How to Write a Theme

okay a theme is a complete musical idea that also serves as the primary musical idea for your piece of music now a theme is just a motif that develops and a motif is a fragmentary idea it's the smallest musical unit you can get aside from just like notes and chords and intervals so these motifs develop into phrases and the best explanation I can come up for with the phrase comes from this guy called Arnold Schoenberg who wrote the book on the subject and he said the term phrase means structurally a unit approximating to what one could sing in a single breath so in short the motif develops into a phrase the phrases come together to form a thing but a big boom hey look at you you're writing music okay so let's explore this in depth let's just dive right in all right we can break this theme into four parts the first section is the introduction to our basic motif then we have an answer to our motif all right then we get the motif again [Music] and then we get another answer which concludes the whole musical idea when we step back and look at the whole structure you can see that it really cleanly splits into two halves the first two sections and the last two sections each of these two halves are themed make up a phrase if a clear beginning at clear ending you can see how they're related because they both start with the same motif in fact these two phrases are so similar they only really changed at the ending but that ending is really important because that's what leads the first phrase into the second phrase if you look at the cadence or the ending to these phrases you can hear that the ending to the first phrase isn't as strong as the second you can kind of think of it like the first phrase end to the comma in a second phrase ends of the period so we'd say that the first phrase has a weaker cadence than the second phrase making the end of the second phrase feel more like our final ending and giving our theme a sense of completion so when you have two phrases that begin with the same motif and the first phrase has a weaker cadence than the second phrase we call this structure a period and in a period these phrases have special names the first one is the antecedent phrase and the second one is the consequent phrase the consequent phrase answers the antecedent phrase and together they form a period which is a type of theme or subject or melody or whatever you want to call it a period is an example of a complete musical idea but there's a way to build on that let's look at one of my favorite main themes - a film ever [Music] ok let's break it down section by section just like what we did with Lord of the Rings ok so that was the introduction or motif if this is a period we'd expect some kind of answers let's see what we get all right in the second section the motif just repeated now we can't really call this the antecedent phrase of a period because in an antecedent phrase you see some kind of answer to your motif not just a repetition so let's see we get in the third section now in a period we expect to see a carbon copy the first motif but that's not what we got you can see how it's related to our first motif this dotted rhythm followed by a triplet keeps going and it gets a little crazy so let's move on to the fourth section and see if we get any answers well that's a cadential idea so the whole thing comes to a close more or less but this is clearly not a period this first section is the introduction or a motif it's the basic idea this second section repeats the motif unlike the period the second section isn't really answering anything it's just a restatement now in this third section we can see pieces of the motif but it's changed the motif is broken apart and developed some people call this the fragmentation others call this the liquidation I think it depends on who you're talking to you technically they mean different things but what's important to get at is that this third section is starting to break apart and develop the motif before moving on to the fourth and final section which is our cadential idea that concludes our complete musical statement this structure is called a sentence but instead of calling these the antecedent and consequent phrases like we do with a period these become the presentation phrase and the continuation phrase now although these ideas of putting together a complete theme have existed for hundreds of years identifying the structure of a theme as a sentence or a period really comes down to that Arnold Schoenberg guy and his book fundamentals of music composition which may or may not be where this video is coming from like he talks about liquidating the motif in the first part of the continuation phrase but his description of liquidation really mimics a technique called fragmentation where you break apart a motif to explore its pieces and then we came to periods in sentences Schoenberg said the sentence is a higher form of construction than the period since development is the driving force of musical construction to begin it at once indicates forethought so he's playing favorites he like sentences more than periods but he's got a point the sentence gives you more room to develop an alter your motif than the period so if you want to boil it down you can break both a sentence and a period into four sections each the period has a motif than an answer the motif again and then a cadential idea the sentence has a motif the motif again then it gets fragmented or liquidated whatever you wanna call it and then again finishes with the cadential idea so if you want to oversimplify this whole process as much as possible you can argue that the only real difference between a period and a sentence is what happens in the second phrase which is exactly what Schomburg says now I want to clarify you can make this whole subject way more complicated like technically there are some harmonic elements that go into these structures especially when it comes to historical instances when you look at the cadential formula but this is already kind of dense as it is and I don't wanna make it more complicated than the idea of constructing themes really comes down to how and why you developed the motif the way you do and there are ways to get around these rules like these themes don't all have to necessarily follow an exact