Instrumental Solos in Movies

by Alexandre Tylski (Trax Zone)

" (...) My second rule is to avoid the use of the instrument solos that are too easily identifiable on the images of the movie such as the piano or the harp, because I don't want the audience to visualize in his mind the pianist's or harpist's fingers during the scene. " (Quote from Francois Truffaut in A Century of Cinema written by Tay Garnett).

This quote from Truffaut could be one of the best insights on the portrait scene in James Cameron's Titanic in which the piano solo was used to evoke precise, tactile, concrete and hand-crafted impressions. The pianist's fingers are those of Jack who draws Rose, and this union of hands eventually creates a splendid sort of cross-fading between music and images, between the actor and the composer and between the artists of the film and the audience.

It would not be an exaggeration, I think, to claim that when music and images complement each other, it creates subjectivity which enables the audience to feel closer to the movie. The use of a musical instrument solo in a scene thus "links us" to the characters because it works like a close-up: highlighting the personality of the character. It also enables the director to attract the attention of the audience. Just as a zoom, in narrowing from a landscape to the face of an actor can fascinate us, the composer who starts his music with a wide-scale orchestra and ends with a solo can certainly make a theater audience fall silent.

In 1936, the Russian composer Serge Prokofiev imagined and composed one of the most acclaimed musical tales for children called Peter and the Wolf. In this tale, each character is represented by a different instrument: the bird is symbolized by the flute, the duck by the oboe, the cat by the clarinet, the Grandfather by the bassoon, and so on. This technique has influenced a lot of film scores, such as "Star Wars" by George Lucas and John Williams. The Star Wars Trilogy is full of different characters and Williams made each one of them extremely easy to identify, thanks to simple and successful melodies as well as to the use of instrument solos such as the unforgettable tuba solo composed for Jabba the Hutt. For each episode of the Star Wars Trilogy, you can recognize each character and it creates a strong connection between the score and us which is almost vital when the director wants his movie to be successful.

The instrument solo can, thus, reassure the audience, as if it were a sort of companion. The fact that a solo is by essence "solitary" - meaning that the soloist is the one who performs the melody alone - can make the viewer or listener uneasy because of the feeling of solitude created. This is even more true when the solo is unaccompanied by any other musical instrument.

At the end of "Legends of the Fall", when the lonely hero fights against the bear, James Horner used an incredible Shakuhachi solo and you could distinctly hear the flutist catching his breath several times during the scene. The solo underlined the loneliness of the hero but it also brought a powerful, animal dimension to the scene. In this scene, the flutist seemed to be fighting against the bear just as the hero did.

The best example of an effective and primitive solo is no doubt the violin solo used in the legendary shower scene of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho". This score, composed "monochromatically" by Bernard Herrmann (using only strings) is, without a doubt, an authentic masterpiece in the annals of moviedom.

Janet Leigh takes a shower peacefully and then, a shadow can be seen behind the shower curtain. The strident violin solo (devoid of any melody, hence its primitive dimension) enters the scene at the very moment when the mysterious figure violently draws the curtain. This solitary violin is thus "seen" as the musical translation of the violent "tear", rupture, or break expressed by the killer drawing the curtain. The violin solo symbolizes throughout the scene this very first gesture, which is also the most terrifying. The soloist prolongs this very moment of violence and surprise and thus strengthens the effectiveness of the whole scene, beyond its energetic structure based on heart beats.

One also notes that there is not just one violin, but several violins, responding to each other as a sort of echo. Each violinist echoes the other (though each is performing solo) but on different octaves; the musical accompaniment, like the the murderer, is schizophrenic ! The first violin solo is used, as we know, to stand for the drawing of the curtain, and the other solos, each one in his turn, recreate the same kind of sharp sounds, as images repeated to infinity. These violin "doubles" extend the first gesture of the killer throughout the entire scene as continuous flashbacks, hence the impact.

Nevertheless, this is not really where the true interest of the violin solo lies. Just as the audience can visualize in its mind the pianist's fingers when a scene is accompanied by a piano solo, the audience can visualize in the shower scene, not the violinist's fingers, but, instead, the bow. In noting that everything in the "Psycho" shower scene has to do with lines (such as the shower walls made of tiles creating very striking vertical and horizontal lines) we can readily see the violinist's bow as also part of this design. The bow, pulled across the strings with such violence, mirrors the image of the diagonally striking knife as no other musical instrument, even another string instrument, could do. Moreover, the violin solo, being a sort of musical "close-up", plays a role in the visual style of a scene mostly filmed with close-ups. Also, the violin solo perfectly fits the minimalist lighting of the scene.

The bow reminds us of transverse lines rather than horizontal or vertical ones. The violin solo in this scene goes against the general design of setting or, in any case, plays a role in the feeling of imprisonment created by all the lines of the scene. In addition to this feeling of confinement, the jets of water also create transverse lines on each image of the scene as if representing the variations or, even, vibrations of the soundtrack as if, in a way, those "traces" on the screen were made by the violinist and his bow.

As we can see, the violin solo plays a role, visually speaking, but we cannot overllook its musical impact. In the shower scene, one can hear the water falling down, Janet Leigh's screams, and, more discreetly, the knife's contact with the victim's body. In fact, you never really see the knife enter the body but the violin solo contributes to the illusion, due to the choice of sharp solo performances and the quick cut editing employed in the scene. All things considered, the killer's knife is, figuratively speaking, nothing but the violinist's bow !

Though the sharp notes created by the violinist sound like screams, they can also be likened, perhaps even more than that, to the calls of birds. The scene before the shower scene actually takes place in Anthony Perkins' office where the two characters share their sandwiches under the glassy eyes of a stuffed owl. This scene and the following shower scene are closely linked. Of course, you can interpret the stuffed birds in many different ways, but one of the most interesting interpretations, as far as the music is concerned, is probably to consider the stuffed birds symbolizing the killer's mother whom he murdered, then embalmed, in an attempt to "resuscitate" her. Thus, the violin solo in Psycho could stand for the dead mother who "comes to life" in a traumatic way.

The style of instrument solo used, or the way the solo is performed can no doubt express, as an inner voice, what the characters are, feel and think. To take a more pleasant example than the previous one: let us note the amusing moment in "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" in which one of the kids tries to learn how to whistle but can not really manage to. A mere second after the kid's unsuccessful attempt, Horner enters the screen with a powerful use of Shakuhachi (yes, again!) so as to extend the whistling, creating a true connection between the young actor and the composer, expressing, through music, what the character is unable to express clearly.

However, one has to note that the instrument solo is not simply a way to bring an intimate or individual dimension to the movie. The sax solo used in the "Taxi Driver" score (also composed by the great Bernard Herrmann) strengthens the impression of Travis Bickle's solitude. At the some time, it evokes the character's surrender: here the sax is perfect to describe New York night life.

An instrument solo can also be used to symbolize a country or even an entire continent. For example, the use of the trumpet solo in Williams' score for JFK represents the United States with great effectiveness. Here, let us note that Nino Rota also used magnificent trumpet solos to stand for Italy in the scores of several films, most notably "La Dolce Vita".

Similarly, the use of castanets can evoke an Hispanic country (ex: Horner's "The Mask of Zorro"), the violin symbolize Jewish people (Williams' Schindler's List), the tom-tom represent Africa (Zimmer's The Power of One), or the panpipe suggest South America (Morricone's The Mission). . . and so on.

The instrument solo enables one, like a compass, to get one's bearings in a motion picture. The solo is no doubt the most beautiful and effective tool for emotionally unifying an audience in the art of film music because it is simple and readily understood by our collective consciousness. The soloist appeals to everyone.

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