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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of My

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Joe McCormick, and my regular co host

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb is not with us today. He's he's out

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Speaker 1: on vacation on the day we're recording this. So I

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Speaker 1: am joined by a special guest for today's episode, which

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Speaker 1: is our producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson. What's going on? Seth? Hello,

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Speaker 1: happy to be here, happy to be talking to our wonderful,

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Speaker 1: wonderful audience. Don't don't flatter him too much. Um now,

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Speaker 1: so Seth, you've been on Stuff to Blow your Mind

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Speaker 1: as a guest before, wants to talk about the sensation

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Speaker 1: of free song, which is the name for when you

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Speaker 1: get goose bumps and chills as a reaction to music.

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Speaker 1: And uh, and of course you're a music guy. You

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Speaker 1: you play music, you record music. You think what is

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Speaker 1: it called when you make records? Are you a music publisher? Um?

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Speaker 1: Technically I own a record label and I manufacture records.

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Speaker 1: So however you want to phrase that in today's world?

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Speaker 1: Who knows, you know, because we're so far beyond the

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Speaker 1: traditional label system. And then screaming gets involved, so I

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Speaker 1: could say those words, I am a record label and

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Speaker 1: I manufacture records. I think it's technically you are a

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Speaker 1: you are a disc lord. Yes, that's a good way

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Speaker 1: to put it. Yes, so as as a resident disc

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Speaker 1: lord here. But oh but also also I should mention

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Speaker 1: that you have hosted a number of music related podcasts,

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Speaker 1: and I'm genuinely so excited because You've got a brand

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Speaker 1: new one coming out that by the time this episode airs,

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Speaker 1: I think you will have your first episode live. Is

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Speaker 1: that right? I believe by the time this air's at

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Speaker 1: least two episodes will be alive. Yes, yes, And depending

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Speaker 1: upon when you listen to this, maybe three, maybe twelve,

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Speaker 1: who knows. So tell me about the new show. That

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Speaker 1: the show is called Rusty Needles Record Club, And um,

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Speaker 1: it's a very simple concept, honestly, all it is. It's

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Speaker 1: like a book club, but it's for music. That's that's

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Speaker 1: That's really as simple as it gets. My ludicrous goal

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Speaker 1: for this podcast is to listen to every album ever made.

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Speaker 1: I know I'm not gonna do that's like, that's that's ridiculous,

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Speaker 1: but that's my goal. And so the fun of that

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Speaker 1: is that me and my guests. We are one album

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Speaker 1: per episode. Everyone's gonna listen to the same album and

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Speaker 1: then we talk about it and we go on all

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Speaker 1: kinds of tangents. We'll give it a quick review at

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Speaker 1: the end. But honestly, what the show is, it's a

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Speaker 1: surrogate for people out there who just want a music friend,

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Speaker 1: you know, someone who they can talk to about music

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Speaker 1: and listen to a good music conversation. And you know,

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Speaker 1: I've been in this place in my life and I'm

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Speaker 1: sure others too. Sometimes you just don't have a friend

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Speaker 1: around to talk to about music. That's what this podcast

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Speaker 1: can be for you. If if you're a lonely music

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Speaker 1: nerd as I've been, and I'm sure I'm sure every

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Speaker 1: it has been at some point in their life, listen

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Speaker 1: to this podcast. It's for you. You know, I literally

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Speaker 1: made it exclusively for you out there. So um, but

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Speaker 1: that's what it is. It's a rusty Needles record club.

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Speaker 1: Find it literally wherever you find any podcast. I mean,

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Speaker 1: in a way, that's sort of what all podcasts are,

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Speaker 1: right Like, uh, sometimes I think of what is stuff

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Speaker 1: to blow your mind? It's like if you really wish

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Speaker 1: you had someboddies to talk to about science and goblins

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Speaker 1: and medieval poetry. Here are those goblin friends? Yeah no,

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Speaker 1: And I honestly do think that that podcasts in general

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Speaker 1: serve a very valuable purpose in that in that space,

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Speaker 1: you know, and sometimes like stuff to blow your mind

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Speaker 1: if they're genuinely informative, genuinely researched. My other show, Rusty

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Speaker 1: Needles Record Club is much more conversational, much lighter fare.

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Speaker 1: But if you enjoy listening to my voice, and more importantly,

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Speaker 1: if you really like music and music recommendations, hop on over,

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Speaker 1: give it a give us a listen, and a big

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Speaker 1: goal of mine. I don't think I've even told Joe this.

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Speaker 1: I want to get Joe on so we can talk

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Speaker 1: about some Neil Young. Oh. I know Joe loves Neil Young,

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Speaker 1: and yet we've never had a full blown Neil Young conversation.

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Speaker 1: So you just start thinking about your favorite Neil Young album. Well,

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Speaker 1: Neil Young for me, If you know anything about my

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Speaker 1: my taste in in uh perhaps underappreciated movies of the

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Speaker 1: weird Sword of the kind we talked about on Weird

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Speaker 1: House Cinema, Uh, you might better understand my love for

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Speaker 1: Neil Young because he is both a genuinely wonderful rock

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Speaker 1: musician with I love his singing voice, I love his

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Speaker 1: guitar playing, I love his weird, atypical creativity. But he

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Speaker 1: is also just full of bad ideas for music and

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Speaker 1: just strangely realized, poorly thought out ideas put into practice

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Speaker 1: with reckless abandon and I love that too. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: I know. And it's not just for music. I think

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Speaker 1: it's for every piece of his artistic output, Like um didn't.

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Speaker 1: Let's see. I believe one of his album covers was

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Speaker 1: taken with a game boy. Do you remember that album cover?

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Speaker 1: I think it was the silver and gold one or

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Speaker 1: something like that. I can't relate, yeah boy camera, Yeah no,

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Speaker 1: I mean, what a wonderful idea. He has to be

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Speaker 1: in some sort of record book for the only album

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Speaker 1: cover taken with a game boy, you know, like, congratulations

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Speaker 1: to him. You know, he doesn't care. He does exactly

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Speaker 1: what he wants, despite the fact that he is like

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Speaker 1: a heralded, you know, very well respected, very very critically

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Speaker 1: applauded musician, you know, so congratulations to him for you know,

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Speaker 1: sticking to himself. Yeah, okay, well we'll save that for

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Speaker 1: the episode where I come on again it is Rusty

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Speaker 1: Needles Record Club, so you can look that up wherever

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Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. But for today's episode of Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, set your music guy. So I

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Speaker 1: thought we got to talk about music of some kind.

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Speaker 1: It's October here on the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast.

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Speaker 1: It is the most hallowed time of the year for us,

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Speaker 1: where we we talked about all things spooky and monstrous

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Speaker 1: and uh and and uncanny, So we got to talk

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Speaker 1: about some uncanny melodies. Obviously, the place we had to

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Speaker 1: go today is to talk about horror movie music. And

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Speaker 1: I also recognize that we are doing, uh, we're currently

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Speaker 1: doing a great injustice that Robert wasn't here for this

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Speaker 1: conversation today. So we may have to revisit the subject

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Speaker 1: in some in some episode later on in the in

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Speaker 1: the month or something like that, because I know Robert

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Speaker 1: loves horror movie music. He's got tons of interesting thoughts

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Speaker 1: about it too, so so this may be something that

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Speaker 1: we'll have to like continue as an ongoing conversation and

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Speaker 1: and follow up from this episode with him. Absolutely, But

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Speaker 1: before we get into any of the real mysteries about

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Speaker 1: scary music and horror movie tunes, Uh, that that I

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Speaker 1: wanted to be the meat of the episode. Today, I

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Speaker 1: was wondering if we could kick off by exploring a

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Speaker 1: kind of strange thought I was having earlier. I don't

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Speaker 1: know if this is if this is an insight, or

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Speaker 1: if this is just sort of like me staring at

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Speaker 1: my tone nails and thinking it's interesting. But maybe you'll

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Speaker 1: be the judge. So I was just thinking the other

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Speaker 1: day about how music is extremely important to the experience.

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Speaker 1: It's of pretty much all modern cinema, not just as

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Speaker 1: a pleasurable enhancement to the drama of the film, but

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Speaker 1: as one of the techniques that makes the experience of

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Speaker 1: movie going feel beyond the power of regular observation and cognition.

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Speaker 1: It's one of the things that makes watching a movie

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Speaker 1: feel like you have superpowers. Um So, to explain that

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Speaker 1: because modern film has high definition video and audio uh

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Speaker 1: and and modern editing techniques. I've talked about this before

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Speaker 1: that I think modern film very much feels like observing

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Speaker 1: real life. In the words of the character Professor Brian

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Speaker 1: Oblivion in the movie Videodrome, the television screen is the

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Speaker 1: retina of the mind's eye, and what takes place on

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Speaker 1: that screen emerges pretty much as raw experience for the

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Speaker 1: viewer watching TV or watching a movie is in many

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Speaker 1: ways as realistic as observing real life. It certainly feels

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Speaker 1: that way most of the time, unless you unless something

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Speaker 1: breaks the spell and you get distracted, which which um

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Speaker 1: ultimately leads to a few things you guys have talked

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Speaker 1: about in episodes in the past, like, um, why you

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Speaker 1: cry while watching a movie when it's like, oh, I

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Speaker 1: know this is fake. There's no part of me that

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Speaker 1: thinks these are real people experiencing anything close to reality,

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Speaker 1: and yet I'm feeling a real emotion. I'm feeling sad,

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Speaker 1: I'm feeling scared. Perhaps, yes, yes, So the illusion is

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Speaker 1: so strong that it becomes raw experiences. It's as if

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Speaker 1: you're experiencing it yourself. Unless again, the spell gets broken

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Speaker 1: because I don't know, your phone rings or something. You

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Speaker 1: get distracted and suddenly you realize, oh, yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: not real life. The boom mic dips into the screen. Right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean that's another thing, like like shoddy your filmmaking

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Speaker 1: techniques can also break that spell, but also modern filmmaking

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Speaker 1: techniques uh create a simulation of raw experience that contains

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Speaker 1: information that tends to give the viewer insights that are

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Speaker 1: not possible when observing the natural world. Uh. So, just

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Speaker 1: some some very simple examples. Think about the way that

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Speaker 1: editing and camera work can draw your attention automatically to

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Speaker 1: details in movie scenes that will be significant in understanding

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Speaker 1: something about a character's personality, or or maybe through uh

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Speaker 1: foreshadowing by highlighting something will automatically uh suggest to you

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Speaker 1: objects or statements that will later become very important to

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Speaker 1: the plot. So think about the information content implied by

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Speaker 1: a zoom in on a pair of scissors on somebody's desk,

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Speaker 1: or especially if it's in a horror movie, or a

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Speaker 1: flashback of a character saying I hope we meet again soon. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And so, when compared to viewing reality, the viewer of

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Speaker 1: TV or film has a sense of precognition or extrasensory perception.

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Speaker 1: The drama that you watch happen on screen un holds

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Speaker 1: as raw experience, but it's also imbued with this extra

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Speaker 1: layer of godlike knowledge and insight that's not available to

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Speaker 1: you when you're just observing mundane reality from a fixed perspective,

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Speaker 1: and also not available to the others who are supposedly

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Speaker 1: living in this world that we're observing. So for example,

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Speaker 1: we we do have this omniscience of we're we we

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Speaker 1: know information that they don't know about each other, like

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Speaker 1: as if we are a god looking in on their lives.

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Speaker 1: It's it's similar to reading a book where you can

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Speaker 1: kind of see inside someone's mind and you can feel

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Speaker 1: their own thoughts and etcetera, etcetera. It's very similar to

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Speaker 1: that in that Let's let's take it to music for

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Speaker 1: a second. If we're watching Jaws and we hear the

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Speaker 1: Jaws theme start up the butt on but on, We

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Speaker 1: as the viewer, we know the shark is coming. They

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Speaker 1: might not know that because they can't hear the Jaws

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Speaker 1: theme starting. You know, he's they're chumming the water. He's

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Speaker 1: he's facing the wrong direction. We're looking right behind. We

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Speaker 1: know the shark is coming, but he doesn't like like

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Speaker 1: we are one step ahead. We are superhuman compared to

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Speaker 1: these these fictional characters on the screen. Yes, so that's exactly. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you're right, this is where I was going with this.

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Speaker 1: Music is another one of these modern cinematography techniques that

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Speaker 1: contains super mundane information that imbuse the viewer with a

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Speaker 1: sense of godlike insight about what's going on. Uh. So

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Speaker 1: you know, in reality, you could be walking down a

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Speaker 1: sidewalk alone on a windy day, or you can imagine

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Speaker 1: that same point of view. Maybe it's a p o

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Speaker 1: V shot in a movie of somebody walking down a

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Speaker 1: sidewalk on a windy day with the Halloween theme playing, right,

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Speaker 1: and in the context of a movie, the latter almost

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Speaker 1: certainly tells you something is something about what's going to

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Speaker 1: happen in the future. So the music in a movie

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Speaker 1: doesn't just set a mood. It does set a mood,

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Speaker 1: but it also provides information that's not available to the characters.

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Speaker 1: Um though, I think it's also interesting that some times

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Speaker 1: characters in movies behave as if they can hear the

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Speaker 1: same music that the audience can, and I mean assuming

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Speaker 1: that it is music that's not like coming from a

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Speaker 1: radio on screen, and we'll talk more about the distinction

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Speaker 1: in a minute. I think, um but I think maybe

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Speaker 1: in those cases, the the suggested effect is really that

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Speaker 1: the character either somehow knows or believes they know something

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Speaker 1: in an extra sensory or precognitive way, and the music

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Speaker 1: sort of shares that supermundane knowledge they have or they

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Speaker 1: believe they have with the viewer. This is a big word.

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Speaker 1: I used to have to use a lot. Um. If

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Speaker 1: anyone in the audience doesn't know, I've spent a big

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Speaker 1: chunk of my life making TV and movies as an animator.

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Speaker 1: That was a big part of my life for about

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Speaker 1: a decade or so. And then UM, one element we

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Speaker 1: would have to pay attention to is the idea of

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Speaker 1: diagetic versus non diagetic music. Um, if anyone doesn't know. Basically, uh,

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Speaker 1: here's a very simple definition. Diagetic music is what is

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Speaker 1: happening on screen. You can see someone doing something. It

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Speaker 1: is making a noise and you are experiencing it. So

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Speaker 1: someone turns on their radio and you're hearing the radio,

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Speaker 1: and that is the sound you hear on screen. That's

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Speaker 1: diagetic music. Someone picks up an obo and starts playing it,

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Speaker 1: and you hear the music of the oboe playing. That's diagetic.

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Speaker 1: So basically, there's a real logical explanation for where that

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Speaker 1: sound is coming from. I think the word diagetic comes

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Speaker 1: from the Greek for meaning something like narrative or something,

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Speaker 1: doesn't it meaning that the sound emerges from the narrative

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Speaker 1: as opposed to on top of the narrative. Exactly, it's

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Speaker 1: it's it's that, it's it's a part of this. It's

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Speaker 1: it's not. Um, it's not a subliminal thing. It's a

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Speaker 1: limital thing. It's right there in the front, you know.

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Speaker 1: So um, non diagetic is actually what we experience the most.

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Speaker 1: Non diagetic music is basically every score that you see

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Speaker 1: pretty much when you see any movie, any TV show,

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Speaker 1: et cetera. Now, nine percent of it is a score

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Speaker 1: that is just kind of overlaid, you know, with with

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Speaker 1: like the images and the dialogue and the sound effects.

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Speaker 1: It's just this thing on top. But it didn't always

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Speaker 1: used to be that way. So yeah, Like the the

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Speaker 1: very first time a mainstream movie had sound it was

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Speaker 1: this Al Jolson film back in seven. It's called The

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Speaker 1: Jazz Singer. It's very famous. Um. I don't necessarily recommend it.

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Speaker 1: It's got some very iffy subject matter. I don't think

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Speaker 1: you should watch it personally, but it's very famous. It's

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Speaker 1: something you watch in like, you know, film theory classes. Um.

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Speaker 1: But then if we jump ahead six years, like I said,

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Speaker 1: that was seven jump ahead six years and the first

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Speaker 1: mainstream film to use a traditional score was King Kong.

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Speaker 1: That was three and that was scored by Max Steiner.

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Speaker 1: So so think about that nine popularization of sound in

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Speaker 1: movies nineteen thirty three. We've basically figured it out and

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Speaker 1: we're using the same technique today. That's pretty remarkable for

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Speaker 1: just six years. Uh. But right there in between, in

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Speaker 1: that little six year gap, we have Todd Browning's Dracula

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Speaker 1: starring which was released in one I mean a classic, right, Oh, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it can't be denied. I I've I don't

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Speaker 1: know how many times I've watched this movie at this point.

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Speaker 1: But but but um, I think I've made this opinion

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Speaker 1: clear on the show before. And I'm not the only

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Speaker 1: person to think this. I've I've read other people, uh,

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Speaker 1: saying that they had feelings to the same effect. I

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Speaker 1: think that the simultaneously produced Spanish language version of Dracula

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Speaker 1: that Universal filmed concurrently with this. I think they were

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Speaker 1: filming at night while Browning's a team was filming during

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Speaker 1: the day, is actually better except for lacking bell leegosie.

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Speaker 1: So if you could pair the Spanish language version with

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Speaker 1: Bella Leegosi as Dracula, that would be the perfect form.

