(Not OT) The Film Music of Bernard Herrmann Part 1 Film Scoring 101
https://youtube.com/watch?v=SmaxctDKRIU
shareThe music-teaching side of youtube is spectacular these days, with Rick Beato among its leaders. I also like Howard Goodall's doc. on Herrmann:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6kv9gVBWDo
whose Psycho discussion I excerpted here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aM8lCHinbo
Despite the deterioration Youtube has gone through last few years(removing the dislike button, tiktok influences), I'd be lying to myself if I said the same for it's video essay, film and screenplay breakdown and music teaching side. In addition to Rick Beato, there are great and underappreciated channels like CinemaTyler(film), Moviewise(film), Beauty Of(cinematography compilation). There are music production and composition channels as well, but I can't remember their names unfortunately.
shareListening to the knowledgeable "musical notes analysis' of the first link in the first post and the Rick Beato excerpts, I think of two responses:
ONE: What Bernard Herrmann did on Psycho is harder than what Alfred Hitchcock did on Psycho, simply because writing music at the genius level at which Herrmann operated was beyond the more basic "filming/framing/cutting" visual work Hitchcock as a filmmaker did. I think a number of us could frame Hitchcock's images from Psycho ala Gus Van Sant...but write a score like Herrmann did? Nope.
TWO: Looking at the various sequences with Herrmann's music over them, one is reminded again(sorry folks) why the Psycho sequels just could replicate the original at all -- even with Class-A composers like Jerry Goldsmith(Psycho II) and Carter Burwell(Psycho III) hired(probably the most A-list hires for those movies other than Anthony Perkins as the director of III.)
Psycho's monumental status sounds in the "Marion driving" sequences as much as in the classic screeching violins. The sequels never once captured this haunting, dream-turns-into-nightmare intensity.