The Psychology of Horror Music
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- Опубліковано 14 жов 2024
- The original Halloween classic Nosferatu score has largely been lost since it's release in 1922. Nosferatu was terrifying to audiences when it originally came out, but now 100 years later, audiences tend to find it boring and not scary in the slightest. Both of these facts enticed me to see what would happen if we rescored this horror soundtrack. Could we make Nosferatu scary again? What could we learn about scary sounds, the brain, and our relationship to the horror genre through the process? Ultimately I sought to find out: Why do things sound scary? A seemingly simple question with a surprisingly complex answer.
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Research links:
Linear and non-linear music in video game music:
www.polygon-tr...
Terrifying film music mimics alarming acoustic feature of human screams:
pubs.aip.org/a...
Do film soundtracks contain nonlinear analogues to influence emotion?:
royalsocietypu...
The sound of arousal in music is context dependent:
www.ncbi.nlm.n...
Psychoacoustic and cognitive aspects of auditory roughness: Definitions, models, and applications:
www.researchga...
Of Vampires and the Great War:
alexanderandso...
From Wagner to Murnau: The Transposition of Romanticism from Stage to Screen:
books.google.c...
The Universal Sense: How Hearing Shapes the Mind
www.amazon.com...
#musictheory #musictheory101 #musicanalysis #violin #horrormusic #horrormusicsoundeffect #soundscape #foley #sounddesign #filmcomposer #filmmusic #composer #scarysong #scarymusic #acoustics #soundscience #science #psychology #neuroscience #musiccognition #musicessay #videoessay #instrumentbuilder #luthier #nosferatu
“Noos-fa-rah-too”
RIP my violin. May your contribution to the entertainment of this channel not be in vain 🤣
If you enjoyed this video, and want to hear more of the frankenlin, please consider supporting my work on Patreon! I've got samples and an extended cut of this video over there! www.patreon.com/LeviMcClain
Honestly, while I hate to see musical instruments destroyed, I do love seeing them rebuilt in completely strange ways, which is pretty par for the course with me. I may have played violin as a kid and given it up, but I've still been making music, and one of the 'instruments' I used that I'm most fond of is a tiny eggbeater I ran across the metal fence around my yard (the brassy sounds on my Clarus Obscurus album). Why make the same old traditional music that's been made for centuries when you can get back to the origins of music and invent your own instruments, your own sounds?
The Matrix uses a bowed styrofoam cup in its score. After watching this video, my new rule of thumb for scary sounds is to just start bowing things.
@@GalenDeGraf basically! I used to have a series on TikTok: bowing things that shouldn’t be bowed, where I’d take a bow to the rustiest of garden equipment and it was a horror making machine!
Do you know of The Apprehension Engine?
As someone trying to get into writing creepy music, I love this video. INSTANT underrated gem for me, and I adore the franken-violin too. Can't help but wish there were a full movie rescoring of nosferatu with that thing, out there.
This is such a creative and beautifully composed analysis. Just a really excellent video overall I’m stunned.
I mean in the analysis, the visual elements telling the story, and the way you deliver is outstanding, but watching and listening to the prepared violin was next level.
Thank you so much! Appreciate the kind words
I thank God ever since I discovered this channel. Truly a gem, beautiest sound and video mastering, both the "wrap" (image quality, the setting) and informative content are top notch. Huge appreciation for your approach, hard work and passion put into making those masterpieces of the videos!
I’m sure you can do more with exploring Horror music. This is a great overview. But I want to see a focus on the different approaches and how it’s changed over time but mainly changed in the last 25 or so years. From traditional orchestral horror and mainly synth horror (like The Thing) to what’s I class as sound design based horror soundtracks. Where it’s highly processed sounds, partly synth, partly acoustic. A good example is how trailer music for horror has changed and there’s a very (overused) horror trope now of ticking clocks, prepared pianos and prepared cellos (and played taps, single plucks) but also very rich acoustic based sound design because they start with real acoustic sounds.
I swear to god man you're just on a whole other level. Where others make content, you make art. Godspeed.
I really appreciate that! I think the best way to communicate science/music theory etc. is to infuse it with art in a meaningful way. My priorities with this channel are 1. academic rigor, 2. really good music (to sell the ideas), and 3. entertainment
Even as recent as 1982 John Carpenter's The Thing bombed at the box office. Ironically, not due to dated references to fear or anything, but rather it had something to do with the political climate of the time. People were not keen on such a bleak ending Also, it had a great soundtrack by Ennio Morricone. On a DVD version I had of the original Halloween from 78, there was a behind the scenes where John Carpenter mentioned that when he first showed the film to the studio he didn't have the soundtrack to it yet and they thought it was dreadfully boring and then when he came back and showed it to them with the soundtrack they found it to be very effective. Music is very evocative, especially when coupled, or contrasted with images. Sadly, many of the old silent films had not very great original soundtracks. By the way, I only recently discovered your channel and I'm digging it.
The thing also came out during a summer of way to many sci fi masterpieces and ET was the big box office winner
@@officialpierluk Good point as well
I've been looking forward to this upload since your post, glad to see it!!!
