It was always going to happen really. There are topics that I am interested in but I have to think realistically about what I can achieve based on available texts to write a literature review on.
I had three main ideas. They were:
Cliches in film. Why do composers do what they do?
How composers displace the audience
How do composers manipulate our emotions with music?
After giving it a bit of research, I think I have decided on the third topic as there are other texts written on the same subject such as Music and Levels of Narration in Film written by Guido Heldt. There was a study conducted by Daniel T Blumstein, Richard Davitian and peter D Kaye about whether film soundtracks contain nonlinear analogies to influence emotion which I found interesting. They said that humans (alongside other animals) produce vocalisations with nonlinear attributes to attract attention so it is only natural that film would also use it. The study then goes onto the research, where they study four genres of film and analyse their use of different attributes, such as female and male screams, abrupt frequencies etc. I’m not sure yet if this will be directly related to my project but it’s definitely along the right track.
I attended a tutorial with what was supposed to be the person overseeing my essay but what ended up being the head of the module because I’m a numpty. I expressed my ideas and he thought it was a viable topic but suggested I narrow it down a bit so that it’s not such a wide subject. He suggested I pick a genre or a specific mood and go from there. That way I can watch films and come to my own conclusions. He also cleared up a point I was not entirely sure about. I was wondering if at a Masters Level I was supposed to come up with new points about the area of study and he said that I wasn’t expected to which is a relief. I’m just supposed to bring previously written texts together and test out the hypothesis, for example.
After a few weeks my group got together again to see if we could get a solid plan for what to do in place. We met up in studio 5 at the uni and stayed there for a few hours until we had figured out a plan and everyone knew exactly what they were supposed to be doing.
During the week, Paul had suggested that we tweak the grid idea slightly so that it would be one side of a rubiks cube instead as he thought it would be a cool idea. He believes we can get it done before December so it was a viable idea.
We discussed ideas and came up with some music based on chords that Joel had come up with a few weeks ago. In the end we decided that we would each create a track of stems from different genres, and then the user could mix and match those stems in whichever way they would like to. My genre will be classical, Matt’s will be rock and Joel’s will be electronic and synth-y. To be honest I was having trouble visualising it in my head but I have been convinced and am now quite excited for the idea.
We have a presentation to do this Thursday which is to be 15 minutes long, where we are supposed to “sell” our idea to the rest of the class. We’ve all taken on a few slides from the mock power point I made up and will be presenting our own slides. Paul will have a mock-up of the finished product that we can play for the class. I have taken charge of most of the influences slides and will be talking a bit about myself as well later on in the presentation. Our presentation is at 11 and we’ll be meeting up beforehand to run through it. I just hope it’s 15 minutes long!
In terms of my contribution to the project, we’ve decided that in order for this to work one of us has to complete a track first and then the others can work off of that. I’ll be writing mine once I get the first track through. We’re hoping to have the music side of it done within a matter of weeks so we can be sure that everything fits.
Sorry this hasn’t been an interesting post, or a very long one. Not much has gone on this week in terms of research and I’ve been focusing on some other modules that more pressingly need my attention. Until next time!
I’ve always been interested in composition and arrangement. While I was doing my undergraduate I studied many composition modules, focusing on contemporary classical music. I also attended the Irish Composition Summer School in Dublin in the summer of 2014. It wasn’t until my third year of my undergraduate degree that I became focused on music for film. I studied a module called Film Music: Theory and Criticism, which studied the use of music in film and it’s importance to the narrative. It was definitely one of the most enjoyable modules of my whole undergraduate degree and it sparked my interest in continuing to study the subject.
The “composition” category of this blog will focus on my reflections of the Composition module of the course I am undertaking, which is Music for the Moving Image at Leeds Beckett University. To be honest, beforehand I didn’t really know anything about composing for film and before I heard of the course, composing for film was an entirely alien concept to me. I knew that it was going to be a struggle to learn the craft so I did a little research on how film composers do what they do. For example, throughout my composing career I have worked with music notation software such as Sibelius and, in a pinch, Musescore. Film composers don’t really do that. They use different programs called DAWs (digital audio workstation) which is very different from notation writing software. Simply, Sibelius is a program which lets you write down the notes you want musicians to play while a DAW lets you actually produce a piece of music by recording midi or real life instruments and mixing them together. I soon realised that I’d have to kick it up a notch and do some learning before I went to my first class. YouTube is an excellent resource for finding out information about film music composers and about different DAWs. I did a little research and decided to get on board with Pro Tools because it looked like the one that was going to suit my needs the most. It has been the industry standard for a long time, and that must be for a good reason, right? Guys?