cookie cutter recipe in order to still be called a period or a sentence so this is an interesting one that was the first section of the introduction to our main motif okay now we have a repetition with some slight embellishment it's not uncommon to see some slight alteration of the motif in a sentence as a means of anticipating a more complex development in the fragmentation so right off the bat we see something that looks like the presentation phrase in a sentence [Music] okay this parts a little unusual but not game-breaking we see the beginning of the motif begin but it quickly breaks up and develops so all in all this is just a fragmentation [Music] all right and then it comes to conclusion with our cadential formula in that fourth section so pretty standard sentence but compare that to another one of Williams's works okay so right here I'm going to call this one motif some people argue that it's too but for the time being we're just gonna call this section one motif alright this section looks like our basic idea with some slight embellishment just like what we saw with binary sunset so we might be expecting some kind of sentence structure which means that our third section should be our fragmentation [Music] but that is the same music we heard in the first section which makes this look more like a period then we finished with a cadential idea so what's going on well Schoenberg says the critical difference between a period and a sentence is the second phrase and since the second phrase begins with an exact copy of what happens in the opening of the first phrase and this is technically a period this is the antecedent phrase which makes this the consequent phrase but that means that the answer to the basic idea in the antecedent phrase right here uses a lot of the same material from the basic idea itself if you look at this idea is not one motif but two you can see that this first motif just repeats so what it looks like is happening is that Williams is preserving and repeating the first part of the primary motif as a means of making it easier for his audience to grasp on to what will be the main motif for Superman at the cost of fully developing his motivic idea in other words repeating this idea over and over again without changing it might make this whole system a little more simple than what you might see in other periods and sentences but it'll make it easier for a broader audience to figure out and follow along with the main idea but what's more interesting is that this is the exact same structure Silvestri used in his theme for the Avengers [Music] he states the main motif then in the second section he preserves the first part of the motif while altering the second half [Music] then he copies the main motif again so this is technically a period and then he has his cadential idea [Music] but these aren't the only places where you see compose are not completely developing a motif in their theme regardless of whether their periods or sentences actually found a handful of themes that follow the same system of not developing the first half of their motif in order to make the primary idea for their theme more pronounced and arguably easier to remember these are just some examples I was able to find but I'm sure there are more out there but if you want to take this idea to the next level you can look at what newer film composers from the last like 20 or so years have been doing and that they aren't really developing their motifs into themes at all [Music] they just play smaller motivic figures that serve to create some kind of texture or suggest an idea but they never actually develop anything into a complete statement they just play smaller motivic figures that serve to create some sort of texture or suggests an idea but they never actually develop anything into a complete statement now like I said this can contribute to an overall texture for your film and maybe even help set a tone if you want to have something that's less pronounced [Music] but that might come at the cost of maybe making your soundtrack sound less noticeable or even less memorable [Music] so there you have it that's what goes into a theme now periods and sentences aren't the only way to develop motifs and to complete themes but they are the textbook standard when it comes to putting a theme together so if you want to break these rules just remember that the whole idea is to establish a motif and then develop it into a complete musical idea now although I couldn't find any examples of that in a film score that wasn't just a period or a sentence I'm sure that they exist and we'll both find a lot of examples of motifs developing into complete theme that isn't a period or a sentence in the comments section below no matter how hard you try you can never beat the hive mind that is the internet or you know in the end of the day if you don't want to you could just not develop your motif and you can use your musical material to help develop some sort of texture I don't know I'm not your boss you could do whatever you want my only question is is that if you don't develop a motif does that still technically count as a theme hopefully this video answered a few questions about themes and for some people out there it might help explain how and why II can remember the main theme to a film from 40 years ago but not the one you saw last week so the next time you find yourself humming your favorite theme take a minute and figure out how it's constructed you might be surprised with what you find thanks for watching I'd like to thank my patrons for making these videos possible with a very special thank you to Anna Burch and Matt Megan Hearn shirt Ethan Rooney Hayden Elsa and Donovan Hodges if you like what you saw here be sure to subscribe and check out my other videos follow me on Twitter and twitch every musical questions answered live and you really like what I'm doing consider supporting the channel on patreon that's gonna be it for me for now thanks for watching

Channel: Sideways

Views: 179,972

Rating: 4.9724526 out of 5

Keywords: Theme, Themes, Theme Music, Sentence, Period, Phrase, Motif, Leitmotif, Schoenberg, Arnold Schoenberg, How to Write a Theme, Antecedent, Consequent, Presentation, Continuation

Id: wHp9kQdPLuE

Length: 11min 12sec (672 seconds)

Published: Thu May 17 2018