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Speaker 1: Yeah no, I fully agree, and yeah, yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: something we could get into a whole other episode. But

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Speaker 1: the other short version is is that the Mexican production

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Speaker 1: had the benefit of watching what happened during the American

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Speaker 1: production and learn from it and just kind of heighten everything,

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Speaker 1: make everything is proving it better. It's just it's it's

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Speaker 1: a it's a wonderful thing. I've seen documentaries about it,

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Speaker 1: like it's it's a fascinating subject. But one thing that

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Speaker 1: actually both of those movies have in common very little score,

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Speaker 1: so little in fact that I would say no score. Um. So,

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Speaker 1: there's only two moments of music in Todd Browning's Dracula. Okay,

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Speaker 1: there's one point where they're at an opera house and

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Speaker 1: they're having like a scene at an opera house in London,

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Speaker 1: and they're talking and then in the background you can

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Speaker 1: hear some Wagner and some Schubert, and that's just like

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Speaker 1: what happens to be occurring in the background in the scene,

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Speaker 1: because they're they're at the London opera house. This is

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Speaker 1: what's happening in the background, and it does heighten the

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Speaker 1: moment and kind of add some feelings to things. But

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Speaker 1: that is majetic. To bring it back to that word again,

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Speaker 1: it is what is happening on screen, and so that's

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Speaker 1: pretty much the only thing in the movie that has

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Speaker 1: any music at all period. And then if you look

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Speaker 1: at the very very beginning, over the opening credits, before

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Speaker 1: the film actually begins, there's a little bit of Tchaikovsky's

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Speaker 1: Swan Lake which plays over literally the opening credits exclusively.

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Speaker 1: And I believe that is two things. Um. One, it's

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Speaker 1: kind of a holdover from just like the silent era,

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Speaker 1: where it's just like, oh, well, there's this thing on

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Speaker 1: screen and there's no people talking. I gotta do something here,

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Speaker 1: just put some music up there, you know. But too,

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Speaker 1: I also have read that um, Chaikovsky's Swan Lake was

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Speaker 1: also just very stock standard, where it was just like, hey,

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Speaker 1: we can just use this one, like this is just

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Speaker 1: a standard song we can stick in wherever we need

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Speaker 1: it in the studio system. UM. I'm not sure how

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Speaker 1: true that is, but I find that fascinating because to me,

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Speaker 1: when I watched that film, that moment from Swan Lake

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Speaker 1: fits that Dracula opening credit sequence so perfectly that I

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Speaker 1: can't see it being stock. I guess kind of like

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Speaker 1: Always Sunny in Philadelphia, where their entire sound library is

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Speaker 1: stock you know, um um score stuff. And when I

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Speaker 1: hear it in something else, like a TV commercial, I

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Speaker 1: get confused. That's a tangent. I'm moving back to to Dracula.

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Speaker 1: Well no, no no, no, I know exactly what you're talking about,

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Speaker 1: Like I can't. It's uh, I think the part with

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Speaker 1: swan Lake is it's that creaky violin melody. Yeah, am

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Speaker 1: I right about the game. Well, maybe we can stop

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Speaker 1: and just play a clip of that real quick, good call. Okay.

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Speaker 1: I can't hear that without thinking about Todd Browning's Dracula, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, it has established itself, like I think of

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Speaker 1: Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake as Dracula music more than I think

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Speaker 1: that as swan Lake music. Clearly it is made for

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Speaker 1: swan Lake anyway. But I've I've also seen Todd Browning's

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Speaker 1: Dracula way more than I've ever seen Swan Lake. So

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Speaker 1: you know, it's I'm sure it'll be different from person

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Speaker 1: to person. But but but here, here's the point. Here's

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Speaker 1: the point. So back in again, this is the jazz singer. Uh.

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Speaker 1: That movie was very, very popular, but all of the

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Speaker 1: music was taking place on screen diagetically because it was

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Speaker 1: a musical. Everyone's singing was singing right there in front

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Speaker 1: of you. Every all the musical musical instruments was a stage.

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Speaker 1: It was all about performance, stage work, the vaudeville scene, etcetera, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: So this was understandable for a lot of reasons. Um. One,

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Speaker 1: musicals were just very popular at the time, so that

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Speaker 1: that was like a big reason why they made this

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Speaker 1: film be a musical and why it was so popular

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Speaker 1: just in the modern consciousness of wow, the jazz singer

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Speaker 1: winning all the awards, making all the money, all the

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Speaker 1: people have seen it, but also be it's an excellent

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Speaker 1: showcase of early sound and vision singing together. Two in

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Speaker 1: this brand new medium, which is the talkie, because before that,

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Speaker 1: um you know, obviously there was like a lone organist

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Speaker 1: sitting in most silent movie theaters playing along, you know,

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Speaker 1: with whatever is happening in the background. Or two there

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Speaker 1: was a brief period where they were actually playing records

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Speaker 1: along with the film. But this was a very short

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Speaker 1: lived technology because they would go out of sync perpetually.

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Speaker 1: Because I mean, if you just even think about that,

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Speaker 1: like even in your own world, you know. You uh,

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Speaker 1: let's say you're trying to sink what's playing on your

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Speaker 1: radio with what's happening on your television. It's just not

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Speaker 1: gonna quite always line up. It'll be close enough, probably,

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Speaker 1: but it won't. It's not going to be exactly right.

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Speaker 1: So I don't know if anybody what we got a

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Speaker 1: lot of Mystery Science Theater three thousand fans out there.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if anybody ever tried in that middle

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Speaker 1: period to manually synchronize a riff tracks m P three

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Speaker 1: with a movie that they were trying to watch it

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Speaker 1: paired with it was a pain. Yeah, yeah. Or even

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Speaker 1: trying to sink Dark Side of the Moon with the

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Speaker 1: Wizard of Oz always fun, always fun. I've I've spent

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Speaker 1: many hours doing that. Um. But but anyway, it's getting

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Speaker 1: back to my point though. So these were musicals, and

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Speaker 1: so that was like there was a reason for it

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Speaker 1: all to be happening on stage King Kong. It was

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Speaker 1: a a real score because they had finally figured out

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Speaker 1: that that was okay. One Both the filmmakers and the

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Speaker 1: film critics did not think that the audience could understand

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Speaker 1: where the music was coming from. They thought that we

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Speaker 1: were too simple, that like we would be confused. We

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Speaker 1: would say, wait, is there a violinist behind them? Like

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Speaker 1: like where where is this music coming from? Oh, they

385
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Speaker 1: aren't alone, there's a musician right over there. You know.

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Speaker 1: Well that is interesting. I mean I wonder if did

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Speaker 1: and I mean so obviously we don't think that now.

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Speaker 1: But also we grow up watching movies that have non

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Speaker 1: diagetic music in them. It did audiences for say King Kong,

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Speaker 1: like the earliest movies with non diagetic scores, did they

391
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Speaker 1: react with confusion or was this pretty much metabolized instantly?

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Speaker 1: I can say this, and I don't think this is

393
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Speaker 1: proof of anything, but it is something that happened at

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Speaker 1: the time. Um I have, you know, I like classic cinema.

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Speaker 1: Um I have. I have this one box set of

396
00:22:09,440 --> 00:22:13,480
Speaker 1: pretty much all of the old Laurel and Hardy um

397
00:22:13,560 --> 00:22:17,040
Speaker 1: Um shorts and features. And what's very funny is that

398
00:22:17,080 --> 00:22:20,480
Speaker 1: in this collection they have the original shorts, which, much

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Speaker 1: like Todd Browning's Dracula, were released. Basically, they're they're barely

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Speaker 1: not silent films. You know, they are one step past

401
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Speaker 1: the silent film. You can hear them talking, but they

402
00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:33,919
Speaker 1: had not figured out non diagetic scores yet. And on

403
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Speaker 1: the same in the same box set, they also have

404
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Speaker 1: the re releases that happened post three where they actually

405
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Speaker 1: scored them, and it's the same short. They just had

406
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Speaker 1: to include this music because people had grown to accept

407
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Speaker 1: it so quickly that these long, you know, periods of

408
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Speaker 1: silences that were like, I guess a part of the

409
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Speaker 1: filmmaking for a moment, we're now seen as completely passe

410
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Speaker 1: and old old fashioned. You needed that, mu zick. So

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Speaker 1: they had to re release all these shorts with with

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Speaker 1: a brand new score a tacked onto them. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: speaking of which, uh, this ultimately happened to Todd Browning's

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Speaker 1: Dracula as well. Um oh yeah, So I think maybe

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Speaker 1: the could it be true that the first time I

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Speaker 1: ever saw it in full it was with the Philip

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Speaker 1: Glass score. I think that might be true. It could

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Speaker 1: be it came out in a so depending upon when

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Speaker 1: you saw it, it's very possible it was after that.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, and I was not watching classic cinema as

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Speaker 1: a child, and so what's what's funny about that? So yeah,

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Speaker 1: they they they re scored um and but it's official

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Speaker 1: universal They released a brand new version of Todd Browning's

424
00:23:44,800 --> 00:23:48,520
Speaker 1: Dracula with a brand new score made by Philip Glass,

425
00:23:49,040 --> 00:23:51,560
Speaker 1: and I think it's very very good. However, I do

426
00:23:51,600 --> 00:23:53,920
Speaker 1: think it's very funny that they went from a film

427
00:23:53,960 --> 00:23:57,719
Speaker 1: that had basically no music and almost no folly and

428
00:23:57,800 --> 00:24:03,840
Speaker 1: added the most maximalist, you know, perpetual ar paggio maker himself,

429
00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:06,320
Speaker 1: Philip Glass, to score it. So it went from a

430
00:24:06,359 --> 00:24:08,560
Speaker 1: movie with like almost no sound to a movie with

431
00:24:08,600 --> 00:24:12,119
Speaker 1: like NonStop sound, and I love it. I actually I

432
00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:15,920
Speaker 1: prefer the Philip Glass version now. But anyway, that's that.

433
00:24:16,560 --> 00:24:18,800
Speaker 1: But I guess technically anybody can make their own score

434
00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:21,240
Speaker 1: to Dracula. Yeah, yeah, no, I feel that way, and

435
00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:24,400
Speaker 1: I there have been a lecture. We could go off

436
00:24:24,400 --> 00:24:26,840
Speaker 1: on this all day. We have so much to talk about. Well,

437
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:30,399
Speaker 1: I'll hold my opinions about Air and La Voyage Dan's

438
00:24:30,480 --> 00:24:34,280
Speaker 1: Laloon for another time. Oh. I think somehow we have

439
00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:36,440
Speaker 1: actually talked about that on the show before. I think

440
00:24:36,680 --> 00:24:38,840
Speaker 1: maybe in the past we were talking about music videos

441
00:24:38,840 --> 00:24:41,639
Speaker 1: and that came up. Yeah. But but the practice of

442
00:24:41,680 --> 00:24:45,520
Speaker 1: scoring an old silent film with modern technology and modern

443
00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:48,280
Speaker 1: sensibilities is a very fun practice. Many people have done

444
00:24:48,320 --> 00:24:51,840
Speaker 1: it over the years, and it's it's fun. Yeah, one

445
00:24:51,880 --> 00:24:53,879
Speaker 1: that really sticks in my mind. I remember I watched

446
00:24:53,880 --> 00:24:57,480
Speaker 1: a pretty awesome modern rescore of Well, I guess it

447
00:24:57,520 --> 00:24:59,560
Speaker 1: wouldn't be a rescore because this was a silent film

448
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:04,040
Speaker 1: to begin but of Fritz Long's Metropolis. Yes, do you

449
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:07,720
Speaker 1: remember who did the score? I unfortunately do not, So

450
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:10,800
Speaker 1: that is not a very useful comment. I'm sorry, I'm

451
00:25:10,840 --> 00:25:20,800
Speaker 1: sorry for asking. Thank but it's really interesting what you

452
00:25:20,840 --> 00:25:23,959
Speaker 1: point out. Yeah, so that this Todd Browning Stracula is

453
00:25:24,040 --> 00:25:28,399
Speaker 1: absolutely one of the foundational texts of of horror cinema.

454
00:25:28,600 --> 00:25:31,320
Speaker 1: Is like a lot of what horror cinema is goes

455
00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:34,960
Speaker 1: back to traditions that can be traced step by step

456
00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:38,320
Speaker 1: back to the universal monster movies, the first of which,

457
00:25:38,359 --> 00:25:40,800
Speaker 1: of course, was Browning Stracula. Wait, I am right about that.

458
00:25:40,840 --> 00:25:42,880
Speaker 1: It was the first one, right, definitely. Well, I mean, yeah,

459
00:25:42,960 --> 00:25:45,160
Speaker 1: technically we can go back to the silent era where

460
00:25:45,160 --> 00:25:46,800
Speaker 1: we had like you know, Phantom of the Opera and

461
00:25:46,840 --> 00:25:50,080
Speaker 1: stuff like that. But of the talkies, we can definitely

462
00:25:50,119 --> 00:25:52,879
Speaker 1: say it's Todd Browning Stracula. Yeah. And yet now the

463
00:25:52,920 --> 00:25:56,920
Speaker 1: idea of a of a horror movie without not just

464
00:25:57,160 --> 00:26:00,960
Speaker 1: some music, but like lots of music and very horton music.

465
00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:05,040
Speaker 1: That's that's critical in uh setting both setting the tone

466
00:26:05,119 --> 00:26:08,880
Speaker 1: and establishing that sort of godlike feeling of of superhuman

467
00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:11,080
Speaker 1: insight that you get when you're watching a horror movie.

468
00:26:11,119 --> 00:26:14,040
Speaker 1: You know, something that the characters don't know. It contributes

469
00:26:14,080 --> 00:26:16,879
Speaker 1: to the sort of dramatic irony of watching the scene

470
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:21,000
Speaker 1: that that gives you this weird superhuman ability. Uh, that's

471
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:24,560
Speaker 1: like absolutely crucial to what modern horror is. And if

472
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:27,280
Speaker 1: you have a movie that is very light on soundtrack

473
00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:30,879
Speaker 1: or has no soundtrack, that's notable. Now that's like a

474
00:26:31,040 --> 00:26:34,200
Speaker 1: thing to point out about the movie. Um, I'm trying

475
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:37,720
Speaker 1: to think of examples. Does the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre

476
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:40,920
Speaker 1: lack music or does it mostly lack music? It's definitely

477
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:43,600
Speaker 1: very little, that's for sure. And yeah, it actually makes

478
00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:45,480
Speaker 1: it feel more real. It makes it feel like a

479
00:26:45,520 --> 00:26:49,560
Speaker 1: documentary because we aren't given this insights, we aren't given

480
00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:52,000
Speaker 1: this extra layer of telling us how to feel. Almost

481
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:54,080
Speaker 1: almost hand holding if you want to look at it

482
00:26:54,080 --> 00:26:55,600
Speaker 1: and like that kind of way that like that the

483
00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:59,120
Speaker 1: score tells us this way, this way, you know, here's

484
00:26:59,119 --> 00:27:01,439
Speaker 1: how you feel over here. You know, Well, that's another

485
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:03,919
Speaker 1: interesting question that uh, I don't know if I'm prepared

486
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:07,119
Speaker 1: to answer right now, But it is fun to notice

487
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:11,320
Speaker 1: the difference between music that is highly emotionally manipulative and

488
00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:15,120
Speaker 1: that's okay with us, versus music that's highly emotionally manipulative

489
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:17,680
Speaker 1: and it makes us mad. Like when a TV commercial

490
00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:20,359
Speaker 1: has really emotional music and you're like, oh, you know,

491
00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:23,240
Speaker 1: get out of here with that, right rights, Like perhaps

492
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:26,920
Speaker 1: that uh that Dying Pets commercial and it's like a

493
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:30,120
Speaker 1: Sarah McLaughlin song on top that's like very very sad.

494
00:27:30,119 --> 00:27:32,680
Speaker 1: Do you remember what we're talking about. I wasn't thinking

495
00:27:32,680 --> 00:27:34,679
Speaker 1: about that in particular. I think about like, I don't know,

496
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:38,240
Speaker 1: when it's it's like a commercial for a telecom company

497
00:27:38,359 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 1: or something, and they're like connecting people across the world,

498
00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:45,600
Speaker 1: but to love to share and the happy music playing,

499
00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:47,560
Speaker 1: I don't know. I feel like folgers used to do

500
00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 1: that back in the day too. I think they've grown

501
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:52,080
Speaker 1: past that, and the late eighties early nineties a bunch

502
00:27:52,119 --> 00:27:56,800
Speaker 1: of folders commercials were very like family emotional. But didn't

503
00:27:57,080 --> 00:28:00,680
Speaker 1: you know anyway, anyway, we're going on tangents nothing right here?

504
00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 1: All right, Well, maybe one of the places we should

505
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:06,320
Speaker 1: go from here to Uh. To think about the function

506
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:10,639
Speaker 1: of scary music in horror movies is to ask, what

507
00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:13,840
Speaker 1: are some of the objective characteristics of music that is

508
00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 1: often subjectively associated with fear or used in horror movies? UM,

509
00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:21,760
Speaker 1: and I think some obvious places to start. Probably the

510
00:28:21,840 --> 00:28:24,760
Speaker 1: most obvious place to start for me would be that

511
00:28:25,440 --> 00:28:31,120
Speaker 1: horror music or or fearful music overwhelmingly favors minor key

512
00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:34,520
Speaker 1: tonality over major key. In fact, I was trying to

513
00:28:34,560 --> 00:28:37,919
Speaker 1: think of a single good counter example of of a

514
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:42,280
Speaker 1: horror movie that had scary major key music, and I

515
00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:45,720
Speaker 1: literally could not bring a single example to mind. Uh.

