“Creature Features” Rehearsal Week 7

by: Jenny Baxter – AWS Percussionist

Last week during practice, the theme our director Patrick stressed the most was emotion. And you may be wondering why that would be more important than our sound. The music of films is the reason why the Austin Wind Symphony exists, but think about films themselves for a second.

When you walk out of a film about love or heroic deeds, you walk out feeling a certain way. The emotions of the actors greatly affect your own feelings and stepping from the dimly-lit, emotion filled theater back into the cold stark real world is always a bit of a downer.

So musicians playing film scores have to be just as concerned with emotion, especially when music affects the mood of the film so much. Psycho just wouldn’t have been the same if What a Wonderful World was playing in the shower, though I’m curious to find out how hilarious that would be.

Every player in the symphony is capable of hitting every note in their music (well hopefully they are) but if they don’t put their soul into it, their everything, none of the notes will matter. Music is what makes a film, and emotion is what makes the music.

Here’s something extra for this week: If you’ve seen The Shining it’s hilarious, and it shows how much music and some creative editing can make a difference.

For more information on The Austin Wind Symphony:
http://www.austinwindsymphony.org