016 - The Night Before

In the original 2012 Tuna Day collection this was the penultimate tune, #427. I knew the next day was the final installment, and frankly, I was really looking forward to it.

I was going for a kind of lounge-y vibe with this piece and I think it came close. I like the chord progression in the B section.

If you’re wondering why the notation consistently ties a half note to a quarter note instead of the more usual dotted half, it’s because ABC doesn’t allow me to place a chord change on a beat if there isn’t something else also happening on that same beat. Since I needed a chord change on beat 3 I had to have a note (or rest) on that beat, so the tie was the only way to do it.

For my dissertation in 2017 I composed a full orchestral score to accompany the Salvador Dali, Luis Buñuel surrealistic short film Un Chien Andalou (1929). Regarding the original soundtrack to this silent movie (from Wikipedia):

During the original 1929 screening in Paris, Buñuel selected music which he played live on a gramophone. Modern prints of the film feature a soundtrack consisting of excerpts from Richard Wagner's "Liebestod" from his opera Tristan und Isolde and a recording of two Argentinian tangos, "Tango Argentino" and "Recuerdos" by the Vicente Alvarez & Carlos Otero et son orchestre. They were first added to a print of the film in 1960 under Buñuel's supervision.

The problem with the 1960 release though was the film was played back at the wrong frame rate, it was too fast, making all the action have a kind of a manic keystone cops feel. When this was discovered and a new version released, the original soundtrack no longer fit. The 1960 version was a little over 16 minutes long but the new version was over 20 minutes!

Sensing an opportunity, I thought to supply the latest version of the movie with a new orchestral score for my dissertation. The committee agreed since I was interested in film music anyway.

A quick search on youTube will bring up many attempts to put a soundtrack on this movie. I’m not a fan of any of them, because they generally miss the point. No matter how bizarre the images or actions are on screen, they are presented with an air of normalcy, as if there is nothing wrong or out of place here. Every soundtrack I’ve ever heard, except for the one Buñuel supplied, is avant-garde or expressionistic, or just downright experimental, and this causes what I term stylistic dissonance. the music doesn’t match the movie stylistically.

The movie doesn’t need bizarre, experimental musics - it needs each scene to be underwritten by music that attempts to support the action in as faithful a way as possible, so that’s what I tried to do.

What does all this have to do with The Night Before? The final scene in the movie takes place on a beach. The same couple we’ve been watching throughout leisurely stroll down the beach and kiss. For the scene I orchestrated this music and I think it worked really well.

Here is the music orchestrated and used in my soundtrack to Un Chien Andalou. I’ve set the video to playback at the point where this music starts, but I recommend after listening you consider backing it up to the beginning and listening to the entire score. It was quite a job.