Jurassic Park Live in Concert

I was eight when I watched my first English film. Like most other mofussil town millennials growing up in India, Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park was my first English film too. At the time, I didn't yet have the ear to differentiate John Williams’ rapturous score from T. Rex’s thunderous roar, among the sounds I heard while watching the film. The next ten years, I grew up in the modest city of Salem, in the state of Tamil Nadu, utterly oblivious to the existence of the music of Jurassic Park.

Read the complete concert review here

John Williams' Music by Emilio Audissino

I always scour for books on film scores, and I have read a few before. My most favorite book on film scores was Doug Adams’ The Music of the Lord of the Rings films. It is a hefty, glossy, hardbound tome in which the author examines Howard Shore’s Wagnerian leitmotiv method of scoring for multiple tribes, cultures, characters and creatures in the Middle Earth. The book is a focused monographic study of the score of just one film, and I thought it the most definitive book on film scores. But that changed when I stumbled upon Emilio Audissino’s John Williams’ Music: Jaws, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Returns of the Classical Hollywood Music style; an immense, scholarly study on the vast film music repertoire and the long career of the legendary film composer John Williams.

Audissino is a film scholar and a film musicologist. He holds a PhD from the University of Pisa and his PhD theses was on John Williams’ music. The book is the culmination of various papers, articles, and the final PhD theses he had written on Williams’ music. However, the book is totally stripped off of all the cumbersome academic terminologies that could have rendered it inaccessible to the general readers.

It is evident that Audissino intends the book to be accessible to all. Even those who wouldn’t have thought in their entire lives about film music might still be drawn to this book because of the names of some of the most iconic Hollywood franchise films—Jaws, Star Wars and Indiana Jones—on the book’s title, and hence Audissino doesn’t drop us directly in a jungle of musical jargons.

The book begins with a simple, detailed explanation of the methodology and terminologies Audissino has used to illustrate the significance of music in films. Diegetic, non-diegetic, extra diegetic, micky-mousing, soundtrack, wall-paper music, contrapuntal, leitmotif, applied music, absolute music and such terms are introduced with simple, concise and comprehensible definitions. He holds our hands until we can walk on our own, explains the basics, and sets up the context before he divulges deep into the theories and functions of John Williams’ film music.

Audissino presents an all-encompassing authoritative study of John Williams’ music and his career as a musician, arranger, composer and a conductor. He makes a compelling case for the neoclassical revolution that he believes John Williams single-handedly initiated with his symphonic scores early in his career.

The book starts with a comprehensive history of the relation between films and music. There have been many books with elaborate accounts of music in the era of silent cinema written by film scholars like Rick Altman, but Audissino offers a succinct account of the evolution of sound and music in films here. In the following chapter, he defines the phrase ‘classical Hollywood music style’ and talks about its pioneers (Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Max Steiner), explains how Hollywood film production worked and how its business-model influenced the kind of music used in films, and consequently the near extinction of the ‘classic Hollywood music style’ just before John Williams stormed into the scene and revived it with Star Wars.

In each subsequent chapter, Audissino picks John William’s score in Jaws, Star Wars and Raiders of the Last Ark and does a rigorous, microscopic, scene by scene, cue by cue analysis of the score. He illustrates with ample evidence how in a John Williams’ score, the ‘applied music’ blends in with the visuals of the said film, despite the composer writing the music strictly adhering to the formal techniques of the classical, ‘absolute music’. There is nothing in the score that you cannot produce live on stage with a classical orchestra. It is pure polyphonic writing.

I did struggle with the musical terms like sforzando, fortissimo and pianissimo but then because the book tells us precisely where the music is played in the film, when I read these passages and simultaneously watched the scenes, it became easy to appreciate the insight. The book doesn’t pretend to be a leisure reading anyway, and I guess it’s intended readers, even if originally just a fan of the film, once they start reading the book, wouldn’t mind making that extra effort to do what is required to access and ascertain its contents. The stunningly thorough examination of many components of the film and its musical score made me appreciate music in films much better than I could have done on my own.

Then Audissino delves extensively into the appointment of John Williams as the conductor of one of the most popular American orchestras the Boston Pops Orchestra, which historically have always had a European as its conductor. John Williams was the first American to become Boston Pops’ conductor. Audissino presents the context against which Williams changed the way film music was represented in Classical music concerts, not as frivolous pop encore one dances and claps to, but as a serious piece of art music that ought to be heard with rapt silence that audience usual reserve for classical music.

Further, Audissino records Williams’ innovative ideas that spawned a new trend of multimedia concerts based on films and film scores. On 16^th March 2002, on the occasion of the premiere of the twentieth anniversary edition of the film E.T – The Extra-Terrestrial, composer John Williams, with Recording Arts Orchestra of Los Angeles, conducted the complete score to the projection of the entire film. That was the first ever time, a live orchestra’s performance of the score accompanied a non-silent film throughout. Since 2002, Films with Live Orchestra concerts have grown in number to become a regular event in major concert halls of the western world. There are at least five hundred such concerts performed all over the world in 2018.

Audissino offers a strong rebuttal to those who hold Williams’ popularity against his genius by comparing his works with Ennio Morricone and such composers and attempt to denounce his achievements. Despite Audissino’s evident enthusiasm for John Williams’ music, he finally doesn’t deny the fact that the ever-evolving Hollywood production system doesn’t allow John Williams’ classical Hollywood style spread far and wide; it remained just his distinct style and the other composers continued to deviate and found newer ways of scoring films; a glaring case in point, Hans Zimmer’s monophonic music and its stratospheric success. Zimmer’s music is an irrefutable antithesis to everything John Williams’ music stands for.

