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!

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Glocks, Clocks, Math & Music: How Imperfections Create Emotion in Music

By Rosie Record

My dad loves clocks and has an extensive collection from different eras, with a variety of styles, materials, and faces all tucked away among his books and other trinkets he’s collected over the years. One Father’s Day or Christmas he was gifted a unique antique. It kept time perfectly but had a quirk. The tiny third arm that spun around to count seconds would go from 12 to 6 and then stutter for maybe three seconds before quickly swinging back up to 12 again. It always made up for the stutter at 6, and to me, it was perfect in its adorable imperfection. But it bugged my dad.

With tiny screwdrivers, pliers, and a magnifying glass he toiled away and made it so the third arm went full circle in an uninterrupted fluid motion. And it never kept the proper time again. I completely ascribe to finding the beauty where others might see flaws, or seeing perfection in the imperfections. This same concept, when applied to music, translates into something even more incredible.

Since the first utterance of words, humans have been drawn to singing, creating melodies, clapping and snapping to a rhythm; music is innate and inextricably linked to the definition of being human. In fact, research has shown only about 3-5% of the population don’t enjoy music, but due to a neurological condition called musical anhedonia.

With time signatures, meter, rhythm, BPM, acoustics, frequencies, timbre, sonic texture, psychoacoustics, etc., music seamlessly combines mathematics and physics into an art. But while mathematics is an essential element of music, the difference between mathematically perfect (a machine) and human lies in the slight irregularities and minor alterations. Like notes being off by micro-fractions- it's not necessarily perceivable by ear, but it's visible on a computer screen. With plugins sampling real players and more complex algorithms being written to give human expressions, a musician working in a DAW will still most likely want to make those midi notes mathematically perfect. However, in the “flaws” lies humanity; the slightly elongated notes, the quickening of others, all of those micro-expressions translate into emotion.

Time Signature

Mathematics is deeply embedded in music on multiple levels, but some higher-level elements are time signatures, rhythm, meter, and BPM. The time signature is marked at the beginning of a piece of music with two numbers stacked on top of each other, like a fraction. The top number denotes how many beats per bar, while the bottom denotes what type of note is considered a whole note. The notes in a bar can be comprised of half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes, etc., but will all combine and total out to the top number of the time signature. For instance, 4/4, or “common time,” denotes each bar will have 4 beats and a quarter note represents one beat. Likewise, 2/4 time denotes the quarter notes as one beat, but each bar will only have two beats. With different time signatures come different meters or rhythms.

E Major/C Sharp Minor. 2/4 Time: 2 beats per bar, with a quarter note per beat. Vivace: 156–176 BPM. Sempre legato: notes played smoothly. Doce: notes played sweetly or with a light touch

Meter and BPM

Common time taps 4 beats out evenly, whereas a 2/4 meter will give a 1-2 rhythm reminiscent of a march. With a 3/4 time signature, the emphasis is on the first note. 1 is a down-beat followed by 2 and 3 being up-beats, creating that recognizable down-up-up, down-up-up waltz rhythm. Time signature and meter define the mathematical rhythm, or heartbeat of a song, while BPM (beats per minute) define how fast that heart is pumping. There are many tempo markings denoting speed usually written/seen in Italian or French. The following BPM are approximations: From the slow Larghissimo at 24 and below BPM, ticking up to a still languid Adagio at 66-76 BPM, to a moderate Moderato at 108-120, up to a trance favorite Allegro at 120-156 BPM, all the way to an intense Prestissimo at over 200 BPM.

Examples

Darude's Sandstorm is a 4/4 Allegro 136 BPM or 34 Bars Per Minute.

Sia's Chandelier is a 5/4 Moderato 117 BPM or 23 Bars Per Minute.

Next time you need a good laugh check out this rendition of Chandelier. Get it, Toad!

My nemesis the metronome

When I was first learning piano I had a strict and structured piano teacher... in retrospect that was a good thing. However, back then I always wanted to write my own songs and play around with the timing of other songs. Inevitably, she would whip out an old-school metronome, forcing my fingers to tap each note with the tick-tick-tick of that swinging metal arm.

Old school metronomes are mechanical devices usually made of wood with a metal arm. You slide a weight up or down the metal piece to quicken or slow the swinging motion; this is what creates that distinctive metronome tick. Now they come as plastic tiles with adjustable numbers; but they produce a regulated ticking that corresponds to a tempo, marking rhythm and pace.

