soundtracks – Nerds on Earth https://nerdsonearth.com The best place on earth for nerds. Thu, 11 Jun 2020 12:13:21 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://nerdsonearth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/cropped-nerds_head_thumb2-100x100.png soundtracks – Nerds on Earth https://nerdsonearth.com 32 32 All the podcasts from NerdsonEarth.com, under one umbrella. We create short run podcasts for nerds, covering D&D, Marvel, Starfinder, and more! You vote for your favorite shows and they just might get a second season. soundtracks – Nerds on Earth false episodic soundtracks – Nerds on Earth jason.sansbury@nerdsonearth.com podcast All the podcasts from NerdsonEarth.com, the best place on Earth for nerds. soundtracks – Nerds on Earth https://nerdsonearth.com/wp-content/uploads/powerpress/noe-podcast-logo.png https://nerdsonearth.com/blog/ THE SCORESCOPE: Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows—Part 1 https://nerdsonearth.com/2020/06/the-scorescope-harry-potter-the-deathly-hallows-part-1/ Fri, 12 Jun 2020 12:00:00 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=31383

Nerds on Earth takes you on a guided tour of the haunting score of Alexandre Desplat's in Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part One.

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Welcome to another edition of The Scorescope, true believers! This feature takes a look at the soundtracks of games, movies, and TV shows across the nerdy spectrum. I’ve explored scores old (1997’s Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade) and new (the beautiful Ni No Kuni and the triumphant The Force Awakens).

Today’s Scorescope brings you some gorgeous music from the magical world of Harry Potter. We’re taking a look at Academy Award winner Alexandre Desplat’s score for Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows—Part 1. So open a music streaming app, cast your best Accio spell for the album, and dive in with me!

John Williams? Not So Much.

If you come to this soundtrack expecting the wholesome, uplifting melodies of Williams’ earlier Potter scores, check yourself. You’ll find snatches of Williams’ classic “Hedwig’s Theme” sprinkled in various pieces, but Desplat often subverts the melody by adding half-steps and whole steps up or down the scale. This gives it a recognizable but misshapen feel. (David Yates, the film’s director, said, “Yeah, we wanted it to feel like it was all getting a bit distressed. We wanted to sort of f— it up a bit.”)

For example, take the Order of the Phoenix’s flight to the Burrow, the first major action set piece of the film. Desplat wrote two accompanying pieces—“Polyjuice Potion,” which sets up action, and “Sky Battle”—in which Williams’ melody is both quite recognizable and quite different sounding. Desplat tips his hat to Williams by having the melody played on the famously magical-sounding celeste in “Polyjuice Potion” but hammers it into a blazing action piece during “Sky Battle”. 

The scene climaxes in the death of Harry’s beloved owl, Hedwig, and Desplat’s pounding orchestration builds to the moment before fading away. It’s a striking reminder that this film will not be filled with the warm, cozy safety of the Gryffindor common room. People will die in the fight against Voldemort and his Death Eaters, even beloved and innocent characters like Hedwig.

Paint It Black Grey-Bluish

In an interview with NPR, Desplat described composing Deathly Hallows—Part 1 in colorful, almost synesthetic terms. “I started ‘Deathly Hallows Part 1’ from a fresh palette…this question of colors, of light, of shadow, has always been very present in the way I approach movie soundtracks.” The interview ends with the color that Desplat associates with the film: “I’d say grey-bluish.”

That quick interview reveals a lot about Desplat’s approach and the resulting mood of the film. There is little light or lightheartedness in Deathly Hallows—Part 1. The evil plot that Voldemort and his Death Eaters have engineered over decades has finally paid off; Albus Dumbledore is dead, the Ministry of Magic has been infiltrated and subverted, and “pureblooded” wizards are exalted while “mudbloods” and Muggles are beings murdered en masse. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are running for their lives while also attempting to find and destroy Voldemort’s Horcruxes. 

Yep, definitely grey-bluish.

There’s not much light in Deathly Hallows—Part 1, figuratively or literally. Even Bill and Fleur’s wedding looks more like a Cure show than a celebration of matrimony. Desplat’s score reflects those changes, the melancholy that haunts the film, and the loss of hope that the main characters feel at times. 

