You’re not in control.
How music plays us.
“Music is so useful to film because it can do so many things simultaneously.” — Katheryn Kalinik
Whether it’s the chirps of a bird, cheers from a stadium, or whistle of a teapot, sound and music chisels away at our subconscious to influence our behavior. And when accompanying the moving image it permits us to laugh at the absurd, recoil with fear, or reckon with the truth.
Now, do it with EMOTION
Every time we make music, we spin the wheel-of-emotion to land on the one that fits the situation. And while the power of music to elicit an emotional response remains at times mysterious, there are exploitable links between music and mood.
The way in which music alters mood and mediates emotions.
You’re scaring me
Do you want to terrify your audience? Alfred Hitchcock’s sure did. He employed composer Bernhard Herrmann to conceptualize a terrifying shower sequence with a novel sound cue for his film, Psycho. There are some essential musical conventions we can glean from this inventive musical cue.
In the book, Film Music by Kathryn Kalinek, she breaks down what musical conventions Herrmann used to create such an unforgettable and scary sonic moment:
“the absence of melody, unpredictable rhythms, strident and dissonant harmonies, violins at the very top and basses at the very bottom of their ranges played with techniques that inhibit lyricism.”
It’s the music equivalent of putting your senses in a padlocked room.
Humor me
Music can turn an awkward moment into a richly comedic one. No one does it better than Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm. On the Origins podcast, Larry explains how he found the music for Curb Your Enthusiasm and how he used it to effectively undercut an awkward moment with humor:
“There was something circus-y about it.” Larry David said about the music he first heard in an ad for a bank. “And it’s the kind of music that — I like to get away with things comedically — and sometimes music can help in that regard. It tells the audience, don’t take this seriously, this is funny. So a lot of the music we use on the show is designed with that purpose in mind.”
The opening and closing theme of Curb Your Enthusiasm, “Frolic,” by Luciano Michelini was originally composed for La Bellissima Estate, in the nineteen-seventies. It was used as a character theme and included a variety of unconventional instrumentation to bring levity to the scene.
The music is skeuomorphic in how it mimics a cartoonish exit of a funny or socially awkward situation. It’s so effective in controlling the comedic intention and timing, that it has become a theme-song icon and sparked a series of great “Curb your ____” memes. Here’s a good one.
Au contraire
“What you’re trying to do is to catch the spirit of the picture. And that means sometimes you go contrary to what’s on the screen, and sometimes you go with what’s on the screen. It’s a matter of instinct; if your instincts are good, it’s going to work for you.” — Composer, David Raksin
By playing “against the grain” or opposite to the emotional expectations of a scene, you can create an unsettling experience for the viewer. When music is at odds with the content of the scene, it can create a deep sense of irony, dissonance, and can make the audience feel complicit in the events unfolding onscreen.
Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs has a scene where a criminal character tortures a cop to the pop song, “Stuck in the Middle With You.” The light nature of the music both pacifies the audience and makes us complicit in the gruesome act.
Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” juxtaposes scenes of extreme violence with classical and pop music like “Singing in the Rain” to create a disturbing experience for the viewer.
Just as you increase the contrast on an image when you amplify the dark or bright colors, you can increase the contrast on the scene when you intensify the light or dark emotions.
In the opening of Errol Morris’s documentary, Wormwood, an American scientist entangled in a mysterious secret LSD program plummets to his death from a ten-story building. The opening music features a crooning singer. The juxtaposition of a man falling to his death with a jazzy tune allows the audience to view at a distance an otherwise disturbing scene. And so it feels like a beginning rather than an end.
Bring it in
Intimacy can be achieved by removing all reverb and by close-micing your sound source like a vocal. When there is no reverb applied to an instrument or voice, it is referred to as dry and it has a way of making the sound present and intimate. “In the Wee Small Hours” (1955), Frank Sinatra used dry vocals and close-micing to create an intimacy that pulls you in so near to his voice you can hear his heart breaking.
Thrill & kill
By instinct, we fear the unknown. That is why we jump in a theater when a burst of sound plays out on screen. Or a loud bus brushes by you at the bus stop. Or when a motorbike revs its engine as it passes you by on the sidewalk. Loud and sudden bursts of sound entice our adrenaline to pump.
Wake up!
It’s pretty simple, but increasing the volume of music can speed up our heart rate and adrenaline production.
“Our subconscious links an increase in sound volume (people shouting, lions roaring ) with possible danger.” — Author, John Powell
Thrillers use this technique to alert us to approaching danger, and in dance music production, it’s used to great effect by creating a dropping out of music, aptly named “the drop.” The drop is when the music cuts out following a slow and steady rise in volume to an inflection point. When the music drops-out at the peak of volume and excitement, our heart-rate and body keep moving forward like a hydroplaning car until the song drops and retakes control.
Simmer down now
If you want your audience to experience calm, decrease all of the previously mentioned musical attributes. A good music choice for this is ambient or background music. Its inherent lack of tempo and structural change is the essence of calm, atmospheric music. It falls through the cracks of our sonic surroundings. It’s primarily used in hospitals, lobbies, airports, massage parlors, yoga studios, or any place where tranquillity is valued.
Danger! Shark infested waters
You can provoke anxiety in your listeners with quietly repetitive music that gets louder and louder over time. This building of anticipation stirs something deep within us that indicates something dramatic and marvelous is underway. Its repetitive nature mimics a predator approaching. You can hear it in the theme from Jaws or backing tracks of movie car chases.
I’m in love
Music conventions like upward sweeping strings, memorable melodies, and harmonies in the major key, tap into our collective feeling of romance. Think Beauty and Beast, “Tale as Old as Time.” But there are also unconventional ways to infuse your music with passion.
It may seem counter-intuitive, but cognitive research suggests that sad music induces pleasant emotion — a romantic, more blithe experience in actuality. Joy for joy’s sake is not necessarily what gets your audience feeling good. Try creating a melancholic tone to engage with your listeners in a new way.
“Our brains learn a kind of musical grammar that is specific to the music of our culture, just as we learn to speak the language of our culture.” — Daniel J. Levitin
Have some confidence
For the western world familiar with the Pentatonic scale, music produced in a major key sounds more assertive than music composed in the minor key. Compositions in major are often used to accompany scenes of adventure and heroism whereas the minor key is used for more contemplative moments in a film.
I’m freakin’ out, man
The Shepard tone, an auditory illusion where a sound seems to rise endlessly, and the twelve-tone technique, which uses all 12 pitches of the chromatic scale, can be used to create an unsettling feeling. The Shepard tone is the music equivalent of M.C. Escher’s impossible stairs where you never quite reach your destination, while the twelve-tone technique leaves you suspended in a state of endless journey.
You make me feel like a nah-tur-al brand
While music is an essential tool for communicating emotion and intent in film, it can also help link a brand with a feeling. Let’s look at some established companies that make point of hitching their brand to an emotion.
Coca-Cola — — — Joyful and refreshed
Nike — Driven, gritty, strong, and defiant
Apple — — — Zen, serene, and simplified
BMW — — — Intense, aggressive, and fast
Honda — — — — Friendly, safe, easy
What is the underlying emotion you wish to communicate with your film or content? These companies have been able to claim these emotions by consistently making sure their marketing matches their personality at every turn. If you are consistent with emotional intention, you can influence your audience and reception of your work.
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Have a good one 🎩👌
