day one, introduction to film music, terms, basic techniques

Hannah and Her Sisters, 1986, Dir. Woody Allen

     Upon viewing the 1986 film Hannah and Her Sisters, one of the forerunning components that establishes a sense of cohesion in the film is the manner its soundtrack was developed. Although several stories are layered upon one another, the director provides a secondary identity for each character, or set of characters, by the accompaniment of their own theme. As the film progresses, a viewer is exposed to the warm and familiar piano melodies around the thanksgiving holiday, to the more frequented incorporation of Bach between Elliot and Lee’s interactions. Of these themes, one of the more prominent and lively is associated to the character Woody Allen portrays, Mickey; Mickey’s character can be identified by sultry and lush jazz anthems performed by Count Basie, though his character may not possess this same presence at the beginning of the film. As the film progresses, a viewer may take notice that this accompaniment is primarily incorporated when Mickey is either being examined by another character or when he himself is investigating them—never when he ponders about himself. This anthem appears when Mickey is being critiqued for his script by his co-workers, when he’s being tested at the hospital and again when he is told the results of his CAT scan, as well as when he provides feedback to Holly after she has read her script aloud to him. It isn’t until Mickey confesses his fear and confrontment of death to Holly that the true significance of his theme flourishes. As he describes the evening he sat before a familiar film in the theatre, a viewer is exposed to the change in Mickey’s perspective of the world when he comes to realize, “I should stop ruining my life searching for answers I'm never gonna get, and just enjoy it while it lasts … I know maybe is a very slim reed to hang your whole life on, but that's the best we have.” (Hannah and Her Sisters) At this moment of realization, Mickey’s theme can be acknowledged and accepted as being a complement to his character’s identity.

one, Narratological Perspectives on Film Music by Claudia Gorbman

• "Hearing is less direct than visual perception; to see something is to instantaneously identify the light rays with the object that reflects them; in hearing, we do not as automatically identify a sound with its source. Moreover, hearing requires a greater duration of the sound stimulus than vision requires of an image in order to be recognized." (Gorbman, pg. 11)
• "We forsake contemplating that abstract arrangement and rearrangement of sound which is music, because it is nonrepresentational and nonnarrative and does not inhabit the perceptual foreground of the narrative film." (Gorbman, pg. 12)
• Three levels of music organization in film:
  1. pure musical codes: musical discourse, music structure itself
  2. cultural musical codes: music that reveals cultural codes of the subject/style of the narrative, often blends into the background
  3. cinematic musical codes: bears specific formal relationships to coexistent elements in film
• "[On mutual implication] Either the music "resembles" or it "contradicts" the action or mood of what happens on the screen ... that counterpoint occurs when music and picture convey "different meanings" that meet in a montage effect," (Gorbman, pg. 15)
• "Image, sound effects, dialogue, and music-track are virtually inseparable during the viewing experience; they form a combinatoire of expression." (Gorbman, pg. 16).
• "Imitative denotative instrumentation ("mickey-mousing"), such as violins playing con legno, might also give a comedic touch," (Gorbman, pg. 17)
• "But a theme is by definition a musical element that is repeated during the course of a work; as such it picks up narrative associations, which, in turn, infuse themselves into each new thematic statement," (Gorbman, pg. 17)
•  "For nondiegetic silence, the soundtrack is completely without sound. Dream sequences or other filmic depictions of intense mental activity sometimes run to a silent soundtrack." Gorbman, pg. 18)
• "A structural silence occurs where sound previously present in a film is later absent at structurally corresponding points. The film thus encourages us to expect the (musical) sound as before, so that when in fact there is no music, we are aware of its absence." (Gorbman, pg. 19)
• "Song lyrics, then, threaten to offset the aesthetic balance between music and narrative cinematic representation. The common solution taken by the standard feature film is not to declare songs off limits--for they can give pleasure of their own--but to defer significant action and dialogue during their performance." (Gorbman, pg. 20)
• "...the diegesis means the space-time universe and its inhabitants referred to by the principal filmic narration." (Gorbman, pg. 21)
• "Diegetic music: music that (apparently) issues from a source within the narrative," (Gorbman, pg. 22)
• "Musical time is abstract time; once begun, a piece's musical logic demands to work itself through to the finish. This is what can put music at odds with dramatic human time, which is less logically predictable time, more subject to the aleatory experiences of "real life.'" (Gorbman, pg. 24)
• "In each case music functions as connecting tissue, a nonrepresentational provider of relations, among all levels of the narration." (Gorbman, pg. 26)
• "A theme is defined as any music--melody, a melody-fragment, or distinctive harmonic progression-- heard more than once during the course of a film." (Gorbman, pg. 26)
• "A motif is a theme whose recurrences remain specifically directed and unchanged in their diegetic associations." (Gorbman, pg. 27)
• *Screencaps from reading of additional key concepts in "MUS425--30-12-13"

two, A Theory of Film Music by Kathryn Kalinak

•  "As such it has a dual purpose: first, to find and articulate a satisfying theoretical paradigm for the operation of film music, and second, to seek strategies for coming to terms with music's unique hold over us as spectators of the visual image." (Kalinak, pg. 20)
• "The definition of natural science in antiquity differs considerably from the modern conception of scientific inquiry. Rather than a foundation of information universally agreed upon, to which new information consonant with it is added, ancient science simultaneously embraced a variety of theories, some of them conflicting." (Kalinak, pg. 22)
•  "[On 19th century acoustical research] On the other hand, aural art, and in particular music, "stands in a much closer connection with pure sensation than any of the other arts" because it is directly apprehended "without any intervening act of the intellect.'" (Kalinak, pg. 23)
• *Screencaps from reading of additional key concepts in "MUS425--30-12-13"