Mood Motif

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Sound and music are significant in storytelling to help the viewer grasp the personalities, moods or locales in which the story takes place.

Leitmotifs are usually used to identify a character. Regional Riffs are to give the listener an audio cue to the location of their story, and Mood Motifs are to help set the tone of the sequence. You may also find Standard Snippets traveling in tandem with the instruments common to this trope.

Here we're exploring Mood Motif - and the musical instruments that seem inexorably linked to certain moods and situations. Most of these are fairly ancient connections, often dating back to Opera.

Some composers are fairly well known for their Motif music.

Examples of Mood Motif include:

Brass

Featuring French Horns, Tubas, Trumpets, Trombones, Flugelhorns, Sousaphones and such. It may come as no surprise that James Horner has written many of the brass examples.

• Horns:
  • Fox Hunt
  • Imminent Danger
    • You can hear these in the Die Hard movies every time John McClane is doing something daring/crazy/stupid that nearly gets him killed.
    • The trombone act-out frequently used on Lost.
  • Triumph
    • Rocky: Gonna Fly Now
    • The triumphal march from Verdi's Aida, various others.
  • Heroism
    • Pick any Superman-related theme music.
    • The same is true for Captain Ersatz of Superman; the music will sound heroic but have a dischordant or off-note if the character is intended as an Affectionate Parody.
    • Siegfried's Leitmotif in Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle makes this Older Than Radio.
  • The French Horns of High Adventure
    • As heard on Conan the Barbarian soundtrack
  • The Tuba of Overweight Awkwardness or Ponderous Size
    • Heard extensively in Porky's Theme from Mother 3 and Super Smash Bros.. Brawl.
    • Jabba the Hutt
    • Parodied in Family Guy, where Stewie gets a job following fat people while playing a tuba.
    • The mothership from Close Encounters of the Third Kind
  • Battle Crescendo
    • The Mutara Nebula sequence in Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan
  • Spy/Secret Agent
    • Used to marvellous effect in Disney/Pixar's The Incredibles
    • Also used in True Lies with a little bit of Sexy Strings wound in.
    • The James Bond theme and also the 007 variant, which counts in "Imminent danger" as well.
  • Failure
    • Heard on The Price Is Right, Blockbusters, Card Sharks and a few other Mark Goodson shows, when a contestant loses a game.
    • Also heard on Sesame Street when a skit ends with Muppets who shake their heads and sob, such as when the Beautiful Day Monster ate the ukulele Ernie had just repaired..
  • Proud Warrior Race Guys
    • The Klingon Theme from Star Trek the Motion Picture is mostly elegant horns.
  • Wacky
    • The Three Stooges
    • "Yakety Sax" by Boots Randolph, as made famous by Benny Hill.
    • Any time a trombone plays a glissando. May also indicate drunkenness.
    • The harmon mute, when played with a hand opening and closing over the bell. Wah wah waaaaaaaah. May also indicate failure.
  • High Adventure
    • The Indiana Jones movies all share the same musical motif under the umbrella of Indy's theme.
  • Spinning Paper
  • News program opening and closing
• The Bugle of:
  • Wake up!
  • The Cavalry's Coming
    • "Charge!" and "Reville"
      • Also various more complex things, such as the arrival of the messenger that saves the hero of Bellini's I puritani.
  • Respectful Death
    • "Taps"
  • Call to Adventure
    • Star Trek 2: Wrath Of Khan
    • Star Wars Episode 4 Opening
    • Voltron theme

Percussion

Instruments that must be struck or shaken to play.

