know something. Humans are creatures of habit and take comfort in the known. Even with key changes, different instruments, different intensity or tempo changes, utilizing a familiar melody makes the audience feel a sense of comfort because they feel like they know and understand the theme. The sense of understanding, of ‘home,’ or feeling a song is complete can be attributed to the intrinsic grammar of music. Maybe that’s why the key signature’s root note is called the home note.

Keep it Simple

The director and composer should always think of the score holistically. Having a consistent collection of instruments, using themes effectively and variations of that theme all create a sense of cohesion. While the concept of a theme is straightforward enough, the application can be very involved. It’s great to have a question-answer melody that can be built upon, and generally the more simplistic the more memorable; just look at Jaws. While there is absolutely more to that score than the ominous two notes, those two notes are what everyone remembers. So…

• Keep it simple. A simple tune provides an excellent foundation. You should also experiment with variations on that tune. Can you change keys, alter, loop or delete bars to make the theme span different emotions or situations?

Build Connections

If a theme is associated with a corresponding person or object, the repeated union can build up a subconscious interconnectedness. Star Wars was able to have a theme for almost everything, for the overall film, for certain characters, and film motifs. It can strengthen the emotional attachments or help make mental connections, so if the visuals don’t show something, the audience will think of it anyway because the music acts as a stand-in for that character or object. Just think of the theme song for Darth Vader and the Empire. While it might be used as the ringtone for an in-law to denote dread, most people will immediately filter to a memory of Vader’s dark figure walking the halls and that iconic helmet breathing heavy. That’s the power of nostalgia and effective theme songs.

• What are you associating the theme with? A character, item, concept, feeling? You can have a theme for every character if you want, just make sure you can connect them and make them make sense as a story.

What Else?

• Themes can also be simple musical elements. Hans Zimmer’s theme for the Joker in the Dark Knight is a single elongated note, that just vibrates and fills the audience with discomfort.

• Pick a main instrument. Having a consistent base instrument grounds the theme and makes any departure from that instrument more significant. For example, if you are using a piano for the main theme, and then create a variation of the melody while using violins to denote sadness, the audience will pick up on the shift.

• Remember, a theme does not have to be repeated multiple times to be effective; use the theme when relevant and impactful.

• Themes can be used for end of scene/transitions to create a sense of “to be continued…”

• It’s very effective to bring back the original theme song when there is a moment of conclusion within the film. This solidifies a sense of completion.

Theme Variations

If music is like a language, you know that people pause, stutter, get excited and speed up or elongate their words when they’re sad. That same concept can be applied to creating variations of your theme. Alterations to the theme can be accomplished with augmentation, added complexity, melody abstraction, etc.

• Change the key signature. For example, going from D minor to E minor creates a positive shift of sentiments with that simple upwards movement on the keys.

• Move the melody up an octave to increase a sense of urgency or completion, move the melody down an octave to slow things down or create a sense of dread or sadness.

• Double or half the rhythmic values of the melody.

• Change meter. This abstraction of the melody creates auditory interest while keeping the same color and tone of the original theme.

• Alter harmonic progression.

• Play with bitonality or polytonality by combining two or more keys together (ie. Stravinky’s using C and F sharp major keys together in Petrushka).

• Fragment or break the melody into pieces and reassembled in a different order. You might discover something really cool!

• Change phrase length. For example, Playing 2 bars of the original 4 bar theme; the audience will be anticipating the conclusion of the melody, but by cutting it short they know there is something more. For an even more subtle, yet incredibly impactful example, think of the end of Inception when just the last note is cut short as the screen goes black on the spinning top. That minor incompletion of the melody plus the hard cut creates a gripping cliffhanger. Was he still dreaming?

A Second Narrator

Themes can be a powerful tool within a film. A successful score can magnify emotions, cue a sense of suspense, make the audience feel a profound connection to characters, and want to delve deeper into the world on screen. With the right questions and a handful of techniques, you can create and vary a theme to fit the evolving visuals. Utilizing the question-answer formula for construction and thinking of music as a language altogether can completely change the way you score a project.

When you think of music as a conversation, you realize the score is almost like another narrator for the film. And when a score is given the latitude to be a complementary narrator working in tandem with the visuals, the partnership is electric!

