After the critical and commercial success of his two previous efforts, Get Out and Us, Jordan Peele is back with his biggest budget and most ambitious film to date. Expertly mixing his brand of socially-conscious horror with classic Spielbergian adventure, the simply and perplexingly titled Nope is an original and incredibly entertaining filmgoing experience.

One thing that’s not original with Nope, however, is the composer. Working with Peele for the third time is veteran concert composer, Michael Abels, whose works have been played by symphony orchestras around the United States and the world. Thanks to the success of Get Out and Us, Abels’ career in media expanded to include films like Bad Education and the docu-series Allen v. Farrow. We spoke with Abels about his experience scoring his latest film; how it required him to write in many different styles; as well as how he feels about being labeled a horror composer.

Samuel Chase: Not to overstate the obvious, but how’d you get involved with scoring Nope?

Michael Abels: Well, this is my third film with Jordan [Peele]; he has been very gracious in asking me to collaborate with him on each of his films. Sometime last year, he sent me the script for Nope, and, of course, it was just as interesting and challenging and unexpected as all of his other films, and I couldn’t wait to work on it. He likes to start designing the sonic part of his films in pre-production just as much as he would design the visuals. So, we talked early on about the themes of the film, and I don’t remember when I first sent him my first demo for the project, but it was very much about getting the sound of “What’s a Bad Miracle”—having music that was both terrifying and yet awe inspiring, in the way that amazing natural wonders give you a sense of awe and spirituality. It was about trying to find a balance between those two opposite feelings.

SC: You started working on it before they shot the film?

MA: Yeah, a little bit. Jordan would sometimes send me some stills or even just looks at different parts of the scenes. Because as much as I loved the script, I also know that the movie in my mind can be very different than the way the director intends the movie to be, so it’s great to see it coming together as they shoot it.

SC: Once you started writing to picture, how did the process go?

MA: I try things and Jordan gives them a full listen and then he often moves them a little bit. Sometimes he’ll move them just within the scene, which changes the way the music informs how we interpret the emotions of the scene. He wants to make sure—as do many filmmakers—that the music doesn’t feel like it’s leading the audience. He believes in treating the audience’s experience of the story with respect, and doesn’t want it to feel manipulative in any way.

He also likes to move music to a completely different scene and temp with the score in other places to see how it works. It’s gotten to where I really look forward to that—to see what he thinks about the music, where he thinks it belongs, and how it works. I often end up learning about the music by Jordan experimenting with it. We go back and forth in that way. And the cut is changing as well, and he’s trying different things or trying to tell the story in different orders, so it’s back and forth until things start to land and really work. And those things become the foundation around which the other parts of the music are shaped.

SC: Is it like you’re temping with your own score?

MA: I guess when he moves cues around, that’s what that would be, precisely. Sometimes he’ll temp with cues that I’ve done from his other films. It’s not so much about using my music but just using a cue that helps inform something about this film. He might also temp with any other piece of music that helps them find the right vibe for a specific scene.

SC: Jordan seems like someone that would be really good at picking the exact right temp music to let you know exactly what he wants.

MA: He is. However, he also likes to be surprised, and not just by the music but by any of his collaborators; he wants new and different ideas that can help him look at the film in a different way that wouldn’t have occurred to him, even though he’s the author. So, as much as he’ll choose a piece of music that is speaking to him in some way, he’ll then explain what it is that’s working and what’s not working, or what he’d like to hear differently. He doesn’t automatically like everything I do the first time, but he also gives everything a real listen. Especially when he’s challenged by something, he’ll be very interested in trying it. He likes the fact that there’s a different perspective in the room—it causes him to think creatively too. There’s a lot of back and forth until he finds something that speaks to him.

SC: So, when you start to write a cue, how does that work? I see a piano behind you. Do you just sit down at the piano and start composing?