Audissino’s study is focused on a few specific works from the repertoire of one composer, and yet it discusses, even if briefly, many of the popular works of Williams’ contemporaries in order to substantiate Williams’ uniqueness.

Audissino’s book is a stellar example of how a piece of academic writing on an obscure subject can be tweaked to transcend beyond its esoteric scholarly boundaries and made accessible without diluting the heft of its subject matter.

Michael Giacchino

If you a film score fan, this Video in which Michael Giacchino - one of the Hollywood film score composer whose work I intently follow - talks about making music for Pixar films is a must watch.

Watch it for

He plays "Carl Goes Up" scene from Up with the alternate score that he initially composed for the scene, and he explains why they decided to scrap that piece and composed what is there in the film now.

Recording session Video of Mater's Theme for Cars 2

Lots of trivia and anecdotes about film scoring, film scoring process.

And, simply for the charming way he presents all of it.

Suite

Various themes or variations of a single theme from a film score are compiled and arranged coherently in a sequence to form what is called a Suite. Compiling a suite in itself is an art and you realize it all the more when you hear a piece like the one John Williams arranged as a tribute to film makers George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg for one of his recent concerts.

Listen to how seamlessly John Williams sails from one theme to another. A composer or the arranger ought to connect the themes seamlessly in the suite, for the performance of it to earn a greater emotional reaction from the audience. The audience’s applause when John Williams dramatically shifts to Star Wars theme was not just because it came when they least expected it but also because John Williams picks a precise moment in Jaws theme to make the transition to the Star Wars theme. It is seamless and yet has an element of surprise. I had goose bumps, when I first heard it.

While listening to the suite for the first time, precisely in a moment, when another theme was still playing, I expected E.T theme to make a surprise entry and voila it did in that very second. John Williams fan, I am. Check if you are also one. While listening to the piece, try to guess the entry point of E.T theme, and if you could guess, pat your back yourself on my behalf. You are a John Williams fan too.

In Hollywood film scores, most of the End Credits music is a Suite of all the themes from the film’s score. In Indian films, rarely we get to hear such score suites in the End credits; mostly one of the songs from the film, or remix of a popular song is played nowadays. Ilaiyaraaja has arranged such score suites for the Opening credits of umpteen films. My most favorite suite arranged by Ilaiyaraaja is not from a feature film, though.

The track India 24 Hours Theme in the India 24 Hours album is actually a suite made of themes from all the other tracks in the album. The seamlessness in transition from one theme to another is quite astonishing in this track. If you listen to this piece without hearing rest of the album, you cannot guess that it is a collection of various themes. It sounds like one coherent piece. That is how a Suite should be.

For my listening pleasure, I always compile themes from films into Suites, many of which I have posted in this site too. But, they were compiled from available audio clips ripped from DVDs, so you can’t expect it to be as coherent as the ones composers compile for the live concert performances.

Some of my favorite suites I put together - How to Name it, Nothing But Wind, Rang De Basanti, Mouna Raagam Mohan Theme, Big Bang Symphony (I have been trying to fit in one more variation of the theme within this Suite, haven't been able to do it yet), Ninaivellam Nithya Love Theme

Now, Greatest of all Suites I have heard is the one John Williams arranged and conducted in Oscar 2002 as a tribute to 75 years of Hollywood Film Music (Jump from 20th Century Fox music to Star Wars, Psycho to Jaws and Godfather to E.T – Several goose bumps in five minutes)

People Like Us Soundtrack Review

A.R.Rahman’s non-Indian film scores, almost always had its share of Indian elements. Indian Tarana blends with Spanish flamenco for the introduction scene of a Spanish Yoga guru – Salvadore, and Americans undress to the rhythms of a Ghatam in Couples Retreat. It is Darbari on Continuum Fingerboard or Harshdeep Kaur’s haunting hymns in times of despair for Aron Ralston. A solo Saarangi playing the theme set on an unmistakable Indian scale fills the entire soundtrack, be it for Her Majesty from Great Britain (Elizabeth: The Golden Age) or for the reunion of three estranged sisters from Austria (Passage). When, I first saw the Credits of People Like Us soundtrack, I was surprised that there are no Indian instruments or Voices used, probably for the first time in an A.R.Rahman soundtrack. People Like Us is an all American family drama. However, the instrument used doesn’t matter as much as the melody to set the score in a specific milieu. The major thematic melodies in People Like Us score do not have the Indian inflections and that make the score sound not necessarily American, but it is anything but Indian.

A.R.Rahman is extremely good at writing pieces combining Synth and acoustic instruments, which, thankfully, is what People Like Us soundtrack is full of. People Like Us is more melodic than atmospheric. A.R.Rahman wisely allows the Synth and atmospheric soundscapes to dominate a piece, only when gloom is the mood that he is after in the piece (Dad’s Shaving Kit, Dad’s Dead). The Synth in other pieces is there to make even most emotional of thematic melodies less mushy. With a subtle synth always thudding, tugging, lingering and looping along underneath, the solo acoustic instruments parade one after the other to make the main thematic melodic statements, and minimal yet abundantly adequate strings section provide a tender supporting cushion to ease the burden of the main melody to evoke intended emotions. There is a delectable innateness in the melody, intimacy in the way solo instrumentals are layered and the breeziness in the orchestration throughout the score. With the score emerging from the softest of the registers of every solo instrument - Piano, Harp, Harmonica, Clarinet, Flute, Horn, Acoustic Guitar, Cello – used, the score as a whole is exquisitely soothing to listen to.

