I've found tone pyramids in other scores, too. Oddly enough, of all places, I found it in a Mark Snow score -- done just like Rosenman did 'em. That was weird.
If Horner had used that danger motif way, way more sparingly, it wouldn't have been a big deal but he overused it so much it took away from earlier uses.
Take this scene which was a gripping emotional death scene -- now all I hear is the danger motif signaling Khan over and over and over again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAgVzK_UmoU
Rosenman was just as guilty if not moreso. Aside from the pyramid ending, he had his own danger motif, that dun-dun-dundun! that popped up in every single motherf*cking thing I've heard from him
Plus the singing.. MoooorDoooooorrrr ... RoboCaaaahhhppp! Good Lord, the singing !
No, that torture that is Rosenman is in a class of Hell all by itself
If Horner had used that danger motif way, way more sparingly, it wouldn't have been a big deal but he overused it so much it took away from earlier uses.
.....that torture that is Rosenman is in a class of Hell all by itself
I just flat out can't stand it. It is way more pervasive than Horners much hated "danger motif" ever was. It is used in virtually everyone of his films and it sounds so impossibly dated. That is the main if not only reason I don't have any of his scores save Star Trek IV. If I tried to fastfoward every time that damned motif is used I'd probably miss half of the score.
You know, I never even noticed the "danger motif" as a thing. (Anytime I think of it, I think of Land Before Time.) There are lots of Hornerisms that stand out way more. That "dum dum, dum dum... dum dum dum" thing that he does at the beginning of Genesis Countdown and in Brainstorm and The Rocketeer for example. We used to call that "James' Theme".
Why is the Rosenman thing called a pyramid?
I guess cause it starts at the bottom and then seems to rise to another height. Like a "building upward" so to speak. I picture ancient Egyptians layering flat rocks with musical notes painted on them.
