Tag: technique

The Marvellous Mr Maelzel

The Metronome Revolution In any musical culture there is an exciting turning point that occurs when music as a professional industry starts to emerge. Musicians start to play other musicians’ music, rather than just their own: composers are writing music down for people in the future (or in other countries) to play, multiple performances of… Continue reading The Marvellous Mr Maelzel

Diegesis

What is diegesis? Diegesis is a term used in film music to discribe the way in which the elements of film relate to the narrative the film is telling. In film music, it is  simple way of describing the function of music: if it occurs within the world of the characters (i.e. someone could hear it) it… Continue reading Diegesis

Feature Pieces

Feature pieces are pieces which stand apart from the fabric of the performance in some way, often contributing traditional musical structures and thematic writing to provide some variation to the musical score. When suites or albums are made of theatrical scores (Peer Gynt, A Midsummer Night’s Dream) they are usually drawn from the feature pieces,… Continue reading Feature Pieces

Underscoring

Underscoring (the process of accompanying speech or action with sound or music) as a science as much as it is an art. It requires a careful understanding of the action onstage and a sensitive tailoring of the music to interweave exactly with the narrative of word and action. Nowadays we are far more familiar with… Continue reading Underscoring

Norman O’Neill – Music to Stage Plays

This is a wonderful old article (it was published in the proceedings of the Royal Musical Association in 1910) which lays out the land for the traditional method of presenting music to a stage play. Norman O’Neill was a composer who wrote prolifically for the theatre, and these musings are the product of an expert… Continue reading Norman O’Neill – Music to Stage Plays