How 'Oppenheimer' Composer Ludwig Göransson Created 'Can You Hear The Music?' | Behind the Song

Summary

Composer Ludwig Goransson describes his creative process for scoring the music in Christopher Nolan's film Oppenheimer. Nolan challenged him to use the violin to portray the complex main character. Goransson began by experimenting with his violinist wife to create ominous sounds. He then wrote a simple, melancholic 4-note motif representing Oppenheimer's isolation. Later, a more upbeat 'Hexatonics' piece with a dangerous synth incorporated mathematical patterns. The key was combining emotional melodies with the mathematics and danger. Recording live musicians to dynamically intensify the tempo was very complex. Ultimately the focus was not on adding more sounds but finding the key melodies to deeply move the audience.

Takeaways

• 🎙️ Ludwig Goransson discusses the creation of the music for the montage 'Can You Hear the Music?' in the film Oppenheimer, highlighting his second collaboration with Christopher Nolan.
• 🎶 The use of the violin was a central idea from Nolan to represent Oppenheimer, chosen for its expressive range, capable of conveying both beauty and horror through its vibrato.
• 👏 The creative process began with experimenting with violin sounds, including manipulating the instrument to produce unique noises and recording long sessions with Goransson's wife, Serena, an accomplished violinist.
• 📚 After reading the script, Goransson focused on capturing the emotional core of Oppenheimer's journey, realizing that melody, rather than sound design, was key to expressing the character's loneliness and complexity.
• 🎧 A simple, yet profound, four-note bassline and a six-note melody were developed to form the foundation of the film's score, emphasizing the importance of simplicity in conveying deep emotions.
• 🖥️ Goransson explored mathematical and scientific concepts in his music, creating a piece called 'Hexatonics' to reflect the theme of mastery and progression, symbolizing Oppenheimer's scientific endeavors.
• ⏱️ The challenge of recording the music live with an ensemble was significant due to the complex tempo changes. The solution involved meticulous planning and the innovative use of click tracks to guide the musicians.
• 🎺 The 'Can You Hear the Music' montage combines themes of mastery and emotional depth, reflecting on the rewarding feeling of achieving fluency and expressiveness in music.
• 📈 Goransson's approach underscores the importance of not overcomplicating the score with too many tracks or sounds, but rather focusing on elements that truly capture the essence of the narrative and characters.
• 🎬 The integration of live orchestra recordings with synthetic elements and the strategic use of room tone added depth and authenticity to the score, highlighting the synergy between traditional and modern music production techniques.

Q & A

What instrument does Nolan suggest using to portray Oppenheimer?

Nolan suggests using the violin to portray Oppenheimer, because it is an expressive instrument that can convey a range of emotions from beautiful and somber to horrific, matching Oppenheimer's complex character.

What is the first piece of music Ludwig writes for the film?

The first piece of music Ludwig writes is a simple four-note bassline played on low strings, with a six-note violin melody over it. This emotional theme aims to capture Oppenheimer's sense of loneliness.

What production technique does Ludwig use to introduce a dangerous sound?

Ludwig introduces a distorted, menacing synth sound called the "saw glide" to bring an element of danger to the otherwise safe-sounding strings and orchestra.

How does Ludwig musically portray the feeling of mastering something?

Ludwig portrays the feeling of mastering something by having the music gradually speed up, going through different tempos and rhythms. This creates a sense of pushing limits and gaining control.

Why does Ludwig emphasize the need for a live ensemble?

Ludwig wants a live ensemble to capture the emotion, imperfections, and overtones that can only come from real musicians recording together. This creates more depth and humanity.

How do they adapt the music for the musicians to play the changing tempos?

They provide the musicians a click track in their headphones that changes tempo ahead of time, allowing them to adapt and keep up with the score.

How do they blend the synthesizer sound with the ensemble?

They play the synth sound through speakers in the room while recording the orchestra. This captures the room's tones and makes the synth sound like part of the ensemble.

What is Ludwig's advice for achieving a big, cinematic sound?

Rather than adding more tracks and sounds, Ludwig advises focusing on just the key elements that are most emotional and impactful.

