Lesson video

Hello everyone.

How are you? Hope you're feeling really good, and I'm so pleased you're here.

My name's Miss Afzal, and I'll be your teacher for this lesson.

I'm very pleased about that because we're looking at silent movies and scoring silent movies.

I think it's gonna be a lot of fun.

Our lesson is called "Scoring a Silent Movie" and it comes from the unit of work, film music.

So I hope you're feeling ready with some ideas, some focus, energy, enthusiasm, and if you have all of that, I think we're ready to begin.

The outcome for today's lesson is I can combine different elements to create a live musical accompaniment for a silent film.

We have some keywords in our lesson.

Let's go through them.

Musical cliche, vamp and D Minor.

So what do these keywords mean? Musical cliche.

This is a musical idea that is well known and used often.

Vamp, a repeated musical pattern, often based on chords.

And D minor, a key where the music is based on a set of notes starting on D, which includes B flat as the flattened sixth.

These are our key words, musical cliche, vamp and D minor.

Let's look out and listen out for them.

They'll be coming up in our lesson today.

Our lesson is called "Scoring a Silent Movie" and it has two learning cycles, silent movie scores, and performing silent movie music in real time.

Let's begin by exploring silent movie scores.

When improvising for silent movies, performers work from an outline of the story with ideas for the music they would use in each scene.

Often they used popular songs in their music.

Many musical ideas were commonly used and became linked with the specific feeling or action, making them slightly predictable.

These are known as musical cliches.

One of the most famous cliches is the misterioso.

A short musical idea that was usually used during mysterious scenes.

Let's listen to this audio clip.

Pause here and share with someone.

Are you familiar with that short musical idea, the misterioso? Have you heard it before? And where have you heard it? (misterioso music) Thanks for sharing.

One of the challenges of performing music live for a silent movie is transitioning seamlessly between different scenes and moods.

What are some of the different types of scene you might see in a silent movie? Pause here and share with someone.

Thanks for sharing.

I wonder what scenes you came up with.

Action scenes, romantic scenes, comedy scenes, scary scenes, suspenseful scenes.

I wonder if you came up with these different kinds of scenes, and now I'd like you to listen to this clip where a romantic scene turns into a dramatic action scene.

And I want you to consider how does it perform a transition between the different moods.

Let's listen to this clip.

(bright music begins) (bright music continues) (bright music ends) And now I'd like you to turn to someone and share with them how did the performer transition between the different moods? Thanks for sharing.

Let's gather some responses.

Here's Lucas.

They transitioned by using a pattern that repeats and gradually changes to alter the mood.

Wonder if you said something like that? And now I'd like you to compare the music in these two parts of that scene.

What are the most obvious differences? Let's listen to these two parts of the scene.

(bright music begins) (bright music ends) (upbeat music) To transition between them, the performer needs to change tempo, change mood, and change key, major to minor.

Let's listen again to how this performer manages that transition.

Here's the audio.

(bright music begins) (bright music continues) (bright music ends) (upbeat music) A performer would vamp by using a simple repeated pattern until the next scene began.

This is a typical vamp based on a D minor chord.

Let's listen to the audio.

(upbeat music) So we can see with the right hand, the chords are on the and of each beat, and with the left hand, the D and the A are alternating on each beat.

Thumbs can be used to change tempo, key and dynamics by creating a bridge between two contrasting sections.

In this example, the tempo speeds up, the key changes from minor to major, and the dynamics change from loud to soft.

Let's listen to this piece of audio.

(upbeat music) Did you notice the tempo speeding up, the key changing from minor to major and the dynamics changing from loud to soft? Pause here and share with someone, which of those things did you notice? Thanks for sharing.

Let's have a check for understanding.

What is a vamp? Is it A, a chord sequence? B, a melodic idea? C, a repeating pattern? Pause here while you decide what is a vamp? Well done if you selected answer C, indeed a vamp is a repeating pattern.

Let's have another check for understanding.

What is a musical cliche? Is it A, a newly composed musical idea? B, a well-known common musical idea? Or C, a transition between different moods? Pause here while you decide what is a musical cliche.

Well done if you selected answer B, indeed a musical cliche is a well-known common musical idea.

And now it's time for your first task.

I would like you to listen to this clip from a silent movie, and then to answer these two questions.

First of all, name two specific features that are typical of music in silent movies.

And then halfway through the clip, the scene changes from an action scene to a suspenseful, mysterious scene.

Identify three aspects of the music that contrast between these scenes.

So first of all, listen to this clip from a silent movie.

(upbeat music begins) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music ends) And now pause here while you answer these two questions.

It's good to be back with you.

So how did you get on with that task? So first you listened to the clip from the silent movie, and then you were asked to name two specific features that are typical of music in silent movies.

You could have said, use of solo piano, use of a vamp accompaniment, scalic melody, chromatic chords to create tension, dynamic changes, suspenseful staccato melody, diminished 7th chords.

Well done if you included two of these features.

And then halfway through the clip, as the scene changes from action to a suspenseful mysterious scene, you were asked to identify three aspects of the music that contrast between these scenes.

You could have said dynamics, rhythm, pitch of melody, types of chords, harmony, tempo, articulation.

Well done if you selected three of these aspects of the music that contrasted between the scenes, and now we're onto our next learning cycle, performing silent movie music in real time.

We are going to perform music for a scene in a silent movie.

Exciting.

It begins with a suspenseful scene.

Then there is a brief transition, and then there is a chase scene.

