Working with a Music Composer - the "Lingo"
Scoring your film is a separate post-production task altogether. And finding the right composer to make your film come alive is daunting. Music composition is not a simple task. It is extremely important to find someone who is experienced and who has the right style for your film. The editing and the music are what people remember in their self-conscious when they watch a film. These two things really are what tell the story. They emulate a feeling to the audience that you, as a director or producer, are trying to say. When it comes to composing music, a composer needs to be talented enough to understand the story and know what types of music will work with it. And the director should be there to help and guide the composer. Although some directors like to sit back and let the composer watch the film, compose the music and then listen to it to see if it fits, the director should not just let the composer completely take over. As you'll hear a lot in this business, it is a collaborative industry. Your film is the film of everyone who works on it. That should include your composer. If you feel like your composer does not understand your work or can't compose the right type of music for your film, then you should find someone else. But once you have found someone who knows what you want and wants the same things, you have to be able to tell them what's on your mind in musical terms when talking about the pieces of music they have chosen to compose for you. These next few paragraphs will guide you on what to listen for when critiquing the music for your film and how to talk to your composer about what you want. A composition is a piece of music. It is comprised of a melody, a chorus, a bridge, a break and measures. A measure is filled with notes, a key signature and a time signature. Measures are broken up into squares on the page. The square tells you how many beats you have to play a section of the music. The time signature will tell you how many beats you have in each measure. If the time signature shows 4/4, that means you have 4 beats in one measure and 4 normal counts in one measure in which to play those beats. If the time signature shows a ¾, that means you have 3 beats in one measure and 4 normal counts in one measure to play those beats.
Notes make up the tune that is being played. There are 8 major notes on a scale. A,B,C,D,E,F,G. The composer will play with these notes and make up a tune. The key signature determines what types of notes will be played. An A flat key signature will sound different than a C sharp signature because some notes will be flat and others will be sharp. But they will all be in tune. The melody is the main tune of the piece. It's what starts the piece and gives the listener an idea of what the entire piece will be like. A melody will have phrases, meaning that the melody will have a certain number of measures until the chorus is introduced. The chorus is the part of the song that is more of the hook of the song. The composition will come back to this part of the song a couple of times to remind the listener of it. The melody may change slightly when referred to in the song but the chorus always stays the same. It is the staple of the piece. A bridge is a section of the composition that comes near or in the middle of the music to give the audience a different kind of feeling to the music. It comes after the melody and chorus and is a very short phrase in the piece of music. It is there to emphasize the tension of the piece. Change is needed in music give a few different feelings about the same visual you are seeing.
When talking with your composer you can use some of these terms but you can also use general terms as well. If you want the music to be sweeter, you can say you want it to be lighter and more airy. That is more of a heavenly sound. If you want horror music, you can say you want it be dark and sharp. Playfully mysterious, dauntingly melodramatic, you can use all these types of phrases to describe what you want to your composer. But if you really need to explains specifics about the tone of the music, the pitch, the key, and the speed, you can look to the other phrases. Working with your composer is a long and arduous process but it is worth it to learn about music and listen to your composer when they are describing what they are doing. They can make or break the feeling the of your film.
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