posting the short article SciFi music :)

I tried posting a link to this article & it didn't come thru (also I
didn't recall the author's name either & my browsers actin' weird & I am not up ta
websurfin' like a crazed leapin lemur...)... so withou more ado, de arty-cull:

Subj: * SFmusic

Science Fiction Music: Bernard Herrmann, synthesized sound,
silence, the human voice, and the female influence

April 25, 2000 |

Most sf movies use the standard orchestral soundtrack, often to success.
The great film composer Bernard Herrmann always scored for an orchestra, and
his work in sf movies like The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Journey to the
Center of the Earth (1959) and Fahrenheit 451 (1966) stand as some of the
finest in film music. One of the reasons that Herrmann is regarded so highly is
that his understanding of the traditional orchestra and its repertoire allowed
him to effectively stretch the orchestra in ways that were completely new to
filmgoing audiences. For instance, Herrmann was a master with both Wagnerian
brass choruses (like in Citizen Kane, 1941) and transparent Ravelian textures
(like in Psycho, 1960). Herrmann also brought usually ignored instruments to the
forefront. Extensive use of the vibraphone is a distinctive mark of the
"Herrmann style," and is particularly prominent in Fahrenheit 451 and Vertigo
(1958). In The Day the Earth Stood Still, Herrmann uses the wailing, imprecise
effects of the theremin, and in Taxi Driver (1976), Herrmann’s last film, a
saxophone wail comprises film’s main theme.

While the orchestra remains a traditional Hollywood and sf film staple,
science fiction has been a breeding ground for experimentation in synthesized
sounds. The 1956 film Forbidden Planet, the first with an all-electronic score,
used sounds recorded from special circuits. The invention of the Moog
synthesizer in 1964, with its keyboard interface, made electronic scoring and
performing much easier for musicians used to the piano. Consequently, synthesized
sound exploded on to the cinematic scene, particularly in movies that evoked
strange, menacing, or ethereal moods. A Clockwork Orange (1971) featured a
mostly-Moog score, and composers like Vangelis, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Phillip Glass
began to use electronics in their film scoring.

Though electronic instruments are certainly capable of creating eerie
sounds that "match" with the eerie moods and settings of science fiction films, I
think that one of the most effective ways to create aural bewilderment is to
create strange sounds with unexpected combinations of familiar instruments.
This technique is a reason why the killing theme in Psycho is SO unforgettable.
In that film, Bernard Herrmann used screeching violins, but I think this
technique can be taken a step further through the use of the most familiar
instrument, the human voice. There are certain aural expectations for the voice, but
when these expectations are deliberately skewed, I think the result can be
chilling. One of my favorite cinematic musical moments is the scene in 2001: A
Space Odyssey where the man-apes first discover the monolith. Without the music,
the scene is made ridiculous: it’s just a bunch of monkey-suited men jumping
around a stone slab. However, for me, this scene is one of the most frightening
of all the scenes of al the films I’ve seen–mainly because Gyorgy Ligeti’s
choral work Atmospheres gives the scene its menacingly transcendent quality.
If Kubrick had chosen an orchestra or electronic instrument to accompany this
scene, it would have lost some of its effectiveness, for it is a scene that
emphasizes on the raw, animalistic side of human ancestry. The homo sapiens
voice, the rawest of musical raw materials, is used in Atmospheres to convey both
this rawness and an omen of the strange fate of man.

Another aural technique that is very effective in conveying science
fiction strangeness is the use of silence. It seems to me that while many foreign
directors understand this technique, most American directors (Kubrick and a few
others aside) DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE USE OF AURAL RESTRAINT! This
over-busyness and lack of restraint has bled into film trailers, where practically the
whole movie (plot, noisy score, sound effects, and all) is revealed in the space
of two minutes. Another reason that 2001 was so effective was that Kubrick
understood where tension would best mount through the use of silence. Part of the
impact of the conflict between HAL and Dave Bowman was their isolation--
bringing an implied third presence (through music) would have diminished the
intensity of their isolation. I applaud Kubrick for being one of the few directors
that thinks about film music as he uses it!

A final feminist note: In reading about electronic scores, it seems that
women play a large role in the development of electronica, and that the
electronic movement was a vehicle to help women come to modern musical prominence.
Bebe Barron, the female half of the husband/wife team who composed the score
for Forbidden Planet, is one of the earliest female film composers. Walter
Carlos composed the score for A Clockwork Orange, but since then, he’s gotten a sex
change and is now a woman named Wendy. Anne Dudley, one of the founding
members of my favorite electronica group The Art of Noise, won an Oscar for her
score to The Full Monty (1997). Finally, the largest world prize for Electronic
Music–it goes by some French name that escapes me right now–has had very many
women winners.

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Hanuman Zhang, musical mad scientist
"Space is a practiced place." -- Michel de Certeau
"Space is the Place for the Human Race." -- William S. Burroughs

"... simple, chaotic, anarchic and menacing.... This is what people of today
have lost and need most - the ability to experience permanent bodily and
mental ecstasy, to be a receiving station for messages howling by on the ether from
other worlds and nonhuman entities, those peculiar short-wave messages which
come in static-free in the secret pleasure center in the brain." - Slava Ranko
(Donald L. Philippi)

The German word for "noise" _Geräusch_ is derived from _rauschen_ "the
sound of the wind," related to _Rausch_ "ecstasy, intoxication" hinting at some
of the possible aesthetic, bodily effects of noise in music. In Japanese
Romaji: _uchu_ = "universe"... _uchoten_ = "ecstasty," "rapture"..._uchujin_ =
[space] alien!

"When you're trying to do something you should feel absolutely alone, like a
spark in the blackness of the universe."-Xenakis

"For twenty-five centuries, Western knowledge has tried to look upon the
world. It has failed to understand that the world is not for the beholding. It
is for the hearing. It is not legible, but audible. ... Music is a herald,
for change is inscribed in noise faster than it transforms society. ...
Listening to music is listening to all noise, realizing that its appropriation and
control is a reflection of power, that is essentially political." - Jacques
Attali, _Noise: The Political Economy of Music_

"The sky and its stars make music in you." - Dendera, Egypt wall
inscription

"Sound as an isolated object of reproduction, call it our collective memory
bank... Any sound can be you." - DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid (a.k.a. Paul D.
Miller)

"Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out."
--Arthur C. Clarke, _The Nine Billion Names of God_