Howard Shore's Theme Writing: A Masterclass in Film Scoring

[00:00:00]Howard Shore soundtrack for Lord of the Rings is a master class in theme writing and has done more than enough to earn Howard Shore a place at the table amongst the greatest film composers ever wow this is the first time where we hear the fellowship theme in all of its Glory they're setting out on this perilous adventure and we get this really interesting mix of nervousness and a little bit of dissonance because at the very beginning we obviously hear the Shire theme but it's now played over top of this harmonic bass that doesn't really fit check it out okay so right there without hearing anything yet we've established this E minor with like an ad nine right [Music] that's the sound that the strings are playing underneath right but then listen [Music] that Melody right and it continues [Music] this is so cool because this whole time we have this E minor sound but we just all we do is we just play the Shire theme what was representing the Safety and Security of home of the Shire is now being applied in this ominous kind of nerve-wracking way we have this and then over top of that we simply go [Music] which that in itself is it's not the weirdest thing that note can fit within uh within E minor it would be e Dorian right so that's not the weirdest thing [Music] although it's a little strange and then this is where it all kind of goes nuts oh this is just so brilliant look at this [Music] we have a major third going on in in if we're looking at it as a that's the major third but it's a minor chord so we have the major and the minor third against each other that's a really unpleasant dissonant sound foreign [Music] it's the perfect combination of hey we took something that once was a representation of familiarity and comfort and now we've thrown this underlying discomfort on it and we kind of don't really know what's coming next we're still here we hold this out it's building up building up we don't know what's coming they're climbing into the unknown and then finally [Music] introduction of this new theme yes and check this out [Music] [Applause] [Music] wow the release of that dissonance intention into this Epic Adventure theme is what tells us that you know what we are traveling into the unknown but we have this confidence that we're gonna make it we're gonna get there it's a very resilient triumphant theme and it continues to mean the same thing throughout the film check it out [Music] come on [Music] [Music] moments of success we have this whole build up of this scene where you don't know what's gonna happen it's extremely treacherous and then right when something goes right we hear [Music] if it's only for a moment those times when we hear that triumphant theme that we've already established gives us confidence it brings back that feeling this thematic writing where we establish certain cultures or certain feelings with specific musical passages that immediately gives us the ability to call that back anytime we want and it'll help the audience feel that same emotion that they felt the first time but only if that first time of experiencing that theme was directly connected with such a feeling which as we just saw absolutely the Epic nature in which we heard the theme the first time really helped establish that triumphant confident feeling so now when we call it back in the middle of a treacherous scene we still get that hey you know what everything feels like it's gonna be all right [Music] the Rohan theme is another one where we can see the different usages in different contexts to call up different emotions in fact the first time it's introduced it's quite dark the context of this first introduction of the theme is that King Theoden has been corrupted by Saruman so what we find is a city in ederas that is no longer what it once was and that reflects in how we hear the theme [Music] and the flag ripping away I mean it's all just it helps you feel this distress right it's very melancholy nobody's really sure how to feel it's clearly dark it's clearly something wrong it's a beautiful theme and this just does such a great job at establishing this emotional feeling where we say oh yeah we hear that kind of somber theme and we immediately feel that this is something we're supposed to be unsure of and it's not looking good breathe the free and again my friend we go we're getting the theme here it is listen to that talk about changing my dreams of late changing your feelings associated with this but it's really tying together that this is the same problem that we've been addressing okay we started out with those really Melancholy strings and now after he's healed we hear this all right we get it with much more triumphant brass it's still not this insanely huge Fanfare Victory sound but it's hopeful and then when we do bring the strings back and it still has this more hopeful feel as we build this up foreign [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] look that look where we have this one note is all we need that's it [Music] that's all we need we have E minor and if we just think of like what are the most dissonant notes we could use here I mean we could use we could use a B flat that would be pretty dissonant we could use F that would also work as well we go with E flat here which I think is a really cool choice and I'll tell you why foreign chord that goes with it listen to that C minor we took our E minor bass that's a really dark transition dropping a major third in minor chords playing a minor chord here and then down a major third playing another minor chord right that's a really dark transition it's like every note that could possibly be turning darker and darker is turning darker and so it's just I think it's the perfect note to use there you get dissonance and then you also get that Progressive darkening as this moment of Revenge takes place [Music] yeah oh there's our theme but it's adjusted slightly we're not sure what's gonna happen we're building up to this insane sequence right listen to that we normally expect this theme to be which is a very hopeful bright sound even if it can sound Melancholy as we demonstrated before it can also sound triumphant as we just demonstrated but here we don't go one chord in minor to the four chord in major instead we do this listen [Music] we use the IV chord in minor but we leave the one on the bottom so we go F sharp minor to B minor over F sharp and we adjust our Melody ever so slightly check that out right it's probably the darkest most ominous version we've heard yet which makes sense for where it's being applied [Applause] oh we're even using the same instrumentation but yet now it has this much more triumphant here and that's just all in the delivery of the Dynamics [Music] it switches to Brass so you can see just like we've used the same theme to represent the same person the same place but in three different contexts to elicit different emotions it's just absolutely brilliant thematic writing and these little themes and callbacks there's over a hundred of them throughout the trilogy they all correspond to different Middle Earth cultures and people forming what is ultimately one of the greatest and most intricate collection of themes in the history of Cinema Great thematic writing doesn't need to come from complex Harmony complex melodic writing it can be dead simple if it's what's called for by the context of the film and if it's what fits the story that's all that matters Howard Shore did an absolutely incredible job and has created one of the greatest soundtracks of all time many of you may know this but a while back we launched our very first piano course this was something that I wanted to do for a number of reasons as you guys know sponsorships is one of the biggest ways that YouTube channels are able to support themselves and while that's definitely an Avenue that I've gone down before I always felt like I wanted to make something that would just be more directly relevant to you and 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me or not that doesn't matter I'm just glad you're here so thank you for watching this video and we'll see you in the next one [Music] foreign [Music]