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"Action"
music--the evolution
By
Terry walstrom
12
November 2003
In
the history of dramatic presentation, the spoken word has reigned
supreme until fairly recent times. With the advent of miraculous
technology for throwing images up on a large panoramic screen and
the infusion of vast surrounds of ambient atmospherics a gradual
shift in emphasis has evolved.
Music
and pure visual action has all but replaced the spoken word and
even in some respects the plot! At first music was the "verb" that
connected the visual subject to the object of desire.
Activity
onscreen was synonymous with activity in the orchestra pit. So potent
and moving was this device that more and more sonic layers have
been added over the years in multifarious incarnations. Clever composers
developed an approach which seemed a best fit for the marrying of
onscreen activity with their musical creations.
Roughly
these schemes and strategies fall into the following categories:
- The rhythm carries the pulse with various percussion colors.
An ostinato can simply repeat a comprehensible pattern or the
pattern can vary unpredictably.
- Brass chords and low strings. Sometimes woodwinds add a touch
of variety.
- Slashing chords played tutti.
- Synth drones and bouncy wouncy electronic voices.
- Slow scales and sinister minor chords going "against" the action
on screen.
- A bit of each of the above.
In
the old days a guy like Tiomkin would use the entire orchestra in
a fugue with parts carefully timed to ape (or Mickey Mouse) the
action with a sound to match each action flourish.
Bernard
Herrmann would repeat a small phrase modulating downscale with large
or small choirs of instrumental colors. Or, he'd expostulate brazenly
with large percussion canons and flourishing brass stings.
Elmer
Bernstein would take 9/8 triplet-like rhythms and break them up
in the lower section and let the horns and brass wail on top while
the piano gave colorful obbligato decorations in the middle.
John
Barry would divide eighth notes into 3-3-2 and alternate chromatic
chords atop in a lurching rhythm while a definite memorable melodic
phrase floated above.
Lalo
Schifrin would take a West Coast Jazz instrument group and add ad
lib Tabla drums, stream of consciousness flute and afro-cuban melody
fragments.
Jerry
Goldsmith would divide the rhythms into cells of uneven groups of
beats, blend short motives of melody with electronic amplifications
and batteries of percussion colors interspersed with huge blocks
of heavy brass, glissandos and varied woodwind combinations.
Henry
Mancini would take bass flute, low woodwinds, divided strings and
agitato celli up a slow chromatic scale in half-tones with increasing
dynamics.
Miklos
Rozsa would build grand architectural choirs of instrument groups
in a statement of theme and antiphonal "answer" of theme around
vigorous brass configurations as counterpoints and obbligatos colored
the dynamics.
And
then.............
Contemporary
composers appeared. A new kind of action music was born. Melody
vanished. Themes were banal or mere accidental motives tossed up
by chord changes. Augmentation of acoustic orchestra with heavy
batteries of keyboard synths mirrored onscreen action and "punched
up" whatever appeared.
Slow
builds of walls of sonic amplification became a muscular wallpaper
as stings of sampled sounds slashed through the heavy soup with
chalk-on-the-blackboard psychology.
You
could transplant this "action" music from film to film and hardly
recognize any switch had taken place.
Ah,
Brave new world.
T.
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