Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • [clearing throat]

  • [classical piano music]

  • - It's a nice piano.

  • Hi, I'm Nicholas Britell, and I'm a composer and pianist

  • and I love writing music for film and television.

  • Today I'm excited to explore some of the building blocks

  • of music, looking at the idea of chords and keys.

  • Exploring what that is from a composer's toolkit

  • and thinking about perhaps some of the

  • potential misperceptions that people have

  • about what chords are and how they feel.

  • The goal is definitely not to oversimplify these ideas

  • but actually to revel in the unbelievable complexity

  • of what music is, and to think about the ways in which

  • people experience music.

  • So what are chords?

  • Chords are actually any time you play three or more

  • different notes at the same time, that's a chord.

  • So for example, this is a chord, this is a chord

  • this is a chord, this is a chord.

  • This is also a chord, this is also a chord.

  • These are all actually major chords.

  • There's another type of common chord people talk about

  • which is a minor chord, which sounds a little bit like this.

  • [minor chord piano music]

  • Some people like to say that a major chord

  • perhaps feels sturdy, feels resolute and strong, maybe.

  • People sometimes think a minor chord is perhaps

  • a little more uncertain, a little less strong.

  • A little less stable, possibly, but I would caution

  • from ever feeling like we're saying that major chords

  • are happy, and minor chords are sad.

  • In and of themselves, they have certain characteristic

  • sound, but a lot of our emotional understanding of music

  • is from the context of music, so that could be from

  • the way that chords interrelate with each other

  • it could be from the way that chords interrelate

  • with rhythms and melodies, and then how that music itself

  • relates to what you're seeing against a moving picture.

  • Music has this very, very complex set of emotions

  • that the context of the notes themselves changes that

  • and when you put it up against the picture

  • it changes it even further, and that there aren't any

  • simple answers and takeaways to particular chords and keys.

  • Now there's a piece that I directly related

  • major and minor chords together, and that's actually

  • "Little's Theme" from the film "Moonlight"

  • directed by Barry Jenkins.

  • [mellow gentle orchestral music]

  • So this is the first appearance of "Little's Theme"

  • in the film, and in context when you put it up

  • against the picture, there's a feeling of poetry

  • in the music, there's a tenderness, and there's also

  • a sense of contemplation for Little

  • trying to understand the world around him.

  • - All right, you're all right now.

  • - So looking at the actual notes in "Little's Theme"

  • the piece is basically structured around

  • two types of chords.

  • Where hearing D Major and shifting to G Minor

  • just this kind of a chord that we heard earlier

  • and then shifting right back again to D Major.

  • So right away, There's actually this musical context

  • that's been created, the chords aren't by themselves

  • anymore, they're related to each other

  • and all of a sudden, although it seems like

  • a simple initial idea, there's actually this complex

  • set of feelings that comes from these chords

  • played together in this kind of a rhythm.

  • Now as a film composer, this is just step one

  • of the process, actually thinking of a piece of music

  • and how it might feel on its own, but ultimately

  • the key question is, does it work with the movie?

  • [mellow, gentle piano music]

  • When I took that piece and put it up against

  • this particular scene, it immediately felt like

  • it was connected to the picture.

  • Does not happen that way often. [laughing]

  • I can totally say that, there's many times

  • I write a piece of music, imagining things

  • and then you see the footage, and you're like

  • I'm totally wrong, this has no relationship

  • to what I'm looking at.

  • If a piece of music doesn't feel like it's connected

  • to the movie, then it doesn't matter how beautiful

  • the piece of music is, it's not right for the film

  • and this process of trying to figure out what works

  • for a particular scene, what works for a film

  • it's a very abstract and experimental one.

  • There's this alchemy of not knowing, and attempting

  • and experimenting, and that's the process

  • of writing film music with a director.

  • The next idea that evolves out of the chords

  • is the idea of keys.

  • Keys are essentially groups of notes that have a tendency

  • towards a certain type of chord.

  • So for example the C Major scale

  • [C major scale piano music]

  • has a tendency towards playing a C major chord.

  • The C minor scale

  • [C minor scale piano music]

  • has a tendency towards a C minor chord.

