Music Analysis of Hedwig’s theme from ‘Harry Potter Series’ and ‘Raiders March’ from ‘Indiana Jones’

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Before the time of the "talking picture," all movies were completely silent. The majority of silent films were accompanied by anything from full orchestras to organists and pianists to add movement and feelings to the film. Music was used to create suspense, symbolise moments and add a voice to the film without actually speaking. And with time even as movies advanced to have speaking music was continued to be used as a part of movies carrying from the 1930’s to today.
Today I will be addressing two different scores of music from award-winning films of today, ‘Hedwig’s theme’ from ‘Harry Potter Series’ and ‘Raiders March’ from ‘Indiana Jones’.
Raiders March
Raiders March has been broken down into a three-part ABA form, the A and B sections using different but related melodic ideas with the famous melody that begins the march already suggests much of Indiana’s character. First, it is played by trumpets in unison, and every one of its short motives starts with a militaristic dotted rhythm, both giving the sense that this is a hero’s theme.
Section B changes the mood of the song, with a much lighter and playful tone to it the section loses a lot of its marching statement before building back up to a repeat of section A once again.
Dynamics
Starting on a moderate forte the march catches the audience attention from the beginning, introducing on a strong note. As the piece goes on it keeps it dynamics although through section A the dynamics in section B can be heard to quiet down to moderate piano, creating a softer and more quiet sound with a lighter more playful mood.
Harmony
The march begins with an anacrusis, before the first bar in the piece. Starting in C major the bass remains fixed to the C throughout the song whilst chords ov...

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...nown chord.
Bars 9 and 10 of the theme return to the original E minor chord along with the same opening melody. But in bars 11-12, the music suddenly heads in a new direction, sounding out three more minor chords that bear no relation to one another. The resulting sound isn’t just unusual. Since the progression is curious, it creates an aura of wonder as well.
Melody
While the first five bars are entirely in the key of E minor, the sixth bar introduces a note foreign to it, F natural. These same intervals are also heard in bars 13-15, now with an extra intervening note. A section’s phrase thereffore end with these strange intervals, which helps impart an air of mystery to the theme.
The melody of the B section differs from that of the A section in where the score changfes from Hedwig’s Theme to actually introduce ‘Nimbus 2000’, the notes getting shorter and faster

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