MA: Yeah, I’m a little old school in that I like to play my piano as my primary way of getting my inspiration. But there’s a bunch of technology sitting right on the other side of the camera here, and my chair swivels. So, I start in the 19th century and the minute I have an idea I swivel around to the 21st century (laughs). It also depends on what style of music it is. I like to write in different genres, so I usually use the compositional technique that works best for the genre. If the music is mostly based in sound design and might not even sound like music, then I write purely with the sound and I’m structuring and sculpting the sound.

But if it’s an orchestral cue, I’m going to start at the piano and I’ll maybe even notate that music to figure some things about it. I might need to look at the notation before I actually mock it up digitally, because there are technical things that sometimes are much easier to see than hear, if there’s a problem. Like, “Why does that countermelody not work?” If I see it, I’ll say, “Oh, I see what the problem is.” It sounds crazy about music that there are parts of it that are visual, and when you read music, there are some things that you can learn from that. If I can avoid writing it down, I do, because that’s a secondary step, but I’m not afraid to if I need to get it right.

If the music is mostly based in sound design and might not even sound like music, then I write purely with the sound...

SC: You write in a lot of different genres and styles for this film. Where was your starting point for the score? Was it with a specific theme that you then expanded on?

MA: There were different starting points, because Jordan comes at his stories from so many angles, so you have to jump in the pool and start swimming and then figure out where you are. One starting point was a concert orchestral piece I had written called “Urban Legends.” Jordan listened to that when he was writing the script. He wanted to try temping with it for a place, and it ended up working. It worked so well that we recorded an excerpt of that piece as part of the score. The scene where we see that big shot of OJ riding through the valley from above uses an excerpt—edited and made to work to the picture—from the original concert piece. So, that was one starting point. Another starting point was the western music, which always plays as source music. It plays as if it’s part of the scene.

SC: Yeah, I heard that! I wasn’t sure if it was your music or if it was something that he had found and placed in the film.

MA: Yeah. That’s a fun thing I get to do for him, which is write a lot of different source music, but it’s all still part of the score. For example, there are a couple different cues that are supposed to remind you of an old-school western. They’re very orchestral—one is a hoedown and one has whistling and guitar and people shouting, “ho” and “hey”; it’s very spaghetti western-style music.

On the one hand, it’s a bit satirical, because the amusement park in Nope is a western-themed park. But the music is done absolutely legit. I’m a huge fan—as Jordan is—of that western vibe and that music, so we wanted it to be as if it really could have been something from one of those old films. And at the end of the movie, the whistling cue finally comes to life. Sonically, it comes out of the onscreen speakers and then becomes part of the score, so we understand that it really is part of the score.

SC: The third act is more of an action-adventure than the first two, which are more horror focused. How did you go about scoring that final act?

MA: In the first two thirds of the film there’s some music that’s really horror. It’s very aleatoric—which means quasi-random—in some ways, and dissonant; it’s not something you’d find in a western at all. So, that was another starting point. But at the end, the film really does turn into an action-adventure. At least, that’s how I saw it, and it was really important that the music be exemplary of that.

One of the reasons that Jordan is able to mix genres so successfully is because each one of them is as authentic as it can be. When it came to the action-adventure genre, yes, the audience is supposed to feel like they’re in an action-adventure movie and become surprised and delighted by that. That meant, for the first time ever in a Jordan Peele movie, a big brass section, as well as the kind of percussion you would get in an action-adventure movie. There’s also a wordless choir. And we’ve always used voices, because Jordan really likes voices in his films, but this time, we used that wordless choir of, “A, E, I, O, U,” in the background, which you get in action movies a lot. But at least in my choir, the vowel they use morphs and goes from “ah” to “oh,” to “ee” to “eh,” and everybody’s shifting at different times so that it has a little bit of an otherworldly quality to it.

SC: How did you come up with the diverse instrumentation and the sound palette that you used?

