Jazz and the Art of Anticipation

Abstract

Music and the moving image have cohabited quite amicably almost since film was first committed to celluloid. The first recorded instance reportedly occurred on 28th December 1895, when a pianist provided accompaniment to a series of Lumiere Brothers’ shorts in the Grand Cafe, Paris. Since then, music has been a core element of the cinematic experience: sometimes driving the narrative; sometimes giving the audience privileged insight into characters’ motivations and behaviours, and often being the vehicle through which much of the film’s emotional impact is delivered. If composed and apportioned well, the soundtrack has the power to emote without the viewer consciously registering its effect. One reason that this marriage has been so successful is because both film and music are temporal media with fixed, fairly linear structures: once a film sequence has been cut, it provides a narrative framework around which the musical underscore can be constructed. The film sequence provides definite ‘hit points’ to which the composer can write, and it is suggestive of tempo and intensity, creative building blocks that translate well into the musical domain, and which can be built upon in the soundtrack. Although there are problems in translating notions from film theory and semiotics without adaptation, there exist many similarities in the function and affective purpose of soundtrack music between gaming and films.