This was a fun rabbit hole to dive down. FUN FACT- John Phillip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" was known in the circus world as the "The Disaster March" and was used to signal to event staff that a disaster was unfolding. It could've been a fire or a loose animal, but it was played under no other circumstances than an impending disaster. Kind of a massive difference from how we know it today 😂
I find it hard to believe that Charles dissected the Simpsons theme without mentioning The Jetson’s theme, where the main melody introducing each character is clearly directly related to the one used to say “The Simosons” in the beginning of the theme, perhaps Maestro Elfman was a huge fan of the Jetsons in the 60’s 😊, the idea is that even people who aren’t musically endowed are able to make the connection … Would you please do the Jetsons theme next, at least to me they’re more intimately related 😊. As a non western person, perhaps the legacy of circus and it’s cultural entourage is less present in my musical heritage, making what you brilliantly described as it’s own thing for me 😊, but thanks for the historical precision 😃😃, much appreciated
It would be cool if you showed how to apply this. maybe take a military march that is serious, and add syncopated ragtime base line, and add more teasing chromatic or whole tone sirens. Parts of this remind me of the beginning of a Pokemon battle, or like a flashback jingle sped up, as like a scene transition.
As a native of Connecticut, Stars and Stripes Forever always holds a bit of macabre lore to our state- the march was indeed played as an evacuation alert during the fire that unfolded at a Ringling Bros performance in Hartford during 1944. Sadly 167 spectators lost their lives along with hundreds of injuries, to this day it remains the deadliest disaster to have ever happened in CT.
Recent episodes have pretty much eschewed the theme altogether except for the vocal chorus at the beginning because they want more time to tell the story or some bullcrap like that.
@@jasobres If you listen to the commentary, they say it's because commercial breaks are cutting more and more episode time. They're running out of space to tell 2 stories, and fit in jokes, AND an opening.
@@FENomadtrooper What kind of commercials are aired durinf simpsons now? I bet when it started it was super soakers and sugary cereals. Now its going more toward pension plans an incontinense pads.
The key changes clearly represented the different characters, as that is what all the scenes are doing. All the kids are in C, Homer is B, Marge is E, everyone coming home is E flat, and the family all together is D flat.
If you pay attention, the music also describes the characters. Fast paced chaotic music portrays bart and homer to be unbalanced, abnormal people. Slow tempo for marge because she is more orderly and calm. Liza is the voice of reason, hence why the song goes back to the original key of C after all the key changes. Her solos also portray creativity. Mix them all together and you have a chaotic family where nothing is normal.
Well, he interpolated the main theme from Bernard Hermnann’s score for Journey to the centre of the earth. If people haven’t heard ‘mountain top/sunrise’ and seen how close it is the the Batman theme it’s quite shocking. Even the instrumentation
The theme from The Jetsons also takes the same interval and moves it around into different keys with different variations depending on which member of the family is being introduced. Even the underlying concept of "different variation for every part of the family ending its day to go be together again" is an echo of that opening credits sequence. The main difference is that The Jetsons are just STARTING their respective days.
I'm surprised he didn't mention The Jetsons at all. Listening to them back to back it definitely seems like it was *heavily* inspired by that theme, if not directly used as a reference. Which makes sense given that the theme song itself hit the Billboard top 10 in 1986, just 3 years before The Simpsons started their run separate from The Tracey Ullman Show.
@@dferrantino I remember reading an interview many years ago where someone, probably Elfman, basically told the story that Matt Groening asked for something similar to the Jetsons theme and Elfman used it as direct inspiration. I was surprised it didn't come up in this video.
@@Swenglish I understand why it might be left out due to it's lineage. Looney tunes is warner, and so is The Jetsons. If you stick the jetsons into the mix of that lesson it takes away the emphasis of looney tunes. I can see some people come away with the message that "The simpsons is just a rip of the jetsons" and while in a way, it kinda is, it's really underselling it. I wouldn't want to do that either.
