Music adds a major layer to story!

    Hey friends, just wanted to talk a bit today about the power of music, and specifically how it adds to the world building and context of a few different things that I really love and that have impacted the way that I feel about certain things. Even though I didn't go into music in college to study it professionally or anything, like some of my friends have, I thought I would take just a little bit of time to go over a few of my thoughts as they pertain to my main four focuses here on A Self-Proclaimed Dreamer. That means video games, movies, TV shows, and theme parks, since I've not said it too often recently! This is potentially going to be a bit of a weird post, but I hope you'll strap yourselves in, because it's time to strike up the band!

A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow...

    I could talk about the music in the Walt Disney World parks forever, but for the sake of easy reading, I'll cut my flow down to just a few examples. Of course, the "Carousel of Progress" would be nothing without the incredibly catchy song, "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow," originally written by the Sherman Brothers for the New York World's Fair in 1964. However, a lesser known song from this attraction is called "The Best Time of Your Life," and it was also written by the Sherman Brothers, but it was a new theme song for the attraction when it came to Orlando's Magic Kingdom in 1974. The story goes that General Electric, the long time sponsor of this attraction felt like the old theme song was telling people that they could wait until tomorrow to replace their old GE appliances, so they wanted this new theme song to encourage people that "Now is the best time" to replace those older devices. The song never caught on as much, so the original theme song was brought to the Magic Kingdom in 1996. Even though it's not part of the show anymore, you can still hear the tune in some of the ambient music as you're walking around Tomorrowland today, especially around the "Carousel of Progress." It's such a cool little easter egg, and without music, it wouldn't exist in general. Think of all of the attractions at Disney parks that revolve entirely around the music! "The Enchanted Tiki Room" wouldn't be a thing without the birds singing words and the flowers crooning! "Pirates of the Caribbean" would be very different without "Yo Ho, yo ho, A Pirate's Life for me," and "it's a small world" just wouldn't be the same without the world's most frustrating earworm, for better or worse. So many of the shows are so integrally tied to the music that they simply wouldn't exist as attractions at all, and even just walking around the park would be a wildly different experience if there weren't the thematically different songs playing as you walk from place to place. I've spoken on the theming of the lands and the cohesive touches that they take for the different sections of these parks, and the music is a big one that they pay close attention to, which really helps the experience in a massive way.

A City of Stars...

    In the movie La La Land, the music is obviously the star of the show, and what is most talked about is the singing and dancing, which is very well done for sure, but it's important to also pay attention to the score of the film, the difference between the diegetic tunes that Sebastian plays on his piano versus the non-diegetic invisible orchestra playing as Mia and Sebastian dance across the sky in the planetarium. Mia's audition in the film's climax or beginning of the denouement, begins with no accompanying music, showing just how nervous she is, but once she begins feeling more comfortable, the score emphasizes it by not only coming in, but growing louder and more confident until it dies down again at the end, as if Mia worries about telling a story too long. It's understood from the audience's perspective that this perhaps isn't literally the same audition that the producer is hearing, but by putting it into the form of a triumphant song, we know that Mia is nailing the audition, and the following scene of Sebastian and Mia waiting to hear the results feels like we're also waiting on it, sitting just outside the room and hoping that she would get the results she is hoping for. The music really brings us there. The score is an accompanying character all through the story in a way, telling us that things are going well and these two star-crossed dreamers are happy together and living their fantasies for a time, spending a magical summer together. The score is also there to bring us back down to earth when the success isn't coming for either of them. When Sebastian's career takes off by "selling out" and working with his friend on the road, even though it's not what he wants to do, and Mia is still having to work a bit harder at it, the music takes you through the rough emotions that words just can't convey. Even the epilogue, if you want to call it that, lives and dies on the strength of the music. It's a scene of both heartbreak at what could have been and also joy for what has become. The final notes of the movie quite literally end the show, and on a pretty triumphant note, despite the few bittersweet notes that the ending leaves us with.

A Crazy Ex-Girlfriend...

