Airtime Assault #36: The Hunger Games Music Project

The heartbeat of a film comes from the musical score that creates the backbone of the piece. The emotion we feel while watching a scene is enhanced by the soundtrack behind it. Sometimes even making us feel more moved than we would have without it. Reading The Hunger Games, one can easily imagine the powerful tracks that will surround many of the key scenes in the film, such as the Reaping, Rue’s Scene, and the Berries. Musical themes for each character are another important part of a score, and are filtered through other pieces to give us the feel of that person in the scene. Truly a film would not be the same without a score to back it.

Luckily for Hunger Games fans, with less than a year to go until the film, we have no shortage of brilliant music to help make us even more eager for the release, and that includes full musical scores. We previously featured Sam Cushion’s creations for both The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, and this week we are excited to introduce you to another score for the book, created by Edward Underhill and Matt Bukaty. Their work, has a different sound and pacing than Sam’s creations, and brings an entirely new feel to the book. It is amazing to see how one book series, can inspire such incredibly diverse and beautiful music.

Edward and Matt are no strangers to the music world, both having graduated with master’s degrees from the film scoring program at NYU. With music in their blood from a young age, both have worked on compositions for films and the stage. Inspired by a common interest in The Hunger Games, they worked to create the sound of the world of Panem.

Here is just a taste of their work:

We wanted to learn more about how the score came to be, so we spoke with the composers about their work on the project.

What about The Hunger Games inspired you to write a musical score?

As composers who have worked a lot with film, we spend so much of our time figuring out how to assist a storyline with music that when we read a book, we tend to automatically start hearing music to go along with it. The Hunger Games really stood out because the opportunity was so unique: here was a universe that was pretty open-ended about what kind of music it needs – it’s not just straightforward swashbuckling music or straightforward love themes – but at the same time, it really offers an opportunity for a musical universe that’s different as well as familiar. Certain things stood out right away: we felt the score needed to be orchestral, for example, but we also knew it needed to have harsher electric edges, and it definitely needed a very simplistic, folky feel as well. We could use some instruments that are pretty familiar folk instruments, like violin and voice. But we could also use some instruments that have a folky quality, but are a little more unique and have a darker sound, like bass recorder and cello. Of course, we were both intrigued by the story of The Hunger Games as well – there’s plenty of opportunity for exciting action music, but there are also just so many subtle emotions going on.

How do you choose which scenes/themes/people to compose for?

Ed: In the case of The Hunger Games, I had already started working a little bit on my own before Matt joined me, so we sort of divided things up based on what I had already started working on. I think there were certain themes that we knew needed to be there – Rue’s four notes that she sings, the lullaby . . . I wrote a theme for Peeta, which then kind of transformed into a theme for Katniss and Peeta, and now it may have even turned into a main theme of sorts.

Matt: Yeah, when I started on the project, I knew instantly that I wanted to compose a theme for Peeta since I felt such a personal connection with him as a character.

Ed: In terms of scenes, we tried to choose scenes that were either integral to the storyline or that we felt a strong emotional connection to. The scenes that, if we were scoring an actual picture, would probably jump out at us: “Oh! That needs music.”

Matt: And I actually still have ideas for other scenes, should we decide to do more!

Could you describe how your compositions go from your head, to paper, to what we hear on the album?

It depends on the type of project, but for this project and most of the scores we’ve done, we work things out in our heads or on a keyboard (and occasionally sketch out melodies on paper) and then play or record them into a sequencer. We use a variety of sample libraries, which run through the sequencer and simulate live instrument performances. Playing directly into the sequencer does eliminate the step of writing anything down on paper, but we find that it goes faster for us.

What would you say is the most challenging part about composing a score?

It really varies project to project, film to film. The director always has ideas in their head for what they need the score to do, and sometimes it can be a challenge to understand those ideas and figure out how to translate them into a musical language. Sometimes the challenge is just meeting a deadline – we’ve had to do scores where we’ll see the picture for the first time on Monday, and the entire score needs to be done and recorded by Friday! Sometimes the genre of music you’re working in can be challenging – you could get a director who asks you, “So, can you write something that sounds like a 1940s Christmas jingle?” and of course you say, “Sure!” and then you run home as fast as you can and learn to write a 1940s Christmas jingle.

Was The Hunger Games in any way more or less challenging than other works you have written scores for?

Ed: Honestly, in this case, it was not having a picture to work with that was the most challenging part! Although we both started out as (and still are) composers who love to write music for the sake of writing music, we’ve both gotten so used to doing film scores, and being able to derive a sense of the music from watching the picture, that when we suddenly had no pre-existing picture and had to conjure our own in our heads, it was surprisingly tricky! We weren’t being led to any particular musical styles or musical universe based on a film – we had to figure that out on our own.

Matt: Also, it’s always challenging to write music (or do any sort of representational art) for something that you love so much. If we were going to do this, it had to be right. I spent many mornings up until 3 AM writing and re-writing to get things perfect, or at least, perfect for me, for what I wanted the music to be.

Is there any one theme that you feel runs through your composition for The Hunger Games?

Rue’s little four-note melody. It’s the very first thing you hear sung by the voice in the first piece, and from there, it pretty much permeates the entire score. Some of that was conscious, of course, but it kept creeping in without our realizing it, too. Variations of those four notes are practically everywhere! But then again, Rue is really central to the story – she’s the one who kind of ignites the spark of revolution, in a way. Katniss places flowers around her body, and later Peeta paints her picture in front of the game makers – she really continues to live on throughout the entire trilogy.

Is there any one piece or maybe several pieces that you feel are your favorites? If so, why?

Matt: Well, I like all of Ed’s cues. I think they’re incredible. What he did for Rue’s lullaby blows me away every time I hear it. As far as mine, maybe “Let The Games Begin!”. I like that high-energy, epic/action-style music. Plus it was a blast to write!

Ed: I like all of Matt’s cues as well. I think the techno bit of his “Capitol” cue has really grown on me. I remember I said to Matt, “I think the Capitol sounds very electric,” and he was like, “Okay!” and then came back with this really badass techno cue. It sort of went through electric and came out the other side, and when I pictured Katniss and Peeta riding around in their fiery costumes, it really worked. For myself, I don’t know if I could pick a favorite because they all represented such a different emotion. “Loss and Survival” was the first piece I wrote, though, and there’s still something very cathartic about it for me.

Are you considering writing for other books in the trilogy as well?

We haven’t really discussed it, but we would definitely be interested in pursuing that notion. And for all the Gale fans out there, we promise if we ever tackle Catching Fire, Gale would get his own theme, too!

What are your hopes for your music? What do you want people to come away with after listening?

Right now, we’re seeing how far we can take this music. We’re really thankful for all the support we’ve gotten so far! We are looking into maybe making the tracks available for download or something, but we’ll keep everyone updated on that, as well as any other developments. As for what we’d like people to come away with . . . we can’t really begin to speak to that. Everybody listens to music in different ways, even soundtrack music that has a storyline that goes along with it – that’s one of the reasons we love working with music so much. Since we started out just writing this music for ourselves, it’s incredibly special already that our music has spoken to so many other people. We hope that it will continue to do so, and we’ll see where it goes!

Thank you so much to Edward and Matt for agreeing to speak with us more about their work.

You can find out even more about The Hunger Games Project, by checking out their website and be sure to listen to all the fantastic pieces to their score on their site or on YouTube.