Timeline Parameters #

All of the following fields can be added, changed and removed completely flexibel and independently from each other on the timeline of a movie. The input is possible with an accuracy of up to one second, changes in the millisecond range cannot be mapped.

Kind #

The parameter kind is meant to describe, whether the film music in the scenic context can only be heard by the audience (extradiegetic) or whether it can also be heard by the characters within the film scene (diegetic).
The third option (transgressive) shall be used for scenes, in which you can not say, whether the music can only be heard by the audience or by the film characters as well.

Function #

The parameter function is meant to describe, whether the film music has an illustrative or a psychologizing function within the scenic context.

Illustrative means, that the music in a way "doubles" the visible actions, like for example if a character falls down, there is also a "boom" in the Music (something you maybe have seen before in many Cartoons, one reason why this technique is also called Mickey-Mousing).

Psychologizing means, that the music is independent of the action of the scene and adds either emotional or dramaturgical content to it (like e.g. if the audience shall understand, that a character is sad, some sad diegetic music is played).

As it's sometimes hard to tell, which of these functions the film music has, there is also a third option transgressive, that means, that it cannot be determined what it is (e.g. in some Chasing-Scenes of modern Action Movies you sometimes don't know whether the fast and excited film music only illustrates the action on screen or it's the characters' state of mind, who is very excited here).

And as many researchers have found way more than only these two rudimentary functions of film music, there is also the option other to mark that none of the above applies here.

bpm #

The parameter bpm (beats per minute) is meant to add the concrete tempo of the music of a scene. You can find out the bpm within a scene approximately by the help of a metronome or some software tools, like e.g. the Sonic Visualizer.

Please add the concrete bpm in the form of a normal number, related to the note value, that you've entered as denominator in the parameter time signature. You can also leave this field open to add an element with a questionmark on your timeline.

You can also mark a ritardando (getting slower) or accelerando (getting faster) in this field. To do so, please enter the concrete bpm at the start of the tempo change as well as the concrete bpm at the end of the tempo change and chose connect in the space between both values. There will be an error, if you choose connect without either a concrete preceding or a following value, so please check carefully to enter both.

Time Signature #

The parameter time signature is meant to describe the beat emphases of the music. You can add here concrete time signatures in the form of an integer fracture, like e.g. 4/4 or 3/4 or type unknown, in case you don't know about the time signature of the music.

In the analysis of film music it is often impossible to enter the correct time signature, because you don't know, whether the composer wrote the piece e.g. in a 4/4 or in a 2/4. For this reason, justifiable assumptions may also be made here and there is no need to contact the composer or get into further trouble to really get the true time signature here. You can also leave this field open to add an element with a questionmark on your timeline.

Tonality #

The parameter tonality is meant to describe the basic tonal structure of a piece of music. You have three options here:

• tonal
  describes a piece with concrete pitches and a clear hierarchic structure among the used tones, in a way that there are e.g. (extended) chords and it is fixed on a clear root, that might of course change over time.

• atonal
  describes a piece with concrete pitches but without the usual hierarchic structure among the used tones. Another term by Arnold Schönberg to describe this category would be the word "atonic", that means, that there is no root any more or if so, the tonal centre is not a usual chord, like e.g. C-major but a pitch class set or something else.

• soundbased
  describes a piece of music that has no concrete pitches and only uses pitch-undefined sounds.

You can only select one of these options at the same time on your timeline. But you can of course also switch this parameter within a piece of music, if the tonal structure of the piece is changing extremely.

Harmonic Structure #

The parameter harmonic structure is meant to describe the more concrete harmonic structure of tonal music. So if you have marked a piece of music as atonal or soundbased, just leave this field empty.

There are several options to describe the harmonic structure of a piece of music, but you can only enter one of them at the same time:

• SingleTone
  describes music, that uses only one note at the same time. Of course this tone can change over time, but as long as you do not hear more than one tone at the same time, this is the option you should choose.

• SingleInterval
  describes music, that uses only two notes at the same time. Of course these two tones can also change over time, but as long as you do not hear more than two tones at the same time, this is the option you should choose.

• SingleChord
  describes music, that uses only the tones of one single chord, that doesn't change over time.