People Like Us is also thematically rich, with the themes and their variations adequately recurring throughout the soundtrack, in an attempt to narrate the complete story and hint at the key moments, even without the aid of the visuals. A strong melody is introduced right in the beginning in the People Like Us track, strong enough to make us believe it to be the main theme of the film. The theme from People Like Us track appears immediately in the next cue Newyork to L.A where every note of the melody is hesitantly hit on Piano with longer gaps in between the notes to suggest the mind of Sam, who at this moment wants to avoid attending his Dad’s funeral. Just a few bars of the main Frankie theme (Sam’s Sister) are hinted toward the end of this piece, hinting at the surprise that awaits Sam.

Frankie’s theme recur most number of times throughout the score, undergoes a number of delectable orchestral variations and is even expanded as a song “Dotted Line” (Co-Written by Liz Phair). Frankie’s Theme is heard in all its glory in Tacos. The themes and so many instrumental layers from the various cues crisscross each other in varied forms throughout the score. A melodic-synth layer from Dad’s Studio sneaks into Discount Prom Dress, the People Like Us cue makes a soul stirring reprise in “Breakfast for Mom/Just be People” hinting a sense of closure attained in the narrative. “I’m your brother” is a delightful conversation between a subdued Horn (Sam reveals that he is Frankie’s brother) and a Cello (that plays Frankie’s theme). However, even if you aren’t much into such motif-spotting exercise, the immensity of emotions the pieces invokes is reason enough for someone to immerse himself into this score.

My only little grouse about this entire soundtrack is the song “Dotted Line”. A.R.Rahman attempts a mainstream American film song and it sounds like a typical mainstream American film song, with a very faint stamp of A.R.Rahman in the Orchestration and that is so atypical of A.R.Rahman. There definitely seems to be some problem in knitting English words with an already composed Rahman melody. It has always been much better when Rahman sets already written English verses to a melody (Journey Home from Bombay Dreams). But, that is from someone who has been closely following A.R.Rahman’s music for past two decades. The other song Airport Adventures (featuring Michael “Nomad” Ripoll) laced with many layers of assorted Guitars and drums that scream the American sound, injects the much needed energy in an otherwise totally mellifluous album.

There are cues that don’t rely on any of the main motifs, and that liberty of not having to use one of the motifs A.R.Rahman uses to his advantage to make the soundtrack much more exotic and eclectic.

Sam follows Frankie (Following Frankie) with cascading layers of Celtic tinged Violins racing over an unstable synth rhythm that suggest a sense of urgency and uncertainty. “Welcome to People” set in a relaxed Waltz rhythm is relentlessly mellifluous, melodious and the arrangement is simply sublime. Beat the Living starts off like a solo guitar piece but makes a surprise turn midway and becomes a cool whistle-along whistle melody with a swing rhythm.

A rhythmic beating and breaking of a shell of a cooked crab leads us to the most exhilarating piece of the soundtrack – Crab Drumming / Finding Sam. A guitar strums into way into the next section of the piece in a rhythm set by the drumming of the crab. What follows is the unmistakable signature A.R.Rahman sound in the blissful Piano piece that runs around a heavenly surge of strings and this piece precisely is what Alex Kurtzman could be referring to as “a sound unlike anything else” in his notes. The way the piece builds up to a crescendo and cuts itself at the peak, leaves you yearning for more. It is one of the most refreshing and rejuvenating pieces of music I have heard in a while, and ever since I heard the thirty seconds sample of the piece on Amazon, it has been the piece of the music that alarms and wakes me up in the morning every day. I couldn’t ask for a better start to my day.

A.R.Rahman sticks to simple melodies, ornaments the melodies with ethereal instrumental layers and maintains a thematic integrity. A coherent sonic texture and orchestral color is maintained throughout. I already like the score immensely and it can only get better with the film. People Like Us is another worthy addition to an eclectic repertoire of A.R.Rahman’s Hollywood scores.

Flying Themes

Composers deliver their best when the key emotion in the music has to be the exhilaration in taking flight. The feel of flying in air, that ability to disengage oneself from the gravity – the biggest force that keeps us the prison of this planet, gives us utmost exhilaration and rekindles the child in all of us. Here I present a playlist of themes and cues written for moments in which something or someone is flying in air. I go to this playlist whenever I want to re-energize myself. The pieces in this playlist make me smile and cry at the same time; they give me orgasmic pleasure, musical frisson almost every single time I listen to them. Do share, if you know any such flying themes

Finding Neverland - The Kite, The Play and the Flight (Jan A.P. Kaczmarek)

Forrest Gump – I'm Forrest ... Forrest Gump (Alan Silvestri)

Wall-E – Define Dancing (Thomas Newman)

Avatar – Jake's First Flight (James Horner)

UP – Carl Goes Up (Michael Giacchino)

How to Train Your Dragon - New Tail & Romantic Flight (John Powell)

The Aviator – F1-Racer Plane (Howard Shore)

And, Of course E.T – Flying Theme (John Williams)

In Conversation with Matt Dunkley

It is he who first broke the silence and informed the world, that A.R.Rahman is indeed the composer for Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours”. I am talking about the composer, orchestrator and Conductor Matt Dunkley. Matt Dunkley is the orchestrator for all of A.R.Rahman’s symphonic, orchestral scores. The legend of Bhagat Singh, Warriors of Heaven and Earth, Meenaxi: Tale of three cities, Bose – The Forgotten Hero, Mangal Pandey, Elizabeth: The golden Age, Couples Retreat, 127 Hours and Endhiran – The Robot are the films in which Matt Dunkley worked with A.R.Rahman. In this interview, Matt clarifies all the doubts I had about the working relationship between a composer and an orchestrator. Further, he shares in detail his experience of working with A.R.Rahman.

