Back to the Future: Alan Silvestri and the Octatonic Scale

The Octatonic scale-Alan Silvestri's secret technique!
To celebrate Back to the Future Day, let's roll back time and see how Alan Silvestri uses every part of the Octatonic and Symmetrical Diminished scales, with 8 notes forming a repeating pattern just full of strange properties, to create a Hollywood film score.
'3m2 Disintegrated Einstein' can be heard as Marty and Doc test out the DeLorean's time travel capabilities for the first time in Twin Pines Mall. Alan uses the chord families of the Diminished Scale to perfectly illustrate the drama of the scene. Practice your ear training and music theory with an assignment at the end.
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Video edited by Dallas Crane
You can find the full score book for this film, and others, on the Omni Music Publishing website.
Website: omnimusicpublishing.com/
Facebook: / omnimusicpublishing

[@michaelneedham3151]

Looking at these videos I feel like a kid on Christmas.

[@AxKlein]

This is the sort of analysis most film scoring students would've only dreamed of years ago. Thanks a lot for posting! And please, oh please, give us some Herrmann, Rósza, Barry and Morricone.

[@storiesreadaloud5635]

This but he needs to make it more comprehensible to newbies

[@melissawickersham9912]

The combination of the Lydian mode and the octatonic scale was a successful strategy for Silvestri to create a compelling score for Back to the Future.

[@kilroy987]

mm hmm yes nods. I learned the main theme sheet music on keyboard. I really enjoyed learning it, and really started to get a feel for Silvestri's patterns, continuing with experimentation with the BTFF 2 and 3 music. But this is way above my head. I'm not a musician, I just replicated the black dots on the paper and learned a bit more by ear.

[@luizmenezes9971]

Now that you mentioned, FFVII's Shinra Headquarter theme is basically an octatonic scale being played over and over

[@ConnorHelms]

Crazy how fast paced and dense this can get, and its amazing just how concordant he manages to make the octatonic scale sound too! nice job

[@DallasCrane]

The 6-tuplets are insanely fast!

[@mastermhr8605]

Speaking from Korea, i wonder one day Omni figures out license problem for worldwide shipping for this amazing score so various composer can finally analyze this score.Btw this kind of video is soooo good.Thank you Omni for publishing and video👍

[@ilkayboraoder]

Another great example for Dimished scale usage in almost all movie is "Predator" which was also musiced by Silvestri. (E. g. Billy's Confrontation) I brought exactly this concept to my movie music analysis lesson during my master's degree of film music composition course. Thanks to Omni's engraved score, my teacher was very impressed by examples. It is amazing to see how economical Alan Silvestri and he knows exactly what he wants! As it's said in the video, It is very useful to exercise this "Technique" since it fits perfectly for lots of different types of music pieces, such as ironic, funny, action, tension etc. and it can be easily used also for "Art Composer" works beside of movie music. Thank you for this beatiful video and best regards,

[@delengen7773]

Also by Basil Poledouris in STARSHIP TROOPERS, the movie with giant space-spiders. Eight legs...eight notes.

[@wissehV2]

Thanks for this gem of a video :)

[@wstromberg1]

SSSHHH, you're giving away all of our secrets. Just kidding, this was wonderful. Thanks, I bought the score.

[@KrystofDreamJourney]

Ha ! There are NO secrets at all :-) It all has already been done 100 years ago...

[@iLL_Corvo]

Brilliant assessment

[@arvindbaradwaj3783]

The great Alan Silvestri would be very Happy to see your analysis.

[@christopherdoucet4112]

Thank you for this!!!!!!!

[@ScoringStageDe]

great anylytics!

[@AlexSonicsMusic]

Thanks so much for this high quality content. Gonna try it myself at once🌞🎶

[@scottmoran6298]

Fantastic analysis! More of this please.

[@timheinrichenglish8782]

Great, thanks

[@steveharder291]

More of these please!

[@edbuller4435]

Great stuff Tim. Glad to see you doing this...More please

[@prestonmelton4157]

Very good analysis of one of my favorite scores. Thank you!

[@vincentzaalberg]

LIKE, great analyses condensed in a bite sized video. 10/10

[@GuyVignati]

This video is so precious!! Please share more videos like this one, they're invaluable! :D

[@doomboogie315]

This is great!

[@robertplasschaert2035]

This is fantastic! Thank you for this!

[@norvintu-wang9047]

Amazing stuff Tim!!! thank you for putting this together!!!! would love to see some analysis of Mr.Jerry Goldsmith score in the future

[@DavidSoundWizard]

This is amazing. please do more of these please

[@scottfoster3643]

"At the end of the day it is just a name we call a thing"

[@SidBarnhoorn]

That was awsome!

