The Affect of

the Details:
The Emotional
Effects of
Modified
Intonation on
Audience's
Reaction to Film
Soundtracks

Rúben Carvalho
 S U RV E Y

• Data collection

• Intuitive reactions
 THE BLAIR
WITCH PROJECT

• Without Original Soundtrack

• Horror / Mystery

• Soundtrack composed by
Arian Pedersen
• Intensify the emotions “fear”
and “anxiety”
VERSIONS OF THE
SOUNDTRACK

• “Beats”
• Create beats with the
accompaniment

• “Beats Inverted”
• Exactly the inversion of the
“beats” version

• “Compressed Melody”
• Compress the melody range by a
certain amount of cents
 “ B E AT S ” & “ B E AT S I N V E R T E D ”
Expressive intonation is “a
pragmatic tendency … to
err on the sharp side with
sharped notes and on the
flat side with flatted
notes.” (Lewis, 1998, p.
40)

One of the cues utilized

by performers to convey
“fear” is “sharp
microintonation” (Juslin
& Timmers, 2010, p.
463)
“ B E AT S ” & “ B E AT S I N V E R T E D ”

“Extremely radical
departures in musical style
risk alienating audiences”
(Hayward, 2004, p.25)
 “COMPRESSED MELODY”

Bars Notes Cents

Deviatio
𝑛 n
𝑥=𝑛 − Eb -30
4 Bars Notes Cents
Deviatio D -22
n
C# -16
D -20
C -12
C# -15-
B -9
C -11
6–9 11 – 16 Bb 0
B +11
A +9
Bb +15
Ab +12
A +20
G +16
F# +22
F +30
THE MAN WITH THE
ANSWERS

• Drama / Romance

• Soundtrack composed by
Ola Ur Sæbø
• Intensify the emotion
“calmness”
VERSIONS OF THE
SOUNDTRACK

• “Just Intonation”
• Everything tempered to Just
Intonation based on the bass note
of each chord
• “Just + Tempered”
• Accompaniment in Just Intonation
• Melody notes raised
• “Everything b”
• Melody lowered by 20cents
“ J U S T I N T O N AT I O N ”

(Friberg, 1991, p. 67)

“JUST + TEMPERED”

• Accompaniment
• Just Intonation

• Melody
• Anacruses in Just Intonation with the bass note
• Every other note raised by 20 cents
 “ E V ERYT H I N G b ”

• The piano part is lowered by

15 cents in its entirety
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Hayward, P. (Ed.). (2004). Off the
planet: Music, sound and science fiction
cinema. John Libbey Cinema and
Animation.
• Lewis, R. (1998). Chamber music
intonation. American String Teacher,
48(2), 39–44.
• Juslin, P. N., & Timmers, R. (2010).
Expression and communication of
emotion in music performance. In P. N.
Juslin & J. Sloboda (Eds.), Handbook of
music and emotion: Theory, research,
applications (pp. 453–489). Oxford
University Press.