L-O-V-E Themes

Two of the most gorgeous pieces in the film, “At The Burrow” and “Harry & Ginny”, come in the minutes after Harry’s arrival at the Weasley residence early in the story. In the context of this film they represent two sides of the same emotion, love, and what that most complex emotion can feel like. 

“At The Burrow” portrays what the ancient Greeks named storge: filial love, the kind that parents feel for their children. The piece opens with hesitation, like a parent facing the weight of their responsibility for the first time, with strings that waver back and forth between notes. Then it breaks out into a powerful statement of the deep, sturdy love the Weasleys feel for each other and for Harry and Hermione, the adopted members of their family.

Molly Weasley: a great hero and a great mom.

“Harry & Ginny” depicts a different, more romantic love. It’s a brief piece, less than two minutes long, and an understated piano line opens the piece with intervals that evoke “Hedwig’s Theme”. Like Harry and Ginny themselves, the melody and countermelody are simple and strong; they’re almost unremarkable unless you take time to really listen. Desplat opens the piece up to the rest of the orchestra about thirty seconds in, and the dark, throbbing strings paint a lush picture of the yearning the two feel for each other. 

Ron Saves The Day

This isn’t to say that Deathly Hallows—Part 1’s score is all doom and gloom. A wise wizard once said, “Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light,” and Desplat turns the light on throughout the film. 

My favorite piece in the entire score is “Ron’s Speech”. Earlier in the movie Ron Weasley abandoned his friends, giving into the dark thoughts whispered by Voldemort’s Horcrux and forsaking Hermione and Harry. He returns in the nick of time, saving Harry and destroying the Horcrux with the legendary Sword of Gryffindor. This piece plays under his return to their campsite as he sees Hermione for the first time in weeks, possibly months. 

Ron talks about following the light of the Deluminator, the magical device willed to him by Dumbledore, and how it guided him back to them—more specifically, to Hermione, since it was her voice that spoke to him through the light. Throughout the speech Desplat eases in harp arpeggios and strings that ebb and flow, cresting into luxurious waves before resolving into stillness by the end. It’s an unambiguously lovely piece.

Other Highlights

Desplat packs the score with all kinds of great music from across the spectrum. “Obliviate” opens the film with sawing strings and a flute theme that conveys the urgency of Harry’s mission (and we’ll hear that flute theme in other pieces, too). “Ministry of Magic” is full of the pompous hustle and bustle of a magical government taken over by dark forces—it’s slightly silly, but with an underlying menace that can’t be ignored.

Fireplaces Escape” is the most heart-pumping piece in the score. Desplat scores the piece to match the action in the scene, with full orchestra crashes and stabs accompanying spells and explosions as the gang try to escape the Ministry of Magic. (This is an old trick from the golden age of Hollywood called Mickey Mousing in honor of how closely the music in old Disney cartoons follow the action.) “Godric’s Hollow Graveyard” is an ominous yet beautiful piece from the halfway point of the film. It underscores Harry and Hermione’s visit to the graves of his parents. It’s a great example of the “grey-bluish” melancholy with which Desplat colors the film.

Next time you watch Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows—Part 1, pay careful attention to Alexandre Desplat’s wonderful score. You won’t be disappointed!

Author’s note: J. K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, has a history of making statements that many perceive to be transphobic, the most recent of which were made just a few days ago. Given recent events and the powerful and positive forces of change surging around the world, the author of this article does not want to remain silent and, by extension, complicit in spreading confusion and misinformation about transgender people. The author does not support or condone Rowling’s controversial comments and views.

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Looking Back at the Magnificent Tomb Raider Soundtrack https://nerdsonearth.com/2017/09/tomb-raider-soundtrack/ Sun, 24 Sep 2017 12:08:39 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=14748

Nerds on Earth looks back at the magnificent Tomb Raider soundtrack.

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Everything about this cover is deliciously, horribly 90s.

