Advanced Techniques with Rhythm and Meter in Film Music

Write memorable, meaningful music with classic rhythmic techniques.

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$125 USD
Duration: 5 Hrs 24 Min

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Discover rhythmic techniques from some of the best-known themes in film, learn a wealth of techniques for irregular meters from classic blockbuster films, and see how meter combines with mode and tempo to create emotional associations from Hollywood’s best composers!

  1. Memorable Rhythms in the First 2 Bars of Themes
    • Cell Repetition with Divider
    • Cell Repetition with Variation
    • Embedded Cell Repetition
  2. Creating Meaning with Hemiola
    • Overview – Hemiola vs. Syncopation
    • Confident
    • Emphatic Cadence
    • Light-Hearted Action
    • Antagonist
    • Overview – Intensifying Expressions with Displaced Hemiola
  3. Modern Theme Rhythms: The “Bump” and “Run-Up”
    • The Strong-Weak Bump
    • Bump with Decorated Strong Beat
    • The Strong-Beat Run-Up

  1. Irregular Meters Used Singly
    • 2-Beat Times (in 5)
    • 3-Beat Times (in 7, 8)
  2. 4 or More Beats in Irregular Patterns
    • Regular + Irregular: The Early Beat
    • Regular + Irregular: The Late Beat
    • Large Irregular Meters
  3. Other Techniques with Irregular Meters
    • Mixed Irregular Meters
    • Accelerating the Meter
    • Making Repetitions Unpredictable
  1. A Few Preliminaries
    • On Associations in General
    • Expressing Compound and Triple Time
  2. Slow Compound Time
    • Sorrow
    • Mystery
  3. Fast Compound Time
    • Strength, Power
    • Success, Succeeding
    • Light-Hearted Adventure
    • Sinister
  4. Triple Time
    • Comfort, Love, Bonding
    • Tragic Fate

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Learn how dissonant tonal action chords are used when freed from the context of a scale, and which dissonant-bass chords and polychords appear most often, all supported by dozens of examples from classic blockbuster films.

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Write melodies that mean what you want them to mean. Melodies in tonal music tend to conform to underlying linear patterns that have different emotional meanings when they are elaborated in different ways. By analyzing many of the best-known themes to emerge from Hollywood scores, you’ll learn these basic shapes and how the elaborating techniques can create expressive effects that are perfectly suited to a theme’s association.

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