What was the most challenging aspect of this music?

The most challenging aspect was figuring out how to record the complex and irregular tempo changes live with an ensemble of musicians.

How does Nolan first react to the "Hexatonics" music?

Nolan is immediately drawn to the distorted "saw glide" synth sound, finding it an interesting and fitting tone for the music.

Outlines

00:00

🎵 Creating the emotional musical core

The first paragraph describes how Ludwig created the emotional core of the music by recording violin melodies with his wife Serena. He started by experimenting with violin sounds and textures. After a long day, he wrote a simple 4 note bassline and added a 6 note melody on piano and strings. This became the main Oppenheimer theme conveying a sense of loneliness.

05:00

💡 Adding science and math elements

The second paragraph explains how Ludwig wanted to incorporate mathematical and scientific elements into the music. He wrote a piece called Hexatonics using specific chord tones that formed a 6 note scale. He recorded this with violins and added a distorted synth sound to introduce a sense of danger. When Chris Nolan heard this, he was drawn to the synth sound and wanted Ludwig to use more of it.

10:01

🎶 Recording the montage live with an orchestra

The third paragraph describes the challenging process of recording the Can You Hear the Music montage live with an orchestra. The irregular tempo changes made it very difficult. After trying different approaches, they created a click track for the musicians that changed tempo ahead of time. This allowed them to record the ensemble together in one take and achieve a flowing, connected feeling.

Keywords

💡violin

The violin is used throughout the soundtrack to represent and portray Oppenheimer's character and emotions. It was chosen for its expressive range from beautiful to horrific. Examples of violin usage include the main theme's melody and the evolving tempos of the 'Can You Hear the Music' montage.

💡melody

The main theme melody with its 6 notes captures Oppenheimer's loneliness and emotional core. It reappears in the climax of the 'Can You Hear the Music' montage, adding emotional impact.

💡tempo

The accelerating tempo of the music in the montage represents mastering a skill, relating to Oppenheimer's scientific journey. It builds in intensity, sweeping the viewer away.

💡live musicians

Use of a live orchestra instead of digital music aims to make the soundtrack feel connected and flying rather than choppy. The musicians adapt to an irregular changing tempo.

💡click track

A click track that changes tempo ahead of time enabled the musicians to play the irregular tempo changes together live.

💡synth sound

The distorted synth sound adds a dangerous edge to the music. Its prominence pleased Nolan, who wanted it used more.

💡hexatonics

The 'Hexatonics' piece with its mathematical tone and pattern captures the science and math in Oppenheimer's work.

💡Simplicity

Despite temptation to add more instruments, Goransson focused on just the core elements that were most powerful to let them speak.

💡4 note baseline

The simple 4 note violin line Goransson improvised became the entire film score's foundation and starting point.

💡overtones

Blending the synth sound with live orchestra overtones gives it more depth and makes it fit together more naturally.

Highlights

Oppenheimer is portrayed through the expressive nature of the violin

The main violin theme aimed to capture Oppenheimer's emotional complexity and feeling of loneliness

Added distorted synth sounds to introduce an element of danger to the music

The Can You Hear the Music montage combines mathematical, science-like elements with emotional melodies

The feeling of mastering something on an instrument is rewarding, related to Oppenheimer's mastery of physics

The tempo steadily increases to portray the process of practicing and mastering a skill

At a point you become swept up in the feeling of the increasing tempo and stop thinking about rhythm

Putting the emotional melody over the driving rhythms makes the music truly come alive

Recording live musicians to capture the proper musical transitions was very challenging

Used a click track with tempo changes ahead of time to help musicians follow irregular tempo shifts

Blasted synth tones through speakers in the orchestra room to blend sound with live players

Overdubbing too many sounds can detract from emotional impact, focus on core elements

Violin used to quickly shift between beautiful and horrific emotions, reflecting Oppenheimer's dual nature

Simple 4 note bassline and 6 note melody formed the core theme signifying loneliness

Counter melody added complexity, with the violin playing against itself

Transcripts

- The most challenging part of this piece of music was,

how the hell are we gonna be able to record this live

with an ensemble, with real musicians?

