Task 5 – Woodwind Psycho

Task 5 – Woodwind

Report

My objective was to create a piece of music using woodwind instrumentation; we were given a choice of video, I chose the video clip from Psycho. I wanted to adopt a more musical approach to the visuals than I had with my string piece, in order to achieve I tried leitmotifs to identify several emotions and actions of the two characters. I also felt it was necessary to build up the tension in the piece at 1.50”, just before the woman takes the money from her handbag. I have been influenced by the range of sounds the flute in Stockhausen’s Kathinka’s Gesang and various themes and leitmotifs from detectives series’ such as Henry Mancini’s Pink Panther (1964) and also by Debussy use of harps in pieces such as Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp (1915).
I learnt to use leitmotifs to link musical ideas to the characters, whilst the sounds remained in context with the piece. I have studied detective themes and leitmotifs for when something is about to happen and I have tried to use the flute samples to follow some of Stockhausen’s ideas. I would give myself about 50% for this because I could have researched into other composers and tried to use alternative techniques for different parts of the composition, as well as using my own ideas.

References

Henry Mancini, (1964). The Pink Panther Theme [CD]. USA: RCA. 3 mins.

Stockhausen, (1990). Kathinka’s Gesang [CD]. Germany: Deutsche Grammaphon. 32 mins.

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