Storytelling
The Door Left Open: why film themes never resolve
Some of cinema's most haunting themes withhold their final chord — a harmonic choice with a history running back to Wagner.
Storytelling
Storytelling examines how music does narrative work across film, television, games and theater: motifs standing in for characters, harmonic movement signaling change, silence used as punctuation. Examples are drawn from specific cues and named bars. For composers, students and viewers who want the technique behind an effect.
The mechanics of musical narrative: how a motif carries information, how silence functions, and why an audience feels a plot turn before seeing it.
Storytelling
Two Floors of Sound: how diegetic and non-diegetic music split a film's story
Film music runs on two floors at once — the music characters hear and the music only the audience hears — and the craft lives in the staircase between them.