• ModalHarmony
  describes music, that is based on one of the following modes: dorian, phrygian, lydian, mixolydian, ionic or aeolian mode. Since the tones of the ionic scale are exactly the same as in the present-day major scale, music or musical sections based on this scale should be classified as "ModalHarmony" only if their harmonic progression is based predominantly on schemata or sequence models (like e.g. in the score right at the beginning of the movie "Boss Level"). Otherwise, they should be assigned to the "FunctionalHarmony" category.

• FunctionalHarmony
  describes music, that is based on the (harmonic and melodic) minor or major scale system and whose harmonies arise by the functional relationships between the different chords used (e.g. C-Major as tonic and G-major as dominant).

• ExtendedHarmony
  describes music that has a recognizable tonal center (i.e., a home key) but breaks conventional tonality with the help of unusual chord progressions or augmented chords.

Scale #

The parameter scale describes the tone stock of a piece of music by offering you some fundamental scales as different options to choose from. You can only enter one scale at the same time.

The following options are included:

• Major
  describes all tones of a normal major scale. As an example you find the C-Major-Scale in the pictures below.

• Aeolian/ Minor
  describes all tones of a normal minor or aeolian scale. As an example you find the C-Minor-Scale in the pictures below.

• Harmonic or Melodic Minor
  describes all tones of a harmonic or melodic minor scale. As in filmmusic it is sometimes hard to tell the difference, both possibilities have been merged here. As an example you find the melodic C-Minor-Scale in the pictures below.

• dorian
  describes all tones of the dorian mode. As an example you find the dorian scale based on C in the pictures below.

• phrygian
  describes all tones of the phrygian mode. As an example you find the dorian scale based on C in the pictures below.

• lydian
  describes all tones of the lydian mode. As an example you find the dorian scale based on C in the pictures below.

• mixolydian
  describes all tones of the mixolydian mode. As an example you find the dorian scale based on C in the pictures below.

• blues scale describes both versions of the blues scale, either with or without the major third. As an example you find both versions of the blues scale on C in the pictures below.

• pentatonic
  describes all possible pentatonic scales, which means: there are only 5 different tones with a distance of at least a major second between each of them used in the piece of music.
  As an example you find one pentatonic scale based on C in the pictures below.

• Whole-Tone-Half-Tone-Scale or Half-Tone-Whole-Tone-Scale
  describes all scales that are built up alternately from a semitone and a whole tone. As an example you find a Whole-Tone-Half-Tone-Scale based on C in the pictures below.

• Whole-Tone-scale
  describes both scales, that are only built of major seconds. You find both possible tone stacks as an example in the pictures below.

• Other
  In case, that a piece of music is built on a scale, that is not (yet?) mentioned here, please enter other, so that everyone sees, that it's built on a scale, bub none of the scales above.

Root or Central Tone #

The parameter root or central tone offers you the possibility to add the concrete root of a piece of music or (especially in the case of extendedHarmony, where you might not be able to identify the root of the whole piece of music) the root of the different chords.

You can only enter one of the twelve tones (c, c#/db, d, d#/eb, e, f, f#/gb, g, g#/ab, a, a#/bb, b) as root at the same time. In case, that you are not sure, which of the tones really is the root, because more than one at the same time are possible, you can also choose unknown and leave it open.

Dynamic #

The parameter dynamic is meant to describe the percieved volume of the film music in a scene. Please note here your own perception of the dynamic of the music. You can choose between five options, but you can only enter one at the same time:

• quiet
  describes very quietly/ softly played music.

• medium
  describes music at a normal dynamic.

• loud
  describes music that is rather or really loud. If you want to add a sudden accent, you can enter a short timeline entry with this option, to mark it.

• break
  describes a short (6 seconds or less) break within a piece of music, that is too short to be counted as two different pieces of music.

• connect
  can be used to mark a crescendo (if music gets louder) or a decrescendo (if music gets more quiet) and connects the preceding and the following dynamic value.
  There will be an error, if you choose connect without either a preceding or a following value, so please check carefully to enter both.

Effect #

The parameter effect gives you the possibility to define what kinds of special effects are used in a piece of music. You can enter several of the following options at the same time, independantly from each other:

• Percussive
  describes all kinds of percussive special effects, like e.g. the use of a thunder plate or an anvil.

• Microtonal
  describes all kinds of 'unclean' sound, whose pitch is somewhere between the twelve tones (c, c#/db, d, d#/eb, e, f, f#/gb, g, g#/ab, a, a#/bb, b).