My name is Ludwig Goransson, and I'm gonna take you

on this journey how we created the music

for the montage called, Can You Hear the Music?

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music continues)

Oppenheimer is my second film with Nolan.

We did Tenet previously.

We hung out, we'd talk, we listen to music together

and talk about film,

but he doesn't really discuss what he's working on.

I didn't know what the project was,

or what it was about.

But he called me and asked me if I wanna come in

and read the script for his new film.

After I finished the script, meet up with Chris,

and he told me like, I don't have a lot of things

to tell you what I want the music to sound like.

But I have one idea,

and that is to use the violin to portray Oppenheimer.

And I thought that was a great idea

because my wife Serena, she's an accomplished violinist,

and we will be able to start recording right off the bat.

Chris was saying that, you know,

the violin being the most expressive instrument,

depending on the performance,

you can have this beautiful, somber,

romantic note in vibrato.

And depending on the intensity of the vibrato,

you can switch it to something horrific.

And you can go between those emotions

really, really quickly.

And that was something that resonated with the script,

and with the nature of Oppenheimer

and his complex character.

(dramatic music)

The first thing that I did after reading the script

was to start recording with Serena.

And we recorded a lot of just kind of noise,

sirens and experiments, trying to manipulate the violin,

and trying to make it sound like something different.

And mostly just kind of playing around with sounds.

And those were like long days, like 10 hour days.

After one of those days

that I remember like we're both exhausted,

and we're like about to pack up.

And I remember sitting at the piano and just

writing down this very simple, melodic baseline.

It has four notes.

And then I quickly just put that baseline in the strings.

And it sounds like this.

(low notes playing)

It's four notes.

A simple idea.

And after those four notes, that's the fourth note,

it starts repeating again.

The next step, I quickly wrote like a melody on top of it.

(higher and lower notes playing)

So these are synth strings, bass, and the piano.

So it's just two instruments,

just low basses and the piano melody.

And it's six notes in the melody.

I realized after spending a lot of time

recording these sirens,

and recording these noises and sounds,

that what I really needed to encapture first

is the emotional core of Oppenheimer's journey.

And I'm not gonna do that with production and sound design,

like I need to do that with the melody.

There was something about this kind of feeling of loneliness

that I got from the script and from the story.

That's something that I wanted to portray in this song.

And Serena came in and she, I asked her to play the melody.

And this is how it sounded.

(slow somber music)

That's the theme, those six notes.

After recording this first line of melody,

I wrote a counter melody on top of this melody.

So she's kind of playing against herself.

It sounds like this.

(slow somber music continues)

After I saw these visual effects in IMAX theater,

the molecules swirling around.

(dramatic music)

I felt like I needed to write some music

that also had the math and science in it.

I wrote a piece, a demo called Hexatonics.

I had a B minor and a C major.

And if you take the tonic, the third and the fifth,

in those two chords, you have six notes.

It's kind of like an exercise, a mathematical exercise.

I recorded that with four violins here at my studio.

And it sounded like this.

(upbeat music)

It's almost like an exercise.

It's a very simple pattern.

And you just go up the scale,

the six note scale, and then you go down again.

And I liked how this sounded and how this felt like.

And I added some production to this.

So I added the sound (sings)

'cause I wanted to introduce some kind of,

some element of danger in this music.

Because just having the strings

and the orchestra, it feels very safe.

But I wanted to have that distorted synth.

I call it saw glide.

(menacing music)

Because I wanted to introduce, yeah,

a sound that is a little dangerous.

I played this for Chris Nolan in one of our meetings.

And we listened to this piece of music over and over again.

And then one of the first thing

that he points out is that sound.

(dramatic music)

His ear was immediately drawn to that sound.

And he thought it was a very interesting

choice of tone for this piece of music.

And he pointed out that we should try to use more of it.

These two pieces of music I created

before they shot the film.

And then when Chris came back from shooting the film,

he started making his first cut.

