Week 4

Lecture discussion.

Case studies where the first point we discussed in this weeks lecture. How useful can they? How are the used to argue a point succinctly? We analyzed a couple of papers which were case studies and realized, if used correctly, they could strengthen a point invaluably. It is something that I will be doing in my essay, comparing different films from different eras.

We went into detail into how one might structure an essay, mentioning adding abstracts, describing how to write a good intro and conclusion and how, in the main body, using chapters without stopping the text from flowing.

Essay research, ideas and planning.

Creativity: I was reading an article on “Psycho”’s score composer – Bernard Hermann. He originally wanted to use a full orchestra but due to money constraints he was only allowed a string section. He still managed to write one of the most chilling and memorable section of music ever. My question, is with limited resources or technology are composers forced to be more creative? We briefly discussed creativity in one of the lectures last year, but I want to expand on that and compare and contrast some films scores from different eras looking at their available technological resources and to see how creative they have been. (some readings I may reference in regards to creativity.: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00656/full,https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1207/S15326934CRJ1334_08?casa_token=0E_Emglm380AAAAA:JKe77qU2Jo7LNwePndaMTJ3AtVjjvY-e6hnxVttrkmapM2jb-1tEHx-wVdUG0BJDe4ib6awOMkWs,https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/21628171/sdarticle_009.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1540799563&Signature=NU5M1C4iHaJ0aPgMkO9TJMQAvRU%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DHow_the_mind_works.pdf)

Another way of discussing this Is trying to describe the phenomenon that I would call the ‘lull’ that a lot of modern horror scores have fallen into, creating unoriginal scores that comprise screechy strings and sharp stabs but talking about this may sound broad and unfocused and I’ll have to re-watch loads of horror films to have sufficient evidence.

The future – this is another key point to address. Throughout the course of the say we will have talked about how film music has evolved, but in this day there are technologies being used all ready which take film composing to another level. We are talking about tools such as Arificial intelligence. There are a few AIs that already ‘compose’ music if you give them an emotion. (some interesting papers on future of composition and AI: http://www.iba.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/papers/2000/tokuiGA2000.pdf,https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1513378.pdf?casa_token=gR7UbiMDcK8AAAAA:pyFsaqU6iEyWv_5Hr5HmFwL7zFQzfG5T_I1HEr2c3OwEDHO16xUb8k87FWpuSZkt3m0R0tkJvmEferPxTReygoqrkUIwi36poefDO6-6VNqsk-bOcMs,http://users.monash.edu/~jonmc/research/Papers/L-systemsMusic.pdf,https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Geraint_Wiggins/publication/209436205_AI_methods_for_algorithmic_composition_A_survey_a_critical_view_and_future_prospects/links/5464887b0cf2c0c6aec570ce/AI-methods-for-algorithmic-composition-A-survey-a-critical-view-and-future-prospects.pdf)

Another issue with this is that it may not be focused enough, so I will need to reaaly concentrate on film scorers are able to use this.

Next week – the essay plan.