AD 2324 Music Section 3 : Exploring New Timbres

Vivian Sobchack said that the most notable thing about SF film music is ....

its lack of notability

Hermann worked for ____ radio with Orson Welles

CBS

Hermann created a radio drama based on the ...

novel The War of The Worlds

Hermann's score that was nominated for the Oscars but lost to another composed music piece he also wrote

Citizen Kane; The Devil and Daniel Webster

The Saucer from the "The Day the Earth Stood Still"

Cost 100,000; 350 ft circumference; had "unearthly beauty" that looked as if it came from another world rather than an Hollywood workshop

BEMs

bug-eyed monsters

"The Day the Earth Stood Still" was added to the National Film Registry in ____

1995

"The Day the Earth Stood Still" set the stage for future SF films such as ____ and ____

ET and Close Encounters

[The Day the Earth Stood Still] Klaatu and Gort

The visiting aliens and his robot

[The Day the Earth Stood Still] Arrives in ____

Washington DC

[The Day the Earth Stood Still] Salve

Klaatu heals himself with this

[The Day the Earth Stood Still] The reason the president's secretary explains why a meeting with international meetings would be impossible

the global tensions of the Cold War

[The Day the Earth Stood Still] Who is Mr. Carpenter

Klaatu in the boarding house

[The Day the Earth Stood Still] Reason for Klaatus purpose of his visit to Earth

Earth has developed atomic power and rockets which poses a threat to other planets

[The Day the Earth Stood Still] Why is Klaatu's location betrayed to the US government

A man was wooing the young Bobby's mother, Helen

[The Day the Earth Stood Still] Hermann's score had a blend of ______ with _____.

conventional orchestral scoring with unearthly electronic sounds

[The Day the Earth Stood Still] Music had many instruments including the following

electric violin, electric cello, electric bass, electric guitar, two Hammond organs, two pianos, two harps, two theremins, and many brass and percussion instruments

[The Day the Earth Stood Still] music was mssing

an electric hot water bottle that Alfred Newman had supplied

[The Day the Earth Stood Still] How many times did Hermann use the theremin in the music/cues?

In 24 of 32 cues

Theremins were used regularly in these shows

The Jetsons, My Favorite Martian, The Twilight Zone, and The Outer Limits

The Star Trek theme music for the second season's soprano vocalist mimics the theremin's

eerie timbre

Multitracking

various instruments recorded seperately to be layered on top of each other

musique concrete

1940s term to describe music that composers created by useing recorded real world sounds as their concrete foundation, rather than working with nottation

[The Day the Earth Stood Still] Hermann played some recordings _____

backward

Techniques that Hermann used in [The Day the Earth Stood Still] (3 available)

musque concrete, multitracking, major tritone progression

Prelude and Outer Space are respectively named

R1R1 and R1P1A. R= reel and P=Part

The Prelude lasts ____ seconds and has 4 groups of instruments named __, __, __, and ___.

7 seconds; W, X, Y,Z

[Prelude] The Overall role of the W group

Consists of 2 theremins who both gilssando downward. Theremin #1 Starts high B flat, played triple piano and descends to triple forte G flat.

Theremin #2 begins above G flat and reaches a low Eflat

[Prelude] The overall role of X Group

Plays backward; Two pianos and three chimes begins with a loud E flat major or F major-seventh. Then it starts to decay. However, when reversed the sound seems to make a crescendo. less-familiar timbre

[Prelude]Group Z

Unpitched with two large and small cymbals. Starts with Pianissimo up to triple forte. Sustains sound with cymbal roll. Makes contrasting tone colors by playing half with timpani mallets and two with triangle beaters

[Prelude] The Y Group

Trio of vibraphones; starts two seconds in; Produces polychord, starting with fortissimo and sustains it with a fermata except that it is played backward in the recordin

[Outer Space] The more prevalent style in the 1960s

minimalism

Minimalism

take small amount of material and maximizes its musical potential; oftenly repeated in a matter of ostinato

[Outer Space]Hermann employs ___ ostinato patterns; said to be a stylistic trait of his

4

[Outer Space] Hammond organs and pianos play

contrary groups of fourth sixteenth notes every beat, changing harmonies every measure

[Outer Space] The harps play

rest for a measure, then play contrary pattens that reserve direction after two beats

[Outer Space] the vibraphones play

contrary quarter notes for a measure, then sustains a C half diminished seventh chord

[Outer Space] the glockenspiels

play contrary fourth-eithg note patterns twice, then switches to a new contrary patten in the next bar

[Outer Space] The cumulative ostinato rhythms produces a ______

an anxious excitement and motif

[Outer Space] Alien leitmotif

played by the theremins consisting of four whole notes

[Outer Space]'s general clear form?

ternary form

[Outer Space] The A consists of the a and b, each respectively

a- alien; b- Power

[Outer Space] The B does not stand out dramatically since ...

two of the ostinato rhythms are still driving forward

B-movie catoegory

low-budget films, intended to serve as the second half of a double-feature screening

MGM's first major science fiction movie is ___

Forbidden Planet

MGM was impressed with Block's _____________ from the Forbidden Planet proposal

the invisible monster imitation

Cyril Hume

retitled work to Forbidden Planet and set the story in 2453; added terms such as hyperdrive, blaster, three laws of robotics , and positronic

[Forbidden Planet] Newly acquired visual effects

blasts from the ray guns, an electric forcefield, and an invisible monster

[Forbidden Planet] The Disney Productions best animator that was loaned and the result of his addition

