Editor's note: This is a long article of more than 7,000 words, and the author will start from chords, tonality, interval, range... From a professional perspective, to uncover the secrets of "Tom and Jerry" music for you, it is strongly recommended that students listen while watching and listening, and feel the listening sensation of the music fragments analyzed by the author. If you are busy at hand, you can collect it first.
Speaking of Tom and Jerry, what do you think of when you react?
Tom whose face was punched into a cylindrical shape by the pot? Jerry being pounded continuously by piano keys? Whichever scene you have in mind, it must be full of extreme violence, exaggerated antics, witty irony, but also brainless pleasure.
So here's the question:
1. Almost all American animation films have such character settings and plots, what makes the contradictions and violence in "Tom and Jerry" stand out?
2, even if it is so violent, why doesn't it make us feel disgusted and disgusting, and even the more violent it is, the funnier it is?
3, a lot of violent pictures are exaggerated to be unrealistic, so how do we feel empathy in this surreal animation?
4) Cat and Mouse have almost no dialogue, how do we know what Tom and Jerry are thinking?
These seemingly difficult questions are actually very simple: because of the music.
Tom and Jerry, a brilliant cartoon that has been nominated for 7 Oscars and has been frequently cited and refurbished for 80 years, is a legend that is difficult to surpass. Its success is no accident. The contradictions and conflicts between the protagonists are not new in the animation industry. The visual escalation of violence, while one of the reasons it stands out, has not reached the point of being unparalleled in the world. It is no exaggeration to say that music was one of the main reasons for Tom and Jerry. (Note: The Tom and Jerry mentioned here refers specifically to the HB version from 1940 to 1957, that is, the "childhood" of most people, please see the description at the end of the article for details)
Notice that my wording is music, not soundtrack.
The soundtrack is generally to match the development of the plot, play a role in setting off the atmosphere, laying the emotions and assisting the narrative. In Tom and Jerry, its music not only matches the plot development, but also the "language" of the protagonists Tom and Jerry; together with the picture dominates the narrative of the story; and from the auditory sense of creation and visual, even beyond the visual dramatic effect. These features of music are exactly what its composer Scott Bradley firmly believes: "The future of animated music should be that stories and music are as important and interdependent." ”
While you may not be familiar with the composer Bradley's name, you've definitely heard his work. His bold innovations and musical writing skills are something that scholars who have studied animation soundtracks throughout the ages will surely study.
Today's article, I will briefly analyze where the music of "Tom and Jerry" is "violent"? How does Bradley "protect" the audience from violence and make us feel humorous instead? And how to use music to turn a silent protagonist into a "sound"?
"Weight, violence and pain"
Tom and Jerry, like other cartoons of the same period, revolves around two opposing protagonists. And what stands out about it is that the inter-integration between cats and mice is very "violent", allowing American audiences who are facing the current conflict to find catharsis.
Have you ever thought that in reality, it is difficult for us to empathize with what a cat or a mouse has experienced, let alone the cats and mice on the screen that have nothing to do with themselves and do not have any similarities? Moreover, the plot in the animation is usually exaggerated, and we all know that it is unreal, but as the audience, why can we feel what cats and mice go through? However, if we don't feel the pain of Tom being played and the danger of Jerry's escape, then the fun of this animation is gone.
Composer Michel Chion, an associate professor at the Institute for Cinema and Vision (IRCAV), the third largest in Paris, once said that when we see something fall in a film, the sound it produces must make us feel "weight, violence, and pain" in order for us to feel the realism of the picture. Because the object in the picture is not a physical object after all, it has no weight or volume, so we must feel its weight and the impact of its fall through sound; through sound, we can believe in the picture in front of us, so as to feel the plot.
He points out that in music, "weight" can often be expressed through the musical instrument's range; "violence" can be conveyed through complex or fast melodies; and "pain" is often expressed through harsh and discordant chord harmonies, etc. (which is certainly not the way it is).