To transition between the scenes, we need to perform a vamp.

Let's watch a video that will show us how to do this.

<v Instructor>First I'm gonna start by practicing a vamp.

</v> Now you can do this based on any chord.

The chord I'm gonna use for this is a D minor chord, so that's D, F and A.

But if you know other chords, you could do the same pattern based on them.

So with my right hand, I'm gonna play that chord and I'm gonna play it on the and of every beat.

So on the off beats, one and two and three and four, and one and two and three and four, and that's my right hand.

With my left hand, I'm gonna take the bottom note of that chord.

So D, I'm gonna put it down an octave, and then I'm gonna choose A underneath that, and I'm gonna alternate between those two notes on the beat.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

So let's add the chords into that, one and two and three and four, and one and two and three and four, and one and two and three and four and.

That's my vamp pattern.

And when I'm practicing that, I can practice speeding it up and slowing it down.

I can practice changing the dynamics as well.

<v ->Now we have our vamp.

</v> We want to combine the music for the different parts of the scene.

So we're gonna bring in suspenseful music using a low pitch staccato melody and diminish seventh chords.

Then a vamp speeding up the tempo.

And then music for a chase scene based on scalic runs in D Minor.

So let's watch the video that combines the music for the different parts of the scene together.

<v Narrator>Now I'm gonna combine some features</v> to create a scene that transitions from a suspenseful part of the scene to a chase scene.

And this is imagining what it would be like for musicians playing along with silent movies in the silent movie era 'cause this is what they'd be doing in the theater along with the film.

So I'm gonna start with some suspenseful music.

I'm gonna have a staccato low pitch dramatic melody.

So using chromatic notes, moving up and down the white and black notes, this sort of thing.

(suspenseful music) Sort of suspenseful, quite tense music.

And I'm gonna build in some diminished seventh chords to add some drama and suspense.

Remember, a diminished seventh chord is a chord that has three semitones between every note.

(suspenseful music) So that would be one based on C.

And you can do it based on any note.

Then I'm gonna do that vamp that I've been practicing.

(upbeat music) And I can speed up the tempo.

And then when I'm ready, I'm gonna bring in a scalic melody in D minor.

(upbeat music) Just moving up and down the white notes from D.

(upbeat music) Something like that.

That's really typical chase music.

And underneath that, I'm gonna put some bass notes.

I'll just use D and A, the same that I had in my vamp.

(upbeat music) Something like that.

So let's see if I can combine these three different sections of the scene.

Let's start with the suspenseful music.

(suspenseful music) (upbeat music) So speeding up in the vamp, and then I'm gonna get ready to bring in that melody.

(upbeat music) So there we go.

We've got those three different sections of the scene, the suspenseful music, the vamp transition, and then the fast and lively action music for the chase scene.

<v ->So we can see how in that video we had suspenseful music.

</v> Then the vamp speeding up the tempo, and then music for the chase scene based on scalic runs in D minor.

Let's have a check for understanding.

Which of these is a typical vamp? Listen to audio A.

(suspenseful piano music) is it audio B? (upbeat piano music) Is it audio C? (upbeat piano music) Or is it audio D? (bright piano music) Pause here while you decide which of these audio clips is a typical vamp.

Well done if you selected audio clip C, indeed, this is a typical vamp.

And now it's time for your next task.

I would like you to practice the music for a section of the silent movie.

Here's your success criteria.

The first part of the clip uses suspenseful music, low pitched chromatic staccato melody and diminished seventh chords.

And then the transition uses a D minor vamp speeding up in tempo, and then the chase scene uses music based on fast scalic runs in D minor and a D-A-D-A bass line.

And here as a reminder, we have our D minor vamp, D minor chord, and D minor scale.

Pause here while you have a go at your task of practicing your music for a section of the silent movie.

Enjoy your task and I'll see you when you're finished.

It's great to be back with you.

So how did you get on with that task? Pause here and share with someone.

How do you feel about the piece of music you've scored to go with your silent movie? Thanks for sharing.

And now let's consider how does this music that we're about to hear match the success criteria? And how could the music be more suspenseful? And how could the transition section improve? So let's listen to this piece of music.

(suspenseful music) (upbeat music) And now turn to someone and share with them how did this piece of music match the success criteria? Thanks for sharing.

And now share with someone how could the music be more suspenseful? And finally, turn to someone and share how could the transition section improve? Thanks for sharing.

Let's take a look at some reflections.

The first section uses a low pitched chromatic staccato malady.

The chase section uses fast scalic ideas.

The tempo change in the transition could be more gradual, at the moment it is sudden, so the transition isn't very smooth.

Some great reflections there.

In our lesson scoring a silent movie, we've covered the following, music and silent movies has to transition seamlessly between different scenes and moods.

Many performers played popular songs and used musical cliches in their musical performances.

One famous example is the misterioso, so musical cliche.

To transition between scenes, performers often played a vamp, a repeated pattern based on chords.

We have created music using a D minor vamp to transition.

Well done everyone for joining in with this lesson.

It was great to explore the music in silent movies, the vamps, the musical cliches, and the transitions, and well done for creating your own score to a section of a silent movie.

It was great how you started with that suspenseful music and then transitioned using the D minor vamp, and then finally bringing in that fast scalic run in D minor to give us the chase scene.

I hope you're proud of what you've created.

I'm really proud of you, and I've really enjoyed teaching you.

Hope you've enjoyed this lesson too.

I look forward to seeing you at another music lesson soon.

Until then, stay musical.