I’ve played videogames since getting a Game Boy for Christmas in 1990. I grew up playing Tetris and Super Mario Land on my treasured gray brick, trying to beat Shinobi III on my neighbor’s Genesis, and pouring all the quarters my dad would give me into the local arcade’s Golden Axe cabinet.

But my first true videogame love came in 1997, when my family went to California to visit my older brother.

My brother was (and is) the coolest. At the time, he was living near San Diego with his wife and baby daughter. He’s a big nerd like me, and while we were visiting he let me play his PlayStation to my heart’s content.

The main game I remember playing was the original Tomb Raider, and it blew my ten-year-old mind (he had Darkstalkers too, but it was too hard to enjoy). Tomb Raider was the first game I had ever played that didn’t feel like a videogame. It wasn’t 2D (or even pseudo-3D like Donkey Kong Country); it wasn’t garishly bright and colorful like Super Mario World; the game moved, looked, and sounded like nothing I had ever played before.

I fell in love instantly, and have remained so ever since.

This is not a Tomb Raider apologia. The game suffers all the problems common to mid-1990s releases (bad controls and poorly-aging graphics being the main offenders). I don’t want to write about the game itself; I want to talk about Nathan McCree’s excellent soundtrack. Tomb Raider’s greatest strength was the game’s ability to create a distinct mood and feeling, something top-shelf games still struggle to create today. That is primarily due to its stellar sound design and soundtrack.

Tomb Raider sounds unusual right from the start menu. The main theme begins with a lonely, elegant oboe solo that leads into swelling strings and an enchanting, dancing melody played on plucked harp. This is music that creates an atmosphere of mystery and enchantment, and its understated beauty leaves you wanting more.

The game is full of motifs and cues that are generally short, and it makes you earn these musical treats. They’re triggered at specific times by various in-game events like discovering a secret, a sudden animal attack, or a dramatic vista.

Otherwise, Tomb Raider is a quiet game—you hear Lara’s footsteps and breathing as she trots through snowy caves, the stifling silence of deadly, long-untouched tombs, perhaps the far-off rumble of a huge waterfall or the quiet flutter of bats’ wings, and not much more. When you finally hear the next piece of music, it feels like a much-deserved reward.

Each piece is haunting, gorgeous, and heightens the excitement and wonder of exploring Vilcabamba, St. Francis’ Folly, the Tomb of Tihocan, or any of the other mystery-filled locales of Tomb Raider (if you’re wondering, I did not need to look up these names—I’m just that much of a TR nerd).

The sudden appearance of a Tyrannosaurus Rex out of the gloom was one of the best moments in an excellent game. The soundtrack elevates it into a seminal moment in gaming history.

Take, for example, the piece “Longing For Home.” To me, this piece goes a long way toward fleshing out a character that might otherwise be described as “Indiana Jones-but-a-hot-girl.”

The piece feels like a cross between the icy, cool toughness of the James Bond theme and the sensuous, tender “Marion’s Theme” from John Williams’ Raiders of the Lost Ark score. Solving the lethal puzzles and traps of Palace Midas or the City of Khamoon gives you the same feeling a sense of accomplishment, the feeling you can handle anything the game throws at you, that “Longing For Home” creates.

The whole soundtrack is full of masterful moments like this, from “Where the Depths Unfold” to “A Long Way Down” or “A Friend Since Gone.” To make this incredible soundtrack even more amazing, all of it was recorded using synthesizers. All of it—that sinuous oboe, the poignant male choir, those lush strings—was done with a keyboard.

Tomb Raider’s soundtrack has continued to receive love since its release over 20 years ago. A Kickstarter campaign dedicated to “The original Tomb Raider music by Nathan McCree, extended and re-recorded with a live orchestra at Abbey Road Studios, London” started in 2016. It’s been hugely successful, and the Tomb Raider Suite is schedule to release in November 2017.

The Tomb Raider soundtrack deserves all of the praise and attention it receives. I’ll even leave you with a bonus track—“Venice” from Tomb Raider 2 (also composed by the incredible McCree). Now, go dig up this incredible game, immerse yourself in its classic soundtrack, and thank me later.

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