  • Keys are a way of thinking about many different chords

  • and understanding the ways in which chords

  • can actually relate to each other.

  • It's not overly complicated, it's just a tendency.

  • It's like a gravitational pull that certain notes have

  • towards certain chords.

  • There's an example that I'd like to explore

  • from the film "Battle of the Sexes"

  • a piece of music which is featured throughout the film

  • but comes in most specifically during the match.

  • At the moment where Billie Jean King

  • is beginning to completely beat Bobby Riggs

  • that piece of music comes in very specifically

  • in a certain form.

  • - [Announcer] Second came of the second set

  • has just began, Bobby Riggs serving, having broken through

  • Billie Jean King, one game to none in favor of Bobby Riggs.

  • And Billie Jean is taking a strike back.

  • [tennis rackets striking]

  • - This is the music which really signals

  • to the audience that the tide has turned.

  • It's a combination of many different elements

  • musically, it's the fact that the rhythm

  • is very forceful but it's this minor key

  • that gives it the feeling of determination.

  • [dramatic suspenseful music]

  • [crowd cheering]

  • - [Announcer] Billie Jean King has just won.

  • - This piece is in E minor.

  • [minor key piano music]

  • to dispel the idea that a minor chord is sad

  • or anything like that, to me, when I hear this piece

  • it actually has a feeling of persistence

  • in the face of obstacles, it has a feeling

  • of pushing towards something, of struggle and success

  • and actually has nothing to do with a feeling of sadness.

  • [minor key uptempo piano music]

  • So to further demonstrate this idea of musical context

  • and of shifting between different kinds of chords

  • as a story evolves in a film what do you do with the themes?

  • Sometimes the themes evolve and shift and develop and change

  • and sometimes it's actually even more important

  • that they stay the same.

  • I'm gonna play the theme I wrote, which revolves around

  • the relationship between Hal and Falstaff

  • in the movie "The King".

  • This piece is called "Him".

  • [slow serious piano music]

  • Now what's happening in this piece of music is

  • we're shifting between groupings of

  • major and minor chords again.

  • It's different from "Little's Theme" in the sense

  • that "Little's Theme" directly goes back and forth

  • between a D major chord and a G minor chord.

  • In this case, it's actually a bit more circular

  • in how things are moving.

  • We're at a C minor chord, at a C minor chord

  • this is a B flat major chord in an inversion

  • with a suspension, it's a little bit more complicated

  • but it's basically still a major chord.

  • And then we're back at a minor chord, minor chord

  • a major chord, major chord, and a minor chord.

  • So you can see that there's actually a circle

  • that's happening here, sort of a recurring cycle

  • in a sense, and that creates a set of different emotions.

  • When we first see Hal and Falstaff we're hearing

  • this theme around their relationship.

  • And towards the end of the film, Falstaff is killed

  • on the field of battle, the Battle of Agincourt

  • and it raises an important question.

  • How do you approach that moment?

  • Should one write a piece of music which is

  • particularly sad and directly speaks

  • to that moment in the film, or is it actually

  • hopefully or potentially more powerful

  • to have the same piece of music that you heard

  • come back, and that's how David and I approached it.

  • [slow solemn orchestral music]

  • When you see Hal looking at the body of Falstaff

  • you're hearing the same chords which we first heard

  • and which defined that heart at the center

  • of their relationship, of their friendship.

  • And one thing that I always feel is so important

  • in working on a film, is this idea of the architecture

  • of the score, and the fact that over the course of a film

  • you're actually creating in a certain way a set of

  • memories from early in the film that come back

  • and by keeping that theme and those ideas the same

  • at a later part of the film, to me it creates

  • an emotional response where you remember that moment

  • of friendship, and of earlier life.

  • I hope over the course of these different examples

  • of chords and keys and context, you can see how

  • things depend on their context, how different kinds

  • of chords depend on the relationship with other chords

  • and how there is this essential deep mystery

  • at the heart of this film scoring process.

  • [slow solemn piano music]

  • Well, thank you to Vanity Fair for making this

  • all possible, and thank you for watching.

[clearing throat]

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it