The Incredibles

The Incredibles

The Glory Days – Michael Giacchino

As the song starts, the music is being played at a walking pace, which is also known as ‘Andante’. At 10 seconds, the piece is of a ‘Vivace’ style, meaning the tempo is also lively. This is so the music can keep up with the fast paced action of the car chase scene in the film. The music changes once again at 18 seconds when the flute starts. The tempo sounds like it slows down, however it doesn’t, it just sounds this way due to the texture becoming thinner as the volume has decreased and the instruments are of higher pitch, meaning there is no bass, losing all power and energy in the audio.

He has made the pace fast and energetic to keep up with the action in the film.

Tonality – The piece is in a minor key. This is strange to hear because a piece in minor is not normally heard, as a minor tone is not normally used for an upbeat or fast paced piece of music. However, it suits the film due to it being an action film creating an unpredictable and mysterious vibe. This is due to the raised 5^th in the minor key.

The texture in this piece of music alters rather a lot. A majority of the song, is polyphonic, however, it changes in various parts of the piece. It is polyphonic because there is more than one instrument being played at one time. Director, Giacchino, did this to create an exhilarating feel on his audience upon them watching the title sequence. When the radio comes on at 18 seconds, it then turns to monophonic. Here, there is a reoccurring theme where as soon as the scene changes from inside the car, to the car chase, the texture changes as well. This is to show the two different moods/atmospheres between the two events.

Dynamics in this sequence vary from forte to piano, determining on the dialogue of the sequence, where the music diminuendos when there is character speech, then crescendos back to the original dynamic of the sound.

The time signature of this piece is 4,4. That is the original time, this being because the car chase represents the pace.

In this piece by Giacchino, the melody of the piece changes throughout its duration, a lot like it’s other musical elements. The introduction is legato and is played by an orchestra, applying a smooth sound to the intro. After this, flute comes in for a Legato melody which then works with the Pizzicato of the violins offering a nice contrast of smooth and plucking sounds. Its melody lines consist of interesting rhythms, such as syncopation from the flute and xylophone. This creates an effect of progress in the car chasse scene and increases intensity through this part of the sequence.

This piece of music has a jazz style feel to it due to the heavy appearance of brass instruments that feature from start to finish. Also, the fact that there is a saxophone in the piece takes away any orchestral feel from the piece, as saxophones do not normally feature in an orchestra. There is no structure to the song, which also references the jazz style of music. It gives an almost improvised feel to the track. At 29 seconds, there is also a trumpet trill, heavily used and popular from the jazz era and style.

    

Before the film footage starts…

• ·      French Horn – It is a very bold and capturing sound, drawing the audience in.
• ·      Glockenspiel – High frequency cutting through the main texture of the melody in the French horn. I enjoy the contrast of these two sounds
• ·      Flute/piccolo – High frequency cutting through the main texture of the melody in the French horn.
• ·      Woodblock – Creating a drum roll effect using a trill to gradually increase the tempo. I feel that the composer does this to build tension and set the scene for the car chase.
• ·      Trumpet – there is an increase in its pitch towards the end of the opening scene. This may have been done to build tension within the scene. To counteract this, there is a glissando going down in pitch and dynamic preparing you for the next scene.

Car chase starts…

• ·      Drum Kit
• ·      Double Bass
• ·      Flute/Xylophone
• ·      Trumpet
• ·      Alto-Saxophone
• ·      French Horn
• ·      Woodblock