Category: Theory: Timbre

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Joy=Sadness (Major 9th Chords in Disney-Pixar's "Inside Out")

9/16/2019

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Michael Giacchino's score to Disney-Pixar's Inside Out is soooooo good.

In fact, when it came time to pick a movie for our family Movie Night this weekend, I requested Inside Out specifically because of the music.

But as we were watching, I began to notice something really fascinating in the visual character design, which, I think, has an interesting connection with the music.

Maybe you noticed this before?

Or maybe you hadn't - but once you see it, you really can't unsee it.

So, you know how all the emotions look totally different? They're different colors. Different shapes and sizes. They personify different stereotypes...

But take a closer look at Joy and Sadness.

Don't they have... the exact same eyes?

And the exact same nose?

And did you ever wonder why Joy has blue hair, just like sadness?

And have you ever noticed – if you look really, really, really closely – that Joy often radiates a blue-ish glow?

It's almost as if Joy and Sadness are the same emotion?

Of course, one of the main themes of the film is that you can't have joy without sadness – a theory that psychology researcher Brené Brown has widely promoted in her popular books and TED talks.

Joy and Sadness are two sides of the same coin.

~ ~ ~

So, ok, let's talk about the music!

The opening track, titled "Bundle of Joy," is one of my favorite bits of film music... ever.

It just tugs at my heart-strings:

As the track title suggests, this music is all about joy. In fact, as the music starts to play, joy is the only emotion present in Riley's head (even if, importantly, she's glowing blue).

But why, then, does the music sound so... sad to me? Or perhaps, rather, bittersweet?

To answer this question, I purchased a PDF of the sheet music from MusicNotes.com, took it to the piano, and set to work on figuring out how this works.

To my astonishment, I discovered that the entire track contains only two chords!

There's a G major 7 chord (G-B-D-F#), and an F major 7 chord (F-A-C-E), and that's it.
Just those two chords.

And yet, somehow, the music sounds so much more complex than that. It feels, to me, like it's wavering between major and minor. It feels, to me, like there are some interesting cadences going on in there. It feels, to me, like the music has discrete sections to it, like the music has a direction it's heading in, a goal that it's aiming towards.

Well that, my friends, is the beauty of major 7 chords.

If you divide a major 7 chord into two halves, the bottom half is a major triad and the top half is a minor triad.

And this is key to understanding the bittersweet nature of "Bundle of Joy" from Disney-Pixar's Inside Out.

Let's take a closer look at the melody and accompaniment:

All four of these measures have the same chord – a G major 7 chord.

And yet, there's just enough ambiguity to create the illusion that it's alternating between major and minor triads.

The accompaniment just rocks back and forth between the notes D and B, which are found in both G major and B minor chords. So if we only heard the accompaniment, we wouldn't have any way of knowing if it's major or minor.

In order to know if it's major or minor, we'd have to add either a G to that B/D (to make it G major) or an F# (to make it B minor).

And that's exactly what the melody does.

In all four measures, the note G is heavily emphasized in the melody, suggesting G major.

But at the same time, there are a few spots – at the beginnings of measures 3 and 4 – that strongly emphasize the note F#, suggesting B minor.

And of course, these Gs and F#s are part of the G major 7 chord.

So even though it's all one chord – a G major 7 chord – it feels as if it's wavering between two different chords, one major and one minor.

And not only does it do that in these first four measures, but then these four measures get repeated several times: outlining an F major 7 chord, then back to a G major 7 again (with a slightly embellished accompaniment), and then again F major 7.

Of course, I could be totally wrong. After all, who says that we have to consider those 4-measure phrases to be one single chord, one single major 7 chord? Why COULDN'T we think of them as, in fact, wavering between two entirely separate chords, one major and one minor?

Well, take a closer look at those bottom two lines, where G maj7 and F maj7 repeat with a slightly embellished accompaniment.

What's the new embellishment in the accompaniment? It's a broken major 7 chord!

And lest one think that this is still just incidental, take a look at how the next section begins, with those crystal-clear, slowly-unfolding G major 7 and F major 7 chords:

Of course, music isn't only about harmony, and there's more than just harmony making this music sound bittersweet.