In the music of Tom and Jerry, it's not hard to hear applications like this. The synchronous narration of music and pictures not only makes the plot more vivid and vivid in front of us, enhances the visual authenticity from the auditory sense, but also cleverly supplements the story outside the picture, making the violence more "violent", so that we can feel this "violence" more deeply.
For example, in "Cat Concerto", when Jerry once pokes his head out from under the piano white keys to see what's going on, Tom's hand suddenly jumps from the midrange area to the treble region, repeatedly playing the same white button to "punch" Jerry.
From the frame, we can't be sure how hard Tom punched Jerry's finger. Musically, however, we hear this "tone" used to pound Jerry, which is louder and higher in pitch than the part to which Tom had played before, and thus feels that Tom's hand is pounding Jerry with more force than the force he just played.
Subsequently, Jerry began to jump around under the white keys, running from right to left, left to right, and the music also followed Jerry's pace, and the pitch was repeated back and forth from high to low, from low to high. This melody is not clear due to the directionality, let us feel Jerry's panic.
And this flowing water of soft melodic lines and the terminating chord that Followed to Tom's hands pressed down form a strong contrast. This contrast allows the audience to intuitively "hear" Tom's strength, thus experiencing Tom's anger.
After a victory, Tom continued to play the piano pieces seriously. At this time, Jerry was inside the piano, "playing" by Tom's playing and on all fours. The repetition of the musical theme allows the audience to "hear" that Tom has made Jerry whole again and again. At the same time, we also feel that Tom's mood is getting better and better, because the rhythm of his playing is getting more and more cheerful, the range is getting higher and higher, and the theme is getting clearer and clearer.
Hard-pressed, Jerry was "played" out of the area of the gavel and strings, and the torture came to an end for the time being. Not convinced, Jerry grabbed two gavel and began a new round of melody. Jerry hammered out this passage with a gavel is faster, more tightly paced, and has a lower range. This contrasts again with to Tom's performance that has just ended, and we can hear Jerry's anger and determination to get Tom back.
The melody continues to develop, and the tension grows stronger. Finally, the melody ends on two genus chords, musically creating a sense of listening that desperately needs to be addressed. Just when Tom thought that the fight was finally coming to an end, Jerry suddenly began a new "punch". This time the melody, the theme is the same as before, but the tone has been raised, which means that the contest between them has once again escalated. The melody once again ends on two chords that sound like they are in desperate need of being solved.
When we (like Tom) thought this was the end again, the melody sounded again, and the tune went up again. Although Jerry is no longer visible on the screen, we can judge from the same melodic motivation that there is no doubt that Jerry is not enough to be a tom. But this time, the genus chords were finally solved! The end of the music lets us know that this farce has finally come to an end.
Interestingly, in many of the clips, we don't see Jerry and Tom in the same frame. If you look at it from the picture alone, some pictures look like a cat playing, or a mouse rolling in the piano. It is through the interlocking and layered progression of music that we know that this is a contest between two characters, and their contradictions are constantly escalating.
Through the changes in music, pitch, melody, theme, rhythm, speed and other musical elements, we intuitively feel the "weight" of Tom Hammer Jerry, Jerry's escalation of "violence" again and again, and The "pain" of Tom's final half-death.
The more violent, the more receptive you are
Bradley's greatest thing is that he can use music to make the gunpowder between cats and mice more escalate, and the collision is more violent, but he can also use music to pave the way, so that when violence occurs, the audience is more receptive and does not feel too sudden or uncomfortable. Such a two-pronged approach not only increases the interest of the plot, but also subtly transforms the exaggerated "violence" into a hilarious laugh.
How did he use music to escalate "violence"? The answer is that Brad combines music and sound effects well.
Probably many friends will think of music and sound effects as two very different things. Indeed, the definition of music is composed of regular sounds, and usually has a certain length of sound; while sound effects can be irregular sounds or very short, often used to aid visual effects. In our education system, music and sound effects courses are often very separate – sound effects are generally attributed to sound production in film and television.