#filmcomposer #mediacomposer #musiccomposer #composer #composing #film #filmscore #howto #director #featureFilm #filmcomposition #media #movie# music #score#soundtract #theme #homekey #quetionanswerformula #formula #narrator

Tips 'n' Tricks for New Composers

By Rosie Record

Article also available at B&H Explora

What is childhood? Now Hum it.

Most people wouldn’t know where to start, perhaps their mind would flicker to memories of nighttime lullabies or morning cartoons, but this is the kind of challenge film composers face daily. Logically, a good starting point would be a rudimentary happy or sad, then build from there. Happy is generally more upbeat, lighter instruments like guitar or piano, while sad is usually slower, deep sounding instruments like the cello.

But what does nostalgia sound like? Most things in life are not binary, happy or sad, funny or serious. There are a mix and combinations of references, thoughts, and emotions. Being able to mimic this within film, or any artistic medium, is where life meets art and art is indecipherable from life. Tapping into this concept and layering it into a film is the most incredible synergistic combination.

Composing music to fit stories, emotions, and moments on screen is a challenge regardless of experience. Finding inspiration and cultivating a creative process will most likely be an ongoing struggle. If you’re new to composing, it can be daunting and you might not know where to begin.

While all composers have a different creative process or approach, this series of articles outlines a couple of basics to build from. Starting a music journal, plugin sourcing, smart questions to ask the director, and even using existing songs as a foundation, are some great first steps to help get you started down the path of establishing your own creative process.

Music Journaling

Music is usually defined as a combination of sounds to create something harmonious and beautiful, but within the film, a composer needs to think beyond beauty. Films are usually an expression of humanity and reality, and beauty is not the only facet of either. A composer needs to be able to create dissonant sounds, ugly sounds, weird sounds, sounds that reflect the reality of the film. So having an open mind about what music is, is an excellent mental step.

The next mental step is writing musical ideas daily in your DAW, like journaling. Similar to a writer, one common piece of advice is to write daily or as often as possible. You can free play, give yourself assignments or challenges, cannibalize previous ideas, or just play Chopsticks with an interesting plugin. All this does is create reference maps to plugins and melodies in your mind. While you can record live and write music by hand, using a DAW allows immediate access to different plugins and effects.

• Create a designated project file for ideas.

• Mark and date where you begin a new entry within your DAW.

• Nothing is wrong! Capture chords, melodies, promising plugins, cool effects.

• Try to associate an emotion or intent to what you’ve written, this can be used as a quick reference for the director.

Writing daily creates a work mentality, and whether the idea is complete or not (and usually it’s not) capturing fragments, patterns, discovered sounds, favorite plugins, interesting effects, and more is incredibly helpful. Those fragments of ideas can then be added to or subtracted from other music ideas, patterns can be multiplied, notes tweaked, etc. to create a complete idea. And a complete idea in scoring does not always equate to a complete song like on the radio; a complete idea can be an expression of emotions, auditory background, a catalyst, transitions or punctuation for the film.

With music journaling, you are essentially building a collection of musical ideas, so when the director shows you their first cut you won’t be starting with a blank music sheet. Instead, you’ll be able to open up your DAW and draw inspiration from the assortment of musical notions captured over time. Maybe, you’ll even watch a film, look at the director and say, “I already have the perfect song for this.”

Plugin Sourcing and Questions for the Director

Creating a theme or auditory representation of moods and characters is a challenge. Everyone differs in values, thoughts, and philosophies -- so the music associated with the corresponding thoughts and feelings will differ as well. But having a common language to describe what you hear can be helpful,. Directors not knowing what they want, or them have difficulty describing it is a common challenge.

So if possible, arrange a sit-down and try to establish common terms, understanding, and language around music and emotions. Certain instruments evoke certain feelings, and knowing the rules or the basics allows you to break them effectively to get the nuanced musical approach you want, so here are some tips when sitting down with a director:

• Sample through plugins: play the same key every time (ie. Middle C)

• Play a simple melody or run through chord progressions in different key signatures to see if they have a preference for major or minor, or if certain notes resonate with them.

