Thomas Newman is perhaps my top favorite movie composer. It's also interesting how much I'm naturally drawn to the Dorian mode because most of my favorite music is in that mode or I come up with something ends up being in that. It makes sense that my favorite piece from his is the Plastic Bag scene.
I just recently found his work, and his American Beauty score is absoloutly otherworldly and beautiful, plus he just seems like a super fascinating guy in general. I’ve been diving deep in to Thomas’ work!
My favourite TN soundtrack is Road to Perdition, a beautiful not-so-well-remembered film, also directed by Sam Mendes (the next one to American Beauty). There you have the tracks "Rock Island 1931"; "Road to Chicago" (great); "Road to Perdition"; and my favorite: "Ghosts". And there's also the main theme of Revolutionary Road, that feels so emotionally strong.
My absolute favourite Thomas Newman score is 1917, but I started listening to more of him cause he has such a variety of compositions that always evoke some kind of emotion whether mild or strong. I really must thank you for this presentation as I am trying to get into film scoring myself and this is delivered in such a way that my autistic mind can actually understand, Thank You!
All of his scores are great. He is my all time favorite composer but if I had to pick one I would say that it would be from In the Bedroom. There’s just something off about the main title in the best way possible. The film itself is heavily underrated. My second would be Road to Perdition followed by 1917. All three of these are also my top 3 films of all time.
This was a wonderful video, thank you! I've been writing some stuff recently where the minor scale was feeling a bit too dark so excited to play with Dorian and open it up a bit!
Indeed, Simon. My favourite film composer. I would liken his approach to the delicate and deft strokes of a water colour artist, unlike some other celebrated composers with, shall we say, a heavier hand. Wonderfully understated and enticing technique with just enough notes to keep the audience interested :).
I also see a lot of open and stacked fifths in the examples you showed; those also contribute to that ambiguous feeling you mentioned (nice video--just wanted to comment something to help the ol' algorithm)
The bars at the bottom are really nice, removes the pretense of that any of this is that complicated. It's so disgustingly simple but made complicated because people are bad at explaining things. If you can't explain something so a 10 year old can understand it. Don't bother. Really nice video.
Great video! I've always loved Thomas Newman's work and feel like his work doesn't get the attention it deserves. I first heard of him when I watched the movie The Horse Whisperer..the music was so beautiful and I had to find out who composed it. The Horse Whisperer is one of my favorite soundtracks of his as well as Meet Joe Black and 1917.
It continually surprises me, that when someone does an expose on Thomas Newman's movie soundtracks, and how he composes. They never mention Road to perdition. I haven't seen any. Like it didn't exist. And it has some of his most emotionally stirring music.
AMERICAN BEAUTY drew me into Thomas Newman’s works - trying to determine at the moment if ROAD TO PERDITION or THE GOOD GERMAN was his best (these preferences change often). Even his open to BOSTON PUBLIC is excellent.
Excellent stuff! On my wishlist for future videos: An analysis of some of the masterpieces from Alexandre Desplat. Keep up the good work! Greetings from Norway.
I have been composing about a 1 minute piece in dorian, a piece that reflects loss of hope towards end of conversation that has begun on a happy tone, not too dark and not too bright, but somewhere in between the major and the minor towards end, which is good with dorian. American beauty piece comes to me as a wonder, how he has used sus 2 kinda tone in the composition. Its beautiful. how insanely beautiful is the finding dory theme too. just amazes me.
Natural minor sounds more somber and muted, but not sad here. The raised 6th is brighter. We should definitely describe notes and modes in terms of color and light, rather than emotions, sometimes.
Thank you for recognizing my favorite movie score composer - his music is beautiful. My wedding song was "Resilience" from Lemony Snicket (turned out - we didn't have any lol... but still a beautiful song!). Nemo score is amazingly moving too.
Loved this video! Thank you! At the end of the video you asked what our favorite Thomas Newman score is as well as if there’s anything you haven’t covered. My favorite score of Thomas Newsman’s is so underrated and almost never talked about and it’s really quite a gem. I’d love your thoughts on the 1991 film “Deceived”. So brilliant I love it! Any incite on this would be lovely! Thanks again!