@@TheBlueArcher It's not a ripoff, though. There are notable similarities, obviously, but none that a jazz pianist wouldn't be able to give context to.
Danny Elfman is a tritone maniac. I heard Oingo Boingo in the early eighties and it quickly became one of my favourite bands of that time, and it already had this mad circus feel !
I was in 6th grade when The Simpsons came out. My music teacher described staccato and syncopation as sounding like laughter. The key changes and instrument hand-off is like passing through the crowd and picking up on different people laughing. Listen to The Simpsons and Looney Tunes themes and circus music, and you can hear a crowd laughing in every one. From a generic moderate laugh of the piano intro to the loud guffaw of the trumpet to the playing-along-with-the-gag hekeling of Lisa's 🎷, you not only get the zany action of the cartoon in music form, but the laughter of the audience. My 6th grade Music Teacher was in the Seattle Symphony and had a Master's Degree in Music Theory. She was AMAZING at explaining this stuff. All my other Music Teachers just taught us how to sound halfway decent on an instrument. She passed on a passion for music.
I think important about the Simpsons theme specifically is, that the instruments are not played "elegant" especially the brass section has some early "funny" sounds as to do "sound effcts" when the car breaks as to not run over homer, or the school orchestra sounds wonky, as it is meant to sound like a group of second graders. Performance can change the sound of a composition!
Oh man, she sounds great! I only ever had the second kind of music teacher, even my favourite one (who was an oboe player herself). It was actually Charles and Adam's videos and their enthusiasm which made me want to learn these elements of composition, instead of just playing to the sheet music someone else had written.
12:32 I know why. It's changing keys as each character is introduced. Every character has their own key. So as the scenes change to show a new member of the family, a new key accompanies them in the music.
In high school, our marching band did a compilation of the songs of Danny Elfman for competitons one year, and as the xylophone player, this one was so fun to play… but also extremely stressful. Good times.
Danny Elfman is way underrated. He's a top-5 living composer, in my estimation. Also, he has a phenomenal singing voice. He sang all the parts for Jack Skellington in Nightmare Before Christmas.
Creator Matt Groening gave Danny Elfman a mix tape of what he wanted the theme song to sound like that contained, among other things, the theme from _The Jetsons_ and a "teach your parrot to talk" tape.
Your breakdown of this song singlehandedly made me put down my phone, find the sheet music online and start learning it on the piano. I got to say, knowing more of the theory behind the piece made it so much fun to learn
The constant key changes enhance the element of surprise, which is important in humor. Punch lines are usually a surprising, unexpected resolution to the setup, often with an off-kilter, twisted kind of logic. The constant surprises in the Simpson's song are like rapid-fire jokes that keep your mind from settling down; it's like an episode of Seinfeld or I Love Lucy where one ridiculous situation follows another continually through the entire episode without letting you fully recover from any of them in between.
I've always loved the Simpsons' jokes-within-jokes. They'll make a surface joke and then immediately follow up with something more obscure or blink-and-you'll-miss-it kinda thing for the audience who're paying close attention. The show was made for two levels of humor. The example I remember most is the episode starring Lucy Lawless. At the end Bart and Lisa were riding on the back of Xena, who was flying through the air, which is already ridiculous. One of the kids says, "Hey, I didn't know Xena could fly", which is already funny watching two kids riding Xena like an airplane. But then Xena quickly adds, "I keep telling you, I'm not Xena; I'm Lucy Lawless." BAM! Second joke layer! It just got way stupider.
