



TRON Original Sketch

How two main themes were first created H ere's a surprise for you musicians and composers out there. While recently searching through some papers saved from the time of composing the score to TRON, I came across a small sheet of note paper with a distinctive keyboard decoration along one edge. Ah yes, I used to keep a pad of this amusing paper by my bedside, in case I'd think of any ideas I wanted to save, either shortly before getting to sleep, or when I had just awaken. The light ink writing on this particular page (click the thumbnail above for a high res version) is a particularly important original sketch. It was jotted down bedside when I was trying to get to sleep late one night after a long session of composing some themes for the filmscore.



I recall that several good ideas came to me during several days, and you'll hear them in the score and on this original score album. One that had been eluding my best efforts, though, was a main theme for the score, something that would fit the "Anthem" idea in the screenplay, and also provide the melody and chord changes for the Tron Love Theme. You may know the frustrations yourself: the harder you try sometimes only makes matters seem worse. I decided to give up on it, head off to bed as it was nearly dawn. Something would come to me when I was rested, as it usually does (I hoped).



No sooner had I tucked myself into bed and turned out the lights that the answer just drifted into my inner ear, unbidden. As I was about to nod off this was annoying. But then, many of my best ideas, probably 30 to 40% of them do seem to pop into my head when it's most inconvenient. ;^) In such cases you actually "hear" the final music in your head, pretty nearly in a finished form, with the full orchestra or other instruments playing. A private, steerable juke box! What it's like subjectively is nearly the same sensation as if you were recalling some music you'd heard before, complete and auditory, as if you were only remembering it, not creating it on the spot.



If you've read biographies of composers you discover that this is a fairly common happenstance. With several years of practice, a reasonable musical talent, and some skill, it's surprising how well your inner ear will develop. Composing then is very often a matter of working out the details, double-checking the notes and combinations, and writing it all down in some reasonably accurate way. It feels as if you were doing musical dictation, which isn't far off the mark. Technically what's occurring is that the right hemisphere, the musico/ spatial/ creative side is steering, while the left analytical/ editorial/ language side is putting it all down rationally, while also blue penciling the weaker elements, prodding the right side to try another variation when a first impulse comes up short.



Yes, most composers use improvisatory elements, too. If you have worked hard on your performance chops this can be a more visceral way to create ideas quickly, to search for a general flow of the overall structure. For purely formal decisions you probably follow your more deliberate abilities, sit and plot and plan, not unlike the way a novelist or storyteller might do before commencing writing. Improvisation by itself often allows the fingers to lead, which can create less original patterns, as the muscle memory is not as "highly aware" of the path you're trying to steer as the higher sensibilities of the inner ear. And one can't always play well what your innermost mind imagines. It's a lot more shuffled and mixed together than this, of course. Most of the time you switch back and forth between all of the above, on a theme by theme, or note by note basis, whatever appears to be working best at a given moment.



The process happens to be a lot of fun. Composing is an extremely human task, most of us are prewired to respond to music, and many have the latent abilities to create it, if they were given a chance to develop it. When you compose for larger ensembles, be they acoustic, electroacoustic, or a hybrid of both, you do yourself a favor to attempt to conceive the raw ideas in a custom fit for the final sound sources. It's helpful to have total recall of all the sounds and instrumental colors you'll be using, so that even when you are just sitting, reading or ruminating perhaps, you allow your mind to crank away at the ideas, gestate over them while you're not actually working at it. That's what happened here.



The hours I'd spent in frustrating attempts to come up with a suitably subtle and romantic lead theme were not wasted. I'd already been sketching out ideas using a meter in seven (usually as 4 + 3), and trying some harmonic motion in minor and major thirds. I knew what flavor of theme might be ideal. But I was too close to it -- until I let go completely and let my mind drift. THEN -- it all snapped into place,. The result was that I had to turn on the light and write something out which would assure that the idea would still be there when I got up (and could better judge how good or bad it was).



If you recall the final theme you'll see that there were only a few changes made the next day, when I was delighted to discover that the brainstorm solution was pretty kewl after all. I often transpose such brainstorm ideas into C major or minor when I notate them, for less accidentals to jot down, and it's faster when you don't have manuscript paper, so have to write everything out. I see here that this time I just jotted note names down over the note stems which gave the rhythm. No staves at all. The underlying harmony seemed pretty obvious, like the descending second measure's: G - D - B & G clearly means a G major chord. So I let that go, although sometimes it is necessary to write at least some of the chords down, too.



You can see that the 4+3 meter was stated at the outset, along with a suggested tempo and bass line pattern. And in the middle of the page there's a second theme idea which was not quite so well thought through, although the descriptions you see there under the B section heading turned out to be very catalytic, and became a major germinating feature of the rest of the score. The bottom of the sheet has a somewhat greater amount of detail. I was clearly tired and trying to write down only enough to be sure I didn't forget what I was now hearing inside my head. See the theme there? It's what became the other main theme, heard plainly in the final "Trinitron" music written for the ending titles (but which Disney's music supervisor refused to allow us to use, as it was the only place the longer Journey tune he wanted to include would "fit" in the film -- damn him) . It would have provided a MUCH better upbeat final mood to leave the audience with, don't you think, than drifting from symphony orchestra and huge concert organ to a pop rock group's four or five piece band?



Well, that was restored for a special LaserDisk track, and also included on the new DVD. Notice that near the bottom I suggest some rapid skipping about high notes to add as an upper "obligatio" to the second statement of the theme. And a few very low pedal tones are also sketched in below. Other details, which instrument plays what, even spatial positioning and reverb, can be noted while the inspiration is fresh. All these ideas turned out to be the way the final version developed, a very decent insight for a tired mind about to konk off to sleep, don't you think? I'm delighted to have found this small sheet of paper, and thought many of you might get a smile out of it, too, seeing the way several key ideas first sprang to life! --Wendy Carlos / May 2003