516
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:49,160
Speaker 1: The only my general feeling is that the only way

517
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:52,560
Speaker 1: major key music plays a plays a big role in

518
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:55,479
Speaker 1: horror movies is either in the sort of like normal

519
00:28:55,560 --> 00:29:00,080
Speaker 1: part of the world before things get bad, or to

520
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:03,160
Speaker 1: to automatically suggest a spirit of irony, that there's a

521
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:05,880
Speaker 1: kind of mean sense of humor in playing major key

522
00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 1: music in a horror movie, or perhaps sometimes as a

523
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:11,480
Speaker 1: bait and switch. UM. I don't want to give anything away,

524
00:29:11,560 --> 00:29:15,160
Speaker 1: so spoiler alert for the original Friday the Thirteenth Part one.

525
00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 1: If you don't want to hear a spoiler, You can

526
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:20,480
Speaker 1: spoil that one. Yeah, ever, watch out if most people

527
00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:23,719
Speaker 1: will remember, at the very very end of Friday Thirteenth,

528
00:29:23,840 --> 00:29:27,160
Speaker 1: Part one, there is a final scare where I believe

529
00:29:27,160 --> 00:29:29,320
Speaker 1: her name is Alice. She's out there on the boat.

530
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:34,480
Speaker 1: She's um feeling all happy because she's killed Mrs Vorhees,

531
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:38,040
Speaker 1: the killer from that film. She's safe. She can see

532
00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:40,440
Speaker 1: the cops arriving on the shore, and we have a

533
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 1: nice major key song playing that's like, hey, everything's all right,

534
00:29:45,240 --> 00:29:52,400
Speaker 1: the movie's over, we can relax now we're safe. And

535
00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 1: then immediately boom, it switches to minor. It switches to

536
00:29:56,240 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 1: become very aggressive, much more like a tonal, like stabs

537
00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 1: of strings and stuff, much like a the Psycho score perhaps,

538
00:30:04,400 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 1: And uh yeah, yeah, that shift happens when Jason jumps

539
00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 1: out of the water and grabs her that last scare.

540
00:30:10,520 --> 00:30:14,480
Speaker 1: It makes that major shift right there, from hey, everything's fine,

541
00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:20,160
Speaker 1: major key, No, it's not minor key. You know that's

542
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:23,600
Speaker 1: that's obviously on purpose. Yeah, So that's that's that spirit

543
00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:25,920
Speaker 1: of irony I was talking about. But I mean, like,

544
00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:29,560
Speaker 1: can you think of a single instance of a horror

545
00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:33,160
Speaker 1: movie where there's music that is itself supposed to be

546
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:37,400
Speaker 1: scary and not like by irony or by contrast, and

547
00:30:37,480 --> 00:30:39,880
Speaker 1: it's in a major key. I'm sure it must exist

548
00:30:39,960 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of movies out there, but I

549
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:44,400
Speaker 1: could not come up with a single example, I would bet,

550
00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:46,760
Speaker 1: and again I don't know this off top of my head.

551
00:30:47,080 --> 00:30:53,360
Speaker 1: There have been a large number of repurposing pop songs

552
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:56,400
Speaker 1: into horror themes lately, like for the past I'll say,

553
00:30:56,400 --> 00:30:59,360
Speaker 1: what five ten years. I would bet at least one

554
00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:01,800
Speaker 1: of those stances they did not convert it into a

555
00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:04,880
Speaker 1: minor key. So let's say, hypothetically, I'd have to go

556
00:31:04,920 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 1: back and check this because seven watch this movie A

557
00:31:06,680 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 1: ton Um that that wonderful film us by Um Jordan Peel, Right, yeah, yeah,

558
00:31:12,760 --> 00:31:15,480
Speaker 1: he The main theme is a I've Got five on

559
00:31:15,520 --> 00:31:17,840
Speaker 1: It exactly. It's an interpretation of the of the pop

560
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:20,640
Speaker 1: song I've Got five on It. I bet I've got

561
00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:22,800
Speaker 1: five on it is in a major key. I'd have

562
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:24,440
Speaker 1: to really listen to the score to see if they

563
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:27,760
Speaker 1: changed it to make it minor. But anyway, this is

564
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:31,880
Speaker 1: all speculation, so this is useless. That's a great example

565
00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:34,600
Speaker 1: of pop music being used in a horror movie. By

566
00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:36,520
Speaker 1: the way, the way it's woven through the whole score

567
00:31:36,560 --> 00:31:39,040
Speaker 1: and comes. But yeah, yeah film. Actually, you and I

568
00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:43,000
Speaker 1: both watched recently um called oh gosh, what's it called?

569
00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:47,120
Speaker 1: The It was on HBO Max Malignant Malignant because they

570
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:50,719
Speaker 1: worked in Where Is My Mind by the Pixies on

571
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 1: multiple occasions throughout that score as both a a theme

572
00:31:55,720 --> 00:31:58,080
Speaker 1: as well as just kind of like a um oh,

573
00:31:58,160 --> 00:32:01,680
Speaker 1: perhaps foreshadowing in a way, you know, yeah, yeah, so yeah,

574
00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:04,120
Speaker 1: it's a common practice. So I at least one time

575
00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:06,400
Speaker 1: there have been one of those pop songs made into

576
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:09,680
Speaker 1: a horror score that was still major, but I definitely

577
00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:12,040
Speaker 1: can't think of it. No, Um, there was a thing

578
00:32:12,280 --> 00:32:15,000
Speaker 1: you actually shared a link that I had not seen before,

579
00:32:15,040 --> 00:32:16,560
Speaker 1: but I thought it was really funny. It was a

580
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:19,600
Speaker 1: video that somebody put together of horror theme music that

581
00:32:19,800 --> 00:32:23,040
Speaker 1: was modulated to be in a major key instead of

582
00:32:23,040 --> 00:32:25,600
Speaker 1: a minor key, so it had the Halloween theme and

583
00:32:25,640 --> 00:32:27,719
Speaker 1: all this stuff. But I thought that the funny So

584
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:32,040
Speaker 1: it's it's so obviously inappropriate that it is immediately and

585
00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:35,440
Speaker 1: automatically hilarious. But I thought that the best one was

586
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:39,920
Speaker 1: the major key version of the theme from Saw, which

587
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 1: sounded to me again to come back to TV commercials. Yeah,

588
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:46,760
Speaker 1: it sounded like a commercial. Uh, it sounded like music

589
00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:49,440
Speaker 1: that would play in a telecom commercial, you know, while

590
00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:52,840
Speaker 1: the narrators sank together. We're connecting people across the globe

591
00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:56,920
Speaker 1: because these are the moments that make us who we are. No,

592
00:32:57,040 --> 00:32:59,880
Speaker 1: I fully agree. I think my favorite was the nightmare

593
00:32:59,880 --> 00:33:02,240
Speaker 1: on on Elm Street theme turned into a major key.

594
00:33:02,240 --> 00:33:05,840
Speaker 1: That one was actually oddly beautiful. Um, if anyone's looking

595
00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:08,200
Speaker 1: this up, this was from a Slate article. Um, I

596
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:11,719
Speaker 1: believe from two where it was just a theme songs

597
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:16,040
Speaker 1: and a major key are chilling, le hauntingly dorky, and

598
00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:19,080
Speaker 1: it was fascinating. It's it's it's an interesting couple of

599
00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:22,120
Speaker 1: minutes you can spend looking at this for sure. Yeah,

600
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:24,720
Speaker 1: that was where the link. Let's see, I just wanted.

601
00:33:24,800 --> 00:33:27,440
Speaker 1: It was by a YouTube user called muted Vocal. I

602
00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:30,160
Speaker 1: don't know anything about them otherwise me either, although I

603
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:32,840
Speaker 1: did see that they they've made videos going the other

604
00:33:32,880 --> 00:33:37,120
Speaker 1: way where they have found uplifting positive major key songs

605
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:41,120
Speaker 1: switched them to a minor key and then that's something too,

606
00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:43,720
Speaker 1: so like for example, the theme song too. Oh, I

607
00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 1: don't know, I haven't watched this video Jurassic Park or big.

608
00:33:46,640 --> 00:33:50,520
Speaker 1: You know, you take that that uplifting key, minorize it

609
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:53,680
Speaker 1: suddenly it's scary you know. Oh oh wait, I I

610
00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:56,760
Speaker 1: just thought of an example of a of a major

611
00:33:56,840 --> 00:34:01,280
Speaker 1: key pop song that I have always thought was incredibly creepy,

612
00:34:01,360 --> 00:34:04,080
Speaker 1: creepier than people give it credit for, and should be

613
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 1: used in a horror movie. It's Rod Stewart Forever Young.

614
00:34:07,800 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 1: I think if you like listen to that song with

615
00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:12,959
Speaker 1: the right frame of mind, it is the most unsettling.

616
00:34:13,120 --> 00:34:15,360
Speaker 1: It sounds like, you know, something that would be playing

617
00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:19,840
Speaker 1: while like a serial killer is preparing their instruments or something. Yeah, yeah,

618
00:34:20,040 --> 00:34:23,440
Speaker 1: for sure, for sure. And I could also see in

619
00:34:23,440 --> 00:34:26,279
Speaker 1: the near future someone making a horror film and that

620
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 1: can be the pop song that's been interpolated into us

621
00:34:29,200 --> 00:34:32,560
Speaker 1: scoring the the new theme. You know. Now, there are

622
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:35,520
Speaker 1: a ton of other musical features that we could identify

623
00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:37,960
Speaker 1: as being common in horror movie music. One that pops

624
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:40,960
Speaker 1: up over and over again in uh, in scary music,

625
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:43,560
Speaker 1: not just in horror movies, but say like It's Big

626
00:34:43,560 --> 00:34:46,800
Speaker 1: in It's It's on Black. Sabbath's first album is the

627
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:51,279
Speaker 1: musical interval, known sometimes as the Devil's try tone. It's

628
00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:54,640
Speaker 1: a series of three notes that has a long interesting

629
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:57,960
Speaker 1: history in music. I know Rob has gone into depth

630
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:00,840
Speaker 1: on this in some episodes in the past, so I

631
00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:02,800
Speaker 1: think I'm not going to rehash that here. They'll maybe

632
00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:04,319
Speaker 1: maybe Rob and I will come back to it at

633
00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:07,279
Speaker 1: some point. Um. But Yeah, clearly this one shows up

634
00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:08,960
Speaker 1: a lot when you're trying to get people to think

635
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:12,759
Speaker 1: about demons. Yeah, the the the Devil's triad, and the

636
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:16,840
Speaker 1: Devil's interval as it's sometimes known these chords, I guess,

637
00:35:17,000 --> 00:35:20,319
Speaker 1: and these intervals I think they're going to play in

638
00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:22,120
Speaker 1: later when we start talking about kind of like the

639
00:35:22,160 --> 00:35:27,280
Speaker 1: internal like subconscious like logic and kind of like source

640
00:35:27,719 --> 00:35:30,880
Speaker 1: of scariness. I think this is gonna come up again.

641
00:35:30,960 --> 00:35:32,680
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna I'm gonna keep this in mind. I'm

642
00:35:32,680 --> 00:35:35,640
Speaker 1: gonna keep a pin in it. Okay, There's another thing

643
00:35:35,640 --> 00:35:37,520
Speaker 1: that I was wondering about, if if you have any

644
00:35:37,560 --> 00:35:41,839
Speaker 1: thoughts on this, is uh, particular instrumentation. You know, that's

645
00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:45,200
Speaker 1: how horror movie themes, maybe less so these days, but

646
00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:47,279
Speaker 1: at least for a long time, I feel like they

647
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:53,960
Speaker 1: tended to favor particular instruments, especially instruments that sound archaic

648
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:58,560
Speaker 1: to us, So like the pipe organ, the harpsichord, UH,

649
00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:01,440
Speaker 1: instruments that are not exactly thought of as like the

650
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:06,160
Speaker 1: most modern of sounds. And I wonder if that's because

651
00:36:06,520 --> 00:36:11,640
Speaker 1: for the same logic that generally associates UH antiquity with spookiness,

652
00:36:11,680 --> 00:36:13,520
Speaker 1: you know, like why are more horror movies set in

653
00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:16,080
Speaker 1: an old house than a new house? No, I think

654
00:36:16,080 --> 00:36:19,400
Speaker 1: you're absolutely correct. I think, well, a lot of elements

655
00:36:19,400 --> 00:36:23,160
Speaker 1: of storytelling are trying to convey something without saying it directly.

656
00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:26,800
Speaker 1: And I do think antiquated things just seem more spooky

657
00:36:26,800 --> 00:36:30,960
Speaker 1: because I think, yeah, either subconsciously or consciously, we recognize, oh,

658
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:33,920
Speaker 1: they're all dead, you know, like the terror of history. Yeah,

659
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:38,320
Speaker 1: there's the past contains many stories, uh, and at any time,

660
00:36:38,360 --> 00:36:40,480
Speaker 1: to to bring back one of those stories is to

661
00:36:40,560 --> 00:36:45,280
Speaker 1: invite the idea of ghosts, or or of secrets maybe

662
00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:48,120
Speaker 1: better left uncovered or something. Oh, definitely. I mean think

663
00:36:48,160 --> 00:36:52,160
Speaker 1: about The Shining, for example, UM, in that film. Uh,

664
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:57,680
Speaker 1: there's a very eerie use of nineteen twenties big band music, right,

665
00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:00,799
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of like this impression of other

666
00:37:00,880 --> 00:37:04,480
Speaker 1: worldliness and very spookiness. I'm sure in the nineteen twenties

667
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:08,359
Speaker 1: is we're considered very upbeat songs, but when you hear

668
00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:13,080
Speaker 1: it's in that context with that story, it is very spooky.

669
00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:15,879
Speaker 1: It's nothing but spooky. You know, I can't imagine being

670
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:18,880
Speaker 1: happy while listening to that music. We're definitely gonna have

671
00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:20,399
Speaker 1: to come back to The Shining in a bit, because

672
00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:23,359
Speaker 1: that's got some of my favorite horror movie music from

673
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:25,640
Speaker 1: in multiple ways, from the you know, the the Wendy

674
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:29,040
Speaker 1: Carlos synths to uh do some really good percussion stings

675
00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:30,719
Speaker 1: in it. That illustrates something I want to get to

676
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:35,040
Speaker 1: in a minute. Pendarecki, Yes, no, I I think from

677
00:37:35,040 --> 00:37:37,640
Speaker 1: everything we're about to talk about, the Shining is like

678
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:41,560
Speaker 1: almost a perfect example of every kind of scary music.

679
00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:50,399
Speaker 1: And yeah, we'll definitely get to that. Thank Okay, well,

680
00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:52,520
Speaker 1: so I get let's get right into this. There's a

681
00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:55,960
Speaker 1: thing that I was trying to tease out about how

682
00:37:56,000 --> 00:37:59,719
Speaker 1: there might be different types of horror movie music that

683
00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:02,719
Speaker 1: we can recognize patterns, but they're not all. It's not

684
00:38:02,760 --> 00:38:06,319
Speaker 1: just one homogeneous mass that there are different types of

685
00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:10,759
Speaker 1: music associated with the different types of emotions that horror

686
00:38:11,080 --> 00:38:15,320
Speaker 1: wants to conjure. And so this will get into something

687
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:18,360
Speaker 1: that horror writers discuss a lot. Might be less familiar

688
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:21,840
Speaker 1: to people who don't play around in such obsessive literary circles,

689
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:25,520
Speaker 1: But horror writers talk a lot about the difference between

690
00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:30,480
Speaker 1: horror and terror, and they make the point that these

691
00:38:30,480 --> 00:38:34,200
Speaker 1: are two very distinct emotional states. They're not the same

692
00:38:34,239 --> 00:38:36,919
Speaker 1: thing at all, and it's usually explained like this. I'll

693
00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:41,160
Speaker 1: try to do the simplest version. Terror is the feeling

694
00:38:41,239 --> 00:38:47,320
Speaker 1: of dread you experience at the anticipation of encountering something awful,

695
00:38:48,080 --> 00:38:51,520
Speaker 1: and horror is the feeling of shock and revulsion you

696
00:38:51,600 --> 00:38:55,960
Speaker 1: experience when you actually encounter it. So you know, if

697
00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:58,799
Speaker 1: horror is you throw open the door and you see

698
00:38:58,840 --> 00:39:02,640
Speaker 1: the monster, terror is the feeling as you creep down

699
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:05,799
Speaker 1: the hall toward the door, not knowing what's behind it.

700
00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:08,439
Speaker 1: I was looking this up trying to find who who

701
00:39:08,520 --> 00:39:11,120
Speaker 1: is the earliest person to articulate this difference, and it

702
00:39:11,200 --> 00:39:14,200
Speaker 1: seems to me maybe the earliest person to talk about

703
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:16,920
Speaker 1: this is the eighteenth and nineteenth century English author of

704
00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:21,920
Speaker 1: Gothic fiction and Radcliffe, who wrote about this in a

705
00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:25,800
Speaker 1: piece called on the Supernatural in Poetry, which was published

706
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:29,799
Speaker 1: in eighteen twenty six. Might have been published posthumously, but

707
00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:33,560
Speaker 1: she wrote as follows, they must be men of very

708
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:38,279
Speaker 1: cold imaginations, with whom certainty is more terrible than surmise.

