is now a song. A day late, I finished and recorded it, and it's available below.
This one was pretty straightforward. I knew that I wanted to reprise While You Can, and have Marion get stabbed just as she reached her decision to return home (in the film, she decides this during her conversation with Norman). I knew I wanted, if possible, to incorporate the music from Bernard Hermann's score into the song, cutting off her song and transitioning into Norman's. I wanted Norman to say the word "blood" a lot - the line in the script is, "Mother! Oh God, what... blood, blood... mother...!" - and I wanted him to have a little bit of song in which he cleaned up Marion's body and apologized for his mother's behavior.
And those things all made it in! So I'm pretty pleased with this one. The transition feels a little awkward - mostly the eek eek eek strings simulation section - but I like Marion's bit and I like Norman's bit after all of the blood lines. Also, the piano that plays from "Mop, where's the mop?" to "the way things are" is based pretty closely on the Hermann score as well, and it's a piece of the score I like a lot, so I was glad to be able to put that in (p.s. - here are some photos).
I wish I had more of a song for just Norman, but I don't know where I would put one. Marion has While You Can, and if I ever want to give her a little interlude in something I can pull vaguely from that. But Norman doesn't really have a song like that - the closest thing he has is Private Island, Private Trap, which I did end up pulling from here for the second part of his half of the song. I don't really think there's anywhere before While You Can (Reprise) for Norman to get his own song, so I'll probably just mostly give him PIPT. It's Marion's song, too, but it definitely feels more like Norman's - his strongest moment in the movie, and his most interesting. When the time comes for me to write Sam into more songs (see below), I might borrow from Lunch Hour, but I don't even know yet if I'll need to give him a theme - I might just use all-new music for all of his songs.
As for the next piece: what I have coming up is this big group love song. It came from this desire to have this sort of darkly humorous Oedipal piece Norman sings to his mother - definitely a love song, sort of in the same vein as "Not While I'm Around," from Sweeney Todd. Then, I wanted to contrast that - and highlight the romance - by having Sam also be singing to Marion, about how he wants to find her and make a life with her (sorry, I guess his and Marion's themes tend to get sort of redundant... If I were to rewrite or continue work on this for a lot longer, I'd like to read the book, to get a better sense for their characters. I tried to develop them a little bit on my own, but I don't think the film develops them very well to start - Norman has always just felt like a much stronger and more interesting character. What's funny is that there are scenes in the script, cut out of the film itself, that actually do develop their characters more - one, for example, in which Lila and Sam are driving to the motel, and Lila tells Sam about her and Marion's upbringing. If I were to revisit this, TIAMAZ-style, I would definitely spend a lot more time on character and plot development, and maybe take a little more freedom with both. Oh, well. Tangent over).
I had originally thought about adding a piece for Lila - she doesn't really sing much, and her waiting for Sam to go visit the motel is just as dramatic as his visiting - but I feel like it sort of dilutes the romance theme, since her love for Marion actually is familial. At the same time, though, it might be a sort of interesting way to unite the relationships. Sam's relationship to Marion is romantic, Lila's relationship to Marion is familial, and Norman's relationship to his mother should be familial but is actually closer (kind of) to a romance. It's sort of an interesting dynamic to play around with.
Anyway, if I start that piece today, which I intend to, then I'll be back on schedule (or closer to it). I'd have liked to blog after I finish working for the day, when I've already made some progress on it, but I need to bring my computer in for tech help, and I don't know when I'll get it back. So this is where things stand right now.
I think that's about it. Technically I have ten days left, although I likely won't work as much (if at all) the last day or two, as people come back and things return to normal and I prep for classes. I already have iDLEC training 9:30-12 on the 31st and the 1st, so that'll throw things off a bit, and then Emilie and I have to actually assume iDLEC positions before the start of the semester. So things might get a bit tricky... In reality, I'm assuming I have 7-9 days left of actual working before I lose all productivity and get too distracted by school things. That's not so bad, though - I'm assuming this song will take me 3-5 days (since it's going to be either a duet or a trio piece), so if I stay focused and work quickly I could get to six songs before the end of the month. Which is only one less than my final goal, and also exactly where I'd expected to be by the end of the month.
Also, tomorrow is my birthday. Hooray!
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