One of Bradley's breaks with traditional musical thinking in Tom and Jerry is that he doesn't distinguish between sound and music. Instead of rejecting sound effects, he cleverly combines sound effects into his own compositions, and even uses music to enhance the effect of sound effects.
For example, in the episode "Solid Serenade", when Jerry runs to the pool and drains the water out of the pool, leaving only a pile of dishes, the audience has a hunch that Tom is about to be in danger. At this time, Bradley played a very discordant chord - "thrill chord" (because Bradley often uses this very discordant chord, some scholars refer to Bradley's technique as "shock chord", which literally translates as "thrill chord" as one of the characteristics of Bradley's compositional technique).
Building on this thrilling chord, Bradley adds a quick drum roll to push the tension to a climax until the sound of Tom hitting the dishes in the face appears. After Tom's face hits the dishes (which is also the visual climax of this part), this thrilling chord is played several times, indicating that the pain of the impact is still continuing, allowing the audience to more deeply appreciate Tom's pain, effectively amplifying the visual pain.
In the second half of the episode, as Tom runs after Jerry, we hear Strings repeat a three-note motive that gradually lowers the pitch during the repetition, suggesting that the viewer is approaching a turning point in the story. At the same time, Bradley also uses the sound of a trombone to suggest to the audience that danger (the big dog) is about to appear ahead.
Sure enough, Eventually Tom ran to the big dog that had been tied up by himself. At this time, the music slowed down, allowing the audience to predict that Tom was about to stop chasing Jerry.
At the end of the slide, we hear a chord played by wind and woodwind, which is the same chord that Tom had been interrupted when he sang "Is You Is, Or Is You Ain't My Baby." Such a musical hint makes the audience feel that the big dog will have to calculate the debt owed by Tom before with Tom.
This kind of musical foreshadowing, on the one hand, amplifies the effect of the sound effect when it appears, pushes the plot to the climax, and makes the visual impact more intense; on the other hand, it also allows the audience to predict what is going to happen next naturally, so as to be mentally prepared and accept a greater violent impact. More interestingly, Bradley usually advances the musical impact by 1 or 2 seconds — a move that allows the audience to "hear before you see."
That is to say, Bradley is using music to amplify the "violence" in the animation at the same time, but also using music to "protect" the audience, so that the audience knows what is going to happen, hear first and then see, to alleviate the visual impact.
"Speaking" with music
The most different thing about Tom and Jerry from many of the big-budget cartoons of the time was that it had almost no lines, except for The Scream and Hiss when Tom was groomed to a very serious point (by the way, Tom's voice was voiced by its producer, William Hanna himself).
While the protagonist's expressions and movements can convey to some extent the audience's reactions, Brad uses music to forge a bridge that allows us to directly understand the inner thoughts of the characters.
Like language, music has certain logical syntactic rules, which is what we often call "music theory". Maybe many friends hear this word and have a little resistance in their hearts, feeling like mathematics, need to learn, it is difficult to master and so on.
In fact, even if a person who does not understand music theory knowledge at all, he can still "feel" music theory.
For example, music in major key usually feels brighter and brighter; minor music usually feels sad and gray; some chords feel discordant and need to be resolved; symphony eventually goes back to the first chord to make you feel like it's over, and so on.
It is precisely because music has a certain logic, so music can also be like language, so that the audience can understand the protagonist's thoughts and psychology. In Puttin'On The Dog, when Jerry is chased by Tom, Brad uses the twelve-tone system of "atonal scales" to perform Jerry's footsteps (Figure A). Unlike the familiar tonal scales (such as major and minor), atonal scales are not strongly directed, in other words, audibly, we cannot predict what the next note/chord should be, just as we cannot predict where Jerry is going, what will happen in the next second, and whether it will be caught by Tom. None of us know. And Jerry's psyche, as the atonal note suggests, doesn't know what he's doing, and only knows a flurry of running around without thinking.
