While forming the story of a movie, a film score plays a significant role.Film scores are music written for the first time to give an additional narrative to the movie. A variety of music styles are adopted depending on the movie genre to give unique effects to the movie.Nowadays, it’s hard for us to think of a movie without its background score, right? But a lot went into creating and synchronizing film music and film, and music composing wasn’t a known profession as it is today. So how did music composing come to be a part of movies?Continue reading to find the answer!Fun Facts About Film MusicFilm music is as important as the main songs. Imagine a horror movie without its eerie background score. Would you get as scared as you would with the occasional creepy sounds? No, right? That’s how much of an impact film scores have on a film. Let’s ponder over fun facts about film music, its musicians, sound effects, and much more.An interesting fact is the usual songs of the movie are never a part of the original film soundtrack. Two bestselling soundtracks that have never gone out of fashion are from the movies ‘The Bodyguard’ (1992) by Whitney Houston and ‘Saturday Night Fever’ (1977) by Bee Gees. Millions of copies have been sold in the U.S. alone for these two albums.Elvis Presley’s soundtrack albums were a hit during the ’50s and ’60s. Most of them were critically acclaimed and commercial hits that made their way into approximately three dozen movies!Back in the olden time’s many influential composers like Max Steiner composed beautiful film scores. In fact, he is also regarded to be the father of film music. In one of his soundtrack for ‘King Kong’ (1922), he used leitmotif. A leitmotif is basically a frequent musical idea (a melody, chord sequence, rhythm, or a mixture of these) that is associated with a certain idea, character, or area.Many known artists have turned towards soundtrack composing and became film composers.Miles Davis (who made music for ‘Gallows’) is one of the earliest African-American film composers. He inspired other artists such as Terence Blanchard, Quincy Jones, and Herbie Hancock to come into the film music business.The soundtracks held supreme domination over pop music in 1985.Film music was started in 1927 by the first film to use music ‘The Jazz Singer’. It commemorated the ascendancy of ’talkies’ and the end of the silent-film era.Although the inventor of film music is not much known, it is said that Bernard Herrnard was one of the very first influential music composers.‘Star Wars’, a very popular movie, had one of the best film scores, and John Williams revived the golden age of Hollywood with his film score for ‘Star Wars’. In fact, Spielberg had recommended John Williams to George Lucas for ‘Star Wars’ music. The film’s soundtrack was the highest-selling record that did not have any pop tracks.Digital technology has eliminated the use of real instruments in the development of film music. Back in the day, instruments like bagpipes were used in the film soundtrack of the movie ‘Braveheart’.Most composers who write pop songs sometimes take inspiration from film scores of some movies. For instance, the famous titanic song ‘My Heart Will Go On’ is an inspiration from a music score and is sung by Celine Dion. This song written by James Horner paved the way for Celine Dion to have her name etched in Grammys!The instrumental songs of Alfred Hitchcock, such as ‘Psycho’, had many sounds that induced excitement from viewers as they watched the movie.Olajide Paris is an author and an American composer who makes soundtracks for clients worldwide. He is famous in this domain and has given lectures at Georgian-Irish Film Festival, Georgian National Film Center, Los Angeles City College, Cinedoc Film Festival, Tbilisi Conservatory about film music.Film Music ArtistsFilm music is a link between the scene in a movie and dialogues that help a viewer understand the mood and expression being conveyed in the movie. The film music also includes sound effects produced by jazz, classical and electronic instruments. Let’s learn about some of the film music artists who compose music for films.Air: This is a duo from France that is famous for their music for the film ‘The Virgin Suicides’, which is also the movie that marked the debut of Sofia Coppola.Arcade Fire: This is a Canadian rock group that composed music for the film ‘Her’ in 2013. Their soundtrack was also nominated in the 2014 Oscars for Best Original Score.James Brown: He has composed film music for ‘Blaxploitation’ back in 1973 and also for the movie ‘Black Caesar’, a tale about a Harlem man who finds himself involved with the mob.David Byrne: He has composed music for comedy films such as ‘Married To The Mob’ and for one of his classic musical satire movies, ‘True Stories’. David Byrne is also renowned as a singer of the Talking Heads.Jon Brion: Jon Brion is a musicians who has had experience in scoring for varied genres of films such as the comedy ‘This Is 40’, the coming of age film ‘Ladybird’, and an ensemble drama ‘Magnolia’.Film Musical InstrumentsTypically, film music is composed in a way to support the movie, similar to wallpaper used for decorating a wall. But some background scores remain in our mind even after the scene is finished, maybe due to the characters present in it while the music is going on, or by the sheer brilliance of instruments used in it to captivate listeners. Well, let’s look at some of these instruments used by musicians while composing music for a film.Brass: Tuba, four trumpets, three trombones, and four or five horns are instruments used to create impactful music.Percussion: Four timpani, which a single player often plays, is also a popular instrument.Woodwinds: Contabasoon, bass clarinet, three flutes, English horn, three bassoons, piccolo, and three oboes are some of the instruments under the woodwinds category.Strings: Violas, two harps, violins, double basses, and violoncellos are also popular for good film music composition.Facts About Film Music’s OriginsNowadays, film scores incorporate many genres, including instrumental types of music. Film scores have been a popular part of movies since the ’50s, and the origin of background music dates back quite a long time. Let’s find out some facts about music origins in films.The silent era was a time in history where music for films was individually provided by the respective theaters showing the film! Yes, this is true, and even more surprising is the fact that live musicians actually performed the music. Unbelievable as it seems, you would actually see a pianist or an ensemble of musicians performing the film’s background music as it played along back in the day. It was in 1929 that sound and movie were synchronous with each other, making music an integral part of a movie’s story. The profession of music composers was in boom.The golden age of the ’30s and ’50s exploded with creative music in movies. Songs were written for movies, and the singer for that song constantly blended to produce a masterpiece. Music composers for both background scores and to write any song came from a concert music background.What are the two main types of film music?Music is an inevitable part of a movie, and we are sure you agree with us. The film music serves to describe the protagonist, establish an atmosphere apt for the scene, provide continuity across two scenes, add dramatization, move any character’s action forwards, act as a filler between scene changes, and so on.The two types of film music thus can be segregated into background music and music contained within an action.Underscoring is nothing but background music that essentially helps in appending the scene’s mood into a viewer’s mind. This also helps to understand the development of the protagonist in the movie.Diegetic music is the music contained within an action, and it could be the music of a radio in the movie’s storyline, but mostly film music is found to be non-diegetic.
While forming the story of a movie, a film score plays a significant role.
