Author: dfg5121

The Art of Synchronicity

• Seamless integration of sight and sound in today’s movies
• Musical moments line up perfectly with the visual events they are intended to enhance.
• Click Track
  • a pre-recorded metronome or ticking that provides the exact beat or tempo that the music has to reach in order to match the film perfectly

 

The Master of Suspense: Bernard Herrmann

• American composer noted for many successful collaborations with the famous director Alfred Hitchcock
• largely responsible for developing a musical vocabulary that created the necessary tension for to generate suspense before a climactic moment.
  • Psycho
  • Cropduster

John Williams and the Leitmotif

The “End Credits” Sequence

• May serve as a recap of the major musical theme

Supporting the Action

• The Phantom of the Opera
• Build up to the action = more intense

The Standard Emerges

• Sound added to film with new tech developed
• One of the earliest movies with sound created by Russian director Sergei Eisenstein
• Music by  Alexander Nevsky
• Depicts Russian victory over German forces in the 13th century
• Music accompanied the action

The Film Composer

• Famous partnership of director in composer in modern films: George Lucas and John Williams
  • Star wars

The”Main Title” Sequence

• Acts like an overture
• Not usually accompanying visual action
• Offers less restrictions for composers
  • Catch Me if You Can
    • Directed by Spielberg
    • Music by John Williams
    • Jazzy opening
  • The Terminator
    • Directed by James Cameron
    • Music by Brad Fiedel
    • Heavy mix of percussion and electronics = futuristic tech
  • Star Wars
    • Directed by George Lucus
    • Music by John Williams
    • Powerful opening
  • Dr. No
    • Directed by Terence Young
    • Music by Monty Norman
    • The James Bond music
  • The Pink Panther
    • Directed by Blake Edwards
    • Music by Henry Mancini
    • The sleuthing theme song

After reading the voice thread responses out seemed we all had a unique setting, however, everyone’s theme was very much the same. The settings ranged from caves, to the midwesr, to a battle field. It wasn’t so much the exact placement of the story but rather the action that was being described that brought all ideas together. Every reply I read either featured some type of fight or chase. I think the build up of the music and the switch to fast dramatic tempo is what lead to this. It was interesting to read how we all had the same overall idea about the feeling off the music but we each created a unique senerio.

The Planets

• Seven-movement orchestral suite by Gustav Holst (1914-1916)

The Grand Canyon Suite

• Ferde Grofe
• Five Movements depicting the day in the Grand Canyon
  • Sunrise
  • Painted Desert
  • On the Trail
  • Cloudburst
  • Sunset

Symphonic Poems

• A one-movement work whose primary purpose is to tell a story.
• The Sorceror’s Apprentice by Paul Dukas (Fantasia

Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun

• Claude Debussy’s
• From the piano to a full orchestra
• About a mythological forest creature

 

Berlioz” Fantastic Symphony; Sex, Drugs, and the Program Symphony

• Hector Berlioz, French composer (1830)
  • Unique mix of a storyline and music
  • “Fantastic Symphony: An Episode in the Life of an Artist”
  • A dramatic symphony
    • Old age love story between girl and boy but with a bizarre twist of murder
    • An actual autobiography
    • Played out in 5 different movements

 

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

• Along with four other composers, Modest Mussorgsky, Cesar Cui, Alexander Borodin, and Mily Balakirev, he was a member of the “Russian Five”.
  • Believed their music should strongly reflect their Russian heritage and pride

 

Program Suites: Modest Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition

• Mussorgsky (1 of the Russian Five)
  • Pictures at an Exhibition
  • Ten-movement suite that takes as its inspiration the artwork of Victor Hartmann.
  • Transcribed from solo piano piece to the orchestra in 1923 by Ravel
• Great Gate of Kiev

Types of Program Music

• Music that is intended to convey non-musical or extra-musical ideas is said to be programmatic
• Most music contains this element
• During the romantic era composers moved away from music just for music
  • Extra-musical dramas came forth
  • A combination to tell a story

Ballet in America: Copland and Graham

• In the 1940’s Graham and Copland collaborated
• Created 3 large scale works including two about the American west
  • Rodeo
  • Billy the Kid
  • Appalachian Spring
• Appalachian Spring
  • Forced to reduce the orchestra to more of a chamber style composition

Contemporary Dance

• After appalachian spring dance moved away from the traditional grand ballet
• Dancers have approached new styles like shadow dancing

 

Tchaikovsky’s Ballets

• Composed only 3 but made a big impact
• Revolutionized the art of composing for dance
  • Swan Lake
  • Sleeping Beauty
  • The Nutcracker

Ballet Russe

• 30 years after Tchaikovsky the Ballet Russe was created
• Sergei Diaghilev was the producer behind the Ballet Russe
• Broke away from traditional rules
• Stravinsky joined in when he was 27
  • He shattered the conventional voice of ballet
  • The movement of the dancers generated the rhythm of the music
    • Chaotic and challenging
  • He had 3 big performances
    • Firebird
    • Petrouchka
    • The Rite of Spring (revolutionary and rebellious)

Prokofiev Carries On

• Worked with Kirov Ballet
  • Cinderella
  • Romeo and Juliet

While viewing videos on Youtube I can across a series titled “Ballet Evolved”. I thought it would show a quick evolution on how ballet has changed through the years, BUT I quickly found it be a very technical video. It was not what I was expecting but it did give me a new appreciation of ballet. It goes in very technical detail of how a dancer places their feet and at what degree their body parts should be. I never realized how much little detail goes into theses performances, and gave me a new outlook on ballet performers. They have to put hours and hours in of work for these performances to turn out so well. It was interesting to learn a little bit about something I was completely unaware of before. Here’s a link to the video if you are interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EjfGgvsldM