（图a）
Musical metaphors like this are ubiquitous in Tom and Jerry. Bradley once mentioned in his article "Personality on the Soundtrack" that Beethoven's symphonic works do not stop at imitating the voice of each character; they will use music to give each character its unique character. That's exactly what Bradley was advocating.
Therefore, in his composition, he will focus more on grasping the personality of each character, as well as the actions and emotions of the moment, rather than using music to set off an overall atmosphere like ordinary composers.
Referencing existing music distinguishes between spaces at different latitudes
Before Tom and Jerry, the animated soundtrack often quoted extensively on popular or existing music of the time. Quoting the music of previous generations is the quickest way to make the audience understand what the music wants to express.
Suppose that when we hear a happy birthday song in the restaurant, we will know that someone in the restaurant has a birthday today; when we get married, we will play a wedding march; when we coax children to sleep, we will generally sing sleeping songs; and we will put funeral-related songs at funerals... In the same way, many formed songs, after being well known, have generated their own unique definitions.
In the episode "Sleepy-Time Tom," Brad also conveys Tom's feelings through adaptations of well-known songs. For example, when Tom is trying to stay awake, the background music is an adaptation of a lullaby, which lets us know that Tom is actually very sleepy and wants to sleep.
However, compared to other contemporaneous cartoons, such references are rare in Tom and Jerry. Bradley didn't like to quote music, he preferred to write his own original music. As a result, his references are usually short and deliberately separated from his own original music. However, there have also been large musical references in Tom and Jerry, but such references are usually another dimension of performance space that Bradley deliberately created for the plot.
In the opening of "Romantic Serenade", Tom expresses his love by playing and singing "Is you Is, Or Is You Ain't My Baby" on a double bass.
Its bass woke Jerry out of bed; Jerry began to vibrate with every note Tom played, causing it to get angry at the end, smashing it into Tom's face twice with the Apple Pie before it stopped playing. Needless to say, Jerry's interruption also annoyed Tom, causing Tom to start chasing Jerry again. At this time, we hear the music suddenly shift from reference music to the typical Tom and Jerry music.
There is a pause of a few seconds between the two pieces of music, and bradley distinguishes the two musical styles very much; and here he chooses to distinguish the performance space in the play by contrasting the quoted music with the original music: the reference to the music is Tom's virtual performance space in the plot; and his original music is used in the natural development space of the plot.
Humorous music doesn't need to be good
The most important thing for Tom and Jerry is nothing more than two words: humor!
Bradley once joked in his article "Music in Cartoon": "My part is the simplest!" I just have to write 'funny music' and that's it! ”
But the truth is, funny music is not simple; it is also serious music. He thinks the funny thing about music stems from the fact that it breaks common patterns, such as when playing a C major scale, and you suddenly play a C# at the end, then everyone will find it funny. Bradley's funny way is to add innovative harmonic methods or break the traditional instrument arrangement to achieve unexpected results and win the audience's laughter.
In the article, he gave two such examples. If you just play a D minus seven chord decomposition, it sounds like a normal chord decomposition, nothing special. But at this time, if you add an A minus seven chord decomposition at the bottom at the same time, that is, to form a scale of four degrees, and speed up the performance speed of the decomposition, then the melody becomes very interesting, the feeling of disharmony is aggravated, and the music is more modern (the fourth degree is the use of modern music).
For example, you can play a simple chromatic scale upwards, left and right hand octaves (Figure b) to express the protagonist's upward jumping action. But that sounds as boring as practicing. If at this time, we play G and C with our right hand and B and D# with our left hand, the same chromatic scale goes up (Figure C). As a result, the same chromatic scale goes up, and people may be misled by your harmony and not be able to hear it. At the same time, the effect of Figure C is many times stronger than the tension and disharmony of Figure B.