MA: One thing about Jordan’s scores is that he really doesn’t like electronic sounds—that is, sounds that sound deliberately like they’re electronic. He doesn’t mind sound design-style music, or things that are not traditional instruments, but he wants it to sound like it’s a naturalistic sound that was on some natural instrument. And that’s because everything that he has chosen to write about so far, no matter how terrifying, is something natural. It’s not a machine, and that becomes super important in Nope, actually, in a way I won’t reveal. Therefore, sounds that sound like they’re from the natural world are always what he leans toward.

Michael Abels Photo Credit: Todd Newell.

Sometimes I use virtual instruments that aren’t found in the world, especially when it comes to sound design, like a texture that could be some part string or some part rattling percussion, things like that. Those are virtual instruments for sound design. And then sometimes I use percussion instruments, which I think is what you’re hearing, which are things that sound like they could be marimbas or kalimbas or steel drums that got distorted in some digital accident. I purely choose them based on if they have the right vibe to them, and if they feel like they have the right of otherworldly, spooky quality that makes me want to lean in.

SC: How did you keep the different genres in your mind when scoring this film? Did you write for one section of the film at a time, or did you bounce around between acts and music styles?

MA: I don’t have too much trouble switching. I have experienced that, “What genre am I writing in again?” moment, but even as a kid, I was fascinated by why one genre sounds one way and another genre sounds another way, when underneath I believe that music is all built of the same DNA. So, if that’s true, how can there be all these different genres? I remember thinking that even as a child, and I thought, “I want to figure out why country music sounds country and why this other style sounds the way it does.” All the music I’ve listened to, I’ve essentially been analyzing it for its types of harmonies and types of instrumentation and types of production and all those things. And so, because that’s how I look at music, saying, “Okay, now I’m doing the Hollywood western,” to me that’s just a set of assumptions that I can put on like clothes. And I can change them pretty quickly.

SC: And you’ve now done your third film with Jordan, which are all considered horror films. How does scoring for a horror film differ than other types of scoring and music composition that you’ve done?

MA: Well, the thing is, I don’t actually regard Jordan’s films as horror movies. I think Us is the one that has the biggest claim to that genre; I could agree with that one. But I feel like Get Out is really a social thriller or a psychological thriller. And as for Nope, I don’t know what it is! (Laughs) I think it’s an adventure. I really think Nope is an adventure film. Now, I’m biased because there’s a lot of big music in the part that makes it an adventure film. But I strangely don’t feel like a master of the horror genre, even though some people sometimes address me that way.

I think that, with horror, it’s really important to think of the audience’s experience. It’s crucial. The horror really doesn’t take place on the screen—at least, not to me—it takes place in the mind of the audience. And therefore, we spent a lot of time talking about, “Are we foreshadowing? Is the music the thing saying that something’s not right when everything on the screen looks normal?” And therefore, we’re deliberately injecting a tense element that wasn’t there without music. Or, is this a jump-scare where the music is not telegraphing anything? So that we deliberately scare people in the moment of it happening.

Between those two extremes, everything in the middle is talked about—how much we preview and encourage people to feel afraid versus how much we startle them and don’t warn them that they’re going to feel afraid. It’s a lot of timing and thinking about how people are going to respond to what they see. Are they going to think, “That’s okay”? Or are they going to say, literally, like characters do, “Nope!”? (Laughs) And also, when I see the actor’s reactions and what’s happening on screen, I’m genuinely afraid. I come from a place of, “Oh my God, that’s really terrifying.” I’m trying to use my own genuine emotion to channel the emotion that the characters are experiencing on the screen. And I don’t know if that gives me an insight into the horror genre in general, but that’s certainly where I’m coming from.

SC: I noticed there is a lot of music in the film, as well as on the soundtrack. Was it challenging to write so much music, particularly when the film relies on it so much?