• The Cowbell of:
  • Blue Oyster
  • More Cowbell
• Bongos and Congas of:
  • Sexy rhythm.
    • Especially during the 60's. As seen on Star Trek the Original Series, and parodied in Mars Attacks!!.
  • Jungle settings (such as Darkest Africa)
  • Ritual Combat
    • "My Skin Is Not My Own" from the Children of Dune miniseries.
    • Traditional Brazilian fighting style "capoeira" requires this (and a berimbau) to be played during training and tournament fights. It is not necessary for a capoeirista to hire a couple of musicians to follow him (or her) throughout the day in case a fight breaks out.
• Timpani and Kettledrums of:
  • Great importance
  • Epic
    • 2001: A Space Odyssey's main theme, "Also Sprach Zarathustra"
    • Played with in Spaceballs. When Spaceball One transforms into <Bom Bom Bom Bom Bom> Mega Maid, Colonel Sandurz gives a dramatic pause for the Timpanist who is standing right next to them.
  • Scariness
    • When The Government shows up in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
    • When something big and dangerous is approaching, rather like The Terminator.
  • A timpani glissando may be used for an Incredibly Lame Pun or other joke too corny to deserve a rimshot.
• The Taiko Drums of Battle
  • The Lord of the Rings has taiko drums when Orcs, Uruk-Hai, or the Balrog are attacking.
  • Master and Commander uses them on its soundtrack to evoke the sound of cannons.
  • zOMG! has taiko drums that attack you (lending a new meaning to "percussion battery"), either by ramming you or using some sort of earthquake attack.
  • Warcraft 3 had units with big taiko drums, that caused various area-effect status changes when used. Buffs and debuffs, to use the lingo. Also used in a couple of the cutscenes for the mood-setting.
  • "The Battle Drums" from the Princess Mononoke soundtrack.
  • Used for most space battles in Battlestar Galactica.
• Gong of:
  • The Far East.
    • Can be found as far back as Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado and Puccini's Turandot.
• Snare Drum of:
  • Military significance/doom
  • Used prominently in Gustav Holst's Mars
  • War Was Beginning
  • Traveling by railroad
  • Rimshot

Tone Percussion

Instruments in which a tone-producing series of notes is produced by mallets, hammers, etc. (...includes piano.)

• Church bells of:
• Joy
  • Wedding Day, happy endings, Christmas
    • Ridiculously common in Opera. The opening of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Sorcerer is even based around this.
• Doom
  • Executions
    • Gilbert and Sullivan's The Yeomen of the Guard has an ominous bell ringing throughout much of its Act I finale, leading up to the execution of Fairfax.
    • It tolls for thee!
  • Warning
    • The British are coming!
    • The sky is falling! (Disney's Chicken Little)
    • A storm is upon us! (Though sometimes sirens are used instead.)
• Ominous Bells
  • "Tubular Bells" from The Exorcist is widely considered creepy. So, oddly enough, is the all-bells instrumental version of "Carol of the Bells"
    • Funny, because the intro is what's famous from The Exorcist, and it's mostly piano and glockenspiel. When the aforementioned bells kick in, Tubular Bells is thrusted quite firmly in the "Joy" section mentioned above.
  • Church bells herald Arthas' triumphant return home in Warcraft III. Of course, at this point he's already been thoroughly corrupted by the Frostmourne.
• Funeral bells (small bells rather than the usual deep chimes; rarely heard nowadays)
  • While not actually funereal, "For Whom The Bell Tolls" from Zombieland has some bells of funeral.
• Sleigh Bells of Christmas (and/or the Wintertime)
• The Xylophone of:
  • Skeletons!
    • See any old cartoon, such as Walt Disney's "The Skeleton Dance", where skeletons are dancing or the skeleton's ribcage is used as a xylophone.
    • "Danse Macabre" by Saint-Saens may be the Ur Example. The same xylophone motif was reused in "Fossils" from "Carnival of the Animals".
    • "Remains of the Day", from the Corpse Bride soundtrack.
    • The Simpsons is aware of this:

Homer: I share your xylophobia! Lisa: No, Dad, you mean "xenophobia". Xylophobia would be the fear of xylophones. Homer: I am afraid of xylophones. It's the music you hear when skeletons are dancing!

(You'd think that Lisa would know that xylophobia is the fear of wood. Hope somebody got fired for that.)