Lecture 27.09.2017
The first lecture was interesting and I learned a few things about the craft that I didn’t know before. The lecturer made us aware of the online music library Audio Network, which is a website full of music that is made available by composers for other people to use. He told us that the end goal for this class was for us to create a professional website for ourselves. Somewhere we’d be able to advertise our work and something we’d be able to send to potential employers once we’ve finished the course.
At the end of the class he gave us a few tasks to do, one of which was to pick a piece of music from Audio network and analyse it, commenting on if it matched the category it was in and what movie we would put it into. I chose to analyse “Wondrous Land” by Terry Devine-King in the Nostalgic heading under Mood/Emotion on Audio Network (please see the link below). I’ve always enjoyed analysing things, be it a piece of music, poem or themes in a novel (call me a nerd) so I really enjoyed doing this task and I feel I did a pretty good job.
The first thing I noticed when I listened to this piece is the mixture of traditional African influences and instruments mixed with a Western Classical Orchestra.
I think these worked well together and it put me in mind of someone making a journey across an African plain. Alternatively, it could be depicting a person thinking about home.
The piece was found under the “nostalgic” heading with the description “Inspirational panoramic orchestral theme with African percussion & choir”. I feel that this matches the group because of the theme of nostalgic hope that can be heard through the long notes held by the lush strings and booming brass, coupled with the consistent driving beat of the African style drums which to me symbolise the journey or the need to keep moving. Western style choir.
The piece starts in a minor key and reverts to the minor key a few times throughout the piece which might depict a sense of doubt with the characters but most of the piece is in a major key which again brings about a sense of hope and courage.
I think I would put this piece into a movie like The Lion King or James Cameron’s Avatar as I can see music of this type being used in those movies.”
That was pretty much it for the first week. A follow-up for the week after will be posted shortly. I know this post is dated three weeks after the class but I’m playing catch-up.
So for the first 20 minutes of the lecture we discussed artificial intelligence and how we were building these computers that will someday, in our lifetimes, match and even surpass human ability. And also that it was going to steal everyone’s jobs. We were then told that we, being in a creative profession, were probably in the safest line of work. If you’re telling musicians that they are in the safest line of work then there’s clearly something wrong here.
Anyway.
Let me jot down a few things from this lecture that stuck out to me, apart from the terrifying prospect of AI:
People think of creativity as something that just happens, but it doesn’t really work that way. It is about uncovering connections that already exist. It’s about brainstorming, coming up with new ideas, acting on those ideas and troubleshooting until you come up with something that works. Creativity, usually, doesn’t just happen.
There are a few ways to measure the success of an event or installation such as the numbers in your audience, feedback from the audience, feedback from your peers, the experience of the production team, how many errors and glitches you came across and of course if and how the artistic vision was realised.
It’s a good idea to structure an idea in a chart. First, define it. Design it. Do it. And finally, evaluate it. It all seems to simple when you put it down on paper but it’s a different story in practice.
And the most important thing, approach it like a professional project. That way we’ll put more effort into it and in turn get more out of it.
Group meeting
After the lecture I met up with my group with the intention of coming up with a definite plan of what we were doing. To recap on what we’d gotten so far, we were leaning towards making an interactive webpage where the audience would be able to manipulate the music by pressing on buttons, much like “Madeon’s Adventure Machine” or Optophono’sversion of “Paragraph 7” from Cornelius Cardew’s The Great Learning. (Please see my previous post for examples of these.)
We started to develop this idea further. We thought it would be a good idea to have a clear target audience in mind as this would aid in the refining process. We threw about the idea of making it kid friendly because they love to create and play with things. That way we could make it fun and cool while also making it educational. If we came up with an interactive composition tool then we could inspire them to get into music and create their own sound.