• For efficiency, you can save a template to your DAW with midi inputs of different key signatures and chord progressions. This way you can easily swap out the plugins and play through. This automated approach provides the director with an equal comparison between each of the different sounds.

• If they choose a basic instrument and key signature create a simple base by breaking up that chord with that plugin and loop it. Now you can start layering additional instruments over.

• While going through the plugins, ask them why they like or dislike a sound, you will start to see patterns in their answers and get a better feel for their preference on instruments, timbre, sound effects, etc. They may like echoing sounds, synthetic sounds, natural sounds, alien sounds, soft sounds. You are creating a reference library for your director.

• You should be associating and agreeing on words for their likes and dislikes. Is this ‘romantic’, dramatic’, ‘mysterious’? Is this sound too ‘aggressive’, ‘frilly’, ‘goofy’? And ask them what they mean by certain words, try to pick out why they associate that word or feeling with that sound, maybe it’s something subtle, maybe it’s just that they don’t like trumpets.

• Be sure to try to establish an understanding of the words used in the music summary chart. If they say they want it to be dramatic, sad or action-based, you should try to create music associations to those words during this session.

• It’s also helpful if you have a sample of the film to drop it in and let the director see how different sounds layer over the visuals. They may love violins, but realize guitars are better fitting.

Establishing the director’s preferences through this process doesn't mean you have to use only those plugins. Creating the melodies, the repeat patterns, the themes, choosing which instruments to layer, how to layer, etc. will all be up to you as the composer. The director will then have to respond with notes and suggestions.

Build From an Existing Foundation

When first starting out, another great exercise to help get accustomed to melodies and arrangements is to recreate an existing song. This not only helps you sound out melodies, but helps you source sounds more quickly, and forces the exploration of different effects. Emulation is a great tool to familiarize yourself with the creation process, and there are tons of Youtube videos of musicians walking through this exact process. Following along is a great way to learn about workflow, and it can also be a way for you to learn from your mistakes. Mistakes can provide an opportunity to explore a different angle or approach.

Now, another side of this is to take an existing song and use it as a foundation for something new; keeping in mind the distinct difference between taking inspiration from a song and simply plagiarizing. Even the masters walk that fine line between emulation and reproduction. For example, Inception’s score was heavily inspired by Edith Piaf’s “Non, je ne Regrette Rien.” Hans Zimmer took pieces and played with tempo and timing. Or as he explained in Arts Beat, “all the music in the score is subdivisions and multiplications of the tempo of the Edith Piaf track. So I could slip into half-time; I could slip into a third of a time. Anything could go anywhere. At any moment I could drop into a different level of time.”

Other techniques you can use to experiment with an existing song:

• Change the key. Changing keys is a great way to keep the continuity of a theme throughout the film while making the song different and adding auditory interest.

• Eliminate or add notes to an existing melody. Having an incomplete melody can be effective too. It creates a sense of anticipation for the audience.

• Shuffle different parts of the song around to find a new combination. Not all parts of a song are interchangeable, but finding different ways to combine and use motifs is a great way of exploring a song.

• Layer two or more different melodies to create something different. Blending bits and pieces of multiple songs is a great exercise that can be applied to melodies captured in your music journals.

• Change tempo. Tempo can impact energy levels and be a great way to experience the song in a different way.

Dreaded Temp Scores

Why is all of this important? A very common practice for directors and editors is to use temp or placement music when editing. They’ll take a song, oftentimes other film scores, and cut scenes to that music. This helps them establish timing and create a rhythm for the visuals. It can also be a reference on one, intensity, and tempo for the composer. Yet, a common side-effect is the director becomes very attached to the temp score/music they can’t use. That attachment is every composer’s fear because it leads to the director asking them to essentially recreate an existing score. Now the composer has to negotiate between legal issues/copyright infringement and making the director happy with a score that can never be like what they really want; the original.

This fairly common situation calls for the culmination of all of those new techniques. Having excellent communication, completing a plugin sourcing with the director, and being able to reinvent an existing song can crescendo into a successful score that makes your director happy.

Now armed with some techniques for jump-starting musical inspiration and walking your director through auditory options, we can expand into our next piece about creating theme songs and building powerful connections between the audience and the story.

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