Christopher Goodman
May 13, 1996
Electronic music and film are a very natural pair. Films are basically a twentieth century phenomenon, as is electronic music. Neither one could have existed before our modern era - both rely heavily on modern technology. In fact, advances in technology usually have a direct effect on the art of film making and on the art of electronic music. Consequently, the respective histories of the two have often been intertwined.
Electronic music began its association with the film industry when Don Juan, the very first film with sound, was made. (Don Juan, which only had a score, was produced in 1926, The Jazz Singer, which was the first "talky" [synchronized dialog], was produced in 1927.) The music was recorded with the film and played back through speakers. Thus, intentional or not, the music (of the New York Philharmonic) was colored by the medium and made possible by the medium.(Kalinak 67) This is very definitely electronic music, even though the main instruments used for the recording were acoustic. Before this time, the film itself was merely visual. Musicians, usually pianists or organists (but sometimes full orchestras), would normally play along with the film to provide an element of sound, but the music was not specific to the film. Sometimes it would not even be related to what was happening on the screen. "In those early days musicians' professionalism left much to be desired since, in many theaters, the orchestra would play through a certain number of compositions and then simply get up and leave the film and the audience."(Prendergast 5)
It was during this time that the function of film music was being developed. In fact, it is debatable why music was added to the old silent films in the first place. Reasons range from keeping people from being afraid of the ghost like images to masking the sound of the noisy projector (Prendergast 3-4). In any case, music quickly became an important part of the event of seeing a film. Once it was expected to be there, the art of film music began to develop.
At first, as expected, not everything worked. In silent films, people eventually began to realize that maybe the music should relate pretty closely to the action on the screen. The music would provide a dialog of sorts, being parallel or in counterpoint to the scene, giving a hint to emotions, etc. It would seem natural to the modern movie-goer that a score recorded with the film would follow suit. However, directors and producers, for the most part, thought that there was no need for music. The only movies with music during the first few years of talkies were musicals. A main part of the problem was, as Max Steiner later recalled, "They felt it was necessary to explain the music pictorially. For example, if they wanted music for a street scene, an organ grinder was shown. .........a love scene might take place in the woods and in order to justify the music thought necessary to accompany it, a wandering violinist would be brought in for no reason at all." Nevertheless, as film making became a more mature art form, such seemingly strange inhibitions were overcome. By the mid-thirties, film music itself became more of an art, and had developed a relatively unique language utilizing everything from leitmotifs to the theme song to Mickey Mousing (putting music to physical motions such as walking). (Prendergast 23-25)
Obviously, there were no completely electronic scores in the early years of film music; the technology did not exist that would have truly made it possible. However, composers of the time were not afraid to experiment. Some composers would use electronic instruments for interesting sounds. Some composers looked at the advantages and disadvantages of the tape medium and used them for their benefit.
Sergei Prokofiev is one of several film composers who used the effects and techniques of the medium while still using traditional acoustic instruments. A good example is his score to the film Alexander Nevsky. In this film, Prokofiev used distortion and multiple-microphone techniques. "'For instance, a powerful stream of sound directed at the microphone during the recording session affects the record to such a degree that during the performance it produces an unpleasant crackling sound. And since the sound of Teutonic trumpets and horns were no doubt unpleasant to the Russian ear,' Prokofiev said, 'in order not to miss the dramatic effect, I have insisted that these fanfares be played directly into the microphones.'" (Prendergast 51) As far as multiple-microphone techniques go, Prokofiev would do things like put the brass in a separate room from the chorus, and then he would adjust each's volume from the control room as the drama dictated.