• • • Pulled off literally in the "Be Prepared" musical number of The Lion King. One of the hyenas uses a skeleton as a xylophone.
• The Glockenspiel of:
  • Icy wintertime
    • The Trope Maker here might be the "Sinfonia antartica" by Ralph Vaughan Williams (originally written as movie music), which had many passages with glockenspiel, celesta and piano playing over eerie harmonies.
  • Little girls
• The Celesta of:
  • Slippy-Slidey Ice World.
  • Childhood Innocence.
  • Warped Childhood Innocence.
    • see: a lot of Danny Elfman-scored movies (Edward Scissorhands, Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, etc.)
• The Piano of:
  • Loneliness
    • The piano theme from The Incredible Hulk was meant to underscore how sad and lonely David Banner's life was, and that he could never settle and find a home while the Hulk dwelled within him.
  • Introspection
  • Nostalgia
  • Family Drama, etc.
  • Time Passes Montage
  • Old Time Western Saloon (frequently out of tune); played by The Piano Player
  • Old Time Damsel in Distress
  • The toy piano of smallness/childishness
    • Lampshaded by the animated version of Charles Schultz's Peanuts. Schroeder plays classical music as if on a normal sized piano most of the time, but when he's irked at Lucy, he has been known to make the same toy piano sound exactly like the toy that it is.
  • Death
    • "Funeral March"
  • Heartfelt confession (tinkly)
  • The Dead- piano is often used in mood pieces in zombie media- examples include Dawn of the Dead, Resident Evil (particularly the 2nd one) and Left 4 Dead.

Reeds and Woodwinds

Instruments such as Clarinet, Oboe, and Saxophone.

• The Saxophone of:
  • Hipness
  • Film Noir (especially under the Private Eye Monologue)
  • Sex
    • See Grindhouse
  • Pornographic Soundtrack
• The Slide-Whistle of Wackiness/Cartoon Falling
• Flute of
  • fluttery flying things
  • mischievousness
• The Oboe of:
  • Sneak
    • Old cartoons with the musical sting that goes dun dun dun dun DUUUUUUUH duntuntuntun and repeats.
      • If you're referring to the "Hall of the Mountain King" theme that was common in old cartoons, that's a bassoon.
      • Not that one. The one that rises in pitch for the first four notes, holds, and then quickly descends.
      • Key of A minor: A C E A F EDCBA C E A F etc.
  • Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan) is well known for his bassoon jokes.
  • Sorrow
    • Good way to convey the loneliness of a character is by having a mournful oboe solo.
  • Tangled has the love theme "Now That I See You" played in a mournful oboe solo as Flynn-becoming-Eugene-Again realizes that his old criminal friends have caught up with him and want the crown from him.
• The Bamboo Flute of The East
  • Seen in Kill Bill part 2
• The Clarinet of Klezmer
  • Remember: If it's Jewish, it's accompanied by clarinet in Hijaz scale.
  • Bonus points for "Hava Nagila" or "Tradition" from Fiddler on the Roof.

Strings

Instruments with strings, from Guitar to Harps. (See Tone Percussion for piano, vibes etc.)