709
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:42,240
Speaker 1: Terror and horror are so far opposite that the first

710
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 1: expands the soul and awakens the faculties to a high

711
00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:51,920
Speaker 1: degree of life. The other contracts, freezes, and nearly annihilates them.

712
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:54,919
Speaker 1: And I would say this remains the prevailing sentiment among

713
00:39:55,200 --> 00:39:58,480
Speaker 1: horror writers these days, that the terror is the really

714
00:39:58,640 --> 00:40:02,760
Speaker 1: prized emotion. That ror writers generally think it is better

715
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:06,880
Speaker 1: to to be successful at making you feel that dread

716
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:10,719
Speaker 1: of anticipation and ambiguity of creeping up to the door

717
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:13,920
Speaker 1: not knowing what's behind it, than just going for that,

718
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:16,440
Speaker 1: you know, like ah, the shock and revulsion when you

719
00:40:16,480 --> 00:40:20,919
Speaker 1: finally see the monster. Right, I think I think most

720
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:23,040
Speaker 1: people would agree with that. I definitely do. And so

721
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:27,279
Speaker 1: concurrent with these two very different emotions that are elicited

722
00:40:27,320 --> 00:40:30,040
Speaker 1: by by horror fiction and thus by horror movies, I

723
00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:34,400
Speaker 1: think we can hear some extremely pronounced differences between the

724
00:40:34,520 --> 00:40:37,919
Speaker 1: kinds of music that are usually used for each one,

725
00:40:38,080 --> 00:40:42,000
Speaker 1: for terror sequences versus horror sequences. So I would offer

726
00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:45,799
Speaker 1: as a sort of emblematic contrasting pair of examples, the

727
00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:50,279
Speaker 1: Jaws theme versus the stabbing violins from the score of

728
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:54,120
Speaker 1: Psycho Um. So the Jaws theme is you know, the

729
00:40:54,160 --> 00:40:57,440
Speaker 1: classic that the two note progression dun dun dun, dun dunt.

730
00:40:57,680 --> 00:40:59,839
Speaker 1: I would say that is terror music to the core.

731
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:08,120
Speaker 1: You don't see the monster yet, but something bad is approaching.

732
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:11,279
Speaker 1: You can feel this sense of dread welling up in you,

733
00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:13,880
Speaker 1: but you're you're not at the moment of conflict and

734
00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:17,880
Speaker 1: confrontation yet. And also anyone if they aren't familiar with

735
00:41:17,880 --> 00:41:19,319
Speaker 1: a song, or if they just haven't thought about it

736
00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:21,520
Speaker 1: in a while, I think it's very important that the

737
00:41:21,640 --> 00:41:24,960
Speaker 1: notes not only are getting faster, they're getting louder. It's

738
00:41:25,040 --> 00:41:27,960
Speaker 1: it's as if the song is approaching you. You you

739
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:32,800
Speaker 1: are feeling the literal feelings of something getting closer, something

740
00:41:32,840 --> 00:41:36,279
Speaker 1: getting faster, something coming right at you. And that's that's

741
00:41:36,280 --> 00:41:39,839
Speaker 1: what it's trying to evoke. And that's I think very successfully.

742
00:41:39,880 --> 00:41:43,080
Speaker 1: It doesn't, you know. But there's also something that's genius

743
00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:46,520
Speaker 1: about the Jaws theme, And you know, John Williams often

744
00:41:46,560 --> 00:41:50,000
Speaker 1: has an incredible intuitive sense of of evoking concepts like this.

745
00:41:50,440 --> 00:41:53,759
Speaker 1: Something about the Jaws theme suggests a form that isn't

746
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:56,360
Speaker 1: yet understood that it is, you know. It almost suggests

747
00:41:56,360 --> 00:41:58,520
Speaker 1: like something coming up from out of deep water that

748
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:02,200
Speaker 1: you can't see. Um, you just know that there's this

749
00:42:02,280 --> 00:42:05,640
Speaker 1: approaching menace, that something awful is coming out of the

750
00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:08,319
Speaker 1: literally out of the murk, but you can't find its

751
00:42:08,320 --> 00:42:11,560
Speaker 1: form yet. And I think that again goes right back

752
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:14,320
Speaker 1: to what you were just saying about, Um, the anticipation

753
00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:18,000
Speaker 1: being far worse than the actual violence. It's it's the

754
00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:20,839
Speaker 1: build up. And famously for Jaws, it was because they

755
00:42:20,840 --> 00:42:23,640
Speaker 1: weren't a hundred percent happy with the build of Bruce

756
00:42:23,760 --> 00:42:28,279
Speaker 1: the shark. And um, I think everyone would agree that

757
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:30,840
Speaker 1: makes it even better. You know, Yeah, the movie is

758
00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:33,640
Speaker 1: much better because you see less of the shark. Um.

759
00:42:33,680 --> 00:42:35,960
Speaker 1: Though then again, eventually in a movie, you're going to

760
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:39,120
Speaker 1: have to confront the horrible thing, right or usually you're

761
00:42:39,120 --> 00:42:41,200
Speaker 1: gonna have to, and you gotta have the right kind

762
00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 1: of music for that too. Uh though that the characteristics,

763
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:49,640
Speaker 1: the objective physical sonic characteristics of the music, where the

764
00:42:49,719 --> 00:42:52,839
Speaker 1: actual conflict happens, where you see the monster or the

765
00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:54,919
Speaker 1: you know or the you know, the killer jumps out

766
00:42:54,920 --> 00:42:57,840
Speaker 1: with the knife that is very different music. And again

767
00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:01,280
Speaker 1: I think the violins from Psycho are a pretty perfect

768
00:43:01,280 --> 00:43:17,560
Speaker 1: example of what what formed that music usually takes. It

769
00:43:17,600 --> 00:43:21,000
Speaker 1: creates mental pictures, for sure, like and perhaps it is

770
00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:24,080
Speaker 1: because Psycho has just become, you know, part of our

771
00:43:24,320 --> 00:43:27,400
Speaker 1: shared d n a of visual imagery, you know, and

772
00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:32,440
Speaker 1: just cinema in general. Button that sound with the violin

773
00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:36,080
Speaker 1: feels like a knife stabbing, you know. And I don't know,

774
00:43:36,160 --> 00:43:38,640
Speaker 1: I I don't know if I can unmarry those sounds.

775
00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:41,600
Speaker 1: To come back to the shining again, there's actually another

776
00:43:41,640 --> 00:43:43,480
Speaker 1: thing that I think is a really great example of

777
00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:46,600
Speaker 1: horror music in particular, meaning that moment of horror as

778
00:43:46,640 --> 00:43:51,680
Speaker 1: opposed to terror. It's the rattling percussion that's used, for example,

779
00:43:51,680 --> 00:43:54,120
Speaker 1: in the scene where I think it comes up multiple

780
00:43:54,160 --> 00:43:55,960
Speaker 1: times in the movie. But think about when Wendy is

781
00:43:56,040 --> 00:43:58,080
Speaker 1: running up the stairs and she looks down the hall

782
00:43:58,120 --> 00:44:01,000
Speaker 1: and sees the Man of the Dog costume and you

783
00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:10,080
Speaker 1: hear that shaking, rattling drumbeat. Oh yeah, absolutely. Um, if

784
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:13,680
Speaker 1: we're ready to talk shining, I'm ready to talk shining. Okay.

785
00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:16,319
Speaker 1: So um, we're also going to go and bring this

786
00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:18,520
Speaker 1: up to a third kind of music. In a moment.

787
00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:20,160
Speaker 1: But I think The Shining will lead us there with

788
00:44:20,239 --> 00:44:23,920
Speaker 1: something we've already talked about. Um So, terror music in

789
00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:39,359
Speaker 1: The Shining is definitely the Wendy Carlo score. Ye think

790
00:44:39,360 --> 00:44:41,920
Speaker 1: about it with like the opening credits, it's these big

791
00:44:42,040 --> 00:44:46,200
Speaker 1: droning synthesizer you know, things that are just building and

792
00:44:46,719 --> 00:44:49,920
Speaker 1: groaning and like you know, you're it's it's like the

793
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:52,880
Speaker 1: creaking of the trees in the forest. It's it's just

794
00:44:53,600 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 1: it's just slow and dull and it's coming, you know.

795
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:00,919
Speaker 1: And then the horror music in that film, uh, it's

796
00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:13,400
Speaker 1: it's a conductor. His name is Christophe Penderrecki and he

797
00:45:13,440 --> 00:45:15,040
Speaker 1: did a lot of the like like picture of the

798
00:45:15,600 --> 00:45:18,640
Speaker 1: shots where like, um, you see Danny's face and he's

799
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:22,600
Speaker 1: like in revulsion and it's those very oh gosh, what

800
00:45:22,719 --> 00:45:24,480
Speaker 1: what's what's the best word for I want to say,

801
00:45:24,600 --> 00:45:27,200
Speaker 1: violent strings, That's what I want to say. But it's

802
00:45:27,280 --> 00:45:31,759
Speaker 1: it's it's the the atonal strings that have very little

803
00:45:31,840 --> 00:45:34,600
Speaker 1: rhythm to them and very little melody and they're just

804
00:45:34,680 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 1: happening all at once. That's very um that that's very

805
00:45:38,680 --> 00:45:41,680
Speaker 1: typical Christoph Pandarecki and he's very very known for that

806
00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:44,880
Speaker 1: and he's very successful at that. Uh. Johnny Greenwood is

807
00:45:44,920 --> 00:45:49,960
Speaker 1: a contemporary um um film scorer musician who works in

808
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:52,319
Speaker 1: that pender wreck E school, no question about I think

809
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:54,240
Speaker 1: about what he did for like there will be blood

810
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:58,279
Speaker 1: or stuff something like that. But um, but anyway, I

811
00:45:58,320 --> 00:46:01,920
Speaker 1: think that's a really good uh a difference between those two.

812
00:46:02,040 --> 00:46:05,879
Speaker 1: Terror is the Wendy Carlos part, Horror is the Pandarecki part.

813
00:46:06,360 --> 00:46:08,719
Speaker 1: And now what can we move into eerie music because

814
00:46:08,760 --> 00:46:11,280
Speaker 1: I think that is shown very well in The Shining

815
00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:14,080
Speaker 1: with something we've already mentioned right, right, So I think

816
00:46:14,120 --> 00:46:16,000
Speaker 1: the two categories I just mentioned, I would say are

817
00:46:16,040 --> 00:46:19,799
Speaker 1: not even exhaustive of of scary movie music. Both of

818
00:46:19,840 --> 00:46:22,440
Speaker 1: these two tend to be used in sequences of heightened

819
00:46:22,560 --> 00:46:25,239
Speaker 1: tension or you know, you're you're you're really trying to

820
00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:28,760
Speaker 1: build dread. There's also just what you might call spooky

821
00:46:28,840 --> 00:46:31,719
Speaker 1: music or eerie music, and I think actually a lot

822
00:46:31,800 --> 00:46:35,759
Speaker 1: of the most iconic horror movie themes fit more into

823
00:46:35,840 --> 00:46:39,279
Speaker 1: this category. They're not used during scenes that are at

824
00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:42,400
Speaker 1: the height of terror or where you're feeling something terrible

825
00:46:42,480 --> 00:46:45,759
Speaker 1: coming on, but rather they tend to play early in

826
00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:49,400
Speaker 1: the film. They set a kind of uneasy mood that's

827
00:46:49,560 --> 00:46:53,919
Speaker 1: that's charged with other worldliness and uh, and these tend

828
00:46:53,960 --> 00:46:56,759
Speaker 1: to be more melodic than the other two kinds, and

829
00:46:56,800 --> 00:47:00,160
Speaker 1: they tend to sort of recur as themes throughout. So

830
00:47:00,400 --> 00:47:03,160
Speaker 1: I think of the tubular bells theme from The Exorcist

831
00:47:03,200 --> 00:47:19,440
Speaker 1: I would put in this category, or maybe even the

832
00:47:19,480 --> 00:47:32,720
Speaker 1: main Suspiria theme by Goblin in the original movie Suspiria.

833
00:47:33,239 --> 00:47:37,080
Speaker 1: I was thinking a lot of um, the nursery rhyme

834
00:47:37,360 --> 00:47:41,360
Speaker 1: sing song from Nightmare on Elm Street. I think that

835
00:47:41,360 --> 00:47:43,640
Speaker 1: that has that eerieness and to bring it back to

836
00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:46,160
Speaker 1: the shining like like we promised we would. That's where

837
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:49,160
Speaker 1: I think all that nineteen twenties big band stuff lives.

838
00:48:02,760 --> 00:48:06,839
Speaker 1: All that is the eerie stuff where there's actually nothing

839
00:48:07,120 --> 00:48:10,279
Speaker 1: building about it. There's nothing violent happening from it. So

840
00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:13,160
Speaker 1: it's not terror, it's not horror. It's just setting a

841
00:48:13,280 --> 00:48:16,840
Speaker 1: vibe and it's a it's a spooky, eerie vibe. Yeah,

842
00:48:17,040 --> 00:48:19,920
Speaker 1: it invites you to uh, it invites you to a

843
00:48:19,960 --> 00:48:22,759
Speaker 1: different state of mind, and it just sort of invites

844
00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:27,280
Speaker 1: you to a realm in which other worldly things are possible.

845
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:29,759
Speaker 1: I feel a lot of the the eerie music sort

846
00:48:29,800 --> 00:48:32,560
Speaker 1: of puts you in a mood to accept the supernatural

847
00:48:32,640 --> 00:48:36,359
Speaker 1: elements of horror plots. Uh this, I love this kind

848
00:48:36,440 --> 00:48:41,239
Speaker 1: of breakdown between terror into horror into eerie and like

849
00:48:41,280 --> 00:48:44,040
Speaker 1: just you know, I'm sure obviously we're still gonna be

850
00:48:44,080 --> 00:48:47,040
Speaker 1: missing some elements because the world is a multifaceted place.

851
00:48:47,560 --> 00:48:49,359
Speaker 1: But but with these three, I feel like you can

852
00:48:49,400 --> 00:48:53,000
Speaker 1: really break down most music and horror films. And so

853
00:48:53,040 --> 00:48:55,040
Speaker 1: I was thinking about a lot of my favorites. So

854
00:48:55,320 --> 00:48:58,040
Speaker 1: think about Friday thirteenth, you know, the families like kick

855
00:48:58,080 --> 00:49:02,440
Speaker 1: Mo Mama. That would definitely to me be a terror

856
00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:06,200
Speaker 1: because it's building, it's it's setting a tone, it's getting louder,

857
00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:09,959
Speaker 1: it's it's it's cre it's it's um. It's for telling

858
00:49:10,040 --> 00:49:13,840
Speaker 1: what's about to happen, you know, think about UM Dawn

859
00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:17,120
Speaker 1: of the Dead, where a lot of the Goblin synthesizer bits.

860
00:49:17,480 --> 00:49:20,920
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's the terror, it's the building, it's

861
00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:23,719
Speaker 1: it's the almost like um, almost like a machine out

862
00:49:23,719 --> 00:49:26,520
Speaker 1: of control. It's going faster and faster, and there's a there,

863
00:49:26,600 --> 00:49:29,200
Speaker 1: there's something happening in the background, and then all of

864
00:49:29,239 --> 00:49:32,440
Speaker 1: a sudden, there are these horror bits that when the

865
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:37,040
Speaker 1: violence occurs. But again, getting back to major stuff, I

866
00:49:37,040 --> 00:49:39,880
Speaker 1: feel like the like the mall theme song stuff counts

867
00:49:39,920 --> 00:49:42,320
Speaker 1: as herey in the The Dawn of the Dead films,

868
00:49:42,320 --> 00:49:46,360
Speaker 1: you know, the bump bump bump, bump, bump, bump, bump,

869
00:49:46,360 --> 00:49:50,040
Speaker 1: bump bump, like all that stuff because we are in

870
00:49:50,080 --> 00:49:53,000
Speaker 1: a place and I guess kind of ironic too. It's

871
00:49:53,040 --> 00:49:55,319
Speaker 1: it's ironic that there are these happy songs playing, that

872
00:49:55,320 --> 00:49:58,040
Speaker 1: we're in a happy place, a shopping mall, and yet

873
00:49:58,080 --> 00:50:00,000
Speaker 1: it's the end of the world and these zombies are

874
00:50:00,040 --> 00:50:03,800
Speaker 1: destroying everything and killing us, you know, totally yeah, but yeah, yeah. Anyway,

875
00:50:03,920 --> 00:50:05,800
Speaker 1: I was just thinking about, like all my favorite scores,

876
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:07,840
Speaker 1: and a lot of them kind of fit into these

877
00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:11,200
Speaker 1: these places. And I also noticed, based on these distinctions

878
00:50:11,280 --> 00:50:15,399
Speaker 1: between terror, horror, and eerie, I've noticed that a lot

879
00:50:15,480 --> 00:50:18,480
Speaker 1: of my favorite scores are all I think in the

880
00:50:18,640 --> 00:50:22,560
Speaker 1: terror realm. I think they're all that building a tonal

881
00:50:22,719 --> 00:50:26,959
Speaker 1: nonsense stuff like UM. I was thinking about the Mika

882
00:50:27,040 --> 00:50:31,240
Speaker 1: Levi score two Under the Skin. I was thinking about

883
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:35,840
Speaker 1: the Tom York's score to the remake of Suspiria UM.

