Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Opinion: Vocal Musical arrangment or Orchestrated Instrumentals?

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The components of a Soundtrack are obviously vital to a film's continuity. Specifically, instrumental sounds and vocals are symbolic and supportive to a film, while evoking intended emotions among its viewers. Which bring me to this question: Are audiences more compelled by a film's vocal musical arrangement or are viewers more affected by their emotions and moods while experiencing newly orchestrated instrumentals of a film? As our readings suggests, "Popular music establishes when the story takes place", but I assert that popular music also deeply affects audiences even further. Going beyond the fact that a movie's soundtrack helps sales of recorded music in stores, popular music creates an inferable feeling among a film's audience. When I hear a familiar song, I am suddenly emotionally bombarded by memories and moods, which I would not experience with newly orchestrated music minus the vocals. Depending on the song, I encounter emotions that are fond or indifferent, warm or cold, positive or negative. If I hear familiar music, it only takes 5 seconds or less for me to recognize what song a director has chosen for a scene; it takes even less time for the song to ignite a desired or undesirable emotion from me. For Example:

Familiar or Popular Soundtrack


On the other hand, instrumental music that is made specifcally for a film can relay the director's intended mood precisely. Without having the audience distracted by their own more personal emotions, which is the case with popular music, newly composed non-lyrical music for a scene prevents the audience from straying from the director's vision. John Mullin describes Danny Elfman's work for SpiderMan (2002), "It's an entertaining listen that manages to be serious (and to convey the right amounts of dread and sentiment, when needed), but that never forgets to avoid taking itself too seriously". Here's a clip:

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