When I rediscovered piano and first started playing around in Logic Pro X I would hit the record button and play in a stream-of-consciousness way. The comments from people on those songs are always centered around emotions. “It gave me chills.” “I can hear the heartbreak.” However, during a music session with a friend, an old familiar nemesis came back. My buddy sat me down at his system, let me play, and then stopped me. He pointed out some irregularities of the notes then clicked on a damn metronome. Afterward, he quantized and tweaked all of my notes so they were properly sandwiched between the corresponding lines and perfectly lined up. He made it mathematically perfect. And to me, it lost something in the process.

What's my point?

When something is too mathematically perfect, the rigidity seeps into our brains and reads as artificial, stiff, mechanic, or robotic. A musician can instinctually draw out some notes and quicken others to make up the difference and keep true to the time. However, to a computer program, this reads as incorrect.

The proof is in the comments and emotional responses, though. That's why film productions spring for a full orchestra instead of a single artist at a computer keyboard. These "imperfections" are human, and this is what creates emotion. I’m happy to say, while the rhythm of that song I worked on with my friend ticks alongside the metronome, the melody pulls it’s emotions from the subtle “flaws” that are me; so it's as if it was played by an orchestra of me's, rather than a computer.

Guns

Jake Estes, a documentary filmmaker, is currently working on a controversial and intriguing project. A conversation about guns. Terrorism, hate crimes, and school shootings make this topic a contentious one that has fractured the nation into different groups trying to find answers in different directions.

Photograph by Maria Perez

While American’s love their shoot-em-ups on the big screen -- James Bond, John Wick, Jack Ryan -- Jake Estes discusses guns in their realism. When people’s misunderstandings bleed into a family, it can be detrimental, so Jake set out to demonstrate how a family can come together and have an open-minded dialog about such a polarizing topic. Between his cousin, an NRA member and Jake himself, someone who is not a fan, they discuss the mechanics of different firearms and how to bring responsibility and accountability to gun ownership, as well as gun violence, misconceptions, beliefs, and opinions around this hot-button topic.

When scoring this documentary, I wanted to capture sentiments and avoid the politics. So I oscillated between creating ambiance and building up emotions to support the severity of the topics. Jake and his cousin pit the 2nd amendment against some complex social issues. In a scene where his cousin plays with his children, the interview overlays his sentiments about gun violence at schools. I wanted to do his cousin justice and show an NRA member/ a responsible gun owner can still grieve with the victims of gun violence. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Creating emotion in music is something I love to do with my stream-of-consciousness style of playing and Jake allowed free reign. So I layered in a simple two-track melody that would make a metronome blush, but Jake only felt the emotion. Here's a sneak peek:

Conclusion

Since the beginning, we have always tried to capture our passions and distill them into art and music. Music naturally blends math, physics, and art all together into something that has the power to evoke powerful emotions from almost everyone. With the advancements of technology, artists now have access to tools that can make songs mathematically 'perfect.' However, something is being lost in the structure.

Proof that audiences can feel the difference? Full orchestras are still being hired for film scores, string quartets are still being hauled in for weddings, people still go to concerts and watch bands in sticky bars. Because of the ambiance? Sure. But there is a quality that can only be achieved by humans' fallibility. Those drags and pulls here and there with notes and time creates expression, emotion and a deeper bond with the music. Humanity in its imperfection is what creates beauty and uniqueness, and music is no exception. Emotions and connections can all be captured in slightly mathematically imperfect flutters. Take that, metronomes.

#Music #MusicStudio #Composer #Composing #FilmComposer #MediaComposer #Score #Scoring #MusicComposer #Audio #homestudio #Mathematics #EmotionalMusic #Documentary #emotions #Expressions #TimeSignature #Meter #BPM #Larghissimo #Adagio #Moderato #Allegro #Prestissimo #Darude #Sia #Imperfections #Rhythm

Your Film is Picture Locked... Now What the F*ck Do You Do?

By Rosie Record

The film is picture locked and a solid relationship is forming between director and composer. Both roles have discussed expectations for the film and music...

Now What?

After higher-level discussions, the composer and director will want to do a spotting session. The spotting session occurs prior to any composing- it's when both the director and composer watch the project to decide on music placement and what the music needs to achieve. During this process, the corresponding spotting notes or music summary document will be developed. The resulting document can be configured as a Word doc, but an Excel spreadsheet is ideal for keeping everything meticulously organized.

Now, this is the ideal spotting session, however, if schedules are hard to align and the director is organized enough, he/she can supply the composer with the essential information. This article provides that information and some important questions you should ask to help create the best spotting notes/ music summary document for your composer.

To read about the higher-level musical tactics you can use, read my article on 5 Approaches to a Film Score.