We had a chat with a tutor who asked us if we were going to put in something visual and honestly we hadn’t even thought about this. I had ruled it out as impossible as we were one Music for the Moving Image and three Music Production students and none of us were particularly adept at recording film. The tutor suggested we look at Patatap which is a website developed by Jono Brandel in collaboration with the group of composers Lullatone. The idea is that different percussion sounds are assigned to different keys on a keyboard, and when pressed various visuals are triggered onscreen alongside the sound. It’s a simple idea but it’s really effective. It’s also adorable. It is similar to our old idea while incorporating a visual element into the mix, which would work even better if we were targeting the idea at kids. It also helps that it incorporates my course subject because it justifies my involvement in the project a little more than it had before.
So we knew that we wanted to create something that was interactive in that the participants could alter the music and the visuals on screen. Initially we were toying with the idea of making an app (which would have worked really well) but none of us know how to make an app and we have to keep in mind the time frame that we have to do this. (not long enough to learn how to make an app.) So we’ve more or less decided to keep it as a webpage. Paul pointed out that he knew how to create visuals based on the frequencies in a piece of music so we toyed with that idea for a while, thinking we could create something similar to Patatap but going a little further to create a piece of music.
Something akin to this:
Source: Lunchyyy (YouTube Channel)
We developed the idea further still, throwing about the idea of making the installation into a puzzle, or a movie with scenes. We came up with the idea of having a 3×3 grid, with each square in the grid linked to a piece of footage on a loop with a track running underneath it. The idea is that the participant has to move the squares about the grid and solve the puzzle we’ve created. If the squares are in the wrong place you’ll know because the video skips, and the music is distorted or acts up in some way. This is an interesting idea because it is something that will be challenging for all of us but seems to be doable within the time frame. It also appears to be something we are all interested in working on which is a fantastic position to be in. The whole thing will be achieved on either one big screen in three sections, or on one big screen with two smaller screens to the side. We also have some ideas to accompany the installation with midi-triggered lighting. I am unaware of how to do this but I am told it can be done so I’m just going to believe them on that one.
These are the ideas we came up with this week. So far the roles are semi delegated as follows:
Paul is figuring out visuals and the technical nonsense.
Joel, Matt and myself will be working on different elements for the track. Matt will be recording some guitar and percussion, Joel some guitar and I think synths and I will probably write something for piano and violin (and maybe something random; let’s go crazy!)
I am aware that I need to push my boundaries out a little and get involved in something I don’t know much about. I am going to have to look into how Ableton Life works and how Paul is figuring out the visuals so I can help out if needs be.
All in all this was a productive meeting. We’re meeting up again tomorrow (19.10.2017) to discuss out ideas further. Watch this space!
P.S If you’re still reading this please go look at Patatap.com because it is entertaining as heck.
Thursday 05.10.2017 This lecture was invaluable as the lecturer went into more detail about different types of research. Briefly:
Quantitative Research is the scientific approach, which gathers data through graphs and anonymous surveys. To get answers to questions you ask questions like “How much?” or “How often?” and the subjectivity of the researcher is less of a consideration.
Qualitative Research by contrast deals with opinions and is not scientific. This information is gathered using direct contact with individuals or groups and collecting their opinions to construct new concepts based on the information you’ve received from them.
So quantitative research is scientific, while qualitative research is social.
I must admit I didn’t have a lot of time to do much work on this module during this week as I had more pressing work to do for other modules and my parents decided to visit me that weekend.
Thursday 12.10.2017
This was an especially interesting lecture as they brought in someone to talk to us about academic writing. As I’ve mentioned before this isn’t my strongest skill. I’d just like to point out some things I learned from this lecture that I didn’t know while writing my undergraduate dissertation:
Pieces of academic writing should be written in the third person. This is because we want the work to be objective so we omit words like “I” and “me” and even “we”. This takes out the opinion and leaves something that sounds more professional and objective.
An introduction should make up 10% of the word count. This one makes sense and is something to keep in mind.
Your introduction should follow an upside down triangle structure. Start off with a broad statement about the topic and then get more specific.
Don’t waffle or fill your work up with unnecessary detail. Academics (and your markers) will want to scan your work and having too much waffle will make it harder to read.
Don’t finish paragraphs with a quote. Don’t just throw quotes around because you have them. Always explain why you’ve used the quotes you’ve used.
You should have one idea per paragraph.
Paragraphs should begin with a topic sentence. academics don’t like to be surprised so it’s a good idea to tell them what the paragraph is going to be about in the first sentence.