• Glissando
  describes a breakless slide from one pitch to another pitch.

• Contemporary
  describes all kinds of modern playing techniques, like e.g. a flutter tongue in the woodwinds or throwing the bow on a violin's string.

• electronic
  describes all kinds of electronic effects, like e.g. adding a delay or some distortion to the sound.

• Sound
  describes effects, that could as well be part of the sound design of the movie, like e.g. a 'melodic' scratch of a moving chair.

• unknown
  You can use this category, if you hear a special effect in a film but are unable to define its kind.

• no
  means, that there are really no effects used in this piece of music.

Cluster #

The parameter Cluster gives you the possibility to define, whether there is a cluster used within the piece of music and if so, what kind of cluster it is. The term 'Cluster' means a group of tones, sounding together at the same time, that lie really close together or even next to each other.

You can choose between the following different options and may enter several of them independently from each other at the same time:

• Whole Tone
  describes a Cluster, that is only built of major seconds.

• Diatonic
  describes a Cluster, that is built of a mixture of major and minor seconds.

• Chromatic
  describes a Cluster, that is only built of minor seconds.

• Microtonal
  describges a Cluster, that is built of tones in between one minor second.

• unknown
  You can use this category, if you hear a cluster in a piece of filmmusic but are unable to define its kind.

• no
  means, that there are really no clusters used in this piece of music.

Transcription #

The parameter transcription offers you the possibility to upload your transcription of the music of a specific scene directly on the timeline. You should check carefully the result of your upload, as FMADB will store the data as .mei file, so whatever you enter here might be converted. All of the following formats can be entered here: MEI, MusicXML, humdrum, abc, darms, pae and xml

The most common formats are mei and musicxml. Therefore here is a short hint to some notation programs that can export one of these two formats guaranteed:
MuseScore, Finale, Sibelius, Capella, Dorico

To upload a file here, you need to copy the program code of the file you'd like to upload. To do this, simply open the file with a program like Notepad++ and copy the entire text that is now displayed to you. Now past the text in the textfield of the timeline parameter transcription and click on save. Now your transcription is added to your timeline and you can look at it by clicking on the specific timeline element.

PKS #

The parameter pks is meant to describe the dramaturgical structure of a scene. It is built on the PKS-Model of the German dramaturg Peter Wuss and classifies three different types of storytelling, that every movie is more or less built of:

• Motive-led...
  ... which means that a collage of different scenes on the same topic is presented and the audience has to find out the superior theme themselves.

• Concept-Led...
  ... which means a causal chain of different actions, that the audience can easily recognize as related to each other.

• Stereotype-Led...
  ... which means a typical way of story-telling within a specific genre that has already established over many other, similar films.

Please enter the most dominant of these three models on the timeline. If you are not sure, which is the most dominant, because it could be two at the same time, you also have the possibility to add more than one option. Please do not enter more than two options at the same time, because that wouldn't be useful.

Orchestration #

The paramter orchestration describes the instruments used in a piece of music. Within this parameter you find a list with all instruments, that are already included in FMADB. You can choose as many instruments as you need to describe the orchestration of the piece of music and you can also add new instruments, in case that the one you need is not included yet.

You have also the possibility to describe the orchestration more detailed by labeling an instrument with one of the three following categories (... but of course there is no need to and you can also leave this empty):

• Melody
  this includes everything that is percieved or used as melody or leitmotif within the score of the movie, from a short motif to a whole melodic line.
• Sustained
  means a sustained tone, chord or sound surface, that doesn't change over a long time.
• Ostinato or repetitive Pattern
  means a short either melodic or rhythmic motif, that is repeated at least four times in a row. If an instrument or a group of several instruments is playing only tone repetitions, you can also mark it as Ostinato or repetitive pattern.
• Other can be used in case an instrument plays something you can't describe with any of the categories above.

Keywords #

The parameter keywords is meant to describe the scenic context of a film. This means on the one hand the visual content (e.g. Hospital, Monster, Night,...) and on the other hand a strong emotion of a film character (e.g. grief, panic,...) if that's an important component of the scene. Within this parameter you'll find there a list with all keywords, that are already included in FMADB. You can choose as many keywords as you need to describe the scenic context, each independantly from each other, and you can also add new keywords.

Comment #

In Comment you can add a personal comment or more information about your analysis of the movie that are not included and therefore can not be depicted with the given parameters of the timeline.