Sudden changes in music can be fun and exciting but when overdone it can get a bit tiring.
There are times when a composer has two very different musical ideas
but they want them to flow together smoothly, so in this video I'll show
you one way to write a transition section between the love theme and the dragon theme
of John Powell's How To Train Your Dragon that makes the difference less drastic.
To start with let's hear the first part of the
love theme and the dragon theme with no transition between them.
Back to back that dragon theme feels really abrupt.
That can be fine, I'm sure there are times where a sudden surprise
is great, but what can you do if you don't want it to be so abrupt?
In a recent video we saw on a smaller scale how to do this
and we're going to take a similar approach here.
Identify the differences between the two ideas, structure the transition in
a way that introduces changes over time so we as listeners can adapt,
and find ways to morph some or all of the differences gradually from one side to the other.
So between these two themes I've found eight main differences.
Timbre: we go from a full string section to low brass and low strings.
Pitch register: the melody starts very high and ends up very low.
Key: the first theme is in F major the second is in D minor, or technically even D octatonic.
Dynamics: the love theme is quiet, the dragon theme is loud.
Tempo: we've got 109 bpm and 120 bpm.
Meter: we have 3/4 versus 4/4.
Texture: the love theme is a homophonic texture
and the dragon theme is a concentrated monophonic texture.
And melodic material: in the first four bars of the love theme it spans an
octave while the dragon theme only spans a minor sixth.
And while the love theme is fairly active right away,
the dragon theme starts with this long drawn out D and it has this little 16th note neighbor figure.
We've identified the differences, now how do we structure this thing?
In Analyzing Classical Form, William Caplin points out that the Classical era composers
would usually, not always but usually, structure their transitions as a sentence.
This makes sense because the sentence form is inherently active and forward moving.
While the period form is nice and balanced,
the sentence really drives you from point a to point b.
Another key characteristic of the structure is that it ends with a half cadence, because
we want that feeling of incompleteness that won't get resolved until the new theme begins.
OK we know our differences, we know we're going to structure this like
a sentence with a half cadence at the end, how do we bridge the gaps?
First let's figure out how to get from our first key to our second key.
Thankfully in this case F major and D minor
are relative keys so it's not going to take much to modulate.
I'm going to start on a Bb major chord, which is the IV chord in the key of F.
Starting on the IV chord is less stable than starting on the I chord,
so we'll make our transition more active right from the start.
Then I'll take a pretty traditional path and lead to a half cadence in D minor.
Now let's figure out the melody.
We can connect the sections by borrowing motivic ideas from both sides.
Here in the last bar of the love theme we have this F to E suspended figure,
so let's start the transition with that same figure, making it a pretty seamless next step.
I'm also going to use the melody to smooth out that difference in pitch register.
So since the first theme is high and the second theme is low,
I'll have the melody work its way down over eight bars.
We could also borrow that little sixteenth note figure from the dragon theme as a way
to foreshadow what's to come so by the time we get there it's already familiar.
For dynamics, our first theme is mezzo piano the second is fortissimo,
so mezzo forte seems like a pretty good compromise.
And to give space for the new theme to enter we
could even decrescendo right at the very end and leave a little breath.
Now at first glance it might seem like i'm contradicting myself and we're doing
the opposite of transitioning smoothly by getting quiet before getting loud,
but I think if you look on the overall zoomed out scale the structure is moving
in a logical way from mezzo piano to mezzo forte to fortissimo, so we'll get the contrast in that
specific moment but still feel the natural progression from the wider perspective.
Right now there's still a difference of over an octave from the end of the
transition melody to the start of the dragon theme, so i think it will be even
smoother if we actually take our whole transition melody down an octave lower.
Here's where we currently have it if played on violins,
let's bring it an octave down and give it to the cellos.
And one way to bridge that gap between strings and brass is to share the melody with both timbres.
We can share the melody on the violas, cellos, and french horns, giving us a hybrid timbre.
Introducing the french horns tells us, like, oh yeah we have brass instruments too.
And the last thing I'll do is fill out the harmony with the violins.
Because the violins are above the melody I'll make it a pretty active arpeggio line
that doesn't attract too much attention to itself.
Also there's another chance to foreshadow
the new motivic material from the dragon theme by using the little half step neighbor figure.
And to thin out the texture towards our more focused line
I'll simplify the violin parts near the end.
The only major differences I didn't really acknowledge
are the change in tempo and the change from 3/4 to 4.4, but i don't think either
of those changes is really significant enough for us to really notice them.
Especially with the slight breath here, I don't think there's any need
to accelerate the tempo or pull any fancy tricks to get from 3/4 to 4/4.
I think those changes go pretty much unnoticed.
So here we go with the full love theme to transition to dragon theme.
If all went according to plan it should feel like the dragon theme is interesting and
exciting when it happens but not completely bizarre and unrelated to where we started.
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Alright, let's take a listen.
This idea of gradually morphing across the different elements of
the music is a really important part of developing and connecting musical ideas.
That's why you have to check out this video here, where you'll learn how doing
this right can make the music so much more sophisticated and professional.
Thanks for watching, I'll see you in the next one!