Charlie Chaplin´s The Lion´s case and the Polytonality

The Lion's Case from 1928 The Circus (despite original was a silent movie a score of Gunter Kochan was added in 1969), here like in my older Charlie Chaplin scene Easy Street I use Polytonality or best said Bitonality to recreate a mood of hilarious humor beside a cartoon scoring style that point out several movements and actions. Like I said in my older post Polytonality or Bitonality have been used extensively by composers since Igor Stravinsky used it in his score for the Ballet Petrushka, but if we want to look for the origins of use of this technique to express feelings of humor, we have I think to look Mozart's musical joke where the genius of Salzburg use some wrong notes to generate laugh in the audience, the French composer Darius Milhaud was an important exponent of this technique, but with different approaches.

This is a topic that can generates many musicologist discussions and disagreements, but this is not the scope of this post but point out the marvelous potential of expressiveness that this compositional technique gives us to create not only funny cartoon moods, but an incredible amount of artistic possibilities like in the beginning of the third act of the Puccini's last opera Turandot where we can hear a very beautiful exotic sonority that moves so deeply . I hope you enjoy this score version of the scene of the lion's case from The Circus.

Charlie Chaplin Easy Street Film Score Practice

I want to share with you this short piece written as an exercise of film scoring. I picked some scenes from the marvelous silent short film Easy Street by Charlie Chaplin and wanted to handle it in a cartooning fashion in order to accentuate the humorous mood. In this work I used Polytonality , but in contrapuntal sense, more than in harmonic way. Since Mozart musical jokes, Polytonality has been used to express a variety of feelings and moods in ballet, opera, concert music and of course in films. Igor Stravinsky Petrushka is an important example, Giacomo Puccini uses it in Turandot and many others important composers too. In films this technique has been used to add a specific taste in a punctual situation rather than as a main method of composition for an entire score, there are exceptions to this rule of course.

I hope you like this short example and feel free to leave your comments.

 

Technology vs Artistic Composition in Film Score II

A reflection about  musical composition  and technology in film and media

VST Instruments, DAWS, Music Editors and MIDI technology are terms commonly used today in the media production and composition fields, as I said in my last post these devices could help us  express our music ideas instead of get in the way of the artistic process. To accomplish that we have to be sure we are using the technology as a tool and not  getting carried away by it unconsciously though of course all these eases can help us get inspire in some way, but we must always have  the control. I think that use our musical imagination (harmonies, melodies,rhythms and specially in timbres and orchestration)  is  a way of improve the sensitiveness and inner aural that will carry us to achieve new levels of deep in the art.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But all these software can help us when we collaborate in a low budget project.  Produce and record with Symphonic orchestras is expensive, the cost of  recording halls or studios, music editing and preparation, recording equipment, musicians, conductor and many others production details increase the budget at levels not all projects can afford. Then, VST Libraries, Daw software and music editors, are  invaluable tools that give us the opportunity  to provide producers and directors with music that fit not only their film or project but also their budget.

 

This is a cue from the soundtrack I composed for the play "The glorious manifestation of the children of God" which was performed during the 13th "Great Vigil all United for Venezuela" that took place on  April  17th in the UCV University stadium facilities in Caracas, and it is a good example I think of how we can use the technology together with human performance not only in the composition, but in the interpretation, of course all these techniques are commonly used in today media and film industry.

I used mainly  East west quantum leap symphonic orchestra, Hollywood strings  Hollywood brass and some others libraries mixed with  the interpretation of a violinist and a double bassist.

 

 

Composed and orchestrated by Abraham Maduro, violins played by Cecilia Gomez and double basses by Abraham Maduro.

 The images are from the event 13th "Great Vigil all United for Venezuela"

Technology vs Artistic Composition in Film Score

MIDI, Mock-ups, Sequencing, Daw, VST Libraries and other terms are commons in today film compositional process, and it seems that the traditional method using paper and pencil playing an acoustic piano is something belonging to XVIII century when some composers used to "write" music mentally or at least they should have great levels of aural consciousness, notorious is the case of Mozart that apparently took the pen several times to copy the music he had composed mentally or  Beethoven that was able to write a master piece as his 9th symphony when he was already deaf. Today we have a guy in front of a midi controller or a keyboard sending midi notes and message through an audio interface (or USB wire) to a computer plenty of wonderful VST sounds that inspire all types of musical possibilities. But all these bring to our mind a question: is all these technology getting in the way of a true creative and artistic process? Is our creativity being truncated by the easiness that technology provides us? Could we go deeper if we allowed our minds and inner ear create without such aids?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think that it depends on our musical consciousness  and knowledge, formerly composers were forced to develop incredible skills because they had no other way  but learn the laws of music deeply, and as a result they reached levels that allowed them to create great masterpieces deepening in their art.

 

I do not think that technology represents a creative problem by itself; technology has always been present in all ages helping people improve, but it depends on each artist takes advantage without allowing these external things interfere in the creative process, but incorporating them as tools to work with. In my opinion, VST Instruments and Effects like Vienna Symphonic Library or East West Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra and Music Editor software like Sibelius or Finale represent and invaluable tools especially because they help us accelerate the workflow giving the composer an opportunity to effectively show their musical ideas to the director or producer of the film before the recording process, or even on low budget projects a good mock-up is usually used in the ultimate product.

 

Finally I would say that the important point here is that a real artist a true composer, has a genuine idea that comes from his artistic, musical and human sensitivity, which will be perfected in the process of composition using the knowledge, skills and all the tools that are available, whether they are a pen and paper or a computer with a midi controller .

In the audio below of these lines, you will hear a mock-up of a piece I wrote a year ago as an example of the use of VST technology along with the traditional techniques of composition and orchestration.