884
00:50:35,880 --> 00:50:38,800
Speaker 1: And I was thinking about the Colin Stetson score to

885
00:50:38,960 --> 00:50:43,000
Speaker 1: hereditary All all go ahead, Well, no, I was just

886
00:50:43,040 --> 00:50:45,560
Speaker 1: gonna say, I love all three of these examples. Yeah,

887
00:50:45,600 --> 00:50:47,840
Speaker 1: you single these out ahead of time, and I listened

888
00:50:47,880 --> 00:50:52,200
Speaker 1: to them, and yeah, just excellent, excellent choices, and uh,

889
00:50:52,320 --> 00:50:54,319
Speaker 1: they sort of have something in common, which is that

890
00:50:55,160 --> 00:50:57,040
Speaker 1: I don't think any of these are something you could

891
00:50:57,040 --> 00:50:59,560
Speaker 1: really like. Hum the tune too, so they're not They're

892
00:50:59,560 --> 00:51:02,839
Speaker 1: not really melodic. And I think perhaps kind of we're

893
00:51:02,840 --> 00:51:07,640
Speaker 1: talking about before about perhaps hand holding, I think perhaps

894
00:51:07,680 --> 00:51:10,840
Speaker 1: the terror element of this three different kinds of music,

895
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:14,080
Speaker 1: the terror music does the least amount of hand holding

896
00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:16,759
Speaker 1: when it comes to comforting you. I think it is

897
00:51:16,840 --> 00:51:20,400
Speaker 1: intending to make you feel uncomfortable. It is and I

898
00:51:20,440 --> 00:51:23,279
Speaker 1: think all three of those I just mentioned because there

899
00:51:23,360 --> 00:51:25,879
Speaker 1: is no melody, because there is no rhythm, because there

900
00:51:25,920 --> 00:51:29,400
Speaker 1: is no harmony, because there is no there's no music

901
00:51:29,680 --> 00:51:31,920
Speaker 1: for for lack of a better word, it's mostly sound.

902
00:51:33,000 --> 00:51:36,080
Speaker 1: It makes you feel uncomfortable because anything could happen. And

903
00:51:36,120 --> 00:51:39,960
Speaker 1: I think that kind of lack of knowing what's around

904
00:51:39,960 --> 00:51:43,600
Speaker 1: the corner, that uncertainty, that lack of the world of

905
00:51:43,600 --> 00:51:45,920
Speaker 1: the unknown, is what makes a lot of people scared.

906
00:51:46,360 --> 00:51:49,600
Speaker 1: And I think that bringing back to the Devil's Interval

907
00:51:50,120 --> 00:51:54,399
Speaker 1: and the Devil's Triad that we mentioned before. A big

908
00:51:54,440 --> 00:51:58,520
Speaker 1: reason I've heard why the Devil's Triad is so eerie

909
00:51:59,200 --> 00:52:02,319
Speaker 1: is that because there is no logical next step for

910
00:52:02,400 --> 00:52:06,000
Speaker 1: the Devil's Triad. That when someone plays that note, you

911
00:52:06,040 --> 00:52:07,920
Speaker 1: don't know what the next note is going to be.

912
00:52:08,280 --> 00:52:10,440
Speaker 1: It could settle over here, it could settle over there.

913
00:52:10,719 --> 00:52:16,280
Speaker 1: It's unknown. It's it's not part of our common linear

914
00:52:16,560 --> 00:52:21,080
Speaker 1: musical thought. So that that that that sense of the unknown,

915
00:52:21,320 --> 00:52:25,879
Speaker 1: I think is in general spooky. I think that's I'm

916
00:52:25,880 --> 00:52:29,239
Speaker 1: not making any new assumptions there. Well, I mean this

917
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:30,680
Speaker 1: was a big part of what we talked about in

918
00:52:30,680 --> 00:52:32,640
Speaker 1: our the episode You and I did on Free Song,

919
00:52:32,840 --> 00:52:36,640
Speaker 1: where uh it was it's clear that a big part

920
00:52:36,680 --> 00:52:40,120
Speaker 1: of people's experience of and reaction to music is tied

921
00:52:40,200 --> 00:52:44,439
Speaker 1: up in prediction. Uh. The people's ability to predict what's

922
00:52:44,440 --> 00:52:47,520
Speaker 1: going to happen next in music, and the degree to

923
00:52:47,600 --> 00:52:51,480
Speaker 1: which the music either conforms to those predictions or breaks

924
00:52:51,520 --> 00:52:54,560
Speaker 1: from those predictions is a major factor in determining how

925
00:52:54,560 --> 00:52:57,120
Speaker 1: we feel about music and the reactions that it gets

926
00:52:57,120 --> 00:52:59,560
Speaker 1: from us. You know that when we listen to music,

927
00:52:59,600 --> 00:53:01,680
Speaker 1: it is not out to passive exercise as much as

928
00:53:01,719 --> 00:53:04,040
Speaker 1: it feels like it. Our brains are always trying to

929
00:53:04,080 --> 00:53:06,640
Speaker 1: stay one step ahead of the music and and sort

930
00:53:06,640 --> 00:53:09,040
Speaker 1: of think what's going to be the next note, what's

931
00:53:09,040 --> 00:53:11,799
Speaker 1: going to happen next in the next bar? And so yeah,

932
00:53:11,800 --> 00:53:15,360
Speaker 1: I think clearly music has a great power to unsettle

933
00:53:15,520 --> 00:53:19,600
Speaker 1: us by denying us that predictive power by saying like

934
00:53:19,680 --> 00:53:21,360
Speaker 1: I'm not going to tell you what key I'm in?

935
00:53:27,120 --> 00:53:31,759
Speaker 1: Than all right, So I wanted to go on to uh,

936
00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:34,680
Speaker 1: the question of seeing if there's anything we can learn

937
00:53:34,880 --> 00:53:39,240
Speaker 1: about why some of these objective characteristics of horror music

938
00:53:39,880 --> 00:53:43,800
Speaker 1: feel subjectively scary to people. Uh, you know, why is

939
00:53:43,880 --> 00:53:46,600
Speaker 1: it that horror movie music tends to have these features

940
00:53:46,600 --> 00:53:48,560
Speaker 1: and not these Why is it why does it tend

941
00:53:48,640 --> 00:53:51,160
Speaker 1: to be in minor keys instead of major for example?

942
00:53:51,960 --> 00:53:54,080
Speaker 1: And I think the answer in a lot of these

943
00:53:54,080 --> 00:53:57,480
Speaker 1: cases is probably just going to be culturally and historically contingent,

944
00:53:57,560 --> 00:54:00,960
Speaker 1: as many things are so like why are hype organs

945
00:54:01,040 --> 00:54:04,399
Speaker 1: so often used in scary horror movie music? I mean,

946
00:54:04,560 --> 00:54:07,320
Speaker 1: I guess it's possible that somebody could make a convincing

947
00:54:07,440 --> 00:54:11,120
Speaker 1: argument that there's some interaction between the objective characteristics of

948
00:54:11,160 --> 00:54:16,080
Speaker 1: pipe organ sounds and our neurobiology. But I'm naturally kind

949
00:54:16,080 --> 00:54:18,200
Speaker 1: of doubtful of that. I think that's probably just a

950
00:54:18,239 --> 00:54:23,160
Speaker 1: result of random historical associations. But I think in some

951
00:54:23,239 --> 00:54:27,120
Speaker 1: cases there could be actual deeper reasons, biological reasons why

952
00:54:27,200 --> 00:54:31,280
Speaker 1: certain things sound scary to us. And so I was interested.

953
00:54:31,480 --> 00:54:36,239
Speaker 1: Has anybody written anything about this with regard to minor keys? Um?

954
00:54:36,280 --> 00:54:38,560
Speaker 1: And I couldn't find a really solid answer here, but

955
00:54:38,600 --> 00:54:41,520
Speaker 1: I was kind of interested by what I did turn up. So,

956
00:54:41,640 --> 00:54:45,240
Speaker 1: of course, minor keys in music are not just associated

957
00:54:45,280 --> 00:54:49,160
Speaker 1: with fear, but with a whole range of negative valenced emotions,

958
00:54:49,160 --> 00:54:53,360
Speaker 1: with sadness, with uncertainty, with ambiguity. Apparently this is a

959
00:54:53,480 --> 00:54:58,040
Speaker 1: robust finding across psychology of music research. Um. But the

960
00:54:58,120 --> 00:55:01,600
Speaker 1: question would be why, like why minor keys associated with

961
00:55:01,680 --> 00:55:05,840
Speaker 1: negative emotions, including fear. This appears to be a somewhat

962
00:55:06,000 --> 00:55:09,480
Speaker 1: unsolved question, but there are a lot of hypotheses floating around.

963
00:55:09,719 --> 00:55:13,640
Speaker 1: And so I came across a couple of interesting resources

964
00:55:13,680 --> 00:55:16,799
Speaker 1: commenting on this question. One was a scientific paper that

965
00:55:16,800 --> 00:55:18,960
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about in a second. One was

966
00:55:19,000 --> 00:55:22,600
Speaker 1: just a popular press article in enemy by a music

967
00:55:22,640 --> 00:55:27,040
Speaker 1: psychology researcher named Vicky Williamson and she and this article

968
00:55:27,120 --> 00:55:31,360
Speaker 1: argues that negative emotional valance of minor keys is mostly

969
00:55:31,440 --> 00:55:34,760
Speaker 1: cultural conditioning, but there may be some deeper, something deeper

970
00:55:34,800 --> 00:55:38,360
Speaker 1: going on as well. And as one hint of associations

971
00:55:38,440 --> 00:55:43,319
Speaker 1: between tonality and emotion being deeper than pure cultural contingency.

972
00:55:43,480 --> 00:55:46,879
Speaker 1: UM she points to a scientific article that I thought

973
00:55:46,920 --> 00:55:48,880
Speaker 1: was interesting. So it was one that was published in

974
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:53,319
Speaker 1: Current Biology in two thousand nine called Universal Recognition of

975
00:55:53,360 --> 00:55:56,360
Speaker 1: Three Basic Emotions in Music, and this was by Thomas

976
00:55:56,440 --> 00:56:00,680
Speaker 1: Fritz at All. And basically, this study exposed people of

977
00:56:00,719 --> 00:56:04,719
Speaker 1: different cultures to music from other cultures with which they

978
00:56:04,719 --> 00:56:08,200
Speaker 1: were previously unfamiliar to see if they could pick out

979
00:56:08,360 --> 00:56:13,920
Speaker 1: the intended emotional qualities of that music. UM. So, it compared,

980
00:56:13,960 --> 00:56:17,480
Speaker 1: for example, of the Western popular music to the music

981
00:56:17,640 --> 00:56:20,640
Speaker 1: of people of the MafA culture, who are people who

982
00:56:20,680 --> 00:56:24,879
Speaker 1: live primarily in Cameroon and Nigeria, and it turned out

983
00:56:24,920 --> 00:56:28,600
Speaker 1: that MafA people were able to pick out the emotional

984
00:56:28,680 --> 00:56:31,640
Speaker 1: valence and this has been between three major emotions, so

985
00:56:31,680 --> 00:56:35,600
Speaker 1: happy music, sad music, or fearful music. Uh. They were

986
00:56:35,640 --> 00:56:38,640
Speaker 1: able to pick out these emotions of pieces of Western

987
00:56:38,719 --> 00:56:42,000
Speaker 1: music at a rate above chance, even though they were

988
00:56:42,040 --> 00:56:45,680
Speaker 1: totally unfamiliar with it. Uh, though their performance at recognizing

989
00:56:45,680 --> 00:56:48,239
Speaker 1: these emotions was much lower than people who had a

990
00:56:48,280 --> 00:56:51,799
Speaker 1: previous cultural familiarity with it. And I think you could

991
00:56:51,840 --> 00:56:55,880
Speaker 1: take studies like this as perhaps evidence that some, certainly

992
00:56:55,880 --> 00:56:58,520
Speaker 1: not all, and maybe not even most, but but some

993
00:56:59,080 --> 00:57:03,160
Speaker 1: of the emotional associations of musical sound are in fact

994
00:57:03,200 --> 00:57:06,719
Speaker 1: neurobiological and common to all people. I would think so,

995
00:57:06,800 --> 00:57:08,920
Speaker 1: at least to a certain degree. But then again, that's

996
00:57:08,960 --> 00:57:11,719
Speaker 1: the kind of finding that's like, it's like, it's interesting,

997
00:57:11,719 --> 00:57:13,920
Speaker 1: but it's not quite enough for me to to like

998
00:57:14,040 --> 00:57:19,360
Speaker 1: fully conclude, Yeah, there's definitely like a universal biological association,

999
00:57:19,400 --> 00:57:21,960
Speaker 1: but it's like getting there so so so. Yeah, that

1000
00:57:22,040 --> 00:57:26,040
Speaker 1: that that seems interesting. Um. Also not really related to

1001
00:57:26,040 --> 00:57:28,840
Speaker 1: today's topic, but she pointed out something that I thought

1002
00:57:28,880 --> 00:57:31,800
Speaker 1: was interesting in this paper, which is that, uh, there

1003
00:57:32,160 --> 00:57:34,760
Speaker 1: was other research showing that pop music of the post

1004
00:57:34,840 --> 00:57:38,640
Speaker 1: two thousand's apparently has more minor key tonality than pop

1005
00:57:38,720 --> 00:57:41,680
Speaker 1: music of previous decades I think specifically of like the sixties,

1006
00:57:41,760 --> 00:57:45,280
Speaker 1: and I wonder why that would be. Yeah, I'm sure

1007
00:57:45,320 --> 00:57:47,560
Speaker 1: part of it is. Um, in all arts, there's always

1008
00:57:47,600 --> 00:57:50,440
Speaker 1: actions and reactions. So if you just get too much

1009
00:57:50,440 --> 00:57:53,760
Speaker 1: of something, artists are you know that they they feel

1010
00:57:53,880 --> 00:57:57,320
Speaker 1: very uh, very much driven to do the opposite, like no,

1011
00:57:58,440 --> 00:58:00,760
Speaker 1: I forget your cube is a man and I'm doing this,

1012
00:58:01,040 --> 00:58:06,200
Speaker 1: you know. But I think we reached a similar uh

1013
00:58:06,240 --> 00:58:08,840
Speaker 1: points of view and similar kind of stances when we

1014
00:58:08,840 --> 00:58:12,040
Speaker 1: were discussing frisson in a previous episode, which is that, like,

1015
00:58:12,200 --> 00:58:15,080
Speaker 1: it's really difficult to pin down the facts of music

1016
00:58:15,240 --> 00:58:21,640
Speaker 1: because it does feel so ethereal, so personal, and the

1017
00:58:21,680 --> 00:58:24,720
Speaker 1: only thing I think we really have to like definitely

1018
00:58:24,960 --> 00:58:28,640
Speaker 1: established as music is that sometimes other people feel the

1019
00:58:28,680 --> 00:58:32,840
Speaker 1: same way too about this thing that I'm experiencing. That's

1020
00:58:32,920 --> 00:58:35,240
Speaker 1: that's about all you can say about it. But but,

1021
00:58:35,240 --> 00:58:36,960
Speaker 1: but but I think this is a good point. The

1022
00:58:36,960 --> 00:58:40,680
Speaker 1: the better than chance is something interesting about that? Yeah,

1023
00:58:40,760 --> 00:58:42,920
Speaker 1: So that would tend to suggest to me that there

1024
00:58:43,040 --> 00:58:45,360
Speaker 1: there might be something going on there. Maybe there is

1025
00:58:45,400 --> 00:58:50,120
Speaker 1: a deeper neurobiological association between certain types of sounds that

1026
00:58:50,160 --> 00:58:53,080
Speaker 1: we pair with certain types of emotions and and that

1027
00:58:53,080 --> 00:58:57,960
Speaker 1: that could be approaching universality. But I'm still unconvinced on that.

1028
00:58:58,480 --> 00:59:01,560
Speaker 1: I found another thing. It was a sud from published

1029
00:59:01,560 --> 00:59:05,720
Speaker 1: in a journal called music key sciente and this was

1030
00:59:05,760 --> 00:59:09,600
Speaker 1: called the Emotional Connotations of Major Versus Minor Tonality one

1031
00:59:09,720 --> 00:59:13,080
Speaker 1: or more origins. This was by an Austrian researcher named

1032
00:59:13,160 --> 00:59:16,800
Speaker 1: Richard Parncutt, who works on the psychology of music. Uh

1033
00:59:16,840 --> 00:59:19,200
Speaker 1: and UH. I thought this paper was interesting just because

1034
00:59:19,200 --> 00:59:23,800
Speaker 1: it collects a lot of the existing hypotheses about why

1035
00:59:23,840 --> 00:59:28,720
Speaker 1: there are emotions associated with major versus minor key tonality. UM.

1036
00:59:29,000 --> 00:59:31,880
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to get into these in depth.

1037
00:59:31,920 --> 00:59:34,280
Speaker 1: And in fact, there's one that I honestly don't. I

1038
00:59:34,320 --> 00:59:37,959
Speaker 1: gotta come clean, I do not understand enough about music theory,

1039
00:59:37,960 --> 00:59:40,080
Speaker 1: but I'll try to explain the other ones as felt

1040
00:59:40,120 --> 00:59:42,840
Speaker 1: as well as I understand. So one of them just

1041
00:59:42,920 --> 00:59:45,760
Speaker 1: test to do with the concept of dissonance. Um, this

1042
00:59:45,840 --> 00:59:50,120
Speaker 1: is that minor keys contain more dissonance than major keys.

