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The FUNCTIONS of FILM MUSIC

The FUNCTIONS of FILM MUSIC. Adapted from Zofia Lissa: Ästhetik der Filmmusik (Berlin, 1959). Philip Tagg —Faculté de musique, Université de Montréal, juin 2004 www.tagg.org. Film Music Function 1 (of 10). 1. Emphasis of movement.

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The FUNCTIONS of FILM MUSIC

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  1. The FUNCTIONS of FILM MUSIC Adapted from Zofia Lissa: Ästhetik der Filmmusik (Berlin, 1959) Philip Tagg —Faculté de musique, Université de Montréal, juin 2004 www.tagg.org

  2. Film Music Function 1 (of 10) 1 Emphasis of movement i.e. musically underlining visible or audible movement that is not intrinsically music, e.g. running, galoping, waving, swaying, spinning, flying, hovering, caressing, hitting, stabbing, cutting, flickering, to-and-fro, quickly, slowly, calmly, jerkily, etc. + stillness...

  3. Film Music Function 2 (of 10) 2 Emphasis of ‘real’ sounds underlining, in stylised musical fashion, sounds not included in ‘the music itself’, e.g. rain, wind, footsteps, hooves, machines, screams, sighs, laughter, slam, bash, ‘pow’, ‘wham’, ‘thud’.

  4. Film Music Function 3 (of 10) 3 Representation of location using music to connote a particular cultural, physical, social or historical environment. (a) physical, ethnic, e.g. Japan, jungle, Native Americans, Paris, town, country, space, laboratory, underwater, posh hotel, seedy club (b) social, e.g. upper class, middle class, lower class (c) historical, e.g. ancient, medieval, Baroque, fin-de-siècle, future

  5. Film Music Function 4 (of 10) 4 Source music (non-diegetic music) Film music becomes source music when it is motivated by the narrative logic of the visual production’s fictional ‘reality’, i.e. when the source of that music is part of that same fictional reality. Source music can be thought of as music audible to (hearing) characters (if any) and enacted in the scene where it occurs. The sounding source of the source music may be visible on screen, e.g. a marching band, a band in a nightclub, a parent singing a lullaby, a concert, a church organ and congregation, etc., but it can also be invisible, e.g. a car radio, Muzak in an airport or shopping mall, a TV or hi-fi that has been turned on.)

  6. Film Music Function 5 (of 10) 5 Comment and counterpoint (a) Music commenting on the images by distancing, often by contradicting the connotative sphere of the visual action, e.g. melifluous melody for atomic holocaust, horror music for love scene. (b) Music providing an emotional dimension to a series of events that has just finished, i.e. the opposite of function 9, below.

  7. Film Music Function 6 (of 10) 6 Expression of actor’s emotions (compare with function 7) Music communicating what characters played on screen are supposed to be feeling, e.g. a neutral shot of a hero or heroine reading a letter with horror music as underscore telling the audience he/she is shocked by such terrible news.

  8. Film Music Function 7 (of 10) 7 Basis for audience’s emotions (compare with function 6) Music communicating emotion[s] that may or may not be the same as those supposed to be experienced by the character[s] on screen, e.g. the same scene and same music as in function 6, except this time it is the villain who is seen reading a letter with horror music underscore telling us (the audience) that something awful is going to happen. In this case the letter carries terrible news (for us) while it might be wonderful news for the evil character reading it inside the fiction.

  9. Film Music Function 8 (of 10) 8 Symbol (of something else) Music representing something or someone known by the audience from the narrative but who/which is not currently part of the narrative, e.g. a wounded hero seen in the misery and mud of the trenches but underscored by ‘her’ theme.

  10. Film Music Function 9 (of 10) 9 Anticipation Music prefiguring what is about to happen. For example, the music starts to sound nasty while the picture is still quite ‘innocent’, presenting a mood of threat just before the visuals go ugly...

  11. Film Music Functions 10a-c (of 10) Demarcation / improvement of the film’s formal structure 10 Identification. Themes, motifs, instruments, etc. identifying characters, environments and moods, thus making the film emotionally more comprehensible. Bridges. Music linking two scenes, often set in quite different locations and with disparate moods. Openings. Music communicating that something new of a particular kind is starting.

  12. Film Music Functions 10d-f (of 10) Demarcation / improvement of the film’s formal structure 10 Tails. Snippets of music, often after a change of scene, that set the mood of the new scene and tail off, often on an unresolved chord demanding that the narrative (musical or otherwise) continue, thereby leaving the acoustic space open for dialogue or sound effects Endings. Music underlining that something has come to a close.

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