Welcome to The Queue — your daily distraction of curated video content sourced from across the web. Today, we’re watching a video essay on what makes the music of Spaghetti Westerns so dang cool.
When is the most appropriate time to hoot and holler? At a successful cattle drive? When a rugged goon is sent sailing through the saloon window? When that grizzled newcomer finally shoots the local menace into a shallow grave?
All of these instances would amply satisfy the requirements of a good old-fashioned celebratory foot stomp. But sometimes, all the average moviegoer needs to get riled up is a galloping rhythm, a minimalist twang, and a percussion section subbed out for a good ole’ gunshot.
There’s more than one way to tell you’re watching a Spaghetti Western. You can look for post-synched dubbing, a clear giveaway of a multilingual cast. And you can keep your eyes peeled for a general suspicion of the romanticized individualism that defined its Classical predecessor. But another way to identify Spaghetti Westerns is by their music scores, which left lush (but expensive) big band orchestras in the dust in favor of whistles, whips, and electric guitars.
Focusing on Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy, scored by the incomparable Ennio Morricone, the video essay below takes a peek at the guts of Spaghetti Western music to understand what makes it so dang good. From reverb that carries you into the sunset, to minor keys that hint at the latent darkness of the Wild West, here’s a look at how the music of Spaghetti Westerns captures and conveys the psyche of the genre.
Watch “Why is Spaghetti Western Music So Cool?”:
Who made this?
This video essay on Spaghetti Western music scores is by Reverb. Launched in 2013, Reverb’s YouTube channel provides informative videos on music gear and theory. You can follow them on Twitter here and subscribe to them on YouTube here.
More videos like this
- For another look at the kind of videos you can expect on Reverb, here’s their essay on the synthetic sounds of Netflix’s Stranger Things.
- Here’s another edition of The Queue focused on film music: why the Shrek soundtrack is a masterclass in music selection.
- And on the flip side, here’s the story of why Nicolas Roeg decided not to use David Bowie’s proposed soundtrack for The Man Who Fell to Earth.
- If you enjoy film music and don’t know who Delia Derbyshire is, you should. Here’s a primer on the unsung heroine of British electronic music.
- Oh, and speaking of Westerns, here’s a video from the Museum of Modern Art’s “How to See” series on the genre conventions of traditional Hollywood Westerns.
Related Topics: Film Music, The Queue, Westerns
