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B. Hermann - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Score for Psycho helped to heavily influence the sound of future horror films
        
        Hitchcock originally asked for a jazz band but Hermann reduced it to just a string orchestra
        
        Use of the string orchestra matches the stark, cold black & white images
        
        Atonal music mostly
        
        Lack of other orchestral timbres (e.g: percussion, brass & woodwinds) creates a limited soundscape --> reflects claustrophobia of the film
- - - - Best known for work on film scores such as:
        
        Citizen Kane, Jason and the Argonauts, Farenheit 451 and Taxi Driver
        
        Scored 7 films with director Alfred Hitchcock
        
        Opera: Wuthering Heights (1943-1951)
    - - Hermann studied in Julliard School
        
        Influences were therefore more varied & modernist compared to 20th century romantic influence
        
        Studied with Percy Grainger
    - - Unlike normal film composers, he orchestrated his own scores
    - - Insistent on artistic freedom
        
        Avoided: leitmotifs & extended melodic lines
        
        Favoured: short motifs & ostinatos --> used to indicate obsessions
        
        Frequently used: extreme dissonance & chromaticism --> e.g: Psycho is atonal mostly
- - - - Suspense motifs are influenced by Hermann
        
        Highly dissonant themes
        
        Love theme similar to Marion's theme
      - Rite of spring (introduction) - Stravinsky
        
        Extreme dissonance & bitonality
        
        Repetitive ostinatos
        
        Irregular rhythms
        
        Music designed to create unease, violence & instability
        
        Elanor Rigby - The Beatles
        
        String-only ensemble
        
        Sharp articulations
    - - Lots of dissonance --> tonal unease
        
        Sudden dynamic contrasts & extreme ranges
        
        Tremolo strings --> busy atmosphere & eerie sound
        
        'Fright stabs'
      - Jaws theme - John Williams
        
        Ostinatos to build suspense
        
        Vertigo (Prelude and rooftop) - Herrmann
        
        Leitmotif ideas
        
        Chromatic harmony
        
        Tremolo strings
    - - Music used for aesthetic rather than accompanying the film action
        
        Chromatic/ambiguous sense of key