MA: Well, it was challenging, but also due to Jordan’s process I had longer than you would if you were coming in just in post-production and starting from scratch. It’s a long process, but it’s fun because of all the different hats that I get to wear and worlds I get to visit in the process of helping Jordan create a film. And also, even though a composer and a director will talk about the score being like another character in the film or providing the soul of the film, or whatever phrase might be used, the real job of a composer is to give the director choices and options in how to tell the auditory and sonic version of the story the best that he or she can. And sometimes, that means no score. Maybe the best choice is no score or very little score, but the best way for a director to make that choice is to be able to hear it with music and then decide, “All that music you wrote, I don’t need that.” (Laughs)

And that’s disappointing, but it’s also what the job is. Jordan has more than once said to me, after he listens to a cue, “You know, there’s a world in which we don’t go with any music here.” And that’s not meant as a way to disregard the music or discount it, but he wants to let me know as an artist that this is a place where he’s considering no music. So, I say all that because there are a couple of cues on the album of which very little is in the film. It’s because the album is its own thing, it’s an extension of the film, and people who buy albums are interested in the music as an art. And so, I put more music on the album than might have occurred in the film, or different versions of the music than is in the film. There might be the same amount of music but the version I have on the album is maybe more listenable on its own right than the version that occurs in the film.

SC: Along those lines, was there anything that took an especially long time to write or to get absolutely correct?

MA: Let’s see. There’s a cue called “Man Down,” which is pretty long. It’s more than six minutes long, and it’s most of the seventh reel of the film. And it’s a really important cue—that whole section is like one consecutive thought. The music is there because we’re waiting for something to happen. A lot doesn’t happen, and we’re waiting. We know something bad is going to happen, we just don’t know what, or what the result of it is going to be. And it’s a really important tension moment that kicks off the whole action-adventure section of the film.

That cue went through many, many revisions. They weren’t complete revisions, but there were revisions where the different emotional temperatures of the different sections of it were all under review. For example, “Where do we feel like OJ’s being a hero? And where do we feel like OJ needs to run for his life? How much foreshadowing do we give the audience about what that choice is going to be?” That cue was under revision for more than a month, maybe two, while we constantly were going back and forth. It’s an important part of the last act of the film, but it did take a long time to get there.

SC: On the other hand, was there any cue that you sent in that was immediately well received and accepted as is?

MA: One where we went, “That’s it”? I don’t think there was anything that was just, “That’s it.” Not because there’s not that spirit, but because part of it is—when you have so many creative people offering ideas—even though something’s working and it’s good, it’s like, “Well, we haven’t tried everything. What if we tried something else?” In Jordan’s creative world, there’s a belief that any idea that’s good is probably going to stand a challenge from other good ideas. Or it’s going to benefit from a little bit of tweaking.

Most things involved that, but there were a lot of cues that always had the same DNA. For example, the cue called “A Hero Falls” had many revisions, but always kept the exact same DNA. Its DNA also ended up influencing a cue at the beginning of the film, because it was working so well—it was still changing, but it was working—so the pieces that were working were put earlier where things weren’t working. Another cue called “Pursuit,” where Em is on the motorcycle, also kept its same DNA throughout, but there were lots of different changes about how to ramp that up and make it as exciting as it needs to be.

The Other Collaborator: Director Cory Finley.

SC: Do you have anything that you’re currently working on that you would like to tell us about?

MA: I’ve co-written an opera with Rhiannon Giddens. She’s an amazing Grammy-winning Americana singer-songwriter, who is also a trained opera singer, which most people don’t know. We’ve co-written an opera called Omar. It’s about the life of Omar ibn Said, who was a Senegalese Muslim who was enslaved in the Middle Passage and brought over to the Carolinas in 1807. He could read and write Arabic, so he wrote his autobiography, which is in the Library of Congress at this point. It’s the stuff of opera—this idea of faith helping us transcend even the most difficult physical circumstances. It’s going to be at the Los Angeles Opera in October and November, as well as other opera companies over the next couple of years.

I’m also currently working on a film called Landscape With Invisible Hand, which is based on a short story. It’s directed by Cory Finley, who did Bad Education, which I did a few years ago.

—FSMO