One notable score by David Raskin has an unusual electronic sound in it, a sound used in a scene from the movie Laura. The music had to convey a sense of altered state of consciousness The main character, McPherson, was about to fall asleep and dream about Laura, the person who's death he was investigating. As he sat in the armchair, a particularly interesting version of "Laura's Theme" started - the sound was very unusual. "Film Music Notes was unable to identify [the] instrumentation, suggesting 'the vibraphone or possibly some electrical instrument contributing a weirdly human and menacing quality.'" What Raskin had done was to record a track of heavily processed piano chords. Raskin recorded a piano chord without the attack and then looped it. He then played it back using a tape deck with an intentional amount of "wow" on it, which was achieved by using irregular ball bearings. (Kalinak 178)
Early electronic instruments, primarily the Theremin and the Ondes Martenot, were fairly popular among film composers of this time. Miklos Rozsa used the Theremin in Spellbound and The Lost Weekend. In The Lost Weekend, the sound of the Theremin "is in itself part of the motif" that was used to suggest the psychological state of the main character whenever he craved alcohol. While the timbre of the sound was the important thing in this instance, the sound really was not there to sound "modern" or "eerie." However, in most cases, that was why these instruments were used - to add a "modern" feel to a science-fiction film or to add an "eeriness" to a horror film. This is why Bernard Herrmann turned to the Ondes Martenot for the film Journey to the Center of the Earth. It created an exotic sound.(Winter 674)
Herrmann was a true experimenter. All That Money Can Buy (or The Devil and Daniel Webster) is a great example of this; this film has some early elements of musique concrete. Herrmann wanted a unique sound to characterize an appearance by Mr. Scratch (the Devil). So, at 4am, Herrmann had the singing of telegraph wires recorded (a weird effect of wind - wind blowing over the wires causes them to vibrate in an audible range, like a giant aeolian harp). He also used multi-track techniques fairly early. For one scene where Mr. Scratch is playing the violin, Herrmann "wrote a series of variations for solo violin on 'Pop Goes the Weasel' and had each one recorded by the same player on a separate track." The tracks were then mixed together, resulting in weird and normally unplayable music - "such as no 'earthly' player could ever have produced." Herrmann also used a lot of other electronic instruments, from the Hammond Organ, to electric violin.(Palmer 267)
By the mid 1950's, there were already a few electronic music studios in the United States, and several around the world. In fact, Louis and Bebe Barron, a husband-wife team, had started their studio in 1951, eight years before Journey to the Center of the Earth. Their first piece was "Heavenly Menagerie."(Schrader 78) The Barrons together produced the first all electronic film score. The technique that they used is rather interesting - they started by building self destructing circuits that resembled simple life forms in life-span and activity. Then they recorded the sounds made by these circuits. Finally, through the use of classic tape techniques, they would edit and combine the sounds into short sections, and then splice those sections together. The sounds that they created were new and very distinctive. People hesitated calling it music, though - terms like "electronic tonalities" were used instead. Whatever it was called, they did get a fair amount of work, with the best known of their scores being Bells of Atlantis (1953), Miramagic (1954), Forbidden Planet (1956), Jazz of Lights (1956), and Bridges (1969).(Schrader 79)
Then came synthesizers. The synthesizers of the 60's and the 70's were sometimes used in movies, and with popular music becoming an important part of the score, electronic instruments like the electric guitar and Hammond organ were used. However, other than in the pop score, electronic instruments were not being used very often, especially synthesizers. The reason for this was probably time considerations more than anything. Film composers were (and still are) required to write music very quickly, and recording had to take place as fast as possible. The monophonic synthesizers of the time were unsuited for this - it takes time to work them, and they have to be multi-tracked in order to achieve polyphonic textures. By the late 70's though, synthesizers had made many advances, and soon people like Giorgio Moroder and Vangelis began composing music with extensive or exclusive use of the synthesizer.
It is generally agreed that the most pivotal synthesized score was the one by Giorgio Moroder to the movie Midnight Express. In fact there are many claims that this is the first purely synthetic film score. (Which is not true because of the work of Louis and Bebe Barron.) While creatively there was not much special to this score, it did prove to be influential. It basically paved the way for the huge take over by synthesizers in the 1980's. It was also the first primarily electronic score to win an Academy Award.
