I might be completely wrong in my explanation, but what is this note relative to what I was playing?
It’s diminished?? Augmented??
It’s a #4 (augmented 4th). Your general motif you were moving around was a second inversion major triad, then intervals 5 4 3 2 root down a major scale.
1 Like
Thank you man 
Do you know why it seems to be leading somewhere? Or is it just because I’ve heard music do that before?
1 Like
A major scale with a #4 has this very interesting bit of tension in it - it is one of the modes of the major scale, called Lydian. For example, if you play the notes of C major, but go from F to F, so F G A B C D E F, you’ve got Lydian. Sort of sounds magical, or mysterious, to me (I’ve always been fond of it). Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and loads of others use it quite a lot.
1 Like
This is great man, sounds like the End credits but there’s a Sequel coming.
1 Like
you know this is a great question, and i would say probably, as we mimic what we hear. not only that, but it is also likely a specific sequence of sounds that you like as well. all going on subconsciously, until you uncover consciously all the theoretical harmonic moves. this is kinda where i am at looking at cadences, progressions, key modulation moves, the underlying motion of the composition, film score analysis can help immensely here as it deals with pretty much all types of moves used to create all the emotions. you gotta crack your own internal musical code heh
1 Like
Here’s a related offshoot. It’s far more complicated overall, but you can hear some similar movement at the very beginning… melody initially goes root, perfect fifth, augmented fourth.
This is no longer Lydian mode, I’m just posting so you can hear that similar interval movement. It ends off on that #4, leaving it feeling very unstable and jarring - pretty perfect for the concept of “war”.
2 Likes
That reminds me so much of this
2 Likes
I’m a huge fan of Basil Poledouris, I’d say his score for Conan the Barbarian is just about the greatest film score of all time - Red Dawn is pretty amazing, too. But if you listen to all of Gustav Holst’s “The Planets”, you’ll hear just about every idea that would ever be used by any composer in a film score. haha
1 Like
Think I’m gunna listen to this tonight.
2 Likes
Not sure if you are a Trent Reznor fan, but I just recently learned he worked on the film score for the movie, The Social Network. I hate Facebook, never saw the movie, still haven’t gotten around to listening to the soundtrack, but now is as good a time as ever. So I guess I will waste some of my backburner entertainment right now. 
2 Likes
The Conan soundtrack is amazing, I love it and listen to it regularly. I especially love the feast, lovely movement in that one.
1 Like
Leftovers series, theme by Max Richter. I love this, it’s beautiful.
1 Like
This one, right?
That’s the only major theme Basil reused for Conan the Destroyer (which is a vastly inferior film compared to Barbarian imo, though still fun).
I’ll try to rein myself in about Barbarian (it’s likely my second favorite film of all time and I can gladly blab about it all day), but this is my favorite bit of marriage between visuals and music in the film - it’s incredible. I wish John Milius had directed more films…
1 Like
This is probably my favourite use of the Lydian mode, though he uses it on more than one other tune on the album (which is an incredible album!) -
1 Like