Music

Music in movies has been around since ... well, movies have been. During the silent film era, it was mainly limited to a piano in the actual theatre (so prices were jacked up to pay for the piano player, almost like 3D today). When sound was added to movies, soundtracks were added as well.

Music can add a tremendous amount of depth to movies. Sure, a lot of emotional scenes can carry themselves without music, but sometimes a particular piece can take it above and beyond. For instance, the tail-end of the song “The Bridge of Khazad-Dum” helps to emphasize the loneliness and hopelessness of the fellowship after Gandalf had fallen (the muted sounds also help). And in Return of the Jedi, the Ominous Latin Chanting foreshadows what would happen to Luke if he fought Darth Vader in anger (it would be bad … evil Jedi bad).

These days, there's a large difference between a soundtrack and a score. A soundtrack for most movies is all the pop songs used in the movie. The score is the background music, generally performed by an orchestra or symphony. In some cases (where there is no pop music in the movie), the score will be released as a soundtrack, confusing the issue further.

I fell in love with movie scores when my brother bought the soundtrack to The Rock, a pulse pounding score by Hans Zimmer. The theme was the first song I had stuck in my head (for about two and a half days in grade 8. It was pretty epic). Since then, I've kept my ear on certain composers, and try to pay more attention to the music in movies than other people. It's probably because of my music background - I played piano for years, being forced to practice for 45 minutes every day (except for Sundays ... and Easter ... and Christmas and summer holidays. I was so hard-done-by).

Anyway, this post is mainly to differentiate between scores and soundtracks. That's not to say that soundtracks are bad. For example, the soundtracks to both live-action Transformers movies are good (by good, I mean that I'd listen to more than one song on the album. By today’s standards, that's fantastic). But the scores for both movies are excellent. They're both by a guy I had never heard of before called Steve Jablonsky (who sounds like a movie character, but he's a real guy who writes real good music).

The score for the first one is actually a bit weird. There's an official score (that's for sale), and an unofficial score that was probably put together by someone who had access to the actual music clips put into the movies. On the unofficial score, each song is 30 seconds to a minute and a half long. On the official score, each song is a longer take on the themes used throughout the movie. For instance, in the movie, Bumblebee's theme is pretty good (being heroic and all that). The official score, however, uses two and a half minutes of build-up and a minute of payoff, and should probably be playing when Jesus returns to Earth. It's just that good.

As I paid more attention to who wrote the scores (I have to stay a while after a movie's over to see their credit), I kept noticing the same names coming up. It makes sense, because Zimmer started a music/production company and hires a lot of the composers, who often write the style of music (heroic/bombastic) that fits in so well with summer blockbusters. Anyway, just to give you a heads up on the names of composers you should follow (if you see their names in the credits, think about buying the score).

1 - Hans Zimmer: You'll probably have heard of him, since he did the score for Gladiator (in the interests of honesty, I listened to it once, and it didn't grab my attention). He's done a whole bunch of other films too, including the last two Pirates of the Caribbean movies, the Christopher Nolan Batman films (and Inception), the Lion King (it's not just Elton John), Blackhawk Down, Pearl Harbor, and Mission Impossible II.

2 - Trevor Rabin: For my money, though, I'd rather have this guy's scores. He started of as the guitarist of the progressive rock back Yes. Now he does the scores for films like Armageddon (although the best song was done by another guy, and you can only get it on a bootleg two disc edition that's not even legal ... so yeah), the National Treasure movies, Bad Boys II, The One, Bad Company (containing the ridiculously awesome song BMBBO), The 6th Day, Remember the Titans, Deep Blue Sea, and Con Air.

3 - Mark Mancina: I heard about Mancina when he did the score for Bad Boys (released in 1995, one of my favourite movies ever). Of course, they only released a soundtrack for it, containing a bunch of rap songs I was uninterested in. 12 years later, they did a limited edition score (they only made 3000), and I snagged one because I'm only one of 3000 people who actually paid attention to the music in that movie. He hasn't done much that I've been interested in since, but the score for Bad Boys is spectacularly awesome.

4 - Steve Jablonsky: Like I said before, I only know him for doing the Transformer movies, but they're ludicrously awesome.

5 - Klaus Badelt: Zimmer's protégé. He did the first Pirates of the Caribbean before his mentor stepped in to do the rest of the trilogy ("Uh, thanks Shifu. It's not like I couldn't have done it or anything"). He also did Equilibrium (an underrated movie with an alright score).

6 - Harry Gregson-Williams: He did the best song on Armageddon (Asteroid Chase - Goodbye Independence). He also did Enemy of the State and branched out into video games to do Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (the theme of which is phenomenally awesome).

7 - Nick Glennie-Smith: He doesn't write much original music, but helps other people write theirs. He's collaborated on most of the music already mentioned on this page, and conducts a lot of it.

8 - John Powell: He's done the music for the Bourne Trilogy, Hancock, Kung-Fu Panda, and Knight & Day.

9 - Shiro Sagisu: He did the music for an underrated movie called Casshern (pretty much a live-action philosophical Anime). I have no idea what else he's done, but the score for Casshern is absurdly awesome (and the soundtrack is pretty good, too).

10 - Howard Shore: Lord of the Rings. Enough said.

11 - James Horner: Apollo 13, Titanic (even if it was overshadowed by Celine Dion, the score was amazing), Mask and Legend of Zorro, Field of Dreams, Avatar.

12 – John Williams. Where would any composing list be without him? The Star Wars theme is arguably the most recognizable in movies (fun fact: The Imperial March wasn't used in the first Star Wars. It debuted in The Empire Strikes Back, and there’s a heartbreakingly bittersweet version right at the end of Return of the Jedi, where Luke and Anakin finally have a face-to-face). He’s also done the music for the Indiana Jones Trilogy (if “Adventure has a Name” then it also has a theme song) and the Harry Potter movies.

Keep in mind, these are only limited selections of what these guys have done. They have many more credits to their names, and you should definitely check them out. You should also check out the scores for the following games: Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3 (I don't know about Halo Wars, Halo 3: ODST, or Halo: Reach yet), Mass Effect, and Mass Effect 2.

A rising phenomenon is also music produced specifically for music trailers. It used to be that music from trailers would take pre-existing music or free music, or music from the soundtrack, and use it for the trailer. As an example, music on the trailer for Armageddon was from The Rock. These days, though, there are production houses that specialise in trailer music. X-Ray dog is one, but I have come to like Two Steps from Hell. Unfortunately, they don't sell their albums. Well, they do, but only to people who make movie trailers. Basically production companies. So their music is not publicly available. A lot of it has been posted on Youtube, and some kind (but ethically challenged) soul has posted a few of their albums on torrent sites. So it's possible to acquire for the less scrupulous among you. Well, as long as you’re going to steal, you may as well steal great music.

Sorry for the link-filled post, but it had to be done. I just wanted to expand your horizons a bit. For those of you who don't know about scores, there you go. And for those of you who think an orchestra is for playing Mozart ... well, you have me there. But in their spare time, they can do this stuff too.

For more awesometastic music, go here.