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Hi everyone!
I’m a mexican Elfman fan since the Beetlejuice score.
a few days a go, I bought an Oingo Boingo CD (best of), I know many of you have it from a long time now. The thing is I haven’t bought it before because one day (about 10 years a go) I listen to one of them and besides the explicit 80’s influence that it shown, I couldn’t relate the dark moods that he create for film with the music of the band. And frankly, the 80’s wasn’t my decade in music (except maybe for Madonna and the hard rock movement).But anyway, this “Best of” CD wasn’t so bad at all, I came upon some tracks that have a related sound with the ska movement (maybe Rancid), but to my surprise, those where tracks from the beggining of the 80´s (so as many Genuises, he was ahead of his time).
But once again, I think only the 12th track (no one lives forever), shows a similar composition patern with his scores (specially beetlejuice).
When I heard that he had his band, I actually thought his work would be somethung more close to what Evanescence is doing now (for which I am a huge Evanescence fan, and latter I read that one of this band’s musical influences was Danny Elfman, which explains the eventual similarities with the Edward S… ‘score).
I read some of you have musical skills. I play the guitar, but mostly with no professional musical training. Latetley I been studing from books and magazines all the scales and arrangements, and one of my goals for this year is to write a rock song in the Elfman style. For what I have been studying and listening to his scores. I think he uses mostly minor scales, maybe the natural minor and the harmonic minor to get that dark feeling, I also think he combines the minor chords with the 7th’s in a 2/4 compas to get the rythm.
If any of these makes sense to you, please help me!
Fell free to post your comments or mail me at fg3austria@yahoo.com.mx. I also have the messenger with the same login name.
Thanks for your help.
Hey that’s a pretty good analysis! Very insightful.
Yep, Danny likes to use minor seconds and thirds, and he uses a lot of chord tweaking (IE: Edward Scissorhands’ opening chords) in some of his tamer scores. Lots of chromatic stuff, too.
As far as orchestration and style, there seems to be a quiet buildup, then a repeated arpeggio-type pattern in the strings (complete with ground bass), with
the main melody, usually in the brass first I think, over it. He uses +key changes for the more triumphant sections of his scores.Also, use lots of zany instruments. My conductor’s score for Spiderman calls for washers and trashcans. Don’t be afraid of electronica.
I want Danny to write another musical (and provide his singing voice). To me, it will be impossible to top NIGHTMARE, but it wouldn’t be bad to be runner up.
thats crazy! Composing a song in an elfmanesque style is my senior project. I chose him out of all the composers for his strong sense of darkness in his music which makes him stand out amongst all the other film composers such as Williams. Good choice man!
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