Paragraphs should have around 6-15 lines and each sentence should be approximately 25 words long. It’s also a good idea to link your current paragraph to the next paragraph.
This is by no means a comprehensive list but it does show some conventions to academic writing that I had not necessarily been aware of before. I feel that it’ll be helpful for my own essay writing, but hopefully also to those who have stumbled across this blog.
This post is meme-tastic, so it seems only fitting to end on one. Until next time~
So, I’ve done a little research into composing for film as a research option for the essay I’ve to write at the end of this module. I’ve found that YouTube is a particularly good resource for finding out information about film music composers.
In the video The Marvel Symphonic Universe, Tony Zhou points out that music that comes from modern films such as Marvel superhero movies isn’t memorable the same way that the music from Star Wars or Harry Potter is. He suggests that this is due to modern movie scores not evoking an emotional response, and that it is used predictably where all emotions are expected; high strings during a sad scene, etc. It is forgettable because it doesn’t challenge your expectations.
He goes on to suggest that this is due to the use of temp tracks (music is one of the last things to go into a movie. A temp track is when a director puts music to a scene in lieu of the music composed by the composer and is supposed to be temporary, hence the name temp track.) The problem with temp tracks is that directors get a little too attached and then expect their composers to recreate the music they used on the temp tracks as close as they can without copying it note for note. He also notes that in the past, blockbusters were being temped by authentic classical music. Now, blockbusters are using the music from other blockbusters as temp tracks which inevitably makes them sound identical. It’s a safe approach but to me it’s unoriginal and makes me wonder what the whole point is.
The Marvel Symphonic Universe (Every Frame a Painting/Tony Zhou, 2016)
In the video A Theory of Film Music, (a response to The Marvel Symphonic Universe) Dan Golding points out that we can’t blame it all on temp tracks as they have been around almost as long as cinema has. He mentions that Star Wars was entirely temp tracked, and example of which can be heard in the opening for King’s Row (Erich Wolfgang Korngold 1942). He also suggests that Hanz Zimmer is to partly to blame for how superhero films sound these days. This is due to the standard he has set for computerised music, and since blockbusters are using other blockbusters as temp tracks, everything sounds Zimmer-y.
A Theory of Film Music, (Dan Golding, 2016)
Something that I’m interested in researching and writing about is why film composers write the way they do, or why they are fine with imitating each other. In the video Danny Elfman, Alexandre Desplat, Patrick Doyle, Mychael Danna | 2012 THR Composer’s Roundtable Danny Elfman exclaims his hatred of temp tracks and claims that he will only listen to them once and then he’ll do his own thing. I’d like to find out why all composers don’t have this viewpoint or why they don’t write innovatively, although I do realise that film composers are largely at the mercy of their directors. If the director wants something you’re going to have to really convince them that your thing is better.
Danny Elfman, Alexandre Desplat, Patrick Doyle, Mychael Danna | 2012 THR Composer’s Roundtable (Soundtrack Specialist, 2012 & 2014)
While I find this subject fascinating, I am aware that the topic may not be viable. As part of the essay I am supposed to create a literature review of pre-existing pieces of work on the topic and I just don’t think this has been researched enough for me to write a whole report on it. I’ll keep reading about it and see how I go. I’ve also been thinking about what I would do if I decided to research this topic further. One idea I had was to conduct interviews with film composers around Leeds about their experience with temp tracks and how it affects how they write their music, and if it differed from what they had envisioned for the film themselves. This would make the research qualitative as it would be about their opinion and the data would be collected by direct interaction with individuals or perhaps groups.
This is the topic that I am most interested in researching, or something similar if I can. We’ll see what happens.
This module is pretty self explanatory. It is the practice of academic research and writing, to assist with the skill of writing academically and will prepare those wanting to do a PhD after the MA has concluded. We are to pick a topic to research relating to our chosen field of study and produce a 5,000 word report on the chosen topic. The module lasts the whole year and the assessment is divided into three parts. The first assessment will be in the form of a presentation on the progress of our research which will commence at the end of this semester. The next and most important assessment will be the paper/report itself, which is due at the end of next semester. The final assessment will be a reflection of how I approached the module, which this blog will aid.