I'd have to add on a fourth component that really adds to the wackiness: the instrumentation. With both the loony tunes theme and simpsons theme, they love giving these complex and rapid runs to ridiculous sounding instruments like marimba and glockenspiel, even plucked strings which make the melodies sound slightly more dissonant and less serious
One thing I'd never noticed until now is just how much of the music is diegetic - actions that happen within the animation have a place within the music. Most obviously the school band and Lisa's sax solo, but also the factory whistle, the clanking of the radioactive pellet, the supermarket checkout beep, the car horn... I'd be curious to know how much of that served as a constraint on Danny Elfman's composition process (did they have to tell him "you must incorporate a car horn into bar 43"?) and how much of it was just dropped in after the fact, and just *seems* to fit in seamlessly because we've had 30 years to familiarise ourselves with it...
It’s weird listening to some orchestra renditions of the theme because they don’t include things like the uranium clinking or the checkout beep, but my mind fills them in lol
My guess is he first gave them the main scratch track to listen to, like approve this before I fully orchestrate it.. and when it was approved, they came up with ideas "hey at this part, two car horn honks could coincide.." and then the animators did some storyboarding until they arrived at what they wanted, and then it was fully orchestrated and mixed and had the foley added.
Danny Elfman is a great film composer. Beetlejuice, Scrooged, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Mission: Impossible, The Frighteners, Mars Attacks!, Men in Black, Good Will Hunting, Sleepy Hollow, Spider-Man, Big Fish, Spider-Man 2 and many, many more.
Pee Wee’s Big Adventure was another awesome soundtrack he composed. I love the variations of the same underlying theme he used to paint a contextual feel to atmosphere of the scene
I noticed this same "goofy" bouncy melody in a new song from twenty one pilots called "At the Risk of Feeling Dumb", it starts with some circus-like funny piano/organ thingy, and it changes throughout the course of the song, but your explanation fits perfectly in this case too!
I'd probably have to go with the Bob Newhart Show theme. Opens with a jaunty little melody, turns bright and brassy, switches to a more relaxed funky jazz, slows down and gets almost melancholic, and then BAM brassy is back for the sting.
I had a professor in college for a Shakespeare course. He could dissect the Bard’s work and thoroughly explain what made those plays the works of art they are. But he also exuded an all out love and joy of WS’s work. It was infectious. You’d think that would be common, especially in any study and instruction of the arts. But it’s not. Charles Cornell has that in spades! And THIS video in particular struck a chord with me as a BIG Loony Tunes and Simpsons fan. Great stuff, Charles!
My kids started binging the series recently, so i heard the theme over and over again. It really sunk in just how much is going on in that short amount of time. Controlled chaos.
Awesome all around. As an early stage player, this not only is cool cause it's the Simpsons, but helps highlight different concepts like key changes and themes. All of which you make visual, applicable, and fun. Thanks for helping to glue some musical ideas/theory together in my brain as I go through this process.
I can hear echoes of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue in the Simpson's theme, particularly when the melody slows down and opens up. The frequent key changes in both pieces contribute to that sense of a bustling, dynamic city.
It makes more sense when you realize that he already had a stockpile of Oingo Boingo songs years deep to pull and rearrange compositional and arranging ideas from. Particularly "Nasty Habits" and the bits of wholly original composition he worked into their cover of "You Really Got Me", the latter of which is so musically synonymous with the Simpsons theme that it feels like a joke he went back in time to put into the song. It's literally impossible to mentally separate the two things now, and probably will be until the end of time. Especially THAT cascading waterfall guitar line....
The fact that Elfman had come out with Batman '89 as I was a kid also watching the early Simpsons created a bridge mentally for me between the two. The cascading flute motif used in The Simpsons theme is also used in Batman for the Batarang being thrown and its wire looping around a foot. Elfman really scored so much of my childhood.
I know you'll probably never see this, but I have some suggestions:- The Wombles theme. The 1970s version. It's got such a peculiar and catchy instrumentation to it! Tugs. If you liked the Thomas theme, then this may be a surprise to you. Quite different, despite sharing so much DNA with the show. And then "Final Encounter" by Steve Baker. It's such a dramatic piece of music. It was used in some of the Final Fantasy 7 trailers around 1997. Even if it doesn't get a feature, I hope some passers by listen to it.
