Textual Analysis Of Music

Throughout the semester we have been reading, observing and listening to music and music analysis’s. Articles gave examples and broke down how to really look over music and multimedia to get the answers we were looking for. Then in class we would attempt to do the same things the author of the articles did. Those things consisted of leitmotif or themes, when there is music or lack of music, what type of music, the instruments, and what emotions it evoked. In class we started off shaky but with practice we have come a long way. With this article I am going to display what I have learned in the form the authors I read about used. The first time I read about breaking down an article was in the (Cohen 2013) article. She used a scene from Avatar
that I chose.
To set it up, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial was the movie shown to be analyzed. The music done by John Williams whom I will be referencing within the article. E.T. was produced by Steven Spielberg and I will be describing what he portrayed along with the music. The scene I chose was the ‘Floating Bike Ride’ that was toward the end of the movie with very climatic features. The scene started approximately at 1:40:00 into the movie maybe a little before (Netflix provided time stamps and was very inaccurate), and the scene ended at around 1:45:00 when the flight was over. To express the themes, I also described another scene earlier on in the picture at 00:39:00, ‘Floating Playdoh Balls’
The scene ‘Floating Bike Ride’ begins around 1:40:00 with loud orchestra at beginning, where Elliot, his brother and friends help E.T. escape from the police by bike in a high speed chase. Almost sleigh bell like sounds in the background paired with a high pitch to introduce tension to the scene. Alarming, and representing the intensity of the situation The high pitch continues with its fast blood pumping tempo.
The high pitch continues with diegetic sounds like tires screeching and people yelling. As the chase progresses the music becomes a tad brassy, less high pitched, but the tempo fast and frantic. The melodic theme of violin and cello plays in the background. The music dies as they were no longer being chased by vehicle. This flows into the next sequence of music as group of people are on their tail again. The high pitch returns and steadily gets higher and faster. With no escape route Elliot closes his eyes and as the bikes take flight, the violin and cello envelopes the high pitches and the tempo is transferred to longer phrases. The music loud, the bells and high pitches return for the