The first time you worked with A.R.Rahman was for an Indian film called “The Legend of Bhagat Singh” and it has been 8 years since then and you have worked for nearly 8 films with him after that. How did he find you? Tell us, in general, about your experience of working with A.R.Rahman.

That’s right Suresh. We met on “Bhagat Singh” in 2002. Maestro A.R.Rahman was in London (where I live and work) writing his show Bombay Dreams, and he needed to record some background score to the film. I was contacted by the orchestral contractor Isobel Griffiths (who books most of the players for movie recording sessions in London) to orchestrate and conduct the sessions at Abbey Road Studios – studio 2 in fact, where the Beatles recorded all of their albums. We had a medium size string section, some woodwinds and 4 French horns. AR had composed some demos, and I took these and fleshed them out a little for orchestra, and then conducted the sessions. The music was great and I got on very well with AR (though I had heard his name, at that stage, I had no idea what a major force he was in Indian film music). Anyway, I think the whole experience whetted AR’s appetite to record some more with western “classical” orchestras – I remember he was particularly excited by the sound of the horns (he still is!)

What is the role of an Orchestrator? Does the composer (A.R.Rahman) write only the main melody of the piece and leave the rest to the Orchestrator? Or does the composer make a digital mock-up with all orchestral layers and you just notate the score and conduct it? Does he play each layer of music in Piano? How significant a contribution of a composer is in the orchestration of the final piece of music that we get to hear?

I get asked this question a lot! In simple terms an orchestrator’s role is to take whatever the composer has written and to notate it for orchestra in such a way that truly represents the musical intentions of the composer. So with AR for instance, he will give me a computer file from his “Logic” sequencer (a sequencer is the software program that enables a composer to play sample instruments via midi alongside audio and synced to picture). This file will contain the music he has played in via a piano keyboard triggering different sounds – I can see the notes – and an audio mix of this music. So he might have played in some string lines, and some brass and woodwind, and some percussion too. My job is to take all this information and notate it into a “full score” which has all the instruments of the orchestra we are using (see below an excerpt of the printed score sheet of a background score cue “Robo Ball” that Matt notated for the film Endhiran – The Robot).

Now AR might have only used a horn sample in his file, but I will then split this horn writing out over the rest of the brass too (if stylistically this feels right), so I would add trumpets and trombones etc. The same goes for the woodwind and strings and percussion, and I might add a harp or a piano etc. Always my aim is to enhance and support the intentions of the composer.

It’s a big trust thing for the composer, because he or she is handing over their work to another musician, so the trick is to be sympathetic to the style of writing and not for me to impose my own voice onto this. That is why film composers tend to stick with the same orchestrator once they have developed this rapport. I have clients that I have worked with on 15 plus movies.

The amount of musical information in the digital mock-up score varies from job to job and from composer to composer. I have been asked to write a large end of movie cue for full orchestra from only a piano guide, though this is pretty rare these days. More often than not, as is the case with AR, I am given a midi mock-up that will give a good indication of the orchestration required, but will still leave room for me to have an artistic input in further enhancing the orchestral textures and add phrasing and dynamics (volume markings).

We know, through various interviews, that A.R.Rahman does not write the score on a paper score sheet. In today’s time, with so much technology around, is it necessary for a composer to pen down a score to the last detail on a sheet? I understand that very few composers, like John Williams, work with a pencil and paper still for a film score.

I started out scoring on pencil and paper, but as the technology came in I embraced it. I well remember the hassle of trying to courier scores and parts to the U.S. for film sessions – and the anxiety when they got caught up in customs or went missing. Now I can finish a score and email it instantly anywhere in the world. John Williams has been doing this since the 50’s so I think he’s entitled to use whatever he likes! But I’ve seen his scores – they are very detailed 8 stave pencil sketches, but they still need an orchestrator to split them out into a full score, and this is done on a computer. The other thing to remember is that individual orchestral parts need to be made from the orchestrator’s full score by the music copyists. With a pencil and paper score every single note has to be re-input, this takes time, and in the movie business time is always at a premium. With a computer notated score, the data is already there, so it’s more a case of data manipulation. My copyists can print out a 4 minute action cue for full 80 piece orchestra within an hour – with a pencil and paper score and hand copied parts that would take the best part of a day.

Though A.R.Rahman’s eclectic scores for Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours are receiving sky high praises, his typical Hollywood style orchestral score for “Couples Retreat” was not appreciated as much as it should have been, critically? Why do you think this is so? Does the appreciation of a score depend also on the merits of the film?

Couples Retreat was a lovely score; we recorded it in L.A. on the same recording stage that all the great MGM musicals were recorded, so it was a special experience. But yes, in answer to your question, I think quite often good scores are overlooked simply because the movie isn’t very good. I’m not saying Couples Retreat was a bad movie, but I think it’s fair to say that AR’s score was better! If you look at the Oscars over the years, so often best score goes with best picture, which was fabulous for AR last time around, but can lead to other notable scores losing out. Slumdog and 127 Hours are both really well crafted movies and the fact that that also shines a light on AR’s beautiful music is good for us all.

Though you are an Orchestrator, you are also a composer. How do you balance your sensibilities and the composer’s, when you orchestrate a melody of another composer?