The first scene that he sent to me was,

Can You Hear the Music.

(dramatic music)

The Can You Hear the Music montage,

we're basically combining these two demos that I played you.

I always thought about this, how,

when you are learning to master something,

I can relate to that in music, being a student.

And starting to play a scale or a pattern.

And you start it in one tempo.

Each time you play it, the better you get,

you turn the tempo up, right?

So you start slow, turn it up,

go faster, and faster, and faster.

And then by the end of it,

after you've been practicing for a long time,

you've achieved a level

where you can play it flawlessly in any tempo.

The feeling of mastering something

on your instrument is so rewarding.

So this line started triplets in the violin.

And then I put the click on here.

And then this is still the same tempo,

but it goes to 16th notes here and go down.

So it goes, feels faster.

Next time it's 20 BPM faster.

So the whole thing about getting

faster and faster on something,

and getting better on performing or playing the scale,

every seven bars, it gets 20 bpm faster.

At a certain point in time in the music,

you stop thinking about rhythm,

and you stop thinking about tempo.

You kind of just kind of get swept away in the feeling.

(dynamic music)

And then what really made the music come alive

was to put the melody in there,

to put the motion into this piece of music.

Because now we have this interesting

like math or science experiment, right?

What really makes the music speak out

and makes you feel something is the melody.

It's the emotional core.

And that's why I played you that first piece of music

that I wrote for the film.

But what if we use that piece in a triumphant way

with this synth sound as the lead instrument,

as the lead voice for this particular scene.

This is the exact same melody from the first demo,

but it's now played on the synthesizer.

(discordant music)

(dramatic music)

The most challenging part of this piece of music was,

how the hell are we gonna be able to record this live

with an ensemble, with real musicians?

Because I look at this and I look at

the tempo map I have here.

And the way the music grows,

and the tempo changes is very irregular.

You can do it with one player and make it sound okay.

But like, how are you gonna have four

to six string players play this together

to make the same tempo changes?

We spent a lot of time with the whole orchestra

recording it in so many different ways,

trying to figure out how can we do this?

And we're recording this in LA

with some of the best musicians in the world.

My first thought was that we record it

in seven bars at a time,

and then we'll just cut it together using the computer.

And we did it, and it sounded okay.

But you can hear that it's created by a computer.

You can hear that it's not live in one take.

We wanted this whole line to feel like we're flying,

and to feel connected, and not choppy like that.

Then we said, okay, well let's write

all of this music out in the same note value, 16th notes.

Which meant that we also need to have

double as many tempo changes.

I don't think it was gonna be humanly possible

to do that with 26 string players, together.

I was like, that's not gonna work.

But then Serena mentioned,

she was like, these guys can do anything.

And what if we just make a click track for them

in their headphones, because they're getting a click.

And what if we make a click track

so that changes tempo before it happens on the page.

Now the tempo track looks like this.

And I'll play you the click track to get it with the violin.

So they had four clicks and then they start playing.

So one, two, three, four.

(dramatic music and clicking)

Here the new tempo.

(faster dramatic music and clicking)

Click goes out here.

New tempo here.

Tempo comes up, they get a new tempo.

Another element to it that also changes

the way you hear things is also, you know,

for example, we have this synth sound, this huge sound.

But also, to make it more fit the world of the film,

when we're recording the orchestra,

we blast this sound out in that room with speakers.

Record that sound again on the speakers in the room.

And then put it back in the track.

So we get also the tone of the room,

and the feeling of that it fits the,

that it's playing together with a whole ensemble.

That also creates all the overtones together with the sound,

and it gives it a width and a depth to it

that you can only achieve with live musicians.

(dramatic music)

(glass breaking)

If you look here on my session,

there's not that many tracks, right?

I think a lot of times you get sort of up

with what you're doing, and you feel like you have to

add things the whole time to make it sound bigger,

to make sound grand and cinematic.

But that's not really what it's about.

Instead of adding too many sounds

and make it to feel like you have to fill up the air

with different elements, just focus on the things

that really grabs you the most.

And I think you can make the most out of that.

(dramatic music)