"The tugboat, for its size, is the most powerful craft afloat. And the Star Tugs are the power behind the docks and waterways that make up the Bigg City port. This, is TUGS." Cue some of the best synthesised saxophone I've ever heard in my life
Great video! I also feel like there's a lot of DNA of George Gerswin's "Rhapsody in Blue" in here, where there's a theme that's being taken through a journey of all kinds of rhythm and keychanges, and the whole thing just sounds playful and fun!
How did you gloss over the fact that every episode has a new version of Lisa's jazz saxophone solo? That's such a cool element. Edit: there are 36 unique solos she's played over 21 seasons.
I think there were only 3 or 4 different versions. They reused them for a few episodes each, but the one in this was used for most of them before it was cut.
It's children and grownups. The strings dancing around the whole tone scale is the sound of children. When the brass booms the theme an octave down in half-time, it's like a grownup, like a teacher correcting students' form. Then the strings/children run amok again. Then the whole orchestra, adults and children, play the theme together. The contrasts of high/low, double time/half-time, meandering/walking all map to whimsical/serious, and that contrast makes funny!
In that vain, I have a theory that Hans Zimmer homaged Entrance of the Gladiators by halving the tempo (which changes the octave) tweaking the marching pattern for the literal entrance of the gladiators in Gladiator. Mainly the driving shrills and general march feel. He riffed on Mars, and Sigfried's march, in that movie, so why not the obvious Entrance of the Gladiators?
THE JETSONS! I love the Simpsons theme, but Elfman seems to have borrowed a lot from The JETSONS theme. In fact, now that I’ve gone back and listened to The Jetsons theme, you’ve got to say that Elfman was at least paying homage to The Jetsons if not blatantly ripping it off.
Absolutely. Basically the same Lydian melody, even on the opening line “The Simpsons” / “meet George Jetson” except the Jetsons adds one more note to the motif.
Many of the historical points you make here also connect to the days of silent movies. The music was directly connected to the action, and supported the physicality happening on screen. Much of the early Loony-Tunes cartoon music was composed by Carl Stalling. By the age of 12, he was the principal piano accompanist in his hometown's silent movie house. For a short period, he was also the theatre organist at the St. Louis Theatre.
Whenever I watch the Simpsons intro with its hypnotic music and whirling camera movements, I like to imagine I'm witnessing the sliding time loop resetting and Springfield going through another space-time reorganisation. Locations will be in slightly different places. Past events may or may not be remembered, retconned or ignored. The kids birthdates have slid forward to keep them the same age, while the show takes place in present day... And it happens again and again.
This video and analysis was a lot of fun...it's amazing how much mileage Elfman gets from these 2 basic harmonic ideas (Lydian Dominant/Whole Tone)...and, not unlike Beethoven, these melodic/harmonic/rhythmic ideas are all laid out in the opening bars, and are then developed almost immediately and with breathtaking invention and energy. Even Maggie's baby glockenspiel variant, is outlining a D7 (Dominant element) and varying it in the pattern that has previously been reserved for the whole tone idea (the descending scale motif) and then...while now back in the original key of C, the little trombone moment after the glockenspiel theme is a variant of the opening vocal chord(s) motif!!! Brilliant!!!
Danny Elfman composed a lot of popular music themes (many of which you'll have heard of), and he and his brother Richard Elfman both (depending on how you define things) have a good claim to have founded the amazing band Oingo Boingo. Elfman's "Music for a Darkened Theatre" (both volumes) collect his film themes, and Oingo Boingo released a lot of great albums - anyone unfamiliar should check both out. (The Beetlejuice theme is another of his compositions that sounds a bit like the Simpsons theme)
The underlying elements of this song often have the cadence of a chuckle, which I'm sure was intentional. You know you're supposed to laugh, plus the surprise changes in instrumentation always keeps you on your toes.
