Temp music

Phillip Menzies

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Staff member
What better way to start the music discussion for S7 than with temp music. If you don’t know, temp music is what directors put behind a scene to give the composer an indication of what style or sound the music should have. If you have ideas as to what certain themes should sound like post a link here @Nicholas Palazzo (hint: that music from 300)
The most famous instance of temp music is the music for 2001 A Space Odyssey. The original score was such a disaster that the director Stanley Kubrick ended up using the temp music for the final edit which has become synonymous with the movie.
 
Since you asked....

The end credits music of Supernatural has a very ominous, unfinished vibe to it. Even if they've 'won' and solved their problem in the episode, it's very clear that they've done very little to fix things big picture, there's still a lot hanging over their heads, and the cost of this victory may come back to haunt them later.

Which of course means, tune in next week!

Just an example I thought I'd share; not something I'd actually use as temp music, I don't think.....


This isn't the only end credits musical sequence they used (the show ran for 15 years), but this is the one I'm thinking of.
 
What better way to start the music discussion for S7 than with temp music. If you don’t know, temp music is what directors put behind a scene to give the composer an indication of what style or sound the music should have. If you have ideas as to what certain themes should sound like post a link here @Nicholas Palazzo (hint: that music from 300)
The most famous instance of temp music is the music for 2001 A Space Odyssey. The original score was such a disaster that the director Stanley Kubrick ended up using the temp music for the final edit which has become synonymous with the movie.
More of a Season 8 for this one but something for Túrin and Morwen when he departs for Doriath. There's this piece of music that's heard in Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace when Anakin says goodbye to his mother which I don't think has been replicated in any part of the Star Wars canon up to this point. It's heard in the Ultimate Edition soundtrack on the track Anakin is Free at about 3:45 to the end.
 
More of a Season 8 for this one but something for Túrin and Morwen when he departs for Doriath. There's this piece of music that's heard in Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace when Anakin says goodbye to his mother which I don't think has been replicated in any part of the Star Wars canon up to this point. It's heard in the Ultimate Edition soundtrack on the track Anakin is Free at about 3:45 to the end.
You always have a soft spot for young Anakin and Phantom Menace is a great score. I agree that this music captures the emotion of the scene perfectly. I'll keep it in mind for S8.
 
You always have a soft spot for young Anakin and Phantom Menace is a great score. I agree that this music captures the emotion of the scene perfectly. I'll keep it in mind for S8.
I admit I do, partly because this one is different for the lighter inclinations and instrumentation for Darth Vader, full of hope and promise before the darker overtones seep in. It particularly seems to fit Túrin because he's in the same situation as Anakin at that point in the story; both want to go on this adventure but also want to come back and help his family with the skills he's acquired. Túrin doesn't quite make it back to see his mother (she's gone from Dor-Lómin when he returns there), while Anakin eventually makes it back to Tatooine to see his mother Shmi, but probably wishes he hadn't.
 
I start thinking about conveying the supernatural in the score. For example in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the score is mostly absent in the Muggle world until Harry starts talking to the snake in the zoo. Other points I think about are hypnotism, i.e. Glaurung sending Túrin on a wild-goose chase or wiping Nienor's memory, as if to show him at work even though he isn't physically there. The latter case would apply to an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine known as Equilibrium when Jadizia Dax starts playing a melody on a piano that she's never heard before; throughout this episode and for the rest of the series, the melody accompanies sudden flashbacks to the life of Joran, a previous reincarnation of Dax whose presence was unknown but starts to resurface and thereafter, this melody is used as a leitmotif.
 
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