Nov 12, 2019 | Daily Film Scoring Bits, Film Scoring
Red Herrings Another very common way of scoring certain moments in movies are so-called “Red Herrings”. This principle is used for instance in tension scenes where you musically build up to something that DOESN’T happen. A classical scenario would be a woman walking...
Oct 8, 2019 | Daily Film Scoring Bits, Film Scoring
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...
Jul 31, 2019 | Composition, Daily Film Scoring Bits
Melody Notes as Chord Extensions When harmonizing melodies, it can sound musically more interesting to place key notes of the melody higher up in the chord structure (like 7th, 9th etc.) than playing around root, third or fifth. Eg. you have a melody sequence of...
Jul 10, 2019 | Composition, Daily Film Scoring Bits
Tolerance of Dissonance One of the strongest factors in music is the duality between tension and resolution, which can be found in the smallest musical units (e.g. V-I cadence) to the largest extents (big structure of symphonies etc.). However the ear of the 21st...
Jan 23, 2019 | Composition, Daily Film Scoring Bits
Composing Melody First vs. Composing Chords First Neither composing chords first and then finding a melody on top of them nor the other way around are optimal composition principles. In both ways you’re lacking ultimate control over what you’re writing. For example...
