The Game Composer’s Blog

Cliches through the ages.

It’s the nature of humans to seek to create great things in art. And often, they do. Then another nature of humanity kicks in, and that nature is to copy that great thing until it is worn so thin that nobody wants that great thing anymore. It goes something like this:

Mr. Doonbugger figures out a cool new way to light a scene for his still camera. It brings out an aspect of people’s faces that nobody has really seen before. He shows his photos in his gallery, then his photos gain a wider audience through magazines, books, and even TV. Before you know it, people around the world are using his method. A shoe company starts using his method in their advertisements to sell their shoes. A movie director figures out a way to use the method in video. Within a year, you see Mr. Doonbugger’s lighting method appear in consumer electronics stores. Six months after that, everyone’s sick of that look. What once was unique and original and idiosyncratic of one person’s work is now a cliche. Nobody want to see it anymore.

Mr. Doonbugger is of course a fictional character and his lighting method story is just a piece of fiction. But it’s got to remind you of many, many things… The Matrix bullet time, live motion animation, Ken Burns photo panning just to name a few. It’s easy to see when a visual style gets ripped off time after time, but it’s important to recognize (and put a stop to) sonic clichés as well. This blog post will point out some of the big musical clichés through history. Let’s take it chronologically…

213,000 BC – Branch hit against tree: This brilliant invention of Kurpnar, a struggling composer of the era, was used at first only in the performance of Kurpnar’s unforgettable opera “Me Eat Bird I Hope”. It was received so well in that opera that he used it in the rest of his compositions until his death at the late age of 20. Other composers of the time of course saw the possibilities in using branch hit against tree and used it in their music as well. There were many years where you couldn’t walk by a forest without hearing improvisers banging away at their favorite trees. Needless to say, the trend didn’t last more than 15 years or so, after people got tired of listening to the same general sound again and again. All sorts of experimentation with branch and tree sizes yielded results that couldn’t save this particular cliché. (it should be noted that this particular cliché is unverifiable, and probably made up)

mid 20th-century – Soap opera organ fully diminished chord: This is a joke today, but it was a staple of television soap operas before they got electronic instruments. Here is an example (thanks to Soundsnap):

Soap opera, uh oh!

This is the first thing I think of when I think about audio clichés. It’s so worn out that it doesn’t have its intended effect anymore. It can’t possibly be taken seriously and is now used ironically whenever you hear it. Even ironically, it’s old however.

1989 onward – Batman theme: I already talked about this in an earlier “Thou Shalt Not” blog, but wanted to bring it up again in this blog because I recently noticed they use it as Sharon’s theme in the new Battlestar Galactica. Now as a cliché it only serves to take me out of the moment when I’m watching that show. I didn’t know Cylons were Batmen.

mid 1990′s – Waterphone: Spooky! (he first starts playing about 45 seconds in)

The first time you hear this instrument, you can’t help but be creeped out. The first time you hear it in a scary movie, you can’t help but feel the tension rise. Then, maybe the second and third time you hear it in a movie it still is pretty freaky. Then you hear it in a game, then another game… then an ad, then some idiotic reality TV show. Well, its power has now been exhausted. We’re at the point now where it’s not scary. It’s a cheap shortcut to try and achieve a mood of fear, but its overuse has made it ineffective. It can now be retired, along with all those scary little kids that are supposed to frighten us in every scary movie and game.

late 1990′s – Autotune: I’ve already chronicled this plug-in’s overuse in an earlier “Thou Shalt Not” blog. But, for fun, here’s the Cher song that made that effect famous:

This could be seen when it first emerged as a way of futurizing a piece of music. Ooh, we’re now in the future… cool! Well, with its overuse once again we see a once intriguing idea be run into the ground.

Well, there you have it… a brief history of some of the most obvious musical clichés. Next time you hear one in a movie, game, or on tv, be sure to throw your chair through the monitor and let them know you’re not going to take it anymore.

September 30, 2008 Posted by thegamecomposer | Music Nitty Gritty, Ponderings | autotune, batman, cliches, music history, soap opera, waterphone | 2 Comments