Film Score Music

Film Score Music

To say that music plays a large role in our society would not do

justice to one of the most important and popular art forms of yesterday and

today. We underestimate the effectiveness and power that music, in any form ,

can have over even the most insensitive of people. In almost everything we do

and see music is involved in some form or another. Be it a piece played at a

wedding, a song played on the radio or even the music played in the background

in a television commercial. The music is always there, reminding us of past

experiences, making us smile and feel exhilaration and sometimes even making us

cry. It is this power that music has over us that film score composers take

advantage of when they are writing the music to accompany the movies. As

listeners we often do not appreciate that the music that is scored for films or

played in films is put there on purpose to create a certain feeling, emphasize a

point, give more life to a character or sometimes to simply add humour. What

the average moviegoer does not usually realize is that a great deal of time and

thought goes into writing the score for a film and choosing the background music

for a scene. None of the music is arbitrary; themes and sub themes have been

created with specific ideas in mind and have been put in place only to add to

the story and the characters. It is also important to acknowledge that the

evolution into the type of film scoring that we are accustomed to today was not

a quick or easy transition. It has taken almost a century to develop the

specific techniques that are used in todays films. When the first moving

pictures were seen they were known as silent films, although they were not

actually silent. They contained a very primitive type of musical accompaniment

that laid the foundation for what was to later develop. As time passed the type

of music found in films developed into a fine art containing specific

guidelines and techniques that most composers tend to follow. The average

person does not usually pay astute attention to the music that is being used in

a film, however, if it were to not be there the films would seem empty and as if

something was missing. The actors, the writing and the direction is what is

primarily noticed in a film but the music is the inconspicuous supporter of all