Flavo(u)rs of Program(me) Music

How does something as abstract as music make your mind associate with rather specific themes? What techniques do composers like to employ when writting such music? Anyways, if you haven't figured out already, this is a general discussion thread focusing (hmm) on how programmatic music is written, and why it even works. Let's look at some example cases:

For simplicity's sake, let's start off with simpler and broader ones - such as those found in many (RPG) video games and movies.

What makes a theme a "suspensful theme"?

What makes a theme a "sad theme"?

What makes a theme a "battle theme"?

What makes a theme a "comedic theme"?

What makes a theme a "romantic theme"?

Etc.

Any responses?

I'm not sure on what you'r trying to say here... but, analytical approch in are has been around since Pablo Picasso and expresionism in painted art, as so was it in music since first films that required original music (i guess the firs famous one was Prokofiev). I'll try and answer these questions, but i'm not really sure i'll get the right point.

Suspensful theme - I gues it would be spooky high strings or a harp and music box and maybe a little flute to back it up... oh! and a high ghost like voice! ... ex. "Friday the 13th" has some good stuff, Hitchcocks "Psycho"....

Sad theme - Violin solo or a Music box solo. Check out this flom Quest for Glory IV:

attachment removed by Letehn (due to copyrigth issues)

Battle theme - Timpani/drum with brass in the lead.... maybe make it march-like.

Comedic theme - hmmmmm.... hard one... something sily - maybe a xylophone and pizzicato strings... they had a good one in that french movie, i think the name was "The Closet" - something about guy pretending to be gay.

Any other ideas? this is pretty much what i'd use if someone told me to write a theme.

What makes a theme a "suspensful theme"?

String section with long suspended chords/counterpoint with long unresolved but very mild dissonances. Pedalling around the dominant and avoiding cadences. Maybe a choir, but that might not be very good for movies or games because it implies a person or identitiy.

What makes a theme a "sad theme"?

Slow paces music, laid back with one solo instrument playing descending melodies. The actual character of the melody is important. Of course a minor key is wanted.

What makes a theme a "battle theme"?

Chaotic, with whips of sound(FF) by the orchestra, brass and timpani of course. Fast paced rhythm.

What makes a theme a "comedic theme"?

This one is hard since it isn't so cliched. Minimalism with xylophone, celesta or pizz. Unusual disjointed melody with rests.

What makes a theme a "romantic theme"?

I am not really sure what romantic is. I guess low colourful harmonies and flashy arpeggios on the piano do it. It needs to be bright but mysterious. Not happy or dark , but inbetween. But I have a hard time actually seeing it as romantic. Maybe a song with the right words.

It gets harder when you limit everything to midi sounds like in a old RPG game.

I believe the key to all this is context. We hear certain types of music and think of a certain event, because we have seen it so many times in that context. For example, there is a song that is related to cowboys because we've grown up with that song and cowboys, but in fact the guy wrote the song in sweden about i think the people.

You have a point there, BitterDuck. I truly wonder if such themes are associated with there musical counterparts simply because we've heard them together so much (stereotyping), or do they affect us at a deeper, more emotional and psychological level regardless of that (why did the "first" composers decided to compose music in such a style for the context).

Didn't Bernstein lecture on this subject? I think he argued that in Western music there is nothing about a piece like, say, Dvorak's New World Symphony intrinsically that makes it particularly smack of the New World. It has the same kind of elements in it that other types of music have. He thought it was rubbish that we think of music that sounds this-or-that way as being particularly Bohemian, or British, or American, or what have you.