How to do a Film Music Review

Description

Pick a movie that you enjoy (it will be best to avoid musicals) for your first film music review. Begin by watching the movie while carefully paying attention to how the music relates to the film (refer to “How to listen to film music”). Make notes on where significant music happens. After the film is complete, go back and watch the musically significant scenes again and write up each section (feel free to do this however you feel is best, this is only a suggestion).

The bulk of the writing needs to be about the music. Be sure to describe it in terms of the material covered in “How to listen to film music”. I only need to know the film’s plot as it relates to the music. You should address the music chronologically as it occurs in the film and not just do a general summary of the music. However, I would like a short general summary at the end of the paper. I do not like page requirements or limits, but I would think that in most cases three pages should be sufficient to cover the material you need to cover. If you need more space, feel free to use it. Likewise if you feel you can adequately discuss what you have heard in two pages, there is no need to use filler to stretch your review.

Don’t be discouraged if you have limited music training. I will not grade you on being exact, but on doing your best to describe the music using the terms and methods laid out in “How to listen to film music”. You will get feedback on your reviews and my hope is that you will improve in your musical descriptions each session.
Reviews should be in your own words. Do not use quotations from outside sources.

How to Listen to Film Music
How to listen to film music
How to listen to film music
Be honest: when you are watching a movie, how much attention do you really pay to the music? I would guess probably not a lot. That’s fine. It probably means the actors, director, and writers all did their job well and you are engrossed in the story. It also probably means the composer did her/his job well too and wrote music that meshes with and compliments the story rather than distracts from it. We certainly hear the music, but it doesn’t demand our attention. Hopefully, however, as you progress through this course you will begin to not only hear music in the films you watch, but also think about it. In order to do this you will need to know what to listen for specifically. To do this, you will need to listen for those elements of music that are common to all music—melody, rhythm, harmony, tonality, timbre, dynamics—as well as the elements that are related specifically to what is happening on the screen. Let’s begin with the basic elements of music.

MELODY
Melody is a series of pitches that add up to a recognizable whole. It is the aspect of music that we often sing, the part that gets stuck in your head. As you watch, listen for melodies (or short fragments of melodies called motives) that return during the course of the movie. Some composers may write specific music to accompany certain scenes—chase scenes, battle scenes, love scenes— or to represent certain characters, places, or objects and reuse them throughout the movie. You will need to get good at remembering what you heard 10 minutes ago, or 40 minutes ago, or even 1 1/2 hours ago. A great example of this is from the animated film Up by Pixar. There is a sentimental waltz-like melody that is used throughout the film. Sometimes it is somewhat disguised, but it is always recognizable if you are listening for it. The use of the “Imperial March” in the Star Wars franchise is also an excellent example.

RHYTHM
Rhythm describes how the melody is organized in time. Is the overall tempo of the music fast or slow or somewhere in between? This is often related to on-screen action. We expect chase scene music to be fast and love scene music to be slow, but it doesn’t always work that way. Composers can also create a strong impression by occasionally using music that is the opposite of what we expect. Sometimes the music will more than correspond with the on-screen activity, it will actually mimic it. For instance, if a character is walking down a street and the music exactly imitates their footsteps. This is usually referred to as “mickey-mousing” because it is so common in cartoon music. Aside from tempo (fast and slow, etc.), we can discuss music’s rhythm in more descriptive terms such as driving, dance-like, flowing, unsteady, etc.

HARMONY
Harmony refers to the effect that different notes have when sounded at the same time (as opposed to melody which refers to notes being sounded one at a time). We can combine notes in ways that are pleasing to the ear (consonant) and displeasing to the ear (dissonant). If a character in a film is involved in some sort of disaster the composer will often choose dissonant combinations of notes to reflect the chaos of the moment. However, if a character is falling in love we expect to hear consonant music (unless this love story is going to go badly and the composer is trying to warn us ahead of time!). In formal music theory we refer to combinations of notes that form pleasing and “happy” melodies and harmonies as major and combinations of notes that form dramatic and “sad” melodies and harmonies as minor.

TIMBRE
Timbre is a word that means tone color. In other words, it is what makes the music “sound” the way it does. Much of the film music you hear will be played by a symphonic orchestra or by small groupings from within a symphonic orchestra. This means you should expect to hear strings, brass, woodwinds, and percussion. If you have limited experience with these instruments, this video will help you familiarize yourself with these sounds.
TEXTURE
Texture refers to the number of simultaneous musical lines and their relationship to each other. If we have a single, unaccompanied melody (like if you were singing by yourself) we call that monophonic. If we have more than one independent melody happening at the same time (like if you and I were to sing “Row, Row Your Boat” as a round or if you were to sing “Row, Row, Your Boat” while I sang “Three Blind Mice”), we call that polyphonic. If, like the vast majority of music you and I hear, you have one main melody that has some kind of accompaniment to it, that is called homophonic. Each of these types of texture create different sonic effects in music. Another way we talk about texture is in terms of the density of the sound. When we hear just a few instruments and/or voices, we tend to think of it as a thin texture, as opposed to the thick texture of a large orchestra.
DYNAMICS
Dynamics is another way of saying “volume”. It is the relative loudness or softness of the music. In formal music discourse we use a bunch of Italian words to describe it, but loud and soft work here. I do want to mention the terms crescendo and decrescendo, which refer to the processes of getting louder and getting softer respectively.
Having covered the basics, let’s turn our attention to some musical concepts specific to film music.