Music and Psycho

Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is a movie that has set the bar for any horror and thriller movies after it. The standards aren’t set just within the plot and cinematography, but also in the music composition. Within this post I’ll talk about the use of original compositions for movies. I will also touch on the aspect of the director and music composer relationship and collaboration. The score for Psycho was written by Bernard Herrmann, which Hitchcock insisted upon. According to Christopher Palmer in The Composer in Hollywood (1990) is "perhaps Herrmann's most spectacular Hitchcock achievement." Hitchcock was pleased with the tension and drama the score added to the film later remarking, "33% of the effect of Psycho was due to the music.”  I personally agreed on this aspect whilst watching the movie. That the music definitely does contribute to the tension and suspense especially at the killing scenes. Like where Herrmann used violins for the stabbing scenes in a screeching to add effect. The singular contribution of Herrmann's score may be seen from the film's credit roll, where the composer's name is after the director's own, a distinction unheard of in the annals of commercial cinematic music. Herrmann used the lowered music budget to his advantage by writing for a string orchestra rather than a full symphonic ensemble, disregarding Hitchcock's request for a jazz score. He thought of the single tone color of the all-string soundtrack as a way of reflecting the black-and-white cinematography of the film. Herrmann biographer Steven C. Smith writes that the music for the shower scene is "most likely the most famous (and most imitated) cue in film music," but Hitchock was originally opposed to having music in this scene. When Herrmann played the shower scene cue for Hitchcock, the director approved its use in the film. Herrmann reminded Hitchcock of his instructions not to score this scene, which Hitchcock replied, "Improper suggestion, my boy, improper suggestion."

I feel like this was the start of musical scores truly making the films. Up until this point directors weren’t so specific with the type of music for their films. Which still happens today, most of the time there won’t even really have a lot of scores composed specifically for smaller films. I also feel that if Hitchcock had not been so specific and Herrmann so resilient to make sure that his music was used the way he wanted; the film wouldn’t have been such a true impacting success. This score is studied and analyzed at college level in most music programs. It’s looked at over and over again by different musicologists and theorists. To honor the 50th anniversary of Psycho, in July 2010, the San Francisco Symphony obtained a print of the film with the soundtrack removed, and projected it on a large screen in Davies Symphony Hall while the orchestra performed the score live. You can even hear bits and pieces of the score sampled in R&B, Pop, and Hip Hop songs such as artists like Busta Rhymes. Movies around this time period after Psycho and television had similar collaborations with composer and director. This has made for really amazing effects on movies like Star Wars, Forrest Gump, and Harry Potter.