LOVE THIS! Thank you so much! I have been wanting some examples of using modes in popular cues for a long time. I have only written a few compositions with modes so far as I have not taken the time to familiarize myself with the feel of each one so I can fit them into my workflow. This gets me excited to try again and add it back into my toolkit! Thank you!! ♥️
Thank you ❤ Love Thomas Newman, and I really enjoyed this insight into his compositions. Hope you do more video analysis of his music. Will be checking out your manual on composing like him. I also love Rachel Portman, if you're inclined to analyse her music as well 😉
I have been searching for this kind of video for so long…thank you!! “Little Women” is my absolute favorite score of his. I also love “Fried Green Tomatoes” and “American Beauty”. Could you please, please, PLEASE provide explanations/examples from LW and FGT?? 🙏🏼
Hi! This was very informative and Thomas Newman‘a score for WALL-E never fails to leave me in awe. Some composers you could look at that I love are Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross who use a lot of piano over synth ostinatos Jonny Greenwood (Phantom Thread and Power of the Dog) Jon Brion (Eterna Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Punch Drunk Loce) Alexandre Desplat (lots of Wes Anderson movies) Lastly, Atonement and The Theory of Everything have beautiful scores as well Thanks, looking forward to more composer analysis with a central theme! :)
His soundtrack for Wall-E was the first album I ever bought on iTunes myself, at all of 11 years old, and it still remains one of my favorite scores to date It captures outer space the best, imo.
That video helped a lot, to get fresh input. Got a question left, because I saw, that you're using Ableton: Do you have an advice for a beginner Orchestra-Set or at least strings for Ableton? What would you recommending?
I like the Meet Joe Black sound track, some lovely melodies.....BUT there is a thing in his music where he brings in what sounds like dissonance but then moves away.....he does it quite a lot, its one of his motifs.
One of the hardest parts for me in modal composition is making the track feel resolved. Take F lydian for example. It has all the same notes as C major, so it has all the same chords, as a result I have a really hard time making the F chord sound resolved, finished, like it is supposed to end there. Some tricks I do are a lot of slash chords with F in the bass. I will also take a chord like C and make it a Csus4, so it is C F G instead, both of those help, but I still could use help in making my modes feel and sound more resolved. Any advice? Any reading I should check out?
Yeah great point. I think harmonic rhythm is also really important in this regard. Choosing the “right” bars to place primary chords of the mode of choice in a sequence can really help to anchor the harmony. Using the root of the scale as a pedal tone or drone can also be very useful.
also helps to occasionally use a Bb note from F major, since to our ears F lydian sounds like F major but modified. but honestly, i think its very cool to make music where the tonic is intentionally ambiguous (though admittedly, its probably more difficult)
Just look at the chords. F G/Gm Am C Dm Em/Emb5. No Bmb5/Bb. F-Am-Dm-G. F is the tonic and then a little 2-5-1 and repeat. It should sound like F even though it’s in C. Depending on how you accent it. The longer a note is held the more impact it’ll have on the overall tonality.
Two movies that would have been greatly diminished without the following composers. Shawshank Redemption with Thomas Newman. And Patton with Jerry Goldsmith.
Zimmer is my fav, because of his sound design. Newman is my fav for melody and beauty. Zimmer has said Newman should have beat him out for Oscar in 1995 (Zimmer: Lion King, Newman: The Shawshank Redemption).
Well that Finding Dory theme is technically not F Dorian as there is no presence of the minor 3rd (Ab) in the mix. It's ambiguous. We could as easily made the claim that it is F Mixolydian.
I'm curious if is possible to compose without this theoretical background. I mean playing something what fits your emotions then define it by certain category afterwards. Anyway, great video. Thank you.
Is it possible to analyze or break down a song called Impossible by two steps from hell? Especially the arrangement, how do they transition between completely different sounding sections smoothly?
That's a great idea - I had planned to do a video on Two Steps from Hell when I return soon - I love the suggestion about looking at how the pieces transition though. Thank you!
Hi, thanks for reaching out. I'm just putting the finishing touches to the first iteration of the course. Make sure you sign up to the Composing Academy Newsletter if you haven't already done so, where I will be posting the info re the course very soon. Thanks for watching!
Basics or rule to make harmony and accompaniment between instrument How make note like orchestra or arrange muisc Please reply and make videos explain that
Thanks for reaching out - yes all good - I've been developing a composing course, so had to put RU-vid on hold for the last few months. I will be back soon though!