• Violins, Violas, Cellos, etc.
  • Psycho Strings
    • Heard when the Ax Crazy is attacking or about to.
      • Psycho is the ur-example.
      • Lost works the Psycho Strings frequently.
  • Tense Suspense: when there's a moment hanging in the balance, the strings will crescendo and then hold a long note.
    • The "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight in the "Sister Sledgehammer" episode of My Life as a Teenage Robot
    • The "Here goes no mercy" moment at the end of "Slipping" in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
    • The moment in Deep Impact where Jenny hits the net to find out what ELE is—and discovers it stands for Extinction Level Event, thus making her understand why the White House willing to go to extremes to keep it secret.
  • Romantic Strings
    • That classic sound found now only in old films, complete with the diffuse closeup of our leading damsel
    • Also invariably features in the middle portion of any 70s procedural TV show opening theme
  • Strings that sound like animals
    • Batman Returns had the Mood Motif of strings evoking cats for Catwoman.
    • Flight Of The Bumblebee is the definitive string riff on invoking insects.
  • There's a shrieky, staccato violin riff for 'ahh, get it off me, get it off me' creepy crawlies that are coming to do terrible things to us.
    • As when Neo encounters the burrowing thing in The Matrix
    • Seen in the "Dark Heart" episode of Justice League Unlimited.
    • Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom has it in the bug chamber.
  • Strings of Emotion
    • See also Cherubic Choir, Piano of Tragedy (above).
    • The Violin of Woe. More often parodied than played straight nowadays.
  • The Devil
    • In The Devil and Daniel Webster, "Mr. Scratch" manages to pick up and play a rather tempermental fiddle
    • The Devil Went Down to Georgia is the modern archetypal example, with numerous homages and parodies (ie: the Robot Devil)
    • Stravinsky's Histoire du Soldat is another well-known example.
  • Theme Music Power-Up
    • Summon The Worms from the Children of Dune miniseries.
    • After years and years of being the Redshirt Army in Doctor Who, UNIT gets to make an impressive comeback with the appropriately named UNIT Rocks
  • The frantic strings of Stuff On Fire.
  • The Tremolo of Suspense
  • Fast back-forward movement with one tone for storms or hostile gusts of wind.
• The Banjo of:
  • Hillbillies
    • "Dueling Banjos", heard on Deliverance is the ur-example.
• The Electric Guitar of:
  • Badass
  • Battle
    • See 300 for an example.
  • Asskicking
    • Especially if said ass belongs to a final boss.
    • The Resident Evil movies tend to invoke electric guitar when Alice is kicking ass.
  • Porn
    • You are required to use a wah-wah pedal here.
  • Hero Under The Gun
    • "The Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor, from Rocky III.
  • Spy mysteriousness
    • The James Bond theme (requires baritone guitar and tremolo pedal).
    • Kim Possible given it's an Affectionate Parody of James Bond.
    • The Middleman, also an Affectionate Parody of the spy and superhero genres.
    • Clarissa Explains It All used a spy guitar motif.
• The Acoustic Guitar of:
  • American Heritage
  • Cowboys
  • Campfires
  • Blues
  • Honky Tonk
• The Spanish Guitar of:
  • Latin Seduction (duh)
  • Badass Spaniard (yeah)
• The Harp of:
  • Heaven
  • Flash Back
• The Koto and Shamisen of Japan
  • As heard in Battle Realms
• The Harpsichord of:
  • Beethoven
  • Evil Brits and other Blue Bloods in Swashbucklers, Historical Fiction
  • Japanese Gothic Lolitas
  • Snooty rich people/royalty/decadence
    • Power Hungry Fool (aka Oliver's Theme) from Fire Emblem has this as the primary instrument.

Voices

• Ominous Latin Chanting
• Cherubic Choir
  • The eerily dreamy chanting prominently featured in Coraline. The composer, Bruno Coulais, is known for extensive usage of choirs in his works, and it shows extremely well.
• Opera Singer of:
  • Epicness / Artiness
  • Dramatic Death Scenes
  • European Immigrants
• Acapella Choir of Whimsy
  • Bobby McFerrin's Don't Worry Be Happy
  • The interstitial music on Glee
  • Randy Newman songs
  • The "Quirky Worky Song" and the "Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated!" jingle from Phineas and Ferb.
  • Louis Armstrong What a Wonderful World
• The Choir of Uplifting Inspiration
  • The Sting
  • Subverted and Lampshaded at the end of Airplane! when the choir gets more and more obvious—louder, higher, and with overarticulated vowels, finally ending in a screech.
• One-Woman Wail
• Human Whistling of:
  • Warm Childhood Memories
    • In a word: Disney.
  • Not So Innocent
  • Utter Creepiness
    • Used to excellent effect in Kill Bill when Elle Driver whistles the theme to Twisted Nerve.
    • Strangely enough used in The Walker Papers, because apparently Whistling thins the walls between worlds. That's pretty creepy.
  • "Fun" defiance, when done in a march (the Colonel Bogey March was the trope codifier)
• Rhythmic Chanting of African Heritage
  • As with Ladysmith Black Mambazo on Paul Simon's "Graceland" album.
• Gospel Choir of Joyous Celebration/Epiphanies
  • Subverted in Babylon5: The Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place...'
  • Subverted by The Daily Show: "Go fuck yoursevles," Fox News.