There's also the orchestration: a solo piano melody, way up high at the top of the keyboard, above shimmering violins. As I wrote in an earlier blog post about the music from Toy Story, piano+violins = heightened emotion. And high registers typically signify goodness/purity, in contrast to low registers that signify villainy and anger.

And then there's the ostinato element, which film composers often use to establish, draw out, and maintain an emotional atmosphere.

And there are the metalicky sounds of someone rubbing their finger on a wine glass, which contribute to the magical feeling of the music, while also serving as little pin pricks that temporarily jerk us out of the acoustic dream-world of piano and strings.

So there's a lot going on to make this music sound bittersweet. And isn't that the whole point of the movie? That joy and sadness are one and the same?

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History of Disney Music in 14 Minutes

2/14/2019

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To pass the time during my cancer treatment, I did a live stream on Twitter about the history of Disney music. Why not, right? :-)

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Analysis Request #2: Why doesn't Hades sing?

12/17/2018

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Well, I didn't intend to reply with a whole thread, but you know... things happen...

So here's a little thread about the music of Disney villains (or lack thereof)!#DisneyMusicTheory https://t.co/bx8VBFaLsn
— Disney Music Theory (@DisneyMusTheory) December 18, 2018

Before Little Mermaid (1989), no Disney villains sang their own solo. There were a few who sang bits and pieces, like Cinderella's stepsisters with their horrendous voices. Musical talent = purity / goodness, while lack of musical talent = evil. (cont...)
— Disney Music Theory (@DisneyMusTheory) December 18, 2018

Menken sort of changed this, setting a trend that lasts to the present. The villains in Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Lion King, all the way up through Princess & the Frog and Tangled have very growly voices that blend the boundaries between singing and speaking. Shows they're evil.
— Disney Music Theory (@DisneyMusTheory) December 18, 2018

This is actually an anti-Semitic trope in opera, literature, art, for 100s of years: that Jews' poor musicianship shows how evil they are and Christians' musicality shows their purity. Few connect this with Jews today, but the musical=good/non-musical=bad idea is ALL over Disney.
— Disney Music Theory (@DisneyMusTheory) December 18, 2018

If you're interested in this sort of thing, there's an amazing book called "Music Libel Against the Jews" by Dr. Ruth HaCohen which details this anti-Semitic stereotype about "evil Jews" being fundamentally unmusical in contrast to "pure Christians." So fascinating.
— Disney Music Theory (@DisneyMusTheory) December 18, 2018

@jbohn_composer mentioned this a little in his book about early Disney music, but he didn't connect it with the old anti-Semitic trope.
— Disney Music Theory (@DisneyMusTheory) December 18, 2018

I've actually got a whole YouTube series planned about this, once I make the time for it...
— Disney Music Theory (@DisneyMusTheory) December 18, 2018

In the case of Hercules & Little Mermaid, knowing this anti-Semitic history is particularly interesting, given that it's very possible to hear both Ursula and Hades as Jewish caricatures. I don't assume that the composers were even AWARE of the anti-Semitic history of this trope.
— Disney Music Theory (@DisneyMusTheory) December 18, 2018

In fact, it's REALLY interesting in the context of Little Mermaid, because there are actually people on the internet who think that Ursula is the devil, King Triton is Jesus, and Ariel is humanity: so Ursula (coded as Jewish) is like the devil tempting humanity away from Jesus.
— Disney Music Theory (@DisneyMusTheory) December 18, 2018

In that reading Ursula (coded as Jewish) is not just tempting Ariel (humanity). She's silencing Ariel's voice, b/c, according to this anti-Semitic trope, Jews hate music. It's like in the Canterbury Tales when Jews slit the throat of a Christian singer b/c they can't stand music.
— Disney Music Theory (@DisneyMusTheory) December 18, 2018

That's probably not the answer you had in mind when you asked why Hades doesn't sing... it's so fascinating and surprising. But it explains so, so much about why Disney villains either don't sing at all or else sing with a "non-musical" voice.
— Disney Music Theory (@DisneyMusTheory) December 18, 2018

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Welcome!

Joy=Sadness (Major 9th Chords in Disney-Pixar's "Inside Out")

History of Disney Music in 14 Minutes

Analysis Request #2: Why doesn't Hades sing?

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