Great video, no surprise there as you're one of the best RU-vidrs out there imo. I was just mentioning to my mates the other day that we kind of have Tim Burton to thank for the Simpsons theme due to his insistence on hiring Danny to score Pee Wees Big Adventure and Beetlejuice haha.
You used the first season intro. The part where the background characters chase after the bus, Lisa on her bike on the front, and that particular shot of Marge driving home is gone; cuts directly to Homer trying to park instead, now. Reason I mention this is the meandering part you pick up on is gone entirely, and goes from the sax solo to Bart on the skateboard to the parking/couch gag sequence repeating the main melody.
@CharlesCornellStudios 7:36 I have a physical copy of Danny's handwritten score of the Main Theme (62 bars, 16 pages). If you'd like, I could scan and PDF it for you for analysis as a kind of addendum to this video! :D
Hi Charles! Great video per usual! I loved the connection of military band music to circus music to early animation to classic age of cinematic shorts. I think there is another link with the Jetson's theme that encapsulates the chaotic feeling that the Simpson's theme does. They both even end in "son's"! I wonder if Danny Elfman took direct inspiration from it.
A good companion video to this would be to discuss the music of Carl Stalling. He wrote the majority of Loony Tunes music for 20 years. Absolutely brilliant work. Great video, by the way!
Another superb 20 minute expert analysis video from Charles Cornell. It covers so many bases. I love the music theory. Charles, who edits your videos? They're very well done, lots of things spliced in, facial expressions, overlapping music, pics and clips as visual aids. Music is cool.
This is the musical theory piece my 10 year old self would have loved to see on aol downloads. Thank you so much for your analysis on one of the most recognizable pieces of our generation.
You can't talk about circus music's military origins without mentioning Julius Fucik's composition 'Entry of the Gladiators'. It was originally written as a march, but has since become the archetypal (and stereotypal) theme music for circuses and clowns. Many people nowadays only know it as "the clown theme".
This is the second of these videos I've watched (No. 1 was John Williams and his Olympic March), and I am absolutely transfixed by watching you surgically dissect music. I'm a church organist -- been playing since I was 12 years old -- and have been mostly self-taught in matters of theory. Or relying on mere instinct for things like modulating between keys or improvising melodies (as becomes necessary during church services when things ... er ... don't exactly go as planned). Your discussions at least let me put a formal name to some of the noodling around I do instinctively. And not for nothing, Danny Elfman is a genius If he did nothing other than his "Beetlejuice" theme, he'd be worthy of sainthood. But "The Simpsons" is absolute perfection in less than two minutes. Thanks for this dissection. And the others. I'll be eagerly seeking out your other (and future) videos. The fact that you get as excited over this stuff as you do warms my musical heart.
I got to play The Simpsons Theme in my high school percussion ensemble. That xylophone part is so fun! Thanks for the excellent analysis Charles, I learned a lot!
I simply adore Danny Elfman (and Alf Clausen too who composed a lot of the other background and incidental music in The Simpsons). They both have an amazing talent for parodying music or pulling in just enough of a tune that without a doubt you know where their idea came from and not blatantly obvious plagiarism. Awesome work!
Isn't another big element of its intrinsic humor in the instrumentation? Imagine this theme if it had less brass and percussion and was built around strings and flutes or something.
I used to put The Simpsons on mixtapes. Back in '91 I bought _Tales from a Darkened Theater_ , Elfman's album, and anyone who listened to the Simpson's theme remarked on how much was going on...when you actually listened to it.
This wonderous feel of the song when slowed down really reminded me of music for theme parks! Coming to think of it, that also makes a whole lot of sense, since this feeling of wonder is what makes theme parks so compelling
I've been a huge Danny Elfman fan for many years-- ever since he started with Oingo Boingo (check out their early television appearance on The Gong Show on RU-vid). I still have their album from the early 80s... I love their song "Dead Man's Party" which was featured on the Rodney Dangerfield movie "Back to School". Since then Elfman has been a prolific composer for the movie industry... so many iconic themes and they all have the Elfman stamp of eclectic style. You won't get his music confused with John Williams or Hans Zimmerman compositions!