I do compose and love doing so, but as I said earlier, an orchestrator’s job is all about fulfilling the composers’ creative vision, so I am very careful not to impose my “voice” onto another’s. I’ve been doing this for a while now and I’m just coming up to my 100th movie so I think I’ve learnt how to represent a composers music using my orchestration techniques without crossing the line. They have created the core material that I work from, so as long as I stay true to that the balance is achieved.

Since what stage do you get to be part of the creative process of making the original score for a film? Do you get to know the complete script of the film, watch the entire film and sit in spotting sessions?

This varies from film to film, but generally I’ll come in right at the end of post production. Usually the composer will have been working on the score for 2 or 3 weeks before we start our discussions about orchestration and recording session schedules. I will hear some early demos and receive a cue list and spotting notes so that I can get an overall picture of how much music there is to record and what type of instrumentation we will need to achieve this. I will then suggest an orchestra size (or sizes) and how many recording sessions we will need. I’ll then liaise with the studio, engineer, orchestral contractor and music copyists to make sure we all agree dates etc. Sometimes I’m sent a script, but more importantly I always like to orchestrate to picture if possible, as there is no point me adding loads of brass and percussion on a particular cue only to find out at the recording session that the music for that scene is all under dialogue! Occasionally I will come in earlier on a production, particularly if there is playback music on set that needs to be pre-recorded before the shoot.

Tell us about the Concert in which you conducted orchestral works of A.R.Rahman in Royal Festival hall. On what basis, the scores were picked for performance. Some of A.R.Rahman’s Indian film songs were also performed with the orchestra. How easy or difficult was it to adapt those film songs for a Symphony orchestra? How well was the concert received by the audience?

This was something AR had wanted to do for a long time. We had tried something similar a few years before with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, but because of time pressures and budget we didn’t really crack it on that occasion. So I sat down with AR and firstly, as this was an orchestral concert with a 76 piece orchestra (London Philharmonic Orchestra) and a 32 voice choir (Metro Voices), we went through all the orchestral material that we had worked on together. He chose the pieces that he liked best from this body of work and then suggested other songs and instrumental pieces that he’d like to adapt for orchestra, as well as pieces from his theatre shows. The first challenge was to make orchestral “suites” out of the film music, so that they flowed as concert works, rather than just being individual film cues. We chose songs that didn’t have too electronic a starting point, so that the substitution of an orchestra for a backing track wouldn’t sound too forced. We also went for songs with simple melodies (without too much ornamentation) so that I could divide up the melody amongst the orchestra without it sounding like a pastiche of the original, but rather a re-interpretation. As the concept for the concert developed and evolved, we managed to include 2 wonderful singers (Alma Ferovic and Michael Rouse), an Indian flautist (Naveen Kumar), a sitar player (Asad Khan), an accordion player (Eddie Hession), as well as Gauri Tripathi and her dancers. It was quite an evening, and the sell out audience of 2500 in the Royal Festival Hall really seemed to enjoy hearing another side of A.R.Rahman’s genius.

How different it is working with A.R.Rahman for the score of an Indian film from that of a Hollywood film?

The main difference is how AR approaches the scoring. In a Hollywood movie the tradition is very much to demo an audio mock-up of every musical moment or “cue” in the film. This “cue by cue” approach is the standard way of scoring a movie in Hollywood. Each demo cue is put to picture (usually with the help of a music editor) and then submitted for approval to the director, producer, film editor and anybody else who have a say in the movie. Often each cue can be sent back a number of times for “tweaks” or even full rewrites. I’ve seen “Version 15” on a cue file!! In an Indian film, as only some of the music is background score (the rest being the songs), AR tends to write longer pieces in different moods that can then be cut into the movie to fit various scenes, so it’s a much freer approach to writing really.

You have also worked with some of the great Hollywood composers. How different or same A.R.Rahman is in comparison with Hollywood composers?

I think, like all great movie composers, AR shares that unique ability of both serving the needs of the movie and writing fabulous music. It sounds such an easy thing to do, but so often one hears effective movie music in the theatre that doesn’t work as stand alone music when the picture is taken away. That’s fine, as the music’s primary function is to serve the picture, but AR and only a handful of other Composers seem to be able to write scores that work in both ways. I remember numerous times recording in London and L.A. and Prague when the orchestra have been really moved by the power and beauty of maestro Rahman’s writing. That’s a unique gift, and one I’ve been privileged to be a part of.

Have you heard A.R.Rahman’s non-orchestral works, like songs, in Indian films? What is your favourite A.R.Rahman Indian film song?

I have indeed heard them. In fact I saw him perform many of them when his recent “Jai Ho” tour came to London. As to a favourite…….that’s a tough one! As I get older I seem to be drawn more to simplicity in music – in classical music I’ve started listening to Bach again, and just love the way he expresses so much with so little. So, if I’ve got to pick one song then I’m going to say “Nahi Samne” from Taal. It’s such a gentle, simple, little tune and yet it never fails to move me. I did an arrangement of it for the RFH/LPO concert and it worked beautifully as a peaceful end to the evening.

Which is your favorite orchestral score of A.R.Rahman? And Why?

Another tough one! Like choosing your favourite child! Ok, well, if I’m sticking to my simplicity theme then I’d say Meenaxi for its beautiful simple melodies. But if I’m choosing for the inventiveness of the writing and the sheer variety of orchestral colors it’s got to be Warriors of Heaven & Earth.

