December 14th, 2006

How can royalty free music contribute to a film? Aaron Copland has said "music can create a more convincing atmosphere of time and place." There are a variety of ways of achieving an atmosphere of time and place, or "musical color." In a broad sense, musical color may be taken to represent the "feeling" aspects of music, as distinct from musical structure, or line, which might be considered to be the intellectual side.

Color is associative—an accordian can give us a sense of Paris, bagpipes call up images of Scotland, the oboe suggests a pastoral scene, and royalty free rock music may imply dancing. The effect of color, moreover, is immediate, unlike musical thematic development, which takes time. Color is easier and quicker to achieve than musical design.

One way to impart color is to use musical material indigenous to the locale of a film, i.e. authentic royalty free world music from that location. However, sometimes we might not want to use "authentic" Chinese music but just want to achieve a Chinese "flavor" or "color" by using a pentatonic scale with Western instruments. The Western listener may not understand the symbols of authentic Chinese music as he does those of Western music. Therefore, authentic Chinese music might have less of a dramatic effect even if it does convey the "realism" of being in China. The director will usually have a strong opinion about which approach is more appropriate.


This emphasis on color does not mean that musical line should be ignored. The primary reason film composers have traditionally stayed away from complex lines and structure is that such complicated structures cannot successfully be executed without competing with the dramatic action.

"Music can serve as a kind of neutral background filler. This is really the kind of music one isn't supposed to hear, the sort that helps to fill the empty spots between pauses in a conversation. It's the movie composer's most ungrateful task. But at times, though no one else may notice, he will get private satisfaction from the thought that music of little intrinsic value, through professional manipulation, has enlivened and made more human the deathly pallor of a screen shadow. This is hardest to do . . . when the neutral filler type of music must weave its way underneath dialogue." -Aaron Copland

This can sometimes be the film composer's most difficult task - to be subordinate. Sometimes the function of film music is to do nothing more than be there, "as though it would exist as sound rather than as 'constructed' music." Even though it is filling a rather subordinate role to other elements in the picture, "filler" type background music is in fact a very conscious dramatic device.

Stock music clips can help build a sense of continuity in a film. It can tie together a visual medium that is, by its very nature, continually in danger of falling apart. Film editors are very conscious of this particular attribute of music clips in films. In a montage, particularly, stock music can serve an almost indispensable function: it can hold the montage together with some sort of unifying musical idea. Without music the montage can, in some instances, become merely chaotic. Music clips can also develop this sense of continuity on the level of the film as a whole.

By Steve Shapiro

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