Like Hunchback, Fox and the Hound was an inevitability for me. This movie was not only a "buddy drama," but also a type of discussion on how society views people who are "inherently different." In the story, two animals become friends, not knowing that they are "born to be enemies." One is just a normal fox and the other a hunting hound dog. In this scene, the fox's owner is taking him to the forest preserve to protect him from the hunter, and she recalls all the good times that they had. I don't know why this scene affected me so much, but every time I hear and watch it, I start to get teary. This was really sad, even more than Mufasa's death to me. I actually used this scene to demonstrate, on the documentary, how much music impacts me. Fortunately, they didn't use that scene because of how sad it was, but everyone there was really amazed at exactly how strong that connection was to this film, even after years of not seeing it at all. You never forget.
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Many of my friends knew this would be an entry at some point. Hunchback of Notre Dame is one of, if not my favorite, Disney movies and probably my favorite Disney soundtrack. Again we have a story of characters overcoming prejudices, one for appearance and the other for stereotypes of their nationality. The themes in this film were extremely adult, especially for Disney. It was a big risk going through with the production of this film and it did not do well in the box office. Still, for the risks that it took at the time, it really pulled it off in my opinion. This epic soundtrack is really what makes it worth the watch because of how much it adds; A chorus singing in Latin, and huge orchestra to back up solo vocal scenes, and awesome animations to go with it all. This scene's long emphasis on minor chords establishes such a feeling of evil and tragedy until you hear the choir chanting "Gloria" as Quasimodo climbs the cathedral walls with Esmeralda until finally, he gets to the top and screams Sacntuary with church bells in the background and a huge major chord from the orchestra and chorus. My ears could not get enough. There probably will be at least one more entry from this movie, but this one was definitely had the largest impact on me. Alan Menken composed the score for this movie and we will definitely see more of him here. In our family car we had about five or six cassette tapes that we listened to. A couple jazz, gospel and Disney tapes. One of them also was a Rocky 4 soundtrack that we constantly played over and over. Aside from the over used trope of montages in the series, this particular song was interesting to me because of the amount of percussion and rhythmic combinations used. Again, I listened to it so much that I could sing each part separately and even kind of play it on the arm rest in the car. This was also one of the few times I started to notice differences between an album and movie version of a piece of music. These particular differences are pretty blatant, but others weren't so obvious as a kid. I personally like the album version better (on the right), but I still own both regardless. Won't I loved every Rocky movie, but a lot of the scenes were great and very emotional for me then and even now. I still warm up with this track every once in a while to get pumped up.
One of my earliest blogs was about Balto. If you don't know the story, this movie is based on the true story of the lead sled dog and mushers that traveled 674 miles through a blizzard to get antitoxin medicine to Nome, Alaska during an outbreak of diphtheria. Needless to say, the movie is embellished with an "overcoming prejudices" story line, but for children, I really think this addition was awesome, maybe even more now than then. This scene in particular is the climax where Balto feels he has failed to save the sick children of Nome. In previous events, he was shunned from being a sled dog because he is half wolf, not a pure bred husky (wonder where I've heard that before). Regardless, he travels to find the team when they have been reported missing to get the medicine to save one little girl in particular that showed him kindness. This scene is him coming to grips with, what he viewed as, a failed attempt at saving the team, and he is confronted by a white wolf that calls out at him to get up. At first Balto rejects him, probably because being half wolf has gotten him nowhere so far, but then he recalls what a friend told him before he left. "A dog cannot make this journey alone. But, maybe, a wolf can." And with that, he accepts his heritage and howls with the white wolf. As I got older and experienced prejudices of my own, this scene became even more relevant, but at the time, I just felt so touched by the music's accompaniment of Balto's acceptance of himself, a very empowering scene for me back then and even more now. James Horner was the composer and his music would be a big part in my life from then on. You'll be seeing a lot of him here. My mom bought this movie for us and often told me that this was my favorite movie as a child. She even gave me a book with sound buttons for certain pages that went with the movie, and it would always run out of battery because I used it so much. I can still remember how it looked and felt in my hands as a kid. This scene was super cool to me and I remember wishing I had the clock sounds in my little book. Since that wasn't the case, I instead would sing along with the movie, making similar noises that I heard, in the rhythms that each sound would be in. My favorite part was when the hunter is firing at the bird, because it was in, what I thought was, a completely different rhythm than the rest of the clocks (3/8 against 2/4), but it still worked out in the end, and I thought that was the coolest thing. This occurrence of me memorizing certain songs and aspects of songs would always be present after this, and would prove really helpful in the years to come. The more I learned about music, the more I actually could understand what I was hearing/singing. Today is actually my mom's birthday, so I just wanted to share this story of one of the many small things she did that made a huge difference in my life. Happy birthday mom! Um. Yea. Not a very happy start, but this is my earliest memory with music. I have no idea what age I was when I saw this movie, but I usually tell people that I was 4-5 years old when this event happened. When I was younger I would wake up to loud noises that were in my head, kind of sounded like orchestra blasts on a keyboard. For a while I thought things had just fallen from my dresser or closet, but one night something different woke me up. I assume that I had watched "The Lion King" before I slept, and I also assume that I was sound asleep for a few hours. This particular night, the loud noise came back, but it wasn't a blast of sound. It was the music from this scene. I literally thought that the movie was playing in the living room, so I went to go shut it off. As I got closer, the sound increased until finally it was at the section where Simba says, "Dad?" Of course the television was off, there was no movie on, but clear as day I could hear this soundtrack, and I proceeded to recite, verbatim, Simba's entire dialogue until I started sobbing in the middle of the living room. Then I went back to bed. This was my earliest memory as a child and it was my very first conscious encounter with the power of music in my life. The next one was a lot more lighthearted, thank goodness. We all have different stories about why we got into music, and no two experiences are exactly alike. As a child, music was enticing because of its emotional content and how it would enhance certain scenes in movies. Movie scores were my gateway into classical music, without me even knowing it, and they still hold a very special place in my heart. So, in an effort to pay tribute to the music that inspired me, and for you to get to know me a little more, I'm going to be blogging on here about the music that influenced me the most before I was 16, when I made the conscious decision to be an orchestral percussionist. |
AuthorJust a description of my motivations for performing and teaching music. Archives
November 2016
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