The score for “127 Hours” - Do you think it is a serious contender for Oscars this year? (Even Inception score, for which you have worked, seems to be strongly in contention).

Who knows! I never guess the Oscars correctly. I do know that it’s a lovely subtle score that fits the picture beautifully – I saw it the other night at the London Film Festival, and that final song duet between AR and Dido is perfect. At the other end of the spectrum, Hans Zimmer’s Inception score is pretty amazing too.

Thanks to Matt Dunkley for patiently answering all the questions in such stunning detail.

Download (pdf) High quality Image of the Score sheet

127 Hours Score Review

A solo woodwind rises to announce the entry of a sole soul into the endless beauty of the vast and bare Grand Canyon. The soul is awestruck by the sight. Music plays for the sense of awe whereas the breath taking pauses in between play for the soul that is being struck by it. The melody passes on to a string section for the eyes that open wider, the widest it has ever opened in its life, in an attempt to capture all of the beauty at once. It can not. The eyes realise. The woodwind takes the lead again and together with the accompanying strings, the melody of “If I Rise” rises. A subtle, deep bass beat is hit to hint the reality that is starting to sink in. The strings proceed further for the soul that is wandering to find a serene spot to sit and stare. He finds a place to sit and stare, and the orchestra now comfortably plays the melody with which it started the piece. The loop becomes recursive. The piece with its music and no music can be listened to for a whole day in a loop. Thus, begins the experience of listening to A.R.Rahman’s soundtrack for Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours”.

The main motif of the film begins in “Liberation begins”. The nature that revealed its utmost beauty just a while ago reveals its dark side now by tying his arms down between a rock and a rock. Fate and nature are friends. The arrested body, with the power of its soul has to fight both fate and nature to liberate itself. The melody played on the acoustic guitar is constantly trying to move away and part itself from the bass line that plays the role of nature here. The bass keeps pulling the melody of the acoustic guitar down to play in sync with it. The bass line is too powerful, so much so that all the efforts of acoustic guitar go in vain.

In the “Liberation in a Dream” and final “Liberation”, the battle with fate and nature intensify. The levels of desperation, the force within and the determination to win are far higher this time. He has to liberate himself. The madly rushing strings, roughening electric guitar riffs, roiling percussions add to the theme of liberation which cut itself short after briefly announcing its existence in the track “Liberation begins”. The excruciating pain that he much go through is underlined by the harsh guitar layers. The sympathy that one must have as an audience for him is underlined by layers of soft strings. Each instrument layer is growing in its intensity, force and energy. The synergy of the varied music layers adds to the music as a whole. The piece is exponentially growing dense and tight in every next bar. This Is How You Build Up To A Crescendo. And Ah! When the moment arrives, when he liberates himself, at the peak of the Crescendo, I felt a divine current running from head to toe in my body.

After a deadly cold night, when first rays of sun touch his body, he, for the first time, realises the warmth of his father’s embrace. He becomes nostalgic. The all-guitar melody in “Touch of the Sun” has ample amount of silences thrown in between each of its phrases. When there are so many pauses, it is not easy to determine, where the full stop or a comma is. If Cinema is a sentence in a language, its conjunctions are split between the visuals and the music. A visual may take a “but” of the sentence and leave a “because” for the music to fill in and deliver its complete meaning, which is why it is totally idiotic to try to absorb completely, understand and appreciate a piece of background score before watching the visuals. In “Touch of the Sun”, the music and visuals seem to have exchanged such conjunctions in quick succession. However, it does leave a listener with one emotion, which is the warmth of pure love.

The short phrases of Guitar melody, rises an octave higher, to indicate the shift the camera makes from the tight close-up shots of him and his father to the wider shot of both sitting together on the edge of a rock and staring at the setting Sun. A deep pause follows. The memories of moments he spent with his family are rushing back to him. He is engulfed by Nostlagia. Now that, he is with his family in his memories, the lone Guitar melody reprises with rich musical accompaniments until the eeriness of the e-sounds and the harshness of the place he is stuck in, cuts through his memories.

It is extremely tough to tie A.R.Rahman down to one instrument for entire soundtrack of a film. Guitar works wonderfully for the intimacy that the film maker wants to build between the audience and the lone victim. However, Rahman breaks free, liberates himself and composes a piece titled “Acid Darbari” in a genre that I prefer to call “Rahmanica”. Wonder what it is? Rahmanica is Rahman’s unique way of blending acoustics and electronica. No one does it like him.

Acid Darbari is a psychotherapeutic track. It is transcendental. It is in times of utmost adversity one feels closer to oneself and realises the endless limits of their spirit. I guess this track plays in one such moment of realization in the film. The very sound of the Fingerboard Continuum and the bass that gravitates the whole piece, set a serene, soothing aura. The bells, an aching cello, a distant alaap, an Oboe and strings sneak in and out of the song, without ever intruding the main meditative mood of the track. “Acid Darbari” is bliss at its blissful best.

Harshdeep Kaur’s sympathetic humming begins R.I.P on a gloomy note. There is a sense of despair in the aura. He has tried everything that he could. There is no hope. He is convinced that he is going to die a painful death. No. Wait. Ethnic percussions join in with the alaap to indicate a germ of a thought. He senses a way out. He contemplates the thought. The percussion aggravates with a rhythm. A thought soon becomes a decision. A deep pause with eerie electronic sounds, and then it begins. The lower registers of strings are dramatically bowed in a rush. It is bowed to create a hard, harsh and sharp sound of a thick saw cutting him from his fate. It leads to puke inducing turn in the stomach when we listen to the ultimatum he puts himself through for liberation.

