Rhythmical “Engines”

Rhythmical “Engines” Particularly in action and adventure scenes, the scoring usually relies heavily on pushing rhythms and lots of rhythmical activity. If you do not want to fall back to using percussion all the way through or even a drum kit in such sequences, you...

Rhythmical Surprises

Rhythmical Surprises Some actions in a movie are supposed to have a surprise or even shocking effect to the audience. This does not only apply for obvious jump scares in the horror/thriller genre but also in pretty much any other genre. If you hit such a moment...

Finding the Right Tempo for a Cue

Finding the Right Tempo for a Cue Getting the tempo of a scene right is one of the most essential parts of film scoring. Even the best music can be a disaster when it drags a scene or pushes it too hard. Often there are only few objective indicators to find a tempo...

Complementary Rhythm

Complementary Rhythm A very common musical concept to keep music interesting is to use complementary rhythm. This means, when for example your main melody comes to a rest (e.g. holding for a whole note), you bring in another side line/figure/motif somewhere else....