In 1982, Vangelis Papathanassiou won the Academy Award for best score for the movie Chariots of Fire. The music from this film has gained a lot of respect and even more popularity. Try finding a person who cannot hum the main tune; it is one of the most requested songs of lounge musicians. However, this score is a good example of how the synthesizer was primarily used during the 1980's: as a replacement for acoustic instruments. Although the sounds are nice, basically everything that the score achieves dramatically could easily have been accomplished using acoustic instruments. In fact, this score is often deficient in its ability to fit into the fabric of the scene. This deficiency is attributed to Vangelis's scoring technique. "It has been said that Vangelis composes his scores without reference to specific timings for scenes and merely delivers finished tracks to the music editor who is then expected to edit them to the appropriate length for a given scene."(Prendergast 305)
Vangelis's score for Bladerunner is a more effective use of the synthesizer. Although much of the score still would have been possible with acoustic instruments, Vangelis did utilize the abilities of synthesizers to create unique sounds that were not possible to create acoustically. Just a listen to the Main Title makes this evident. Bladerunner, along with a few other films like RoboCop and Midnight Express, shows the movie industry's use of synthesizers to give films a futuristic sound or the much-sought-after contemporary edge.
RoboCop, by Basil Poledouris, is a good example of what can be achieved by the blending of electronic and acoustic music to achieve a certain effect. In RoboCop, the synthesizer is used to create unusual sounds for the film's various robots and gadgets. Therefore, it is primarily used to create an un-human effect and to "legitimize the 'futuricity' of the images."(Kalinak 204) However, the most effective aspect of the music is the gradual shift from electronic sounds to orchestral sounds for the main character. The electronic sounds represented the "machine and, and the orchestra [represented] the human aspects of the film." Says Paul Verhoeven (the director), "There are places where they merge, and that's when his consciousness is starting to resurface, [as he remembers] what his life had been...." (Karlin 18)
Current trends involving electronic music for film are basically logical continuations of the trends in the 80's, use of synthesizers for novelty or as replacements of orchestral instruments. However, the "synth score" is really beginning to make an impact on how film music is composed and on how the composer relates to the producer.
An interesting effect is that scores are being written down less often. When a composer is doing everything himself, there is no need to write out parts for other musicians, and little need for a traditional score. The music is recorded as it is being composed, and, of course, then it is edited. Even scores that in the end are primarily not electronic are often composed this way. Take for instance Hans Zimmer's score for The Lion King. In this film, Zimmer wrote everything at the keyboard, and then later printed it out for the orchestra and choir. He wanted to be able to more accurately hear what the final product was going to sound like.
Directors and producers, for that matter, now want to hear a more accurate approximation of the final score, if not an early version of the score. Often, the producer even wants alternate cues so that he/she can make the final decision. Before the modern synthesizer, if the producer wanted to hear the music before the recording session, the composer had to give a piano approximation. This left much up to the imagination of the producer, especially if the composer was something less than an accomplished pianist. Thus, the synth score has slowly but steadily been catching on, despite the pain it causes some composers.
So, what is in the future for electronic film music? Current trends seem to suggest more and more use of the synthesizer (and computer) in all aspects of the film. This is in spite of the reactionary nature of the music of John Williams, who seems to have reversed 40-50 years of progress in film music (he almost never uses electronic instruments, and when he does, they are recorded live with the orchestra). This is not to say that Williams music is bad; it is some of the best film music ever composed. However, it seems that his scores are very reactionary, and they are not good indications of the overall trends in film music, despite their popularity.
What will happen to acoustic instruments in the future of film music? Well, I think that they will be retained, if only for special effect or to create a feeling of "antiquity"!
1. Kalinak, Katheryn: Settling the Score; University of Wisconsin Press, Wisconsin; 1992
2. Karlin, Fred: Listening to Movies; Schirmer Books, New York; 1994
3. Palmer, Christopher: The Composer in Hollywood; Marion Boyars, New York; 1990
4. Prendergast, Roy M.: Listening to Movies; W.W.Norton & Co., New York; 1992
5. Schrader, Barry: Introduction to Electro-Acoustic Music; Prentice-Hall,Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey; 1982
6. Winter, Robert: Music for Our Time; Wadsworth Publishing Company, Belmont, California; 1992
7. WWW.wfmu.com; New York