The moment the bass line kicks in and begins to loop, we are hooked to “If I Rise”. The words might boast of optimism, but to me, the song as a whole puts a listener through a passage of nothingness. The song fills the soul with a divine calm. With A.R.Rahman and Dido crooning the lines on the softest of their vocal registers, the eclectic sound scape created by the omnipresent bass loop, the soft thudding beats, the confluence of worldly sounds and instruments in the third act of the song, the track as a whole takes us on a spiritual ride into an ethereal sound scape.

Some of the cues from the film’s background score are missing in the compilation. Energetic rock guitars play when he challenges himself to bike fast and reach a place, which usually takes 4.5 hours to reach, in 45 minutes. This piece is not there. The drums begin with singular strokes and gain a rhythm gradually, when after getting stuck he is shown to be picking out things from his bag, and placing it on the rock. Also, the Liberation theme, when it plays in the rain scene, has a slightly different layering of Strings.

“127 Hours” score is a stunning follow up to Slumdog Millionaire.

Doug Adams speaks about the book "Music of LOTR films"

Doug Adams, the author of “Music of the Lord of the Rings Films” speaks to backgroundscore.com about the book.

Your blog (musicoflotr.com) Posts, articles in film score monthly magazine, your interviews with Howard Shore and Complete recordings’ liner notes - I have read almost everything that was written on the music of Lord of the rings films so far. What is new in it (the book) for me?

The materials that you’ve read before, namely the sections on Themes and the Annotated Score have been previously available in a condensed, reduced form. These were originally written in a more complete form for the book, then were altered and transported over for The Complete Recordings. Now that the book is finally being released you’ll see these pieces in their full forms. There are still a handful of themes we’ve never discussed, and the Annotated Score digs into the material much more seriously.

We also open and close the book with large chapters that tell the story of the production – how Howard came to this project, how it and where was recorded. You’ll meet the performers, and see how Shore worked with the filmmakers. So the book is really two stories wrapped together – the story of the production, and Tolkien’s narrative. And of course we also have material that relates to the Rarities Archive, so you’ll see new choral texts, etc. in there. With all the pieces in place, it’s a pretty unique experience!

Did all those other writings of yours on the score make the book-writing easier? What was the toughest part of writing this book?

As I noted, the book actually existed first. When some of that material was selected for use with The Complete Recordings, it was abbreviated and adapted. Then, when the time came to reassemble the material and incorporate it into the full book, we reformed everything and vastly improved it. The book we have now is not the book we would have had back then, and it’s much, much better for that process. It’s was a strangely circuitous path, but it worked for us!

As for the toughest part – well, it’s hard to say. It was a dream project. I got to work with brilliant people on something I felt very passionate about. The constant stream of airplanes, rental cars, hotels, and coffee shops was physically taxing, of course. But it was such a thrill, I never really noticed.

Does this book go beyond just annotating the score? Would we get to read in the book, any new way of approaching a film score?

The book is structured as a ‘narrative analysis.’ In many ways, this book is a storybook – it’s the story of the analysis. Tolkien loved myths and tales, and I wanted to stay true to that spirit, even when dealing with what is essentially analytic subject matter. I think that’s a fairly unique thing … and this is why the book should appeal to both musicians and non-musicians – it’s a dramatic work. The characters are themes, the plot is their development. And if we use a technical term, we simply define it with a footnote. I think people will be shocked how easily this material can be understood, and how moving it can be when contextualized properly.

LOTR music is hugely popular, but not every LOTR fan would be a connoisseur of orchestral film scores to understand the subtleties in it. They would have gone home whistling Fellowship theme, Shire theme, Rohan theme or Ring theme, but they would not have gone deep to the extent of realizing that war at Helm’s deep opens with “Lothlorien theme”. Will the book engage such listeners, who listen to film scores just on the surface? Could you elaborate what is there in the book for them?

If the book is successful it will bring in ‘surface-listeners’ and reveal a whole new level of meaning to them. In fact, I hope it’s a revelation to many people. The book should reveal the music’s true face and show readers what’s really happening in Shore’s carefully crafted music. It’s not just moods, it’s an incredible web-like structure that’s every bit as involved as Tolkien’s Middle-earth. I want this book to enrich listeners’ perspectives.

In the sample chapters of the book, I could see that there are staff notations of the score - both hand written and printed. There are a lot of technical descriptions of the music, but how have you handled the emotional part of the score? Sometimes those staff notations and musical jargons may put-off the starters, who are just beginning to embrace and understand the orchestral film scores?

The music examples are there to further illustrate points to those who can read them, but they exist on their own level. The real analysis, and the real emotion of the ‘narrative,’ is in the text. You should be able to read straight through the book without the ability to read the music examples and still walk away with a profound understanding of Shore’s work.

How significant are the images from the films and the original sketches by John Howe and Alan lee for the book? What gap do you think these sketches would fill in the communication between your words in the book and the readers? If you have an image from the scene in the film or the original sketch included in the book, does it reduce your job of having to explain the whole scene from the scratch?

I think that John and Alan’s incredible sketches – and the film stills, as well – help us to create that storybook feeling. They’re transportive; they take you right into Middle-earth. Tolkien’s stories have inspired so much art: visual, musical, literature, etc. I wanted to represent as much of that as possible in the book. Each art has to have its own integrity, and together they cumulate to create a satisfying whole. I tried and make my writing just as strong as the musical and visual aspects … I don’t pretend to know if I pulled it off, but that was the goal!