Joshua Meador and the fragmentary red outline of the monster roars

[Forbidden Planet] Clothed the sole female character in

a very short mini-skirt

[Forbidden Planet ] Budget

1.9 million

[Forbidden Planet] debuted in

Charlotte, North Caroline at the Southeastern Science Fiction Conference during the beggining of March 1956

[Forbidden Planet] added tot eh National Film Registry in

2013

[Forbidden Planet] resembles Shakespeare's play

The Tempest

[Forbidden Planet]C-57D

A United Planets star cruiser that has been traveling for over a year to search for survivors from an expedition that had been sent twenty years prior to the planet Altair IV

[Forbidden Planet] Dr. Edward Morbius

says the planet, Altair IV ,is unsafe so turn the ship around

[Forbidden Planet] Krell

creatures with technology far advanced beyond that of humans; are able to generate matter simply from the power of their minds

[Forbidden planet]a sample of "Krell Music is filled with a

hypnotic sine waves and gentle loping rhythms that create an air of ethereal contemplation

[Forbidden Planet] Doc Ostrow

attempts to try equipment that expands intellect, but instead is fatally injured by the brain boost

[Forbidden Planet] The unseen monster attacking Adam's crew in generated by ...

Morbius's subconcious mind that is unhappy that is threatening his research and his devotion to his daughter

[Forbidden Planet] How did the Barrons get some work that paid

they crashed the New York Gallery opening reception and introduced themselves to MGM president

[Forbidden Planet] How much did the couple get paid

5,000 for the bae fee to be then netting up to $25,000

[Forbidden Planet] The Barrons persuaded MGM to ship copies of the film to _____

New York

[Forbidden Planet] Bebe Barrons first reported that the circuit sound for the ID/Beast was ___ and so she lowered its frequencies about ____ times

high pitched; 70

[Forbidden Planet] When Johnny Green listened to the part of the love scene between Adams and Altaira, he described original as ____

"I didn't want the end of the Earth, I wanted love"

[Forbidden Planet] was the first ______ for a commercial feature film

all-electronic score

[Forbidden Planet] was released immediatley without refining the rough cut since ....

the film editor was unable to persuade the executives to give him any more time due to the popularity from a small teaser revealed to the public

[Forbidden Planet] The screen critic who declared the Film to be a "Wonderful Trip in Space"

New York Times screen critic

[Forbidden Planet] Louis saw that the Muscians Union refused them due to ... t

them precieving their electronic creativity as a threat

[Forbidden Planet] The irony between the Barrons and the Musicians Unions

some members would contact them for guidance

[Main Titles (Overture)] Release year and composers

1956; Bebe and Louis Barron

[Main Titles (Overture)] The Barrons used motifs to differentiate _____

the various types of equipments in use such as tools used by humans, the Krell Technology, and Robby the Robot

[Main Titles (Overture)] The leitmotif of human technology

the noisy sounds that seem to be extensions of equipment

[Main Titles (Overture)] The leitmotif of the Krell technology

dense clusters of glissandi, roaring, humming, grinding; multilayered and complicated

[Main Titles (Overture)]The leitmotif of Robby the Robot

discrete plops, short reverberated impulses with uniform echo rhythms; friendly sounds

[Main Titles (Overture)] The Flute-like tone motif

Pulls us deeply into deep space

[Main Titles (Overture)] The deep brash sound that is compared to a trombones with metal mutes motif

Concides with the text of the title; howling is unsettling

[Main Titles (Overture)] 3. spurts of clicky percussive sounds motif

whimsical; concides with Robby's title card that foreshadows his non-threatening nature

[Main Titles (Overture)]4. two layers of siren sounds that seem to be conducting a dialouge motif

grows frenzied reaching a climax

[Main Titles (Overture)] The last two sounds motifs

revisits timbres heard earlier, particularly the howling and the bells

[Main Titles (Overture)] The first keyboard-controlled

synthesizer

synthesizer

analog instrument that resembled a theremin that was controlled by a keyboard; oscillators generated raw sound waves, and sounds are modified with knobs and levers; monophonic

The Mong Synthesizer caught the ears of the general public when ....

Wendy Carlos released an album titled Switched-On Bach

The Beatles used a Mong in their Album

Abbey Road

What rock group toured with the Moog

Emerson Lake and Palmer

The Minimoog

1970; the portable version of Moog; included a pitch wheel that bends the pitch; had vibrato

Digital synthesizer

1980s; allowed users to pre-program their desired timbres

MIDI

established in 1983; founded due to the problem that digital devices needed the ability to talk to each other, a method to transfer data between equipment

Yamaha DX-7

had MIDI capabilites; released in 1983 for $2,000; 30 pounds

Mirage

affordable sampler or recorder

Samples

are digital recordings of external sound, allowing musicians to record and edit samples

Digital Audio Workstations [DAWs]

labels a variety of equipment and softwares that can come in many configurations; A common denominator that is the workstation allows users to edit and process audio workstations; concentrates on sound

SMPTE

Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers; developed a series of numbers that you may have seen along raw film footage

SMPTE timecode

a group of four numbers; the first number refers to the hour of the film or reel number; the second indicates minute; third is second; last refers to the frame

US television customarily uses a speed of ____ FPS

29.97

Chariots of Fire

Vangelis; 1981; heavily relied on a Yamaha CS.80 analog synthesizer

film noir

style and genre of film making that flourished in the mid-twentieth century; 'noir' is black; filmed black and white; protagonist is a detective

The Blade Runner's storyline is drawn from a ______

1968 novel by Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep

[Blade Runner] viewers came to admire its....

troubling questions about life, memory, and beauty

Dystopia

an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one.