1043
00:59:50,240 --> 00:59:52,200
Speaker 1: So I'll try to make simple sense of this. And

1044
00:59:52,240 --> 00:59:53,880
Speaker 1: also I'm not like, I don't know a whole lot

1045
00:59:53,880 --> 00:59:57,680
Speaker 1: about music theory, but at least what I understand is that, um, okay,

1046
00:59:57,680 --> 00:59:59,840
Speaker 1: when when you play any note, you play a note

1047
01:00:00,160 --> 01:00:05,120
Speaker 1: within that one note, there are harmonics, and these harmonics

1048
01:00:05,160 --> 01:00:08,440
Speaker 1: when you play a note tend to suggest what other

1049
01:00:08,560 --> 01:00:11,200
Speaker 1: notes you could play with that note and what it

1050
01:00:11,240 --> 01:00:14,920
Speaker 1: would sound like. You know, So a major key includes

1051
01:00:15,200 --> 01:00:24,800
Speaker 1: natural harmonics of a root note, but a a minor key,

1052
01:00:24,960 --> 01:00:28,760
Speaker 1: or especially a minor third, is kind of somewhat dissonant.

1053
01:00:29,400 --> 01:00:36,760
Speaker 1: Perhaps we can hear an example. So the minor third

1054
01:00:36,920 --> 01:00:39,560
Speaker 1: is a half step down from the major third, which

1055
01:00:39,560 --> 01:00:42,000
Speaker 1: is the major third is a natural harmonic of the

1056
01:00:42,080 --> 01:00:45,600
Speaker 1: root note, and the minor third is dissonant instead. It's

1057
01:00:45,640 --> 01:00:48,720
Speaker 1: it's dissonant with that harmonic, so we find it less

1058
01:00:48,760 --> 01:00:53,440
Speaker 1: harmonically harmonious. And uh. And so maybe this one's kind

1059
01:00:53,440 --> 01:00:56,440
Speaker 1: of obvious, but it doesn't need a kind of final

1060
01:00:56,480 --> 01:01:00,560
Speaker 1: connecting principle. Why is it exactly that harmonic dissonance is

1061
01:01:00,600 --> 01:01:03,640
Speaker 1: associated with negative emotions? I don't know that that's kind

1062
01:01:03,640 --> 01:01:06,080
Speaker 1: of hard to get under, but it just that one

1063
01:01:06,240 --> 01:01:10,480
Speaker 1: feels very baseline natural that when you hear two dissonant notes,

1064
01:01:11,000 --> 01:01:15,240
Speaker 1: it does sound like something is unresolved, or something is ambiguous,

1065
01:01:15,320 --> 01:01:19,000
Speaker 1: or something is wrong. But how do we all know that?

1066
01:01:18,480 --> 01:01:22,800
Speaker 1: That's the real question. Yeah, so I think there's probably

1067
01:01:22,840 --> 01:01:27,240
Speaker 1: something very much to the fact that minor keys suggest

1068
01:01:27,320 --> 01:01:30,440
Speaker 1: more negative valence to motions because they contain more dissonance

1069
01:01:30,520 --> 01:01:32,880
Speaker 1: but that that, yeah, it still leaves this second level

1070
01:01:32,960 --> 01:01:36,760
Speaker 1: question unanswered. Why is it that the dissonance is associated

1071
01:01:36,760 --> 01:01:39,880
Speaker 1: with negative emotions? Um, and maybe some of these other

1072
01:01:39,960 --> 01:01:42,360
Speaker 1: hypotheses have something to do with this. So the next

1073
01:01:42,400 --> 01:01:46,600
Speaker 1: one is alterity and markedness. So in the abstract he

1074
01:01:46,680 --> 01:01:50,920
Speaker 1: rights quote, major triads and scales are more common than minor,

1075
01:01:51,360 --> 01:01:55,320
Speaker 1: and positive valance is more common than negative. Major and

1076
01:01:55,360 --> 01:02:00,080
Speaker 1: positive valance are the norm. Minor and negative are marked others.

1077
01:02:00,120 --> 01:02:03,400
Speaker 1: So maybe it's just the fact that major tonality is

1078
01:02:03,760 --> 01:02:07,280
Speaker 1: common and normal, therefore we associate it with the good,

1079
01:02:07,800 --> 01:02:12,120
Speaker 1: and minor tonality is a violation of what's common and normal,

1080
01:02:12,240 --> 01:02:15,440
Speaker 1: of violation of the normal order. Therefore we interpret it

1081
01:02:15,480 --> 01:02:17,960
Speaker 1: as bad or not necessarily bad. I don't know what

1082
01:02:18,160 --> 01:02:22,080
Speaker 1: yet negative negative emotional content. And then thinking about what

1083
01:02:22,160 --> 01:02:25,120
Speaker 1: you said a moment ago about how post two thousand's

1084
01:02:25,880 --> 01:02:28,400
Speaker 1: songs in the minor key are on the charts far

1085
01:02:28,560 --> 01:02:30,280
Speaker 1: more often than they wear back, let's say, in the

1086
01:02:30,360 --> 01:02:34,760
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties. Yeah, I do wonder if there's a need

1087
01:02:34,840 --> 01:02:37,120
Speaker 1: for that, if perhaps has to do with them just

1088
01:02:37,200 --> 01:02:39,520
Speaker 1: kind of the tone and vibe of the world at

1089
01:02:39,520 --> 01:02:41,600
Speaker 1: the time, if it has to do simply with trends.

1090
01:02:42,080 --> 01:02:45,760
Speaker 1: Maybe certain songs become inexplicably popular that are in a

1091
01:02:45,800 --> 01:02:48,560
Speaker 1: minor key, and others are just mimicking it, you know,

1092
01:02:48,600 --> 01:02:51,200
Speaker 1: I mean it could be so many things. But um,

1093
01:02:51,240 --> 01:02:53,720
Speaker 1: but yeah, but but not to be too negative towards

1094
01:02:53,800 --> 01:02:56,280
Speaker 1: minor keys. Minor keys are just as popular as major

1095
01:02:56,360 --> 01:03:00,680
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're great. Yeah, they're beautiful too. Again,

1096
01:03:00,840 --> 01:03:02,880
Speaker 1: I'm not going to mention all these explanations, but one

1097
01:03:02,920 --> 01:03:05,560
Speaker 1: more he brings up is, Uh, this is kind of

1098
01:03:05,560 --> 01:03:09,520
Speaker 1: an interesting idea that it that major versus minor key

1099
01:03:09,520 --> 01:03:13,960
Speaker 1: associations could have to do with speech. Um. There, it's

1100
01:03:14,000 --> 01:03:16,840
Speaker 1: been suggested by some people that there are ways in

1101
01:03:16,880 --> 01:03:21,720
Speaker 1: which major key tonality is more similar to typical speech

1102
01:03:21,840 --> 01:03:25,640
Speaker 1: or happy speech, and minor key tonality is more similar

1103
01:03:25,680 --> 01:03:28,960
Speaker 1: to sad speech. Uh. He singles out the idea that

1104
01:03:29,320 --> 01:03:33,200
Speaker 1: minor keys and sad speech both contain pitches that violate

1105
01:03:33,280 --> 01:03:37,680
Speaker 1: expectations by being lower than normal. So in a minor key,

1106
01:03:37,760 --> 01:03:40,720
Speaker 1: think about hitting that major third and then versus hitting

1107
01:03:40,760 --> 01:03:43,000
Speaker 1: that minor third, the minor third is a half step

1108
01:03:43,120 --> 01:03:47,480
Speaker 1: lower than the major third. But okay, so it seems

1109
01:03:47,480 --> 01:03:49,520
Speaker 1: to me like some of the major minor stuff. It

1110
01:03:49,600 --> 01:03:53,400
Speaker 1: does probably have something to do with dissonance, dissonance being

1111
01:03:53,480 --> 01:03:58,880
Speaker 1: associated with uncertainty and ambiguity, and that being being of

1112
01:03:58,920 --> 01:04:01,960
Speaker 1: course associated with negative emotions. But there's still a lot

1113
01:04:01,960 --> 01:04:05,560
Speaker 1: of sort of unclear steps in the logic there. I

1114
01:04:06,120 --> 01:04:09,200
Speaker 1: don't know. It's this very much has my interest, but

1115
01:04:09,280 --> 01:04:11,880
Speaker 1: I don't think we fully understand it, certainly I don't.

1116
01:04:12,520 --> 01:04:15,720
Speaker 1: But there's there's another aspect here that I think is

1117
01:04:15,800 --> 01:04:19,439
Speaker 1: probably much clearer when you're looking for biological reasons why

1118
01:04:19,480 --> 01:04:22,520
Speaker 1: we might associate certain kinds of sounds or music with fear,

1119
01:04:23,280 --> 01:04:27,320
Speaker 1: and this would be uh, mimicry of sounds that are

1120
01:04:27,360 --> 01:04:31,840
Speaker 1: produced in our ancestral environment or by our ancestors themselves.

1121
01:04:32,560 --> 01:04:35,720
Speaker 1: So this is the biomimicry segment here. Uh this is

1122
01:04:35,720 --> 01:04:38,040
Speaker 1: probably not all that surprising, but it has been borne

1123
01:04:38,080 --> 01:04:41,120
Speaker 1: out by research. And the question is this, what if

1124
01:04:41,120 --> 01:04:44,760
Speaker 1: scary music works by mimicking sounds that our brains naturally

1125
01:04:44,920 --> 01:04:49,880
Speaker 1: associate with danger, i e. Human screams. So I was

1126
01:04:49,920 --> 01:04:53,240
Speaker 1: looking at a paper by Caitlin Trevor at All from

1127
01:04:53,280 --> 01:04:56,600
Speaker 1: the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America published in

1128
01:04:58,080 --> 01:05:00,760
Speaker 1: and uh so the author's right as follows, and they're abstract,

1129
01:05:00,840 --> 01:05:04,280
Speaker 1: they say, quote, regarding fear, it has been informally noted

1130
01:05:04,320 --> 01:05:08,320
Speaker 1: that music for scary scenes in films frequently exhibits a

1131
01:05:08,440 --> 01:05:12,960
Speaker 1: scream like character. Here this proposition is formally tested. This

1132
01:05:13,040 --> 01:05:18,480
Speaker 1: paper reports acoustic analyzes of four categories of audio stimuli screams,

1133
01:05:18,960 --> 01:05:24,040
Speaker 1: non screaming vocalizations, scream like music, and non scream like music.

1134
01:05:24,440 --> 01:05:27,680
Speaker 1: And then they also they collected information from people listening

1135
01:05:27,680 --> 01:05:30,560
Speaker 1: to these sounds about the valence of the emotional meaning

1136
01:05:30,640 --> 01:05:33,160
Speaker 1: was a positive or negative, and the level of arousal

1137
01:05:33,360 --> 01:05:36,480
Speaker 1: that they experienced in in reaction to it. So what

1138
01:05:36,560 --> 01:05:39,440
Speaker 1: does this actually mean? What are the objective characteristics of

1139
01:05:39,520 --> 01:05:43,440
Speaker 1: screams that could be mimicked by horror music? Well, they

1140
01:05:43,480 --> 01:05:46,960
Speaker 1: write as follows. They say, quote, typically human screams are okay, here,

1141
01:05:46,960 --> 01:05:50,919
Speaker 1: you got loud. They utilize a wide range of frequencies,

1142
01:05:51,320 --> 01:05:55,280
Speaker 1: they're higher in pitch than one's average vocal range, and

1143
01:05:55,440 --> 01:05:59,480
Speaker 1: they have a high amount of roughness. Uh. And they

1144
01:05:59,480 --> 01:06:02,800
Speaker 1: say that roughness is a basic auditory phenomenon that is

1145
01:06:02,880 --> 01:06:07,720
Speaker 1: characterized by a coarse, grating or harsh subjective experience. But

1146
01:06:07,840 --> 01:06:12,160
Speaker 1: that one's really fascinating to me. In particular because UM,

1147
01:06:12,200 --> 01:06:16,640
Speaker 1: I think about UM a vocal performer straining to reach

1148
01:06:16,680 --> 01:06:19,080
Speaker 1: a note and not being able to do it. I

1149
01:06:19,120 --> 01:06:23,320
Speaker 1: think about UM, obviously a real person screaming actually in terror,

1150
01:06:23,520 --> 01:06:25,880
Speaker 1: and how they are, you know, not really in control

1151
01:06:25,880 --> 01:06:27,640
Speaker 1: of their voice. They're not trying to hit a note.

1152
01:06:27,880 --> 01:06:31,000
Speaker 1: It is that strain once again. And then I'm sure

1153
01:06:31,040 --> 01:06:33,920
Speaker 1: you've experienced this, Joe, and I'm sure many people anyone

1154
01:06:33,960 --> 01:06:36,520
Speaker 1: who has used a program like Ableton or any of

1155
01:06:36,520 --> 01:06:40,400
Speaker 1: these other like you know, MIDI style programs. There are

1156
01:06:40,480 --> 01:06:43,080
Speaker 1: instruments that you pop in that it's not just a

1157
01:06:43,200 --> 01:06:46,280
Speaker 1: standard like boo. It's not like a dial tone tone.

1158
01:06:46,640 --> 01:06:48,320
Speaker 1: You can see in the little wave that it's got

1159
01:06:48,360 --> 01:06:50,320
Speaker 1: a roughness to it, that it's got kind of like

1160
01:06:50,400 --> 01:06:56,240
Speaker 1: a almost like a disintegrating sound to it, um, a rasp,

1161
01:06:56,400 --> 01:06:59,520
Speaker 1: if you will, And that those are always the spooky ones.

1162
01:06:59,600 --> 01:07:02,120
Speaker 1: Those are always like you know, like the ancient Oregon

1163
01:07:02,280 --> 01:07:06,280
Speaker 1: number three, you know. Yeah, So here, I think we're

1164
01:07:06,280 --> 01:07:09,800
Speaker 1: starting to get into some some pretty interesting territory. And

1165
01:07:09,960 --> 01:07:11,760
Speaker 1: this will connect to some other stuff I want to

1166
01:07:11,760 --> 01:07:14,320
Speaker 1: talk about in a minute. But so for this study

1167
01:07:14,360 --> 01:07:18,640
Speaker 1: in particular, the authors found that so, first of all,

1168
01:07:19,120 --> 01:07:22,160
Speaker 1: they they isolate exactly the characteristic you were talking about.

1169
01:07:22,200 --> 01:07:25,080
Speaker 1: I think because they say, well, the other common characteristics

1170
01:07:25,080 --> 01:07:28,080
Speaker 1: of screams are more difficult to isolate for study. I think,

1171
01:07:28,120 --> 01:07:30,320
Speaker 1: I think in part because they're sort of relative, right,

1172
01:07:30,440 --> 01:07:33,880
Speaker 1: you know, relative to uh, like, what is somebody's normal

1173
01:07:33,960 --> 01:07:36,720
Speaker 1: vocal range, what is the normal volume you'd be listening,

1174
01:07:36,760 --> 01:07:39,640
Speaker 1: and so forth. Um, But roughness you can sort of

1175
01:07:39,680 --> 01:07:42,120
Speaker 1: single out as something that's easy to manipulate in a

1176
01:07:42,200 --> 01:07:45,360
Speaker 1: fairly objective way. And they found that, yes, there was

1177
01:07:45,480 --> 01:07:49,720
Speaker 1: support for the hypothesis that scary movie music mimics qualities

1178
01:07:49,760 --> 01:07:53,160
Speaker 1: found in natural screams. What what it sounds like when

1179
01:07:53,200 --> 01:07:56,600
Speaker 1: people scream? So they write in their discussion section quote,

1180
01:07:56,640 --> 01:07:59,880
Speaker 1: consistent with our hypotheses, we found that both screams and

1181
01:08:00,120 --> 01:08:04,320
Speaker 1: scream like music exhibited a higher level of roughness and

1182
01:08:04,400 --> 01:08:07,400
Speaker 1: be rated as having more negative valence and a higher

1183
01:08:07,440 --> 01:08:11,920
Speaker 1: arousal level than their non screaming counterparts. However, contrary to

1184
01:08:11,960 --> 01:08:16,360
Speaker 1: our hypotheses, screams had a higher roughness level than scream

1185
01:08:16,439 --> 01:08:19,000
Speaker 1: like music. And so I thought this was a little

1186
01:08:19,040 --> 01:08:22,240
Speaker 1: interesting regarding that last statement they're finding was counter to

1187
01:08:22,439 --> 01:08:26,439
Speaker 1: something they called the super expressive voice theory which they

1188
01:08:26,520 --> 01:08:30,400
Speaker 1: credit to Juice Land and Vastfjal in two thousand and eight.

1189
01:08:30,800 --> 01:08:35,200
Speaker 1: And this is a hypothesis that music is quote capable

1190
01:08:35,200 --> 01:08:39,920
Speaker 1: of amplifying vocal affective behaviors beyond the capability of the

1191
01:08:40,000 --> 01:08:42,160
Speaker 1: vocal system. So I think this would be the idea

1192
01:08:42,240 --> 01:08:44,840
Speaker 1: that music is sort of a uh is sort of

1193
01:08:44,880 --> 01:08:49,519
Speaker 1: a a super super normal version of human vocalizations, that

1194
01:08:49,640 --> 01:08:52,080
Speaker 1: music plays a role of giving us the power to

1195
01:08:52,240 --> 01:08:57,280
Speaker 1: vocalize beyond what humans can normally vocalize. Um. But so

1196
01:08:57,400 --> 01:09:00,080
Speaker 1: it seems that some horror movie music probably works at

1197
01:09:00,120 --> 01:09:04,519
Speaker 1: least in part by simulating screams, but that horror movie

1198
01:09:04,600 --> 01:09:08,240
Speaker 1: music is not like a super amplification of natural scream effects.

