Ostinatos used by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard

ostinatos are used by many film and TV composers to help create movement and a sense of urgency in their music in this video I'm going to look at a variety of oscillatos by two of Hollywood's most prolific composers antima and James Newton Howard looking at how they are constructed and developed to bring excitement and motion to their scores so what exactly is an ostinato an ostinato is a short musical pattern which then repeats over and over [Music] they are frequently played in the strings and often in an accompanying role here's an ostinato from The Dark Knight composed by both Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard [Music] the score in general and indeed for all of the films in the Chris Nolan Batman Trilogy make extensive use of various ostinates this one is one of the most simple found in the film with the core pattern using the notes of d f and a which form a D minor chord matching the harmony played by the rest of the orchestra the pattern also has a distinct shape starting with the highest note of f followed by the lowest note a up to the middle note of D before returning back down to the A in this particular track the 16th note pattern repeats for a couple of bars until the chord then changes to B flat major B-flat major contains two notes from the D minor chord the D and F so Zimmer only needed to change one note the a to a B flat in order for the ostinato to contain the same notes found in the underlying chord [Music] after another two bars the harmony changes again to C major all of the notes now change as none of the notes are found in a B flat major chord are present in a C major chord despite the actual pitches changing Zimmer keeps the shape of the ostinato the same high low mid and then low [Music] finally we change to a chord of a minor only the G has to change so this moves up to an a again while keeping the other pitches where they were in the previous C major ostinato foreign this next example is from the ending of The DaVinci Code again composed by Hans Zimmer the ostinato forms the foundation of the whole four and a half minute piece and is established right from the beginning where the underlying chord is again D minor [Music] the two bar pattern played in the violins is mostly using the notes found in a D minor chord d f and a starting on the a or the fifth degree of the D minor scale the pattern then jumps down to a d the tonic before jumping up to an F the mediant and then back down to D the pattern then returns to an a before returning back to a d the ostinato repeats during the second half of the bar but this time with a B flat towards the end which helps to add some extra variation to the pattern join the second bar these 12 notes are the first bar are then repeated but the B-flat now replaced with a higher D before the whole two bar phrase is repeated again after these four bars the Harmony in the other instruments changes from D Minor to F major out of the three notes in an F major Triad two F and a of course belong to D minor the result is that the general shape of the ostinato hardly changes Zimmer keeps the same shape of the pattern but now with the bottom note a c rather than a d [Music] and at the end of the first bar is also been replaced with the top C [Music] again after four bars the harmony changes this time to a c suspended four chord the only note from the previous bar which isn't found in a c suspended IV chord is the a so this is swapped for a G during the third bar of the pattern when the harmony resolves to a C major the F from the previous bar is replaced with an e [Music] finally for the last four bars where the chord changes to a minor the previous G is swapped for an a so although the chords have changed the shape of the ostinato has largely remained static with only generally one pitch being changed during each shift in court one of my favorite hands in the scores is Interstellar where instead of the strings he makes extensive use of an organ for the playing of ostinatos in the queue no time for caution adds two minutes 35 and ostinato high up in the organs register is heard [Music] the notes found in an F major seven chord the underlying Harmony are f a c and e of which Zimmer uses F A and E similar to The DaVinci Code example the ostinato always returns to the same note in this case an a after every other note the pattern plays for two bars before the underlying chord changes to an E minor 7 over G or in first inversion Zimmer has now replaced the F in the previous Bar for a G helping the ostinato to fit in harmonically with the underlying E minor 7 chord [Music] with a minimal change the ostinato has also kept the same shape as the previous bars note that the A's are still present which are not parts of an E minor 7 chord though after another two bars the underlying chord changes again this time to a minor again the shape of the ostinato has been maintained but Zimmer exclusively uses the notes of a c and e all found in an A minor chord to form the ostinato [Music] finally the chord changes back to an E minor seven with the ostinato returning to the same note as the previous bar [Music] you can see from this example that despite the chords changing for the most part the notes along with the general shape or Contour of the ostinato do not change too much apart from the third chord of a minor this next example another one from The Dark Knight is an ostinato that is more diatonic in nature meaning it's using notes from the scale or key in this case G minor rather than just the notes found in the chord in the queue trip to Hong Kong which I've linked to in the description below the piece starts with the ostinatos being played in the cellos before moving to the violins the core ostinato again consists of four sixteenth notes which then repeat starting on a B flat going down for G up to an A and then back up to a B flat the ostinato repeats these notes continuously while the bass line played in the low brass and rest of the strings changes [Music] here's an example of an ostinato by James Newton Howard from the score to the Bourne Legacy this one is another which is more diatonic in nature it's played in the violas and cellos with a Legato or smooth feel which of course is different compared to the short staccato style in all of the previous examples the ostinato is very similar in shape though again always returning back to the same note C in this case like the last example from The Dark Knight the ostinato stays the same while the Baseline changes in this case alternating between an f and a D [Music] another example by James Newton Howard this one is from the film defiance played it in the violas and shallows here is another example of an ostinato that is diatonic in nature using the notes found in the key of F minor it's based on a descending shape with two sixteenth notes for each pitch C B flat C g a flat and then f [Music] the 12th note pattern then repeats over and over with a melodic figure played in the horns heard after a couple of bars [Music] like with all of the examples a link to the actual piece is in the description below the final example is from the film salt Again by James Newton Howard this is an example of an ostinato that is more chromatic in nature meaning any of the 12 pitches found between two notes an octave apart could be used the core pattern again consists of four sixteenth notes in a rising shape C C sharp D sharp and E which repeat three times the fourth time then sees the pattern change direction and essentially begin its Journey back down to the sea in order to start the ostinato all over again [Music] orchestration wise the ostinatos played in the violins violas and cellos spanning three octaves all the time the bass line played as half notes or minims and in octaves in the low brass and bases moves from a low C up to D sharp back to C and then up to a it's then repeat but with a G sharp replacing the a during the second time around [Music] thank you so there's a look at a variety of ostinatos composed by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard let me know in the comments below which was your favorite if you enjoyed the video please don't forget to subscribe and click the like button which really helps out the channel thanks for watching and see you in the next video [Music]

Channel: Composing Academy

Views: 72,028

Keywords: Ostinato, Ostinatos, Hans Zimmer. James Newton Howard How to compose like Hans Zimmer Composing Ostinatos, The Dark Knight, film music, how to write film music, how to compose film music, Epic Music, Cinematic Music, Music Theory, Chords, Major Chords, Minor Chords, Music Analysis, Composing, Composition, Song Writing, Write your own music, Soundtracks

Id: TmTkU69pDWE

Length: 11min 18sec (678 seconds)

Published: Wed May 24 2023