Cue-It Up - 1

There are so many film score cues that I love and play in my mind all the time, but rarely I listen to them coming out of real speakers. Through Cue-It Up series I wish to introduce to you instrumental music pieces from Film Scores that might stay with you for the rest of your life.

Roar (Michael Giacchino)

Let’s begin with a bang and bombast. Roar – Cloverfield Overture is the music that plays in the end credits of a movie that has no music score at all. A big disaster movie with a giant beast and without a music score! – Yes, they really did pull it off. The immensely addictive theme goes through a journey in the piece, as it would through the film if it were made to play to back the visuals of this film.



Four notes (Gustavo Santaolalla)

A note each for Arun, Shai, Munna and Yasmin strung together to make a melody, that is as sweet and heartfelt as the movie (Dhobi Ghat) itself. Glad that Aamir Khan released the score of this film at least in the Blu-ray package of the movie.



Richard Alpert (Michael Giachchino)

Ab Aeterno is my most favourite of all episodes in Lost, where we get to watch the complete back story of one of most intriguing characters of the series – Richard Alpert. I instantly got hooked to this theme, when it first played in the scene where Ricardo rides a horse a long distance to a Doctor for the medicine to save his wife Isabelle. What a haunting tune!



Veena Waltz (Anirudh)

One of the most haunting instrumental pieces I heard this year. With an instantly pleasing waltz rhythm, the melody takes uplifting scale shifts through the course of the piece. I haven’t watched the movie (Edhir Neechal) yet and I don’t think I would, but this piece will definitely stay with me forever. I like the way the flute solo of beautiful melody of the line Husain Bolt line from the peppy club song joins the piece in the second half and seamlessly connects with the Veena theme that reprises on flute. Anirudh – Way to go!



Monkey Chatter (Ilaiyaraaja)

Monkey Chatter from Mumbai Xpress is a piece that belongs to a genre I would like to call Raajazz. Listen to the breathtaking orchestration and the interplay of themes and how seamlessly it flows from one section to another. Usually, I get bored of long instrumental Jazz pieces. That Tightness! The admirable tightness in the Orchestration! Only Ilaiyaraaja can make a piece like Monkey Chatter accessible to a Jazz-illiterate like me. I wonder if anything from this piece was used in the movie, I remember listening to multiple delicious variations of the jazzy Kurangu Kayil Maalai, but not this one.



Gabriel’s Cello (Ennio Morricone)

This is Yo-Yo Ma’s Cello Version of one of the most popular movie themes of Ennio Morricone from The Mission. The theme is sheer Melody - Exquisite! One of those melodies that popularize the instrument on which it is played – Oboe in this case, but this is the Cello version.

Few years ago, in a BOSE outlet, I was testing a speaker that I was going to buy that day by playing different genres of music from my iPod. When I played this piece, for not more than 15 seconds, a guy from the Store was instantly shaken and stirred by the sound of the music, got curious and asked me the name of the piece. I wrote down the name on a piece of paper “Gabriel’s Oboe from the compilation Yo-Yo Ma plays Ennio Morricone”. This series is something like that.