[@KrystofDreamJourney]

Great analysis Tim !! Great score, and brilliant example of building entire cue (whimsical tension) out of Messiaen's second mode. Just like Stravinsky did already back in "The Firebird", Silvestri adapted the exact same idea of constructing entire passage throughout orchestra based on octatonic scales. It never "resolves" - the tension stays throughout the cue...

[@edelcorrallira]

No wonder I fell in love with the Octatonic scale, I mean I saw its potential... Repeats every two strings and every four frets, it has major & minor & half diminished & diminished chords with a minor 7 ... Its a Swiss army knife, it does anything with mikimal finger dexterity or head space but that is merely scratching the surface. The variety is mind boggling. Also what a fantastic video... Sounds like it deserves a good composition at exactly 88bpm :P

[@JackMcKenzieComposer]

Awesome stuff! Love this in-depth analysis!

[@chadnorth10]

brilliant analysis. THANK YOU!! I think the cut music sections were mostly to punctuate some of the humor in the dialogue and interplay between marty and doc.

[@GenuineHeather]

This is really fantastic stuff. Thank you so much!

[@TheDetective86]

I really appreciate all of the hard work you do Tim please keep up the great work you are doing with Omni. your friend, Joseph

[@AntonioOrtizMusic]

This is incredible! Lots of information to unpack, definitely going to rewatch a few times to fully soak it in. A huge shoutout to the editor because this was very well edited.

[@DallasCrane]

Thank you!

[@jgtmusic]

This is a wonderful analysis, it will give me a lot to think about for a while, it's so dense! I was in gradeschool when this movie was released and I've got some very vivid memories associated with the film and the music. I'll be studying the full score in detail. Thanks

[@tomdavis1258]

Wonderful analysis Tim! And the "assignment" at the end is excellent!

[@argentosthemepark]

One can just marvel at this briiliant score. Great insights in this video. Much appreciated. :)

[@briankatona]

Thank you for sharing this!

[@michaellaumusic]

Please do more of these videos!!

[@jasonjansen9831]

Good choice to cut the music in the film version. The silence represents Marty's realization and works a lot better. That's not to say the extra music doesn't fit, it's just that the scene is stronger without it.

[@edbuller4435]

Please do The Kill Ring Next ( well from 1;16 ) More Octatonic mayhem !

[@brian423]

7:02 "Try to imagine" why they cut some of the musical score out of this scene? I'm not a filmmaker, but I think I've got this. As good as Silvestri is at writing exciting music, the audience can still be numbed by overexposure to it. Just as it's helpful to break dramatic tension with occasional comic relief, so is it helpful to break musical tension with occasional silence from the orchestra.

[@cris_horizons]

can be heaxotanal pretushka too

[@vladimirtubic6060]

Who you calling a hafhole? :)) Great analysis, thank you. i believe there's some boominess in the vocal, it becomes a little taxing on the ears so maybe that's something to improve in the next video. Looking forward to seeing more.

[@607]

Interesting video! I couldn't follow everything, but I don't think that's a problem, as I've only followed half a course on music theory, and this is probably intended for more experienced people.

[@kareemakhtar6691]

2:14 every silvestri film score

[@TomHan688]

Great video! @3.00, how is the harp to play a chromatic gliss with more than 7 notes per octave? Unless the score specifies a chromatic harp?

[@leoholder7839]

which cue is that extract from?

[@dynamicalan]

I thought they were both diminished scales - The 1/2 Step whole step and the whole step 1/2 step because they are inversions of each other

[@garygimmestad4272]

They are. But it’s very useful to have the modal distinction labeled. Octotonic = HW, Diminished = WH

[@dynamicalan]

@@garygimmestad4272 Well, I think of the half whole as a altered dominate - 1 b2, b3 3, #4, 5, 6, b7, 1

[@garygimmestad4272]

@@dynamicalan Sure - in chord scale terms. Sylvestri is certainly aware of that aspect too. He went to Berklee where that’s the essence of jazz theory. This definition, though, is more one- dimensional. It just describes the two options for intervallic succession. I like it because it makes it very simple to designate which one we’re talking about. Harmonic implications are a another dimension.

[@dynamicalan]

@@garygimmestad4272 Hi, Thank you for posting!

[@emanuel_soundtrack]

diminished escales I and II

[@sowmyajoy4417]

Jdb

[@sowmyajoy4417]

Diir

[@sowmyajoy4417]

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