Some Information That Should Be Included:

• Cue #: Depending on how long and complex the project is, the numbering system may change. For instance, a TV Show might be broken into Season, Episode, Scene: S1E2S1

• Cue Title: This could be something like “opening credits” or “Will exits the barn.” This can include a clip of dialog or anything that is an additional identifying element

• SMTPE In: This denotes when the music starts. It needs to be broken into Hours/ Minutes/ Seconds/ Frames (H/M/S/F)

• SMTPE Out: This denotes when the music ends. It needs to be broken into H/M/S/F

• Duration: This is the total measurement of music needed for that corresponding cue. It needs to be broken into H/M/S/F

• Description of Scene: This can be a more in-depth description of the scene and may include notes about motivation or action that drives the music choice

• SFX or Music: Identify if the specified area needs composed music or something else including SFX, diegetic music, or another sound design element

• Music description: This describes the type of music needed for the corresponding cue in terms that were discussed and agreed upon

Here's an example of some spotting notes from the film Wild Men; a hilarious parody of Finding Big Foot.

A traditional spotting session did not occur for this project. After in-depth conversations about music expectations over phone and email, the director for Wild Men only needed to provide the composer with timestamps, descriptions of scenes, and a handful of comments. Additional notes were maintained by the composer. However, the more details within the spotting notes, the better. Having a detailed document cuts down on the potential for miscommunications and missed expectations.

Seriously, next movie night with friends, buy a six-pack of Narragansett and check this odd little gem out here!

Now, while the list of information needed for your spotting notes/ music summary document is straightforward, making those decisions for your project can be daunting. So it helps to know some of the right questions to ask.

Approach Each Scene Within Your Film & Ask:

• What style of music do you want for the scene? Orchestral surges? Maybe a quirky combination of instruments like banjos and music box strings? Frantic Strings to build tension, or smooth piano to build a sense of romance? What fits the imagery, characters, theme, emotions of the scene?

• What is the time period of the film? Do you want to honor any sense of history? Have historically accurate instruments to fit the visuals, or do you want to clash against the time period to make a statement like in A Knight’s Tale?

• What is the emotional state of the characters within the scene? Do you want the music to enhance the acting, or go even deeper? Music has the power to add a different emotion or thought-provoking layer to an already compelling scene.

• A more practical question you should ask is if you are contending with dialog or FX sounds. You will want to discuss how you want the music to interact with dialog and/or FX, or if no music might be the best approach. Silence can be a powerful tool.

• One element that should be meticulously planned out is timing. Do you need to hit any cuts? Do you want the music to hit each cut to add drama and impact, or do you want the music to wash over the scene to create a sense of connectivity?

• An interesting question you can ask is, who is your demographic? Who is this film geared toward? This line of thinking might point you down a slightly different path and help the film be more impactful for the intended audience.

Musical development is incredibly important. Obviously, each scene and the overall film will evolve. These visual developments need to be paralleled with music. You will want to determine how each scene and experience needs to unfold.

• What scenes need musical transitions?

• Does the music need to shift slowly, or should there be a hard shift?

• Do you want to maintain the melody, but tweak emotions with a key change?

• Do you want to transition by melting in a secondary melody?

Once the scenes are broken down, the director and composer should look at the bigger picture. Continuity with instruments, melodies, or even glimmers of themes makes the overall project more cohesive. While the audience may or may not be aware of the power a score has over the total experience, they will subconsciously be picking up on the collection of musical ideas working synergistically with the visuals. Even if you have a musical element that is a departure from the rest of the film, if you attempt a nod to that somewhere later on, it will create a sense of home for the audience.

Example

Broken Arrow is one of Han Zimmer’s babies from '96. The soundtrack is all over the place and delightfully schizophrenic. There is a sexy western guitar theme song for Travolta's character, a twinkly light melody, your typical action surges, a harmonica, and at one point some Asian vibes that, if likened to fashion, could be described as power-clashing. I'm sure that was a nod to John Woo. However, Zimmer brings most of his melodies and instruments back at least one other time to create an odd conglomerate of musical ideas. And damn it, I love it. It sticks in your mind. Not one of his most cohesive scores, but still weirdly sexy and effective.

Fun note: the French sub-title on this Youtube clip reads "Préparez-vous à être soufflé" which translates into "Prepare To Be Blown" LOL

Shoulda read: "Préparez-vous à avoir votre esprit soufflé"

Ah, when things get lost in translation :)

Conclusion

The take away from this article should be knowing the importance of detailed spotting notes/ a music summary document. This document ensures both the director and composer have one master source to pull from with precise SMTPE in and out and descriptions of what the music should be accomplishing. Having a clear and descriptive document allows the complex process of composing an effective score to go more smoothly. And who wouldn't want that?

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