James Newton Howard's Signs: A Film Score Guide

(Paperback)

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Released in 2002, M. Night Shyamalans Signs was the directors follow-up to The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, and his third collaboration with composer James Newton Howard. Well received by audiences and critics alike, the film was often cited by reviewers for its music. With its dependence on a single motive, the score is unique in Howards career, and one of his most effective and haunting works. In James Newton Howards Signs: A Film Score Guide, Erik Heine provides the first close reading of the composers work. Heine discusses Howards musical style and influences, as well as his ability to compose for a variety of genres, acknowledging him as one of the most versatile composers working today. The book shows how early sketches of cues for Signs were developed into the final score, allowing the reader insight into Howards compositional process. The book also demonstrates how Howards style is difficult to pigeonhole, since his focus is on serving the needs of the film. Drawing on completed orchestrated scores, as well as other material from the James Newton Howard Archive at the University of Southern California, the level of musical detail provided in this volume is unsurpassed. As a book that addresses Howards compositional styleand the only volume that significantly examines the music in any Shyamalan filmJames Newton Howards Signs: A Film Score Guide will be of interest to music scholars, film scholars, and fans of the composers work.

Reviews

This book is the first to examine the composer's work in detail, and in so doing demonstrates why and how James Newton Howard's film music style is challenging to pigeonhole. The comprehensive analysis in this book also affords the first significantly broad examination of the music in any of Shyamalan's films. It deserves a place in any thorough library of film and film musical studies.

Author Bio

Erik Heine is professor of music at the Wanda L. Bass School of Music at Oklahoma City University. His research interests include film music, classical form and analysis, and music theory pedagogy. He is the author of multiple articles and book chapters on film music.