Thank you! Hope you enjoy it
Clicked on this with a pre-existing affinity for creating soundscapes and a love for film scores, particularly horror and atmospheric, but was pleasantly surprised at how deep your analysis goes! Subscribed and looking forward to future insights!
this is just stunning levi. you continue to provide endless sonic nourishment to the children. thank you
@@callierosepetal thank you so much! Appreciate the positivity!!
Amazing videos with incredible quality as always Levi!
Thank you Daniel! Appreciate you as always 🤘
Damn this video is one of your best to date may it be blessed by the algorithm!!
Thank you! Gotta do my favorite holiday month proud!
definitely my new favourite youtuber for literally all things music!!
Thank you so much, I'll be sure to keep it up!
That instrument is forking amazing. Bravo!
Brilliant video. Subscribed.
amazing job, thank you so much Levi
That instrument is such a beautiful monstrosity, I am excited to see the rest of your videos
That instrument is amazing! It makes those scenes way more creepy.
An excellent video, very interesting stuff.
@@brandbird thank you!
Atavic reactions to some sounds seem to never go away.
And now, Mr McClain can play a game of "Truth or Dare" and comfortably state "I once broke the neck of a dear friend. -Well, he was probably dear to someone."
We need more independent horror themed musical projects out there,
Ones that aren’t soundtracks for things.
I want to see what people can do without visual media to support it, just music.
.
Methwitch my beloved.
add sound design to the list of levis specialties
Horror movies are always my favorite kind of movies since I saw Friday the 13 for the first time when I was eleven years old. Always when I want to watch an film, there be must always a horrormovie
So many things to love about the genre, from the cheesy writing to the serious psychological deep dives, to what I consider to be the most fun music writing ever!
1:55 wtf are you doing 😬🫣
2:10 ohh ok
@@officialpierluk 😂😂😂😂
Awesome! Want scary sounds? Children's rhymes and lullabies... creepy af! ;)
For the algorithm!
All hail the overlords!
Horror music suffers the same misfortune of losing its effectiveness quickly, with the genre itself. While even overused scoring tactics can still enhance with purpose, I feel snobby saying it, but I wish there was more focus removed from dissonance + timing, if only to add it to sorrow + inevitability. Mentioning this is only a niche, of course, but all of horror needs to chill with the musically sharp jumpscares. Fight or flight =/= irritated, they may as well just start the doom soundtrack and give you a shotgun. My only amateur request for literally anyone is, please experiment in subtle uncanny twists on vocal tones, including quiet ones. I don't have a reason they can be disturbing, but voices that sound almost gargling are still so uneasy without triggering blind anger, at least in my selfish opinion. Add slight chorus or analog echo, maybe like the watery voice of moving shadows in Kairo, or even the croaking of the Grudge, but wrenched into a descending melody of Godspeed You Black Emperor, Rockets Fall On Rocket Falls? Idk. Nobody cares to work with me or hear my sound abuse, so I gave up years ago and now I'm talking to no one in the comments. Thanks.
I could send you distorted vocals i made?
@@partyintokyo I have no complaints anon. Tell me what you're going for, and feedback is the very minimum I can return.
Amazing video
Can you show me how this would sound on guitar because I keep searching up a bunch of videos for this exact effect But no one has Tried it and I cannot follow any tutorials because I Can't find it
I'm a natural at creepy sounds, unfortunately, but I'll watch this video again because I want to see it get promoted. I feel like, if you'd called it "Trump and Putin COLLAPSE... into each others' arms" then it might do better with the algorithm.
I feel like microtonality mixed in with 12edo can make for more creepiness, if done right... such as your "shimmer" chords, for example.
Nice!
"noose-feratu"? Really? The nephew of 'moose-feratu'? 🙂
@@splankhoon the one and only!
@@LeviMcClain The German pronounciation would be akin to "nos-fe-rah-tu" :)
About the part that film can be looked as one displazing horrors of war... Unfortunately if look at the corner I understand what it is, we also have yet again rats in trenches, an foreign enemy, sometimes even deadly gas.. Awful...
Thanks for your video and greetings from Ukraine
He really out here playing The Device
I laughed out loud when I heard theremin.
Oooh
As a funny exercise, what it be like to put scary music over footage that isn't scary whatsoever.
Nosterferatu NOT " Noosetforotéu" LOL so simple!!
@@nathanvanmiddlesworthmedia844 🪢feratu
Noosferatu ?🤣
youtubers are too stupid to be alive
i'm sorry but you are Sesamy Street level insight abot turn of the last century occult circles and ther idea and key personalities.
@@kentjensen4504 Heck yeah, I love “sesamy” street!
@@LeviMcClain It doesn’t take more than ten minutes of research to find out that neither Grau nor Crowley were “Satanist”.
Vrutal
Nooseferatu? 😂
And why do you prononce NOS as a quick "noos"? Your own American basic pronounciation is totallycorrect. NOS, as in MS-DOS, FER you say right,like in moth-ER, and ATU you also say right.
Video starts somewhere about 8:00 minutes in; EDIT: maybe not... this is a BAD video. Delete this channel
leaving my mark around here before you blow up..