    This series is a bit tougher to recommend, definitely not for the younger people in the audience, and honestly it's hard to recommend even to older folks. There is a lot to do with mental illness among many other really serious topics in this series, some handled better than others. "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend," for all of the lows and general bad things that happen both to and because of Rebecca Bunch, does have a genuinely deep and interesting message by the end of it. I guess you could call it a musical sitcom or a musical drama, but the point is that Music is everywhere in this show. Every episode has at least one original song, and they really span a wide genre of different tones. There's the funny but somewhat tragic song, "I have friends, I definitely have friends" where Rebecca tries to recount all of her friends, only to reveal that she has much fewer than she's letting on. There's the hopeful "Maybe this dream," sung beautifully by Paula, while also being hilarious if the lyrics are read or listened to. One of my favorites has to be "Where's the Bathroom," capturing the whirlwind emotions of your mother visiting your house when you're an adult, and also really playing into the stereotypical "Jewish mother" themes that the show touches on so well. Another one that is always in my rotation is "You Ruined Everything," a song about Rebecca's unnecessarily mean inner voice telling her that she's not good enough. As I've already said, the show is tragic and touches on really serious themes, but does it in a way that is legitimately funny sometimes, even when you feel bad for the characters. I won't give the ending of the show away, but I will say that it ends in a really good place, one of my favorite finales maybe ever. The musical themes in the score aren't anything huge to write about here, but the lyrical works really steal the show, and lend light to what people are feeling. There are parodies of musicals, famous songs, and even just genres of music, and I really love so much of what the show does. None of that would be possible without the music written by the wildly talented team and performed by the actors on the show. Again, watch this at your own risk, I cannot recommend it on a good conscience, just because of the sometimes gross and often irreverent nature of the show.

A Broken, Wild, Heart...

    In the game, Sayonara Wild Hearts, it begins by weaving a narrative of a girl who has fallen into a heartbreak so deep that she loses all sense of self. It's told in a sort of cosmic way, where the protagonist becomes "The Fool," a being of mystic power that has to face the wild hearts of the Lovers, Hermit, Twins, Devil, and finally Death. This is a rhythm game, so again, it's easy to see how the music impacts the direction of the game. The Fool travels through all kinds of trippy and psychodelic levels (please don't play this game if flashing lights trigger seizures in you, it is pretty flashy), with many fast-paced and chaotic songs as she faces off against the different evils that she faces, symbolizing previous heartbreaks that she's faced over time. In between each of these tracks though, there's something much more calming as the Fool is transitioning between these different landscapes where the "wild hearts" reside. The most wild parts of is game though are the beginning and the ending, the transitions between the real world, and this other dreamscape world. In the beginning, our protagonist is dragged out of her room by a fairy with only her skateboard, and the game kicks off with Debussy's "Clair de Lune" as she kicks off her journey. The music of her quest to bring peace back to the universe (as well as her own heart) is scored with a largely synth-focused soundtrack, but something changes as she returns home to her room. She floats through the window, lets her hair down for the first time in the game, and picks up her guitar. She begins playing a song and singing along while the credits begin. It's a beautiful and incredibly effective way to bring this story to an end. After all of these crazy adventures that she has, her heart can finally come to peace with itself, and she's able to reach deep and discover what she feels about her situations. On top of this, it begins with an acoustic guitar track (a rarity in the game up until this point), and after a bit, the synth sounds come back to back her up, almost as if showing that she has made her way and discovered her place in the universe. It's a piece that absolutely could not have been laid here if not for the musical focus of this game, especially since our protagonist has no voice until this song here at the very end.

    There are so many other examples in my main focuses of video games, TV shows, movies, and theme parks, but there's something about these pieces of the larger picture that make it much more impactful. The introduction of music into any sort of narrative lends a level of humanity that is very hard to reach otherwise. The most vulnerable moments can be transformed into works of art, and though we wouldn't want to face that sort of emotional hardship, the characters cope and the stories are transformed by the music and themes utilized by the creative team crafting them. These stories have greatly impacted the way that I perceive different challenges in life, and I have to wonder if the teams working on them know just how impactful the art is once they've started or even wrapped up a story. I'll end this post with a little question for the audience, if you don't mind. What story do you have to tell? How could the story be elevated with a song? It sounds silly, but there's a song out there for every emotion under the sun, and some that can only be told through the music.

    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends! I hope you've enjoyed this little insight into my thoughts on musical storytelling, and I hope something came to mind for you, even if you've never heard of any of these examples that I gave. It's amazing just how many examples come to mind when you think of musical themes in different things, and I hope this will bring something to mind for you too. Thanks so much for your support, and I hope you have a great week. Until next time, I'm Jonathan, a Self-Proclaimed Musician, and always remember to keep a little music in your step.