Music
John Carpenter composed the music to the first three films. For Halloween, Carpenter chose to use a piano melody played in a 5/4 time rhythm instead of a symphonic soundtrack. Critic James Berardinelli calls the score "relatively simple and unsophisticated", but admits that "Halloween's music is one of its strongest assets." Carpenter stated in an interview, "I can play just about any keyboard, but I can't read or write a note." In the end credits, Carpenter bills himself as the "Bowling Green Orchestra" for performing the film's score, but he did receive assistance from composer Dan Wyman, a music professor at San Jose State University.
The score for Halloween II is a variation of John Carpenter's compositions from the first film, particularly the main theme's familiar piano melody played. The score was performed on a synthesizer organ rather than the piano used for Halloween. One reviewer for the BBC described the revised score as having "a more Gothic feel". The reviewer asserted that it "doesn’t sound quite as good as the original piece", but "it still remains a classic piece of music".
Music remained an important element in establishing the atmosphere of Halloween III. Just as in Halloween and Halloween II, there was no symphonic score. Much of the music was composed to solicit "false startles" from the audience. The soundtrack was composed by John Carpenter and Alan Howarth, who had also worked on the score for Halloween II. The score of Halloween III differed greatly from the familiar main theme of the original and its first sequel. Carpenter replaced the familiar piano melody with a slower, electronic theme played on a synthesizer with beeping tonalities. Howarth explains how he and Carpenter composed the music for the third film:
The music style of John Carpenter and myself has further evolved in this film soundtrack by working exclusively with synthesizers to produce our music. This has led to a certain procedural routine. The film is first transferred to a time coded video tape and synchronized to a 24 track master audio recorder; then while watching the film we compose the music to these visual images. The entire process goes quite rapidly and has 'instant gratification', allowing us to evaluate the score in synch to the picture. This is quite an invaluable asset.
Read more about this topic: Halloween (franchise), Films
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“We often feel sad in the presence of music without words; and often more than that in the presence of music without music.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“I think sometimes, could I only have music on my own terms; could I live in a great city and know where I could go whenever I wished the ablution and inundation of musical waves,—that were a bath and a medicine.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In benevolent natures the impulse to pity is so sudden, that like instruments of music which obey the touch ... you would think the will was scarce concerned, and that the mind was altogether passive in the sympathy which her own goodness has excited. The truth is,—the soul is [so] ... wholly engrossed by the object of pity, that she does not ... take leisure to examine the principles upon which she acts.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)