The first lecture given by Dr Nikos Stavropoulos was informative. We were taken through what was going to be expected of us during the course of the year. We were also introduced to different types of research (qualitative, qualitative etc) and how they would benefit us depending on what sort of research we wanted to undertake. He also suggested that at a MA level, we were expected to put facts together and be critical of texts written in our respective fields. The act of generating new information and discovering new facts is generally PhD level work but is not out of the realm of possibility for us.
Nikos suggested that in order to come up with ideas to research we should read around the topic we want to research and see if anything catches our eye. We should also think of questions that we would like our research to answer.
I came out of this lecture feeling positive about the module, which is interesting given my history of writing academically. In the third year of my undergraduate I opted to write a 10,000 word dissertation which was probably one of the most intense and stressful elements of my whole undergraduate experience. My problem was I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to achieve with the dissertation, and I ended up with something that didn’t have a clear focus or much of a point. I hope I have learned from my mistakes and have picked up on a few things that I can improve upon to achieve a better result (and to keep me sane):
I need to keep my mind open to new ideas. And-
I need to keep my mind open to changing my idea. This is the most important thing. If I find something I want to write about I need to accept if it’s not a viable option and have the guts to change my mind.
Most of all, I need to read extensively about the topic. I need to have a clear idea about what I’m going to do well before I try to write or present it to anyone. I need to start now.
Despite all this, I have a good feeling about this module. I have a few ideas I would like to explore and a few books to read. Fingers crossed it doesn’t go pear shaped immediately.
Collaborative Practice is a module where I will be teaming up with students from other (music) disciplines within the school of Film, Music & Performing Arts to collaborate on a project. The project can be anything of our own choosing as long as it makes use of our collective skills while also being challenging and engaging for all involved. The assessment will consist of a presentation at the beginning of November and a presentation of the final project sometime in December/January, followed by a reflection of the module which this blog will aid.
The module officially began on Thursday 28th September 2017 but unfortunately I was unable to attend this class due to a prior commitment. I therefore met my team members Paul, Joel and Matt the week after on Thursday 5th October 2017. All three of them are studying Music Production which is something that I have no experience with but I’m excited to work with them and I hope we can come up with something interesting together.
Thursday 5th October2017
This is the day the four of us met to talk about our initial ideas for the project. There were many different ideas tossed about the place, the first being to do a marketing endeavour for a local band, in which we would record them, produce a track or two and market them to an audience. Some other ideas included making:
A music video. This interested me, given that my area of study is Music for the Moving image and would be something I could contribute a lot to.
An installation in a room to create a sonic arts space. There were some suggestions to make it interactive with a track that the audience could change by pressing buttons various. The use of Ableton Live was suggested although I am unfamiliar with Ableton Live’s features. I felt this would appeal to all of us since it would make use of our collective skills.
We thought about making a sensory installation in some way or another, making use of sound within the space around us. This idea didn’t develop too much because we were aware that it would be difficult to pull off before December.
During this session I mentioned that I would like to do something in the realm of the sonic arts, since I have taken an interest in the psychology of music and how it affects an audience.
This session wasn’t very fruitful, although it was important because it gave us the opportunity to meet each other and give a voice to our individual ideas. We also got a feel for working together which is invaluable. To be honest I didn’t come away from this session feeling too positive about my ability to contribute to the project based on the sort of ideas the other guys were suggesting but I decided to give it another week and see if we could get anything more solid decided upon.
Friday 6th October 2017
The next day I thought about what we had talked about the day before and was reminded of a project one of my lecturers from my undergraduate had worked on. The group, Optophono, created an online interactive version of Cornelius Cardew’s “Paragraph 7” from his work The Great Learning (1971). In this work, the interface is made up of a grid of squares, each square representing a voice from an individual member of a choir. The user can then manipulate the playback by muting the squares and moving them around the screen which pans the sound left and right. I am interested in exploring this idea and seeing if we can come up with something using this project as an influence. See a video demonstrating the software below.
This piece of work is similar to a project Joel suggested we use as an influence. DJ Madeon has released sound files from his debut album Adventure (2015)in an interactive grid called “Madeon’s Adventure Machine”. Madeon has assigned different loops to the squares in the grid and the audience are able to click on different squares to create their own “track” in real time. To view this project please click here .
If we work on the making-an-interactive-something-or-other idea then these two pieces of work will definitely be strongly influential to our project.
Taken from 
Musical Undertones 
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