Other Instruments

Instruments that don't fit elsewhere.

• Ominous Pipe Organ
• The Theremin of:
  • Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys
  • Outer Space
  • Retro Sci-Fi
    • Jimmy Neutron
    • Mars Attacks!
  • Ghostly Spookiness
    • Lampshaded in Flushed Away—Roddy is frightened in the Absurdly Spacious Sewer, and hears the eerie theremin noise. When he turns around, he sees musical slugs providing the appropriate Mood Motif.
    • There's a Pink Panther cartoon in which the titular cat is bedeviled by ghosts. So the Pink Panther's theme music is played on theremin to illustrate the spooky ghosts.
  • Mad Science
    • Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog has the theremin of Mad Scientist in Horrible's theme music.
• The Synthesizer of:
  • Impressive echoes
  • Outer Space
  • Ghostly Spookiness
  • The Eighties
• The Harmonica of:
  • Jailhouse Blues
  • Lonesome Cowboy/Hillbilly
  • The Night Before the Battle
• Ominous Music Box Tune
  • The Woman in Black: all the music boxes in the nursery were creepy and ominous-sounding.
• Twangy Mouth Harp of country
• Rainstick of Rainforest Situations
• Didgeridoo and Bull Roarer of Australian Shamanism
• Constant beeps - News program opening
• Accordion
  • Gay Paree

Multiple Ensemble

Certain combinations of instruments achieve a Motif.

• The Secret Agent/Spy riff involves Guitar and Brass.
• The Slap Bass and wah-wah guitar of The Seventies.
• Chamber Music of Upper Class Period Pieces
• String Quartet of Elegance
• The Waltz of Elegance
• The Orchestral Flourish of Swashbuckling
  • Errol Flynn movies, and Pirates of the Caribbean Movies
• The Minor Chords of :
  • Tragedy
  • Creepiness
  • Insanity
  • Gloomy mood
  • The Middle Ages
  • Animal Soccer World
• The Porn Groove involves the Saxophone of Sex and the Guitar of Porn.

Composers

These composers have a certain Mood Motif that is a kind of auditory trademark in their music.

• Danny Elfman
  • Mood Motif: Ominous, Spooky, Wacky
    • Batman, Beetlejuice
• John Williams
  • Mood Motif: High Adventure
    • Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and... NBC(as well as Channel Seven) News
    • Two Words: Steven Spielberg. Basically every single movie he has done has been scored by John Williams!
• James Horner
  • Mood Motif: Battle Crescendo, Heroism
    • Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan, Krull
• Randy Newman
  • Mood Motif: Whimsical
    • The Toy Story movies, and several other Pixar vehicles.
    • Princess and The Frog
    • Monk Series 2 onwards.
• Guy Moon
  • Mood Motif: Whimsically Thematic Retro
    • Fairly Oddparents, retro fifties
    • Danny Phantom, ghostly rock with rap
    • Yin Yang Yo, Asian Riff with rock
• Hans Zimmer
  • Mood Motif: Battle Crescendo, Heroism
    • Gladiator, The Dark Knight, The Lion King, Inception, The Rock, Black Hawk Down, The Thin Red Line
• Nobuo Uematsu
  • Mood Motif: Melancholy, Hope, Defiance, One-Winged Angel
    • Final Fantasy, Lost Odyssey, The Black Mages
• Howard Shore
  • Mood Motif: Epic Adventure
    • The Lord of the Rings