It's always a huge pleasure to listen to those creatively
involved with Sherlock talk at length about the series,
especially in person. Michael Price is one of the composers of the
music for the series, alongside David Arnold, and on Saturday 22
September 2012 he hosted a thorough talk on the subject,
demonstrating in detail the construction of important cues of music
that appear in Sherlock Series Two, as well as some
significant moments you may not have noticed in the episodes...
Structurally, Michael's talk followed that of the session he
gave at the BFI on January 31 2012, but here he layered
in more detail to keep the demonstrations even more lively. Rather
than focus on the technical as at the BFI, Michael instead brought
attention to the actual emotional context of scoring alongside the
imagery onscreen, as well as the nature of the composer's job in
reinforcing significant narrative moments both dramatically and
subtly.
In the case of the close of A Scandal in Belgravia and
'SHERlocked', he highlighted how problematic the scoring could be
from a visual standpoint - it's mainly dialogue driven, with the
flashback to Sherlock taking Irene's pulse and then the revelation
of the solving of the security code on her phone. The process of
scoring the scene was complicated as it clearly builds to a
dramatic point - the reveal of SHERLOCKED itself - but without any
complex camera moves or large physical action from the actors the
starting point for the music was less clear. Michael revealed that
the cue itself jumps off from Lara Pulver's eye movement, that
little grain of uncertainty in Irene's eyes when she realises that
Sherlock may have deduced the solution, with the build in the music
occurring as that realisation grows and everything begins to
mentally unravel for her, with live recorded strings entering the
track as her defeat by Sherlock is complete, finally crashing into
full life with the password revealed onscreen. Michael provided the
individual threads of instrumentation in Logic Pro on his MacBook
Pro as he did at the BFI, but this time pointed out the timings of
each element coming into play alongside the imagery you see
onscreen, showing the very precise spotting of the elements that
are designed to drawn attention to the moment you are seeing.
With that in mind, it was fascinating to re-watch the opening
scene of The Hounds of Baskerville again. Michael demoed
the glorious and bonkers version of the Hound theme as he did at
the BFI, a piece of music that involves no live instruments. In the
original version he supplied to Paul McGuigan, he went all out on
the music, drowning out the dialogue and sound in the scene with
music to invoke a sense of overwhelming menace. While the final
version was toned down significantly, our new observational
knowledge (coupled with watching the visuals on a big screen again)
brought attention to the repeat of the theme after the cut to adult
Henry Knight standing in Dewer's Hollow - Russell Tovey's action of
seemingly sniffing the air kicks the music off again, something
that hints immediately to the solution of the case itself if you
think about it....
At this stage Michael brought up the incredibly complex sheet
music for the climatic scenes of The Reichenbach Fall, revealing
the competing forms of Sherlock and Moriarty's themes, and then
later the counterpointing of Sherlock's theme on violin and John's
on piano as the pair talk in that emotional final scene. The thing
we took away from all of this is there's far more going on that
just the visuals in the episodes, and the music is not just
reinforcing an emotional state, but driving and even highlighting
important points that hint at the resolution of narrative threads.
It's carefully considered work, the very best kind of scoring -
scene specific while also incredibly beautiful.
Away from the episode demonstrations themselves, Michael
peppered a few little easter eggs throughout, including the first
apparent public playing of the original version of Sherlock's Theme
- rather fascinating by its differences. Imagine if you can the
music that accompanies the Taxi Chase in A Study in Pink -
'Pursuit', Track 6 on the Series One soundtrack - an incredibly
sparky piece that constantly elevates and turns 'up' throughout its
duration. Now, imagine that piece where those highs are lows, where
the notes turn down, and you'll have the original version of
Sherlock's theme. It may not sound like much, but the differences
were significant and surprisingly downbeat, robbing the theme of
energy and the 'zing' we've come to associate with the character of
Sherlock Holmes in the BBC series.
Unlike the BFI demonstration, this talk by Michael ably proved
not just the 'how' but also the 'why' of film and television
scoring and how a tiny inflection in the music can draw attention
to a moment, and reinforce emotional and thematic connections. As
always, Michael is a fantastic and thorough speaker on the subject
of scoring, and we came away not just entertained but also far more
knowledgable than when we entered!
We have to also say how fantastic it was to meet members of the
hugely talented Sherlock Fan Orchestra after the event, and Aled
Wyn Clark, the fantastic composer of the ringtones you can find
in our download
section. It goes without saying how communal an experience
Sherlock has become, transcending its literary and
televisual origins and instead becoming something that feeds
creation - and it's so enriching to see the creators involved with
the series embracing that.
All we can say now is we'll be paying far more attention to the
music of Sherlock the next time we watch the episodes in
full, as it turns out your eyes are not the only things you should
be using to perceive what is occurring onscreen....