In Bradley's original words: If you try to play like this (Figure C), "Be careful that your neighbor might come over and smash your shoes from the window!" Don't blame me then! ”
(Figure b)
(Figure C)
If you try both of these plays on an instrument, you might say that the way you play figure c doesn't sound good. Indeed, the chords of Figure C are not harmonious. But to quote Bradley again:
"Don't forget, here we're trying to make music sound (like the picture) funny, and music can't be funny and beautiful at the same time."
Bradley's proficiency in musical technique and his bold attempts led him to create his own unique "funny" style for the world to admire.
It is no exaggeration to say that the animation of "Tom and Jerry" is not only visual humor and exaggeration, but also musical innovation. The role of music no longer stays in the "background music", it can also highlight the picture effect like "sound effect"; it can narrate the story between the protagonists and the plot outside the picture like "dialogue"; it can be more violent and humorous than the visual, making the "violence" more "violent" at the same time, but also helping the audience to accept "violence" more comfortably.
As for the composer Bradley, the musical language and unique and sharp musical touch he left us are not explained clearly in one article. In addition to what was mentioned in the article, I was also impressed by his boldness and determination in choosing his instrument.
Many composers and composers think that the effect of playing with a grand symphony orchestra would be the most satisfying; but Bradley did not feel it; many times, he was not afraid to interpret the role with a single instrument. He was also very different from other composers in that he didn't feel the need to create around a thematic motivation.
He especially loves to create, likes to be the same character, and creates many different motivations and different music according to the story changes in each episode. So even if you've watched Tom and Jerry countless times, you probably still can't hum a piece of music.
Bradley's music, Tom and Jerry's music, there's so much to learn. In addition to the points I share with you today, there is also its excellent combination of classical music, jazz music, pop music and other elements.
An article can only be slightly superficial, but I hope that at least when you go to see "Tom and Jerry" in the future, you can pay more attention to its music, that is enough.
*Explanation at the end of the article
By the way, not long ago, the "death of the director of "Tom and Jerry" that went viral on the Internet has caused everyone to sigh a lot - what "he left Tom and Jerry forever for us"; what "accompanied my childhood" Animation director died... And so on. None of these statements are very accurate, and even a little... embarrassed.
Deceased was director Gene Deitch. He is also a very good illustrator, cartoonist, cartoonist, and director. He did work as a director of Tom and Jerry, but he was responsible for only 13 episodes of The Tom and Jerry in the Czech outsourced production between 1961 and 1962. And these 13 episodes are exactly what was mentioned at the beginning, and are called the "black history" of cats and mice by many iron fans. Deich has generously admitted in previous interviews that the cats and mice he made are not optimistic, received many bad reviews, and even received threatening letters from iron fans.
Of course, this is not because Dyche is not high quality, but because of the low budget, and the team's complete unfamiliarity with the original and other aspects of the unfortunate result. Saying this to everyone does not mean to offend those who have passed away. On the contrary, it is with respect for this director that I hope that everyone will not only use this work to define him and know him. He also has other works that are very proud and deserve everyone's appreciation and remembrance.
Here, in order to facilitate everyone's understanding, please forgive me for summarizing the history of "Tom and Jerry" simply and rudely, and I divide its 80-year history into four stages to understand:
1940-1957 Hanna & Barbera版
This version is supposed to be the one that accompanies many people's childhoods, and it is the version that focuses on the soundtrack in today's article, co-directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.
1961-1962 Gene Deitch版
This version has been complained about by netizens in addition to the different painting styles, and its sound effects are very bad, and the musical details cannot be compared with the previous version. The plot of the story seems to be less humorous, and from time to time Tom will say something embarrassing...
Chuck Jones Edition 1963-1967
It is also a very different style, but it is estimated that because the previous version of Gene Deitch has made people complain, this version may be seen by fewer people, or not so real, compared to not so seriously complained about...
1970 – New Hanna & Barbera editions and many more...
Although the original director was found, these episodes are also of higher quality than the earliest. After all, it was once too good, it was indeed a little difficult to surpass, and it was inevitable to be disappointed.