#Spooky Music

[izzylimon]

source: Children of the Night track: Bela Lugosi's Dead (Official Version)

[brokehorrorfan]

Fright-Rags has two print-on-demand shirts for Music of the Macabre, a Halloween album from composer George Streicher (Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom, Corrective Measures). Designed by Blake Armstrong, they're $36 each.

[ms-scarletwings]

I love how it’s both massively implied and basically shown on screen that a great deal of Zim’s free time on Earth is spent doing stuff to innocent animals/humans in the lower levels of his base that would probably be well suited to that happy meat farms type of background music

POV you are a random cop’s brain trapped in the body of a squid. You have no ink and you must scream. You are a missing child about to receive experimental brain surgery. You are a street rat waking up in a strange place. You will never be the same again.

[xxwhiteveilbridexx]

I know Type O personally and theyre such nice dudes, its so rad to see VV likes them 2 xp

[grandadofrad]

I accidentally haunt every song I make so I guess I'll just lean into it. Really channeling my inner Detroit's Filthiest on this one, with all due respect to the deadly serious bops. I was trying to teach myself to make a G Funk whistle. It's not done but it's getting there.

[gasparodasalo]

Happy Halloween!

Jean-Féry Rebel (1666-1747) - “Les élémens, simphonie nouvelle” for Orchestra, I. Le chaos. Performed by Pavel Serbin/Pratum Integrum Orchestra on period instruments.

[smokeyloki]

One of my music activities for my students in October is, every week, playing a bit of a "spooky" piece of Classical music and having my students analyze it by asking some simple questions.

So far we've done:

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Bach

Dies Irae, Dies Illa by Thomas of Celano, including the arrangements by Mozart and Verdi

Next week we'll be doing Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saens.

Still not sure what to do for the last week in October. I was thinking The Sorcerer's Apprentice, perhaps...but there might be shorter options that I can play the piece in full for my students.

[fizermusic]

Halloween Night.mp4

[nugothrhythms]

"Panic," a 2023 single by Washington DC-based gothic rock and darkwave act The Neuro Farm

[izzylimon]

The Cure - Pictures of You 🖤🖤 I've been looking so long at these pictures of you That I almost believe that they're real I've been living so long with my pictures of you That I almost believe that the pictures are all I can feel Remembering you standing quiet in the rain As I ran to your heart to be near And we kissed as the sky fell in, holding you close How I always held close in your fear Remembering you running soft through the night You were bigger and brighter and wider than snow You screamed at the make-believe, screamed at the sky And you finally found all your courage to let it all go Remembering you, fallen into my arms Crying for the death of your heart You were stone white, so delicate Lost in the cold You were always so lost in the dark Remembering you, how you used to be Slow drowned, you were angels So much more than everything Hold for the last time then slip away quietly Open my eyes, but I never see anything If only I'd thought of the right words I could have held on to your heart 🖤 If only I'd thought of the right words I wouldn't be breaking apart all my pictures of you Looking so long at these pictures of you But I never hold on to your heart Looking so long for the words to be true But always just breaking apart My pictures of you There was nothing in the world that I ever wanted more Than to feel you deep in my heart 🖤 There was nothing in the world that I ever wanted more Than to never feel the breaking apart My pictures of you ༉‧₊˚🕯️❀༉‧₊˚.🖤🖤

[gbfmi1]

~~ Surreal horror moodboard ~~

[evergreen-collections]

spooky song recs 15

a super nice and elaborate haunted song, a true delight!!

[discounttherapy]

PIXIE STIX by discount therapy. Stream it now everywhere and anywhere. I respect you, make your choice. Live your truth and journey is your truth. Slay

[profblahson]

Dies Irae

Eight notes.

Hell, this theme can be identified in fewer, especially when you know what you’re looking for. But eight notes is about all it takes, and you’ve got yourself one of the most iconic themes surrounding death, horror, and the macabre.

Even if you don’t know it by name, you almost certainly know it by sound.

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This is the first post the month of spooky and macabre music for Spooky Season! I wanted to start off with a classic and widely-used piece (or chant in this case). I’m planning a few of these, so keep an eye out throughout the month!

Art by @nynehells , go check them out!

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What is the Dies Irae?