I've always loved this theme. Knowing Elfman wrote it helped me understand a lot of what was going on. Never heard of Lydian Dominant, though, so there's where the rabbit hole will take me next!
Another amazing video! Have you considered going over the "network sports anthems" Roundball Rock" (NBA on NBC) and Monday Night Football are pretty iconic, but FOX-MLB, CBS-SEC, TNT-NBA, and ESPN-NHL are all awesome and they share a common campy, over-the-top quality that makes them undeniably Americana sportsy. Could be interesting!
I love the themes from the old Merry Melodies & Looney Tunes so much, they have influenced the music I make because it’s so fun, “Merrily We Roll Along” is one of my favorite pieces of music of all time! Thanks for covering this!
I remember when I was a kid I loved watching the Simpson’s but I HAD to be there for the intro theme. I always felt this weird sense of wonder and excitement I couldn’t place, and I guess that was the point lol
Charles, great breakdown as always. Be sure to check out the “Nu, Pogodi!” (Soviet Cartoon) theme. The Simpson’s theme was certainly informed and inspired by that as well.
I love the Soundtrack to Princess Mononoke and the use of traditional instruments with western orchestra, you're right in it with the first drum on the very first picture you see and it will keeps on the whole movie
‘Rhythm normally requires notes to start and stop, especially if you play an instrument where you have to breathe’ I wish composers followed this rule haha I play flute and our orchestra played a piece in 3rd register and between two flutes and a piccolo there was roughly 3 spots to breathe over an entire page (not to mention the insane time changes) - the piece is called English Folk Song Suite if you want to check it out for anyone who wants to see an insane flute part 😂 Also I love watching your videos (especially while working towards my year 12 music exam) and a lot of the stuff you talk about is really useful for my memory. Thanks for making such useful content 😊
One of Danny Elfman’s biggest influences is Nino Rota, especially his work with Fellini. His jazz-tinged Italian folk music is often compared to circus music. A bigger influence is Bernard Herrmann, who liked to modulate keys instead of changing chords.
Great video, as always! I have a (possibly fun) suggestion: Santa Barbara Skies by James Roday & Dulé Hill. Watching it as we speak, but have no idea what's going on musically.😂😅
That whole theme is my all time favourite cartoon theme, but Ive always felt like the key change at very end was like the theme finally figuring itself out. Almost like the whole thing was just the theme trying out different keys and styles until finally at the very end, it figures out the last line of the song haha yeah perfectly matches the show and the visuals as all the characters are doing their own thing and then all come together right at the end on the couch. Absolutely next level composing 100%
This was really cool. I'd love to see you dissect the Bob's Burgers theme next, or maybe even one of the songs from the movie like Sunny Side Up Summer or Lucky Ducks. Lucky Ducks could be interesting because you have the contrasting of Louise's part of the song and the carny's part of the song, with the carny part skewing a bit darker in sound to match their current problem (carnies going missing and turning up murdered), as opposed to Louise's part skewing to a brighter sound to match her current problem (a girl at school calling her a baby), and the both coming together at the end to both contrast problems but also come up with a solution (Louise is going to solve the murder so that people think she's mature). Honestly, all of Bob's Burgers could work.
this wonderous feel of the lydian scale is also used in the „barbar outro“. however i think it is much easier to recognize there due its much sparser setting
My 2 cents... Would be AWESOME if at the end of these videos you played the piece! I don't even play the piano, but I love watching your enthusiasm talking about music theory :D
Charles have you ever heard of the jazz band Huntertones? I would love to see a video of you breaking down either of these two songs: “Biff”, or “For Roy”. Also “Wonder Boy” “Nassau” “Valdez in the Country” 😍😍😍