Complete Recordings CDs or Movie DVDs of LOTR – which one of these a reader of the book must go to refer or verify while reading the book and why?

The book should be its own experience, I think. The theatrical films, the DVD edits, the original soundtracks, The Complete Recordings – each of these told the story of The Lord of the Rings in its own way. The book should do that too. And just as the films make you want to hear the CDs, and the CDs make you want to see the films, the book should make you want to return to the films and the CDs. They should all work together.

I always felt that there is a necessity of new mediums of communication through which common film goers can understand the nuances of a film score. We have DVDs where there are options to watch the film with audio commentaries of Production designer, Costume designer, screenplay writers, directors, producers, cinematographers, VFX supervisors and even the actors. I always wished for an audio option with just composer (Howard Shore) and a musicologist like you discussing the score in each and every single scene of the film. Is that the next step?

If they want some commentary for a deluxe Blu-ray edition of the films, I’m ready to take their call!

Now that, you have spent a few years of your life into LOTR film scores and have come up with this book, do you feel that there is nothing much left in LOTR music for you to dig into or understand better? I guess you know LOTR film score better than Howard shore himself.

I’ve sat with Howard during the Live to Projection performances, and sometimes he’ll lean over during a certain passage and say, “I think I should re-orchestrate the trombone part there, I don’t like the voicings.” You’re never really done with a big project like this, I suppose. I think that’s true for everyone. There’s always some new observation waiting to be discovered, and I’m sure I’ll think of something that I’ll wish I had mentioned in the book! The scores, like the stories, are endlessly revealing. That said, Howard and I are confident that the book sheds light on all the themes, the developments, and all that makes this score such an important work. We worked a long time to make it a truly comprehensive document.

Howard often tells me I know the scores better than he does, but I take it in the spirit of good humor. He has such a brilliant mind; he’s always a step ahead of everyone else.

The book seems to be a complete package with a rarities CD including 21 alternate score material unheard before. Why is this necessary? What does it add to the book? Is it meant just for the listening experience?

It’s meant as a beautiful listening experience, but it also enhances the part of the book that details the creation of the score. It shows you some of Shore’s early ideas, some of his alternate concepts, and gives you an insight into his creative process in a purely musical way. It’s a wonderful collection, and can be listened to either straight through as an album, or scrutinized as an archive.

We have heard a lot about the clash between the score and sound, in films. Even in liner notes of Complete recordings, I remember reading that some of the musical score cues were replaced with sound effects? Does the book talk about this clash between sound and music in LOTR films and about what went behind in choosing one over the other? It would make a fascinating read.

This is quite typical for a production such as this, so I wouldn’t want to characterize it as a “clash.” Composers often write music for scenes knowing that directors can choose between either music or sound effects alone. There’s rarely any specific reason one is chosen over the other. It’s part of a director’s creative process, and is more instinct than anything else. It’s almost always a case of “It just feels right.”

Now that, the book is on the verge of release, how do you feel about this whole LOTR journey? What is your take away from this experience?

It’s truly been the adventure of a lifetime. I hope we can go back again when The Hobbit comes around.

I am sure Howard Shore was with you throughout the journey of this book. What did Howard Shore say to you when he saw the final print of the book?

As a young musician, Howard was one of my idols. He is now a dear friend. I’m not sure I have enough words to express what that transition has meant to me. Howard called when the book finally came in and simply said, “It’s beautiful, Doug.”

Sometimes the simplest statements are the most meaningful.

Have you heard Indian film music? What do you have to say about it? What did you think of A.R.Rahman's score for Slumdog Millionaire and the subsequent Oscar win?

I actually studied Hindustani classical music a good bit when I was in music school. I think it’s fantastic to see these traditions represented in film. We’re entering a world now where musical borders are becoming increasingly diminished, and that can only be a good thing for the art!

Finally, can I say “Music of the Lord of the Rings Films” is the One Book to Read Them All?

Yes, I think you should say that! 

Needle Drops

Is Ilaiyaraaja doing the background score for Anubhav Sinha’s “Ra.One”? He definitely is doing one song in the film about which Sukhwinder Singh has given an interview. I don’t think Ilaiyaraaja would agree to do only one song in a film and so there is a good chance of the news about him writing the score, being true. I heard that it is a science fiction film. If Ilaiyaraaja is doing, it is going to be Budapest Symphony Orchestra again and as it is a big budget Shahrukh Khan Film, there is a very good chance of background score getting released in the soundtrack CD. Let us wait and watch.

It is confirmed. A.R.Rahman is doing the background score for Danny Boyle’s next “127 Hours”. Matt Dunkley - the Orchestrator, has posted a message in his webpage that he is orchestrating and conducting A.R.Rahman’s score for 127 Hours in London.

August 2010 - orchestrating and conducting A.R.Rahman's beautiful score to Danny Boyle's new movie "127 Hours", which will close the London Film Festival.

Matt’s response in Facebook about the score -

"It's beautiful as always - with electric guitars mixed in with orchestral strings and samples. No songs as far as I know - it's more subtle under-score fitting the subject matter of the movie, which deals with one man's triumph over adversity and the power of the human spirit"

Now, the trailer is out with A.R.Rahman's name in the credits



I saw “Naan Mahaan Alla” on a cam-rip and therefore cannot comment on Yuvan’s background score as a whole. Even in that dirty, small sized cam-rip I saw, the film is thoroughly engaging. I ripped two themes that I could hum on the very first viewing of the film. Here they are

Naan Mahaan Alla – Villan Theme and Title Music

Naan Mahaan Alla – Love Theme