1199
01:09:08,520 --> 01:09:12,280
Speaker 1: Screams themselves are more psychologically powerful than I don't know,

1200
01:09:12,320 --> 01:09:17,000
Speaker 1: the Halloween theme or any scream like music, which that

1201
01:09:17,080 --> 01:09:19,560
Speaker 1: makes sense to me. It's like that episode of The

1202
01:09:19,640 --> 01:09:25,080
Speaker 1: Simpsons where um, there is uh Lieutenant Lt. Smash and

1203
01:09:25,080 --> 01:09:28,080
Speaker 1: he's making everyone join the navy with the pop song

1204
01:09:28,200 --> 01:09:31,160
Speaker 1: even at niage, right, do you remember this one? I

1205
01:09:31,240 --> 01:09:34,120
Speaker 1: don't think what season is this. This has to be

1206
01:09:34,160 --> 01:09:38,240
Speaker 1: like thirteen or fourteen Get out of Come On. But

1207
01:09:38,920 --> 01:09:44,479
Speaker 1: he says that the Navy uses three tactics for recruiting subliminal, liminal,

1208
01:09:44,760 --> 01:09:49,799
Speaker 1: and superliminal. When they say superliminal, what's that, he yells

1209
01:09:49,800 --> 01:09:53,800
Speaker 1: out the window to Lenny, Hey, you join the Navy. Oh,

1210
01:09:53,880 --> 01:09:57,160
Speaker 1: that's pretty good. That's superliminal. And I think a scream

1211
01:09:57,360 --> 01:10:01,240
Speaker 1: in this instance would be the superliminal of scare. Well,

1212
01:10:01,400 --> 01:10:05,200
Speaker 1: this is scary. Here's a screat Yeah, so here's something

1213
01:10:05,200 --> 01:10:09,240
Speaker 1: I wonder about. So, assuming this holds true, I wonder

1214
01:10:09,360 --> 01:10:14,599
Speaker 1: if scream like music is in a way a way

1215
01:10:14,640 --> 01:10:19,920
Speaker 1: of making scream like stimuli more tolerable for his more

1216
01:10:20,040 --> 01:10:22,759
Speaker 1: sustained period of time. So if you're watching a horror

1217
01:10:22,800 --> 01:10:27,800
Speaker 1: movie and you are just confronted with constant screaming sound effects,

1218
01:10:28,360 --> 01:10:30,160
Speaker 1: I think that would be kind of that would be

1219
01:10:30,200 --> 01:10:31,920
Speaker 1: greating to the point that you would not want to

1220
01:10:31,960 --> 01:10:34,400
Speaker 1: continue watching the movie, even though it might get you

1221
01:10:34,439 --> 01:10:37,680
Speaker 1: in a sort of like high fearful arousal state like

1222
01:10:37,800 --> 01:10:41,400
Speaker 1: the movie is trying to conjure. So maybe music is

1223
01:10:41,520 --> 01:10:44,400
Speaker 1: a is a sort of best of both worlds compromise

1224
01:10:44,560 --> 01:10:48,880
Speaker 1: that it can simulate the neurobiological response we have to

1225
01:10:48,920 --> 01:10:52,599
Speaker 1: the sound of a scream, but without being as graating

1226
01:10:52,680 --> 01:10:56,240
Speaker 1: as actual scream sounds would be. That makes perfect sense.

1227
01:10:56,960 --> 01:11:00,960
Speaker 1: It also I'm jumping to conclusions now, but it's all

1228
01:11:01,160 --> 01:11:04,519
Speaker 1: tying together. So let's go back to the shining once

1229
01:11:04,600 --> 01:11:08,719
Speaker 1: again and and think about Midnight the Stars and You. Okay,

1230
01:11:08,760 --> 01:11:11,479
Speaker 1: that's the nineteen twenties song that plays over the credits

1231
01:11:11,479 --> 01:11:14,080
Speaker 1: when we're zooming out or not not over the credits,

1232
01:11:14,080 --> 01:11:16,640
Speaker 1: over the last shot, or we see Jack Torrence in

1233
01:11:16,640 --> 01:11:19,640
Speaker 1: that crowd of like the Hey nineteen twenty one, and

1234
01:11:19,720 --> 01:11:22,479
Speaker 1: he's like in the old photo, right, So the song

1235
01:11:22,520 --> 01:11:25,120
Speaker 1: playing is Midnight the Stars and You, and it's an

1236
01:11:25,120 --> 01:11:27,760
Speaker 1: old nineteen twenties big band song, etcetera, etcetera. And it

1237
01:11:27,800 --> 01:11:30,519
Speaker 1: feels very spooky and very eerie, both because of the

1238
01:11:30,520 --> 01:11:33,560
Speaker 1: context of the film as well as just the song itself.

1239
01:11:34,160 --> 01:11:40,479
Speaker 1: I wonder if Old like Crack Lee Records, because they

1240
01:11:40,520 --> 01:11:47,120
Speaker 1: do have that interrupted, non rhythmic, non intentional like crack

1241
01:11:47,439 --> 01:11:50,479
Speaker 1: and break up, if that has an element of this

1242
01:11:50,560 --> 01:11:54,840
Speaker 1: replicating a scream, because it is for the most part unintentional. Sure,

1243
01:11:54,920 --> 01:11:57,320
Speaker 1: some musicians will intentionally add a crack all to their thing,

1244
01:11:57,360 --> 01:11:59,640
Speaker 1: but they're doing that because they wanted to sound spooky.

1245
01:11:59,840 --> 01:12:03,920
Speaker 1: You don't add you know, phonograph crackle and hiss if

1246
01:12:03,960 --> 01:12:06,479
Speaker 1: you want something to sound happy. So I wonder if

1247
01:12:06,479 --> 01:12:10,320
Speaker 1: that's adding that scream aspect and making those old things

1248
01:12:10,320 --> 01:12:13,360
Speaker 1: sound extra spooky. Like we're discussing before, This might not

1249
01:12:13,439 --> 01:12:16,640
Speaker 1: be exactly the same as roughness, but a feature that

1250
01:12:16,720 --> 01:12:20,800
Speaker 1: has been studied in in the context of arousing fear

1251
01:12:21,280 --> 01:12:25,840
Speaker 1: and that is what's called nonlinearity sonic non linearity. UM.

1252
01:12:26,080 --> 01:12:28,479
Speaker 1: So there's a good bit of research on this other factor,

1253
01:12:29,040 --> 01:12:31,840
Speaker 1: and a major figure in this area of the study

1254
01:12:31,880 --> 01:12:36,479
Speaker 1: of the relationship between fear and nonlinear sound has been

1255
01:12:36,520 --> 01:12:39,800
Speaker 1: a U c. L A biologist named Daniel Blumstein. I

1256
01:12:39,840 --> 01:12:42,479
Speaker 1: was looking at some of his papers and some media

1257
01:12:42,520 --> 01:12:44,720
Speaker 1: reporting about them as well as I watched a TED

1258
01:12:44,760 --> 01:12:48,000
Speaker 1: talk that he did that was pretty interesting that included

1259
01:12:48,040 --> 01:12:50,320
Speaker 1: actually playing some of the sounds he talks about, So

1260
01:12:50,360 --> 01:12:54,479
Speaker 1: that's kind of useful. Um. But Blumstein apparently got into

1261
01:12:54,520 --> 01:12:58,439
Speaker 1: this because he was studying marmots. So he's like a

1262
01:12:58,479 --> 01:13:03,640
Speaker 1: biologist and I think ethologist studies and animal behavior. And

1263
01:13:03,720 --> 01:13:06,599
Speaker 1: he tells this story that one day during field work

1264
01:13:06,640 --> 01:13:09,120
Speaker 1: out in the meadows of I think it was California,

1265
01:13:09,600 --> 01:13:12,720
Speaker 1: somewhere out studying marmots. He's holding a baby marmot in

1266
01:13:12,800 --> 01:13:15,320
Speaker 1: his hand. This is an animal that had just recently

1267
01:13:15,439 --> 01:13:19,040
Speaker 1: emerged from the borough where it had been born. And

1268
01:13:19,080 --> 01:13:21,960
Speaker 1: he says that he heard this sound that just startled

1269
01:13:22,040 --> 01:13:25,719
Speaker 1: him so much he almost dropped the animal. Uh. And

1270
01:13:25,840 --> 01:13:27,960
Speaker 1: he he was kind of surprised that he was so

1271
01:13:28,000 --> 01:13:31,679
Speaker 1: startled because he listens to animal vocalizations all the time

1272
01:13:31,720 --> 01:13:34,280
Speaker 1: as part of his job, but they and they don't

1273
01:13:34,360 --> 01:13:38,320
Speaker 1: usually affect him emotionally, but this one did. And one

1274
01:13:38,320 --> 01:13:42,080
Speaker 1: of the characteristics, apparently of this distress cry omitted by

1275
01:13:42,120 --> 01:13:45,360
Speaker 1: this little marmot was that it was kind of ragged.

1276
01:13:46,240 --> 01:13:48,639
Speaker 1: And he goes on to explain that he started looking

1277
01:13:48,640 --> 01:13:53,160
Speaker 1: at the auditory qualities of a number of different distress vocalizations,

1278
01:13:53,160 --> 01:13:55,679
Speaker 1: not just in marmots, but in all kinds of different animals,

1279
01:13:55,680 --> 01:13:59,000
Speaker 1: primarily mammals, I think, but eventually some of this research

1280
01:13:59,160 --> 01:14:02,400
Speaker 1: was applied to other types of tetrapod animals like birds.

1281
01:14:02,600 --> 01:14:05,519
Speaker 1: Um there's been at least one study in grackles I

1282
01:14:05,600 --> 01:14:09,040
Speaker 1: was reading about. But in essence, the distress vocalizations, the

1283
01:14:09,160 --> 01:14:13,640
Speaker 1: screams of many different animals showed a lot of similarities,

1284
01:14:14,000 --> 01:14:18,040
Speaker 1: auditory similarities and one of these being what the researchers

1285
01:14:18,120 --> 01:14:21,760
Speaker 1: call nonlinearities, and the main thing that he singles out

1286
01:14:21,800 --> 01:14:27,160
Speaker 1: here under the heading of nonlinearities is noise sounds beyond

1287
01:14:27,240 --> 01:14:31,439
Speaker 1: the boundaries of a clear vocal signal. I almost wonder

1288
01:14:31,439 --> 01:14:34,080
Speaker 1: if we can compare two tones like a like a

1289
01:14:34,120 --> 01:14:36,720
Speaker 1: clear version of a tone and then a noisy or

1290
01:14:36,800 --> 01:14:52,960
Speaker 1: distorted version of that tone. So bloom Stein and co

1291
01:14:53,040 --> 01:14:56,240
Speaker 1: authors have gone on to explain that these non linearities,

1292
01:14:56,280 --> 01:14:59,839
Speaker 1: the noisy quality of of these distress calls and animals,

1293
01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:04,879
Speaker 1: are usually a result of um the vocal production organs

1294
01:15:04,920 --> 01:15:07,400
Speaker 1: like the vocal chords or in the case of birds,

1295
01:15:07,479 --> 01:15:09,479
Speaker 1: I think this would be the cy ranks in in

1296
01:15:09,520 --> 01:15:12,479
Speaker 1: a in a bird's vocal system, but in a mammal

1297
01:15:12,520 --> 01:15:15,320
Speaker 1: like a human, I guess would be vocal chords. Uh.

1298
01:15:15,600 --> 01:15:20,120
Speaker 1: This would be these organs exceeding their capacity. Uh quite literally,

1299
01:15:20,160 --> 01:15:23,320
Speaker 1: analogous actually to turning up a speaker until the sound

1300
01:15:23,400 --> 01:15:27,040
Speaker 1: gets distorted. So whatever it is, whether that's a you know,

1301
01:15:27,080 --> 01:15:31,479
Speaker 1: an electronic speaker, or the organs in your in your

1302
01:15:31,600 --> 01:15:36,080
Speaker 1: throat when the audio output hardware pushes beyond its normal limits,

1303
01:15:36,240 --> 01:15:39,000
Speaker 1: especially I think in terms of volume, and maybe also pitch,

1304
01:15:39,479 --> 01:15:44,799
Speaker 1: it produces this noise, these nonlinear acoustic features, and apparently

1305
01:15:44,840 --> 01:15:48,000
Speaker 1: Blumstein found evidence of this trend in all kinds of animals,

1306
01:15:48,040 --> 01:15:50,639
Speaker 1: again not just marmots, but you know, mere cats and

1307
01:15:50,640 --> 01:15:54,240
Speaker 1: and other creatures that as they get more acutely distressed,

1308
01:15:54,280 --> 01:15:58,720
Speaker 1: their vocalizations become not just louder, but noisier. Apparently this

1309
01:15:58,800 --> 01:16:01,799
Speaker 1: is also true of what are known as recruitment calls.

1310
01:16:02,200 --> 01:16:05,160
Speaker 1: This is a term in animal ethology for sounds that

1311
01:16:05,240 --> 01:16:08,479
Speaker 1: an animal would make to summon other members of its

1312
01:16:08,520 --> 01:16:11,040
Speaker 1: of its species, or its groups someone con specific, so

1313
01:16:11,080 --> 01:16:14,439
Speaker 1: it'll bring allies to you, maybe if you've gotten lost

1314
01:16:14,479 --> 01:16:17,479
Speaker 1: and separated from your group, but often just for protection

1315
01:16:17,520 --> 01:16:20,680
Speaker 1: when you encounter a threat or a predator. Across all

1316
01:16:20,720 --> 01:16:24,440
Speaker 1: different kinds of mammals, the at the crescendo of distress

1317
01:16:24,479 --> 01:16:28,040
Speaker 1: and recruitment calls, there's this tendency to overload the vocal

1318
01:16:28,040 --> 01:16:33,320
Speaker 1: production organs and then thus release these noisier, raspier calls

1319
01:16:33,400 --> 01:16:36,880
Speaker 1: that are full of non linearities. And they did direct

1320
01:16:36,920 --> 01:16:39,720
Speaker 1: research to test this out on on marmots and then

1321
01:16:39,720 --> 01:16:44,240
Speaker 1: also on these these birds called Caribbean grackles and found that, yeah,

1322
01:16:44,400 --> 01:16:47,760
Speaker 1: the the the noisier versions of the alarm calls, the

1323
01:16:47,760 --> 01:16:51,679
Speaker 1: ones that had this more raspy, rough noisy quality, those

1324
01:16:51,720 --> 01:16:55,880
Speaker 1: were associated with with increased levels of alarm and would

1325
01:16:55,880 --> 01:16:59,920
Speaker 1: cause the animals to display less relaxation behaviors in response

1326
01:17:00,040 --> 01:17:03,240
Speaker 1: to hearing it. But eventually, Blumstein and some colleagues got

1327
01:17:03,280 --> 01:17:07,560
Speaker 1: together to study the sound characteristics of different movie genres

1328
01:17:07,600 --> 01:17:11,320
Speaker 1: to see if this the non linearities, if the noisy

1329
01:17:11,439 --> 01:17:15,280
Speaker 1: qualities of these vocalizations would also be found even in

1330
01:17:15,400 --> 01:17:19,639
Speaker 1: human media such as horror movies. Like horror movies, uh

1331
01:17:19,680 --> 01:17:22,280
Speaker 1: that they found that horror movies do tend to contain

1332
01:17:22,840 --> 01:17:29,440
Speaker 1: not surprisingly uh noisy female scream sounds in them, right. Um. Also, interestingly,

1333
01:17:30,080 --> 01:17:32,639
Speaker 1: in their data, they seem to find that sad films,

1334
01:17:32,680 --> 01:17:35,439
Speaker 1: I guess these would be largely drama films tend to

1335
01:17:35,479 --> 01:17:40,040
Speaker 1: include unusually low levels of noisy sounds in them. Huh Yeah.

1336
01:17:40,040 --> 01:17:43,639
Speaker 1: I wonder if there's a uh, conscious effort to lull

1337
01:17:43,800 --> 01:17:46,920
Speaker 1: you during a drama. I don't know. But then finally,

1338
01:17:47,040 --> 01:17:49,639
Speaker 1: there was a twelve study they did where they put

1339
01:17:49,640 --> 01:17:53,479
Speaker 1: together these original compositions, these little music clips, and they

1340
01:17:53,479 --> 01:17:56,240
Speaker 1: would play these clips for people one way or the other.

1341
01:17:56,360 --> 01:18:00,639
Speaker 1: One would play with very low levels of non lenier noise,

1342
01:18:01,040 --> 01:18:04,120
Speaker 1: and one would play with very high levels of nonlinear noise.

