t seems that you can always tell a movie score is from a western just by listening. It seems there is a certain rhythm that is used a lot and for some reason evokes The Old West. Where did this rhythm/ sound come from? Why is that? Why do western movie soundtracks sound “western”?
Italy, of course.
I do know what you mean, but I don’t know who “invented” the sound that gets copied or modified so much by so many others.
Examples I can think of:
Magnificent Seven Theme
The Big Country Theme
Shane Theme
Silverado Theme
…just for starters.
Maybe Aaron Copland Aaron Copland, Hoedown From Rodeo or something even earlier?
Probably earlier. Stagecoach, from 1939 predated Hoedown by three years.
I’d say that Suppe’s Light Cavalry Overture is a better source of the origin; it predated sound movies by over half a century (and was used in early talkies).
It’s a horse trotting rhythm, isn’t it? It’s there in that Suppe piece. Combined with macho-sounding brass, that equals the sound of the Old West. Morricone was amazing in that he made people associate electric guitars with the Old West, which is totally incongruous.
I have a theory that it goes back to Dvorak and his visit to America but no proof of it. I went to a Dvorak concert, where they played Dvorak and those that were inspired by him. Seems I heard some of those familiar rhythms and sounds. Again I have no idea if there is a connection. Any one have any ideas on this?
Russia, actually.
You’re probably thinking of the 4th movementof the New World Symphony. And yes, it did serve as the basis for the sterotypical “Cowboys and Indians” music.
Using the four example themes I posted upthread as a reference for “the sound” I associate with Westerns, I haven’t found anything much earlier than 1950 that has that sound quality for me. And movies like High Noon -Tex Ritter - Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin’ are almost novelty music.
I would suspect that before recorded soundtracks that accompanying piano background music might have provided the template for early composers for the screen. That’s pure guess, though. If it’s anywhere close to true, then whatever music influenced those pianists would be a source to try to identify. Just finding examples of the silent era background music could be a goose chase in and of itself.
I also find it hard to fold into the grandeur of those four example themes the soundtracks (such as they were) for the B Westerns and early radio and TV Westerns. I certainly don’t consider The Lone Ranger Opening Theme Song to be representative of “the sound” even if it does have that characteristic of military music that bleeds into some Western themes.
Here’s one of my favourite Western themes.
Maybe we ought to consider the antithetical “Western” themes, too.
One example: Unforgiven - Clint Eastwood - Lennie Niehaus which, if you ignore the pictures, doesn’t have so much of “the sound” going on. But name me a more iconic Western than that movie!
The von Suppé doesn’t sound cowboy-type western to me at all.
I think the Silverado theme could do just as well for the Star Wars soundtrack. And I think “The Magnificent Seven” could do for hammering or some other manual/factory labor.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me:
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The theme from Copland’s “Hoedown” (the folk piece “Bonaparte’s Retreat”) is pentatonic plus the fourth, i.e., avoids the seventh of the scale. Ditto the themes from “Stagecoach” and “Magnificent Seven”.
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The theme from “Shane” is fully pentatonic. Ditto the opening phrases of the theme from “On the Trail” from Grofe’s “Grand Canyon Suite”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHckrMUGhGg
Gap scales are always used to evoke pastoral settings, which is what the big wild west is, I suppose. You can take one of Howard Shore’s tunes from LOTR and re-orchestrate it to sound more “western.”
EDIT: Yeah. What rowrrbazzle said.
Not to mention the “Bonanza” theme, and “Ghost Riders in the Sky” (not a theme, but cowboy-related and with the same sound).
If I had to pick an origin, I might go with “On the Trail” from Grofe’s “Grand Canyon Suite” (1931). Specifically, the legato part on brass that starts around 0:39.
I saw a fairly convincing discussion that alleged that several key moments throughout his 9th were influenced by Longfellow’s poem Hiawatha (it even scanned pretty well when you read it along with the music)
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And what’s the origin of that “Indian” theme you hear in so many old Westerns, with horns and kettle drums going “BUUUUMMMM . . . bumpa BUMPA bump bummm” over and over?
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Someone should try making a Western with nothing on the soundtrack but music somebody in the Old West might have actually heard there.
But what would that leave to choose from?
Whenever I hear ANDERSON - THE PHANTOM REGIMENT.wmv I have difficulty deciding what sort of movie it might go with.
One of those Gunga Din desert things
A John Ford styled cavalry Western
Something with lots of swords and horses
In any case, I think elements of this music are involved in what we’re talking and wondering about.
One thing I’ve noticed… there is a specific rhythmic “trick” in most of these melodies. Sort of a “Scottish snap” where you have short-long but short is on the beat.
Here the ‘x’ represents a note, and the dots are beats where the note is held. ‘|’ is the bar line.
Magnificent Seven: |xx..|..xx |xx..|....|xx..|..xx|xx..
I posed this question to a music theory teacher friend of mine(guess I could have done that in the first place). Although he wasn’t definitive on the answer he did have an interesting take.
He states that is the use of a pentatonic scale which was used frequently in ballads of the time. In the traditional “western” sound there is a mix of Scottish, English and Irish- which were the ones writing music and sallying forth across the country in the 1800s.
When I asked him whether someone of that time period would recognize the “sound” of a Old West Movie soundtrack. He stated that they probably would identify it as familiar.
Anyway, if anyone has any more to add. I’d be interested in hearing it. But so far this is what makes the most sense to me.
Good thread-the whole “Western” genre was built up over time, starting with Wild Bill Cody’s travelling show. He was the guy who established the myth about the cowboy (most real cowboys were black and mexicans). The music used was mostly classical based, because the movie producers could use it for free (it was in the public domain).
More was added to the mythos in the movies of the 1930’s-50’s-so that what we think about the 'old west" is largely an invention of Hollywood.
And now that everybody who actually remembers the period of 1880-1910 is now long dead, the myth is totally malleable-which is why we now have the anti-hero westerns, and retro-westerns (like Tombstone").
It was an interesting period of American history-but really nothing like Louis L’Amour or Zane Grey made it out to be.