Leitmotifs, Linking Music to Moment

Remember that epic orchestra explosion of music that you hear during THAT final battle scene in Endgame? You associate it immediately with the Avengers. Or how about when I mention Darth Vader? Besides his breathing, you immediately think of that marching military brass fanfare that follows him every time he appears onscreen.This is called a ‘leitmotif’. You might even call it a character’s ‘theme music’. That’s certainly what I think when I read the name “James Bond”. In film scores, they’re a recurring passage of music that conditions audiences to feel certain emotions when those melodies are repeated, and link it to characters, places, and moods. Dr. Bill Thompson, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, author of “Music Thought and Feeling: Understanding the Psychology of Music”, and Director of the Music, Sound, and Performance Lab at Macquarie University, explored the relationship between music and relationship live in-studio with Mikayla.

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