The music of Disney's "Pocahontas"

the music in this movie is very important uh we will have probably one of the most complex and probably the largest scores ever written for a Disney animated feature uh there's a lot of music uh Alan Menin who wrote Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast and Lil mermaid is the composer and Steven Schwarz is The Lyricist the people at Disney recommended Steven and I thought about it for a minute and realized that Steven's style would be just perfect for this because Stephen is he's very American in his style there's something that that is brilliantly both theater and and in a sense folk and classic about his his writing and I just really felt that he and I would would be able to find uh a voice that was unique you know to the two of us together and we and we did we we started working together and the first song we wrote was a song called Colors of the Wind have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue or ask theob why he sing [Music] allt wind emotion of the lyrics as well as the emotion of the music uh was very powerful it also defined the movie what the movie was going to be about uh because it was at the early stages of developing the story and it's very important to know what what your story is going to be what it's about where it's going to begin where it's going to end and when Steven came up with the title of Colors of the Wind uh and then developed his his lyric it helped greatly to to tell us what this movie should be it was just one of those magical things that uh that happened it's it's about things that I feel strongly about um and musically Alan Allan also feels strongly about these things and he found a way of expressing it I think in a very beautiful and again deceptively simple way it was just one of those things where we knew really knew what we wanted to say we knew who this person was um we were able to find the parts of ourselves that um beat in synchronicity if you will with Pocahontas on these particular uh thoughts and it just happened [Music] it's not like you get in the room and you go hey boy we're just great together you know we love each other and this is wonderful in fact there tension um and we're both you know in a sense we're both you know lunging for the for the keyboard to play because he's a composer too and I'm you know someone who has had a lot of experience writing writing lyrics and um and also um used to having a lot of input into lyrics and Stephen actually was been fine about this but just finding out where the you know where one leaves off and the other begins and where it's okay to overlap and uh what kind of relationship that will be there um though that's what the early sessions are all about it's when the first song is is concluded you know and you know you have something and you play it for people and you get a response then I think you know what's there um it's all about the work for both Stephen and and me when you're collaborating with someone and I think Alan and I have had and and continue to have a really wonderful and and happy collaboration sometimes one knows that the the words have to be supported that this is a song where the words are important Savages is an example of that and in a way the music has to keep out of the way of the words sometimes the music is really important and I always feel that the job of the lyric is to let you know what the song is about very clearly and simply and then get out of the way I would say that um just around the riverband is an example particularly the chorus it's like stay out of the way of that great music and if I never knew you was certainly a song like that where once you've said if I never knew you basically that's the story of the song then you just want to kind of stti stay out of the way of the music cols of the wind is a song that that's in balance and maybe that's why it's so satisfying for both Alan and myself in a circle in a hoop [Music] that but Judy I think has uh almost uniquely but certainly very rarely is an extraordinary gift for singing a lyric so that it makes absolute sense it makes the sense that The Lyricist wanted it to have it's an extraordinary Instinct I think she's a great talent your own is Earth until you can paint with all the col she's a Lyricist dream Judy is so astounding with the with the lyric first of all she has an extraordinary instrument just as a singer she's got a range that goes from a deep rich belt if you will if you're talking in Broadway terms or Alto if you're talking in technical terms she just goes right on up to a real soprano with no break whatsoever it sounds effortless in in any register just a on the river it may be a matter of speed it maybe he has to relax just slightly or maybe that you have to relax into the fast I think I think that's what it is it's like oh my God we're playing fast still it still feels like that to me instead of just going it doesn't it just doesn't sit there you know I think they bring out something in each other you know of what in the best in each other I mean Stephen is a wonderful Lyricist and he's a composer in his own right uh and Allan is a great composer and understands you know film and and the theater and whatever it is whatever magic happens in any collaboration happened here and I'm very grateful for that

Channel: Rosela1996

Views: 213,035

Keywords: pocahontas, disney, walt, music, lyrics, score, judy kuhn, judy, kuhn, alan menken, alan, menken, stephen schwartz, stephen, schwartz, colors of the wind, colors, wind, just around the riverbend, just, around, riverbend

Id: 9EUWjt6tKD8

Length: 7min 10sec (430 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 07 2013