From Latin, “Day of Wrath,” this sequence is dated as far back as the 13th century. While who formally wrote the chant is not entirely known (originally attributed, however, to Thomas of Celano, but that is now debated), the text is clearly based on a Biblical passage, Zep 1:14-16. Below is both the Latin-English translation of the Dies Irae’s opening stanza, and the referenced Bible text.

The poem does in fact end on a more hopeful note, but the opening lines are harrowing, and where a lot of music draws inspiration.

This is the most typical variation of the chant, in d minor. Already off to a great start, as d minor is often called one of the darkest and saddest keys in the circle. The closeness of the starting pitches (Me-Re/F-E is only a half step) adds tension, and the whole step resolution to our home note (Te-Do/C-D) is weak, leaving our ears a bit put off. We don’t travel far - only the distance of a Perfect Fourth, another interval full of tension, with little release. All this combined with such intense lyrics, it’s no wonder the music is so commonly used with death. Sung as a slow chant, and you’ve created a menacing piece of music that has haunted the world over for literal centuries.

Dies Irae in Music

The Dies Irae is ubiquitous in classical music and horror/thriller scores. We’ll take a quick look at some of the more popular uses of the piece! Two classical pieces and two modern pop culture references.

Hilariously, for purposes of this post, the first two examples don’t directly use the Dies Irae chant; instead, they set the text to frenetic, intense music (and I also like them :) )

Requiem - Mozart

The Dies Irae is part of the Ordinary, and so it’s included in Requiems, which is a Mass for the Dead. Mozart’s Requiem was the last piece he worked on before his death (passed before completing it), and it’s a huge choral work.

The Dies Irae appears relatively early on, and it’s a mood changer. Fast, aggressive, chaotic…it truly sounds like impending doom.

The goal of this movement seems to make audiences feel the frantic energy of the text. It SCREAMS Day of Wrath!!

Requiem - Verdi

Another use of the frantic energy depicted in the text. Verdi’s Dies Irae is also loud, bombastic, and quite literally hits you hard right away. Hear that gun-shot bass drum and timpani! The strings absolutely fly by; Intense and fast chromatic lines in the trumpets sound as though they’re heralding in one’s doom. (This one’s my favorite btw)

Common to both of these examples: dynamics are turned up to 11, their tempi are fast and relentless, and both use wicked scalar motion which, combined with the speed, create a blast of sound that simply pummel listeners.

Some more recent uses of the Dies Irae in media up next! For these two, we actually hear the chant proper, not use of the text.

The Shining Theme

I mean, it's quite literally the Dies Irae! This movie even uses the second half of the chant that a lot of pieces and references don't get into. Right off the bat, hearing the Dies Irae, we know this film is going to include a lot of death (which is exactly what occurs). The main theme is played on this funky organ/synth, adding atmosphere, with little room for release.

Sweeney Todd

So, I’m gonna just link Sideways’ video on this musical, because he just does a better job than I ever could. Please watch this video because it’s oh so good.

The TL;DW of the video is: the Dies Irae is used throughout the music of Sweeney Todd. It’s literally baked into (pun intended) the score. Invert notes here, play it backwards there, change the rhythm a bit, or reharmonize it this way, and you can create an entire musical that hints at the themes of death right off the bat! It’s very clever writing.

Closing Thoughts

It’s obviously very difficult to separate the Dies Irae and the concept of Death, since even from its inception the text and music has, uh, been like that! The intense energy of the text lends itself to frantic music, and composers have taken advantage of this for a long time. Even when just hinting at the chant, the music takes on a more sinister, intense mood, and composers can take and morph the primary chant into what they want, while still implying Death.

I actually have two more classical pieces that use the Dies Irae that I’d like to talk about in a bit more depth separate from this post (plus this one is already long as is!). One of them is often cited as one of the first and most known uses of the chant to imply character death in the music; the other uses the theme a bit differently. I’m just excited to write and look at a bit more because they’ve got spooky and macabre elements!

Thanks for listening and your time!

[timelorddarthswagger]

Since it's spooky season.

This song and that damn line. Always makes me think of a cheesy but sexy 70s 🧛‍♂️ vampire.

[fizermusic]

Halloween Night.mp4