1343
01:18:04,200 --> 01:18:06,080
Speaker 1: And I listened to a couple of these back to back,

1344
01:18:06,120 --> 01:18:08,920
Speaker 1: and it sounds to me like the ones with high

1345
01:18:09,000 --> 01:18:13,120
Speaker 1: levels of nonlinearity would add things like fuzzy distortion type effects,

1346
01:18:13,560 --> 01:18:15,880
Speaker 1: and so people would rate these in terms of level

1347
01:18:15,920 --> 01:18:19,680
Speaker 1: of arousal and and valence positive or negative, And as

1348
01:18:19,720 --> 01:18:22,960
Speaker 1: you might predict, the study found that noisier music causes

1349
01:18:23,040 --> 01:18:28,280
Speaker 1: higher arousal and lower and more negative valence uh. Though interestingly,

1350
01:18:28,439 --> 01:18:31,080
Speaker 1: this study in particular found that this was dependent on

1351
01:18:31,200 --> 01:18:35,120
Speaker 1: visual context, so the music alone did have that predicted

1352
01:18:35,160 --> 01:18:39,200
Speaker 1: effect that the noisier it was, the more nonlinearities, the

1353
01:18:39,240 --> 01:18:41,320
Speaker 1: more it might be I don't know, say effective at

1354
01:18:41,320 --> 01:18:44,439
Speaker 1: making you afraid in a horror movie. But if you

1355
01:18:44,640 --> 01:18:50,800
Speaker 1: simultaneously prepaired those sounds with very benign or banal uh imagery,

1356
01:18:50,960 --> 01:18:54,360
Speaker 1: like showing people video of somebody sitting drinking a cup

1357
01:18:54,360 --> 01:18:57,519
Speaker 1: of coffee that appeared to mute the effects of the sound.

1358
01:18:58,040 --> 01:19:00,080
Speaker 1: And so I wonder about that, I mean, I I

1359
01:19:00,120 --> 01:19:03,920
Speaker 1: think about sort of the opposite experience of being able

1360
01:19:04,000 --> 01:19:07,080
Speaker 1: to watch a horror movie where something very benign is

1361
01:19:07,120 --> 01:19:11,080
Speaker 1: going on on screen, but there's ominous music playing, and

1362
01:19:11,120 --> 01:19:13,400
Speaker 1: that does sort of give you this sense of like,

1363
01:19:13,920 --> 01:19:16,880
Speaker 1: you know, a little bit of mounting terror irony about

1364
01:19:17,040 --> 01:19:19,680
Speaker 1: about what's happening. But maybe that's just because you know

1365
01:19:19,760 --> 01:19:22,559
Speaker 1: it's the context of watching a horror movie. I think

1366
01:19:22,680 --> 01:19:25,519
Speaker 1: it would be fascinating. I know there are definitely instances

1367
01:19:25,560 --> 01:19:28,839
Speaker 1: of people seeing horror films without realizing that their horror films,

1368
01:19:29,520 --> 01:19:31,519
Speaker 1: and it would be fascinating to see how this data

1369
01:19:31,560 --> 01:19:35,040
Speaker 1: shifts in those instances. Yeah, But anyway, this quality of

1370
01:19:35,080 --> 01:19:40,040
Speaker 1: the non linearities, the noisiness quality in the sound really

1371
01:19:40,080 --> 01:19:44,519
Speaker 1: got me thinking back about how I've I've never noticed

1372
01:19:44,560 --> 01:19:47,960
Speaker 1: this before, really, but how much horror movie music features

1373
01:19:48,000 --> 01:19:52,559
Speaker 1: some sort of kind of noisy percussion. So, for instance,

1374
01:19:52,600 --> 01:19:55,240
Speaker 1: I went back and I listened to the original Halloween theme.

1375
01:19:55,800 --> 01:19:58,000
Speaker 1: We all know that melody and the sort of mounting

1376
01:19:58,240 --> 01:20:04,200
Speaker 1: synthesizer bass, but there is also this noisy, skittering thing

1377
01:20:04,360 --> 01:20:07,480
Speaker 1: going on during the Halloween theme, this kind of skittering

1378
01:20:07,720 --> 01:20:11,800
Speaker 1: sixteen note uh that that's almost a little bit off

1379
01:20:11,840 --> 01:20:15,000
Speaker 1: tempo or or lagging slightly. It sounds kind of like

1380
01:20:15,040 --> 01:20:17,840
Speaker 1: synthesizer high hats I'm not sure exactly what it is,

1381
01:20:27,880 --> 01:20:30,200
Speaker 1: but this also got me thinking about the difference between

1382
01:20:30,240 --> 01:20:33,120
Speaker 1: horror music and terror music. Again, I think both of

1383
01:20:33,120 --> 01:20:36,240
Speaker 1: them there is a tendency to go for kind of

1384
01:20:36,320 --> 01:20:40,600
Speaker 1: noisier tones when possible, but just something else I was

1385
01:20:40,600 --> 01:20:43,559
Speaker 1: wondering about. I didn't find any research to this effect,

1386
01:20:44,200 --> 01:20:47,680
Speaker 1: but I was wondering if horror music in particular, so

1387
01:20:47,800 --> 01:20:51,280
Speaker 1: like think of the strings again in psycho horror music

1388
01:20:51,360 --> 01:20:55,559
Speaker 1: at the moment of confrontation tends to sound more like

1389
01:20:55,680 --> 01:21:00,280
Speaker 1: screams because it is communicating a definite and immediate rahet

1390
01:21:00,640 --> 01:21:02,760
Speaker 1: and you know, it makes sense that it mimics a

1391
01:21:02,880 --> 01:21:07,240
Speaker 1: distress call that an animal would make, whereas terror music

1392
01:21:07,439 --> 01:21:10,880
Speaker 1: is more about uncertainty. And this could be a coincidence,

1393
01:21:10,960 --> 01:21:13,759
Speaker 1: but it actually seems to me that maybe terror music

1394
01:21:13,960 --> 01:21:18,960
Speaker 1: tends to want to mimic the sounds of growling, to

1395
01:21:19,080 --> 01:21:22,760
Speaker 1: mimic the kind of low guttural warning growls of mammals.

1396
01:21:22,760 --> 01:21:24,640
Speaker 1: So if you've ever been like you, I don't know,

1397
01:21:24,680 --> 01:21:28,599
Speaker 1: approaching a dog that does not want you to approach it. Uh,

1398
01:21:28,640 --> 01:21:33,759
Speaker 1: there's a kind of mounting, low thing that's releasing from

1399
01:21:33,600 --> 01:21:36,160
Speaker 1: almost sounds like it's coming down from caves, you know,

1400
01:21:36,280 --> 01:21:42,040
Speaker 1: like there's a warning of uncertain possibly impending violence that

1401
01:21:42,160 --> 01:21:44,840
Speaker 1: seems more suited to the terror themes. And and and

1402
01:21:44,880 --> 01:21:47,880
Speaker 1: this doesn't make me think more about like the Jaws theme. Yeah,

1403
01:21:48,120 --> 01:21:50,519
Speaker 1: I mean that that makes sense to me. Yeah, Like, like

1404
01:21:50,439 --> 01:21:53,559
Speaker 1: like you said, there's no science, uh to back this

1405
01:21:53,680 --> 01:21:58,120
Speaker 1: up currently, but yeah, think about a music score low

1406
01:21:58,240 --> 01:22:04,519
Speaker 1: rumbling and then violent violence, violence that is a dog grow, bark, bark, bark,

1407
01:22:04,760 --> 01:22:07,400
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah. Yeah, So kind of with all this

1408
01:22:07,479 --> 01:22:10,840
Speaker 1: information that's that's been dug up, I feel like we

1409
01:22:10,960 --> 01:22:13,960
Speaker 1: were reaching a conclusion similar to the conclusion that we

1410
01:22:14,080 --> 01:22:17,679
Speaker 1: reached when we were doing our episode on Freezon, which

1411
01:22:17,720 --> 01:22:22,120
Speaker 1: is that there's some research to indicate a direction leaning

1412
01:22:22,240 --> 01:22:27,360
Speaker 1: towards thoughts that kind of makes sense. However, because music

1413
01:22:27,560 --> 01:22:32,840
Speaker 1: is so ethereal and so interpretive and so such a

1414
01:22:32,880 --> 01:22:36,280
Speaker 1: magic trick, it's hard to pin it down, you know. So,

1415
01:22:36,280 --> 01:22:38,880
Speaker 1: so I I think we we've taken big steps towards

1416
01:22:38,880 --> 01:22:41,800
Speaker 1: something with understanding, but I don't think we can ever

1417
01:22:41,840 --> 01:22:46,519
Speaker 1: really nail down art right Well, I mean it's hard

1418
01:22:46,560 --> 01:22:50,080
Speaker 1: to give you know. I think sometimes people want to

1419
01:22:50,080 --> 01:22:54,880
Speaker 1: give very clear biological logic to two things that are

1420
01:22:54,960 --> 01:22:58,400
Speaker 1: complex in humans culture like art, and uh, I think

1421
01:22:58,479 --> 01:23:00,680
Speaker 1: they're the lines are not usually that clear, but I

1422
01:23:00,680 --> 01:23:04,800
Speaker 1: think you can identify interesting tendencies. So you know, you're

1423
01:23:04,880 --> 01:23:09,320
Speaker 1: you're not going to find a evolutionary biology reason that

1424
01:23:09,439 --> 01:23:13,320
Speaker 1: explains the melody of the theme to the shining, but

1425
01:23:13,360 --> 01:23:15,760
Speaker 1: you might well find that there are some broad tendencies

1426
01:23:15,800 --> 01:23:19,120
Speaker 1: in horror music that would be uh, that would be

1427
01:23:19,160 --> 01:23:22,040
Speaker 1: pretty well predicted by certain kinds of things about what

1428
01:23:22,080 --> 01:23:24,200
Speaker 1: the kinds of animals we are. And so I think

1429
01:23:24,200 --> 01:23:26,680
Speaker 1: that might well correlate with things like a scream like

1430
01:23:26,800 --> 01:23:29,680
Speaker 1: glassondi of violins in a horror movie, when you know

1431
01:23:29,720 --> 01:23:31,439
Speaker 1: when the killer comes out with the knife and the

1432
01:23:31,479 --> 01:23:35,639
Speaker 1: granny wig on or or the the growl like mounting

1433
01:23:35,760 --> 01:23:39,360
Speaker 1: terror music. But yeah, of because there's not a biological

1434
01:23:39,400 --> 01:23:42,160
Speaker 1: or deterministic code for what kind of art develops, you

1435
01:23:42,200 --> 01:23:44,200
Speaker 1: know that there's there's just too much. There are too

1436
01:23:44,280 --> 01:23:47,599
Speaker 1: many inputs on it. At the very least, Uh, anyone

1437
01:23:47,680 --> 01:23:50,200
Speaker 1: listening right now can think about their favorite horror score

1438
01:23:50,800 --> 01:23:54,840
Speaker 1: and pin down the differences between the terror songs, the

1439
01:23:54,880 --> 01:23:58,439
Speaker 1: horror songs, and the eerie songs. That's a fun game.

1440
01:23:59,000 --> 01:24:00,200
Speaker 1: But well, what do you what do you think about

1441
01:24:00,280 --> 01:24:03,120
Speaker 1: Chariots of Pumpkins. My this has got to be one

1442
01:24:03,120 --> 01:24:06,320
Speaker 1: of my all time favorites. The score for Halloween three

1443
01:24:06,439 --> 01:24:08,599
Speaker 1: is just the best, and that may come up again

1444
01:24:08,640 --> 01:24:12,679
Speaker 1: on this podcast quite soon. Yes, um, my first instinct

1445
01:24:12,760 --> 01:24:17,479
Speaker 1: is to say terror. However I'm leaning also towards erie. Yeah.

1446
01:24:17,520 --> 01:24:19,559
Speaker 1: I think it just kind of sets the mood. I mean,

1447
01:24:20,000 --> 01:24:23,760
Speaker 1: Chariots of Pumpkins doesn't doesn't really make me tense up,

1448
01:24:24,760 --> 01:24:27,320
Speaker 1: kind of puts me in a in a in a jolly,

1449
01:24:28,000 --> 01:24:31,680
Speaker 1: in a jolly computer witchcraft mindset. It just makes me

1450
01:24:31,720 --> 01:24:39,920
Speaker 1: feel like, ah a a banshee virus has infected the synthesizer. Bang. Yes, fascinating.

1451
01:24:39,960 --> 01:24:42,920
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. So yeah, it's October, so I'm sure many

1452
01:24:42,920 --> 01:24:46,639
Speaker 1: people listening are spending them on watching horror films. While

1453
01:24:46,640 --> 01:24:50,200
Speaker 1: you're watching, some start thinking to yourself horror versus terror

1454
01:24:50,479 --> 01:24:53,599
Speaker 1: versus eerie and what they're doing to your brain? Okay,

1455
01:24:53,600 --> 01:24:56,400
Speaker 1: well I think that's got to wrap it up here. Uh.

1456
01:24:56,560 --> 01:24:58,720
Speaker 1: This one also turned into a long episode. We you know,

1457
01:24:58,760 --> 01:25:00,960
Speaker 1: we end up talking about horror mo movies and horror music,

1458
01:25:01,120 --> 01:25:03,880
Speaker 1: uh for quite some time. Huh. But hey, seth one

1459
01:25:04,000 --> 01:25:06,120
Speaker 1: one more time. You wanna remind people where they can

1460
01:25:06,160 --> 01:25:09,479
Speaker 1: find your new music podcast. Yeah, if you'd like listening

1461
01:25:09,520 --> 01:25:13,240
Speaker 1: to me talk about music, go look up Rusty Needles

1462
01:25:13,280 --> 01:25:17,200
Speaker 1: Record Club wherever you find podcasts. It's very easy to find.

1463
01:25:18,040 --> 01:25:21,000
Speaker 1: Every Friday there's a new episode. Uh. When this is

1464
01:25:21,000 --> 01:25:23,200
Speaker 1: a brand new episode dropping, there are at least two

1465
01:25:23,200 --> 01:25:25,760
Speaker 1: episodes for you to listen to, and more will come

1466
01:25:25,760 --> 01:25:28,919
Speaker 1: every Friday after that. Amazing. Check it out Rusty Needles

1467
01:25:28,960 --> 01:25:33,439
Speaker 1: Record Club wherever you get your podcasts. As for Stuff

1468
01:25:33,479 --> 01:25:35,280
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, Rob's going to be back with

1469
01:25:35,320 --> 01:25:38,160
Speaker 1: me for our next core episode, so definitely tune in

1470
01:25:38,200 --> 01:25:40,880
Speaker 1: for that, and uh, it's gonna be a blast. We're

1471
01:25:40,920 --> 01:25:43,679
Speaker 1: so excited about October. We've been lighting candles and brewing

1472
01:25:43,800 --> 01:25:47,880
Speaker 1: potions for months now. Um. Anyway, so uh yeah, I

1473
01:25:47,880 --> 01:25:50,320
Speaker 1: guess that that about does it. So if you want

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01:25:50,360 --> 01:25:52,559
Speaker 1: to check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,

1475
01:25:52,600 --> 01:25:54,439
Speaker 1: you know where to find us. We're on anywhere you

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01:25:54,479 --> 01:25:56,920
Speaker 1: get your podcast. This is the Stuff to Blow Your

1477
01:25:56,920 --> 01:26:01,479
Speaker 1: Mind podcast. Uh. We're offering pretty much daily episodes now,

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01:26:01,520 --> 01:26:04,160
Speaker 1: so on Monday's we do listener mail. On Tuesdays and

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01:26:04,200 --> 01:26:07,439
Speaker 1: Thursdays we do classic core episodes of the show, which

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01:26:07,439 --> 01:26:10,439
Speaker 1: tend to be about science off often intersecting with some

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01:26:10,520 --> 01:26:14,960
Speaker 1: kind of cultural topic, maybe with with history or monsters

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01:26:15,040 --> 01:26:17,800
Speaker 1: or literature or something. On Wednesdays we do a short

1483
01:26:17,840 --> 01:26:20,479
Speaker 1: form episode called the Artifact. On Friday as we run

1484
01:26:20,520 --> 01:26:23,160
Speaker 1: an episode from the Vault, and I guess generally an

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01:26:23,160 --> 01:26:27,200
Speaker 1: episode of Yesteryear. But but yeah, I guess that's it.

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01:26:27,320 --> 01:26:29,680
Speaker 1: So if you would like to get in touch with

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01:26:29,760 --> 01:26:33,000
Speaker 1: us with feedback on this episode or any other. Oh

1488
01:26:33,080 --> 01:26:35,519
Speaker 1: and as always, of course, big thanks to Seth for

1489
01:26:35,680 --> 01:26:37,519
Speaker 1: editing this one even though he's on it. Thanks for

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01:26:37,600 --> 01:26:41,559
Speaker 1: joining me and for editing this this monster episode. But

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01:26:41,920 --> 01:26:43,559
Speaker 1: but yeah, if you would like to get in touch

1492
01:26:43,640 --> 01:26:46,719
Speaker 1: with us on this uh, in response to this episode

1493
01:26:46,800 --> 01:26:49,280
Speaker 1: or any other, to suggest topic for the future, or

1494
01:26:49,320 --> 01:26:51,839
Speaker 1: just to say hello, you can email us at contact

1495
01:26:51,920 --> 01:27:01,800
Speaker 1: at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to

1496
01:27:01,800 --> 01:27:04,360
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For

1497
01:27:04,439 --> 01:27:06,639
Speaker 1: more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart

1498
01:27:06,720 --> 01:27:09,439
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

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01:27:09,479 --> 01:27:22,040
Speaker 1: favorite shows.