They had this new invention that was going to change the world: the automobile.

But when they released the car into the wild, panic ensued.

For one, people weren’t ready to accept a vehicle that could be propelled without the assistance of a horse. And, more seriously, horses weren’t ready to accept vehicles propelled by what must have appeared to them as magic.

And so one of the strangest inventions of the early 20th century was thought up…

The Horsey Horseless.

Despite being hailed as one of the worst cars of all time by Time magazine, this invention was a stroke of genius.

It helped usher in the acceptance of automobiles by sticking a fake horse’s head on the front of a car; tricking the horses on the road into thinking it was a regular old horse and carriage, and helping the general population accept the “radical” new automobile by disguising it as something more familiar.

Genius.

(Oh, and in a stroke of absolute brilliance, the horse head doubled as a fuel tank!)

You’re probably wondering what all this has to do with film music…

Well, as film composers we have to be the inventors of the Horsey Horseless!

Here’s what I mean…

You already know how important it is to “find your voice” as a composer, and to be “innovative” with your music…

…but how do you do that when you also have to cater to an audience that just isn’t ready for that kind of innovation?

You build a Horsey Horseless.

In other words, you find a way to disguise your brilliantly innovative music as something the general population will accept.

That’s the real art of innovation in film music: helping the audience bridge the gap between what they’re familiar with, and the future of music.

And we have a responsibility as film composers to do just that. Film is one of the few art forms that seamlessly integrates music into something aimed towards a mass audience, so it’s one of the few opportunities a composer gets to help push a wide audience’s appreciation and understanding of music forwards.

Now, go forth and build your Horsey Horseless!

But first, let me know: what’s one film score that you think disguises innovative music as something a general audience can enjoy?

That sounds insane, I know. But here’s the thing…

The primary purpose when it comes to scoring a movie is to serve the picture and the audience.

How can you expect to do that if you spend your entire time thinking about music?

We don’t listen to movies. We experience them.

I stumbled across this quotation from David Perell that we can learn a lot from as composers:

“The paradox of reading: The books you read will profoundly change you even though you’ll forget the vast majority of what you read.”

David Perell

The same can be applied to movies. To rephrase Perell:

The movies we watch will profoundly change our film scoring even though we’ll forget the vast majority of what we watch.

What can we learn from this?

First, don’t listen to movies. Watch them. Experience them. Watch as many as you can and embrace the fact that each and every movie (or TV series) you’re watching will profoundly change how you approach scoring.

Yes, you should still analyse specific scenes, learning about filmmaking devices and concentrating on how music has been used, but don’t get stuck on individual cues. Go deep, but also go wide. Analyse as many as you can. Once you’ve spent some time on a scene, move onto another.

Accept that you won’t remember everything that you’re analysing, but that you will learn from it. You’ll absorb the information.

The more you analyse, the bigger the variety of experiences and techniques you’ll be adding into your toolkit.

Over to you: what’s one movie that you feel has profoundly changed how you approach film scoring?

Knowing how much maple syrup comes from Canada, I wanted to learn how it’s made. (I can’t help it, everything fascinates me!)

Don’t worry, I’m not going to write out the entire process! But there’s one important film scoring lesson we can learn from how maple syrup is made…

To get syrup, you start with sap.

A lot of sap.

It takes about 40 litres of sap to get just 1 litre of syrup.

But what does this have to do with film scoring?

Well, many composers are obsessed with “more”

How can I extend this piece?

How can I add more layers?

How can this be developed?

Now, don’t get me wrong, learning how to augment, develop, layer, expand, etc. is a vital skill to learn.

But often times we actually need to reduce.

To get to that final, sweet syrup, we sometimes have to start with a lot of ideas.

A lot of material.

And only then do we start to boil it down, bubbling the sap down until we’re left with the perfect result.

Our aim isn’t to create more, it’s to refine.

But you can’t chisel a statue without starting with a BIG ROCK, so before you start refining, you need to make sure you have plenty to work with.

So there you have it, composing lessons from maple syrup!