The sound of horns

Post by **Torrent** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 10:51 pm

Why does Terisa hear the sound of horns? Why not the sound of the clarinet or the harpsichord? What is so special about the sound of horns?

What do you think? How did you feel about SRD's musical choice here? Did you like it? What were your associations? Is it an arbitrary choice or do you think that SRD wanted to create a certain atmosphere by using the horns as a symbol for Terisas secret yearnings (which I think it is)?

The first thing which comes to my mind when I think of horns is: hunters on horseback. Suits the medieval setting and the 'knights in armour' plot, right.
I remember the fairytale audio cassettes I used to have as a child. I'm thinking of optimistic, heroic scenes: the prince arrives, the battle is about to begin, the damsel in despair is finally rescued by a knight, the prince and princess return to the castle...and so on. The horn as a signal for rescue, for a happy ending, for princes and kings? Or did I get that wrong?

Maybe someone knows anything about the way horns are used in classical music?

But then, the sound of horns isn't just light-hearted and heroic and optimistic, young men with longbows and the like. I think I realized why SRD chose the horns, when I listend to a song by Tori Amos which has horns in it. The horns have a somehow sinister and very moving quality here, and I think I finally realized that the horn is the perfect instrument to transport a feeling of yearning and tenderness and combine it with a sense of hope at the same time.

Just a few thoughts.
What do you think?

Post by **Dragonlily** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 3:48 am

I don't think about it. I just get goosebumps and float out the top of my head.

Post by **danlo** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 5:31 am

Post by **Dragonlily** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 5:37 am

Don't worry. I come back in the next couple of sentences.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 3:27 pm

Wow!

Just because of the horns?

Post by **danlo** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 3:54 pm

She was taken completely by surprise when a touch of cold as thin as a feather and as sharp as steel slid straight through the center of her abdomen.

The above quote rings, to me, with the same starkness and immediacy of the horns. The sheer timbre, as it were...The cold, the bleakness of snowy fields and woods running out forever--a sea of nothing and then suddenly! Riders! Danger!-bad intent!? That shock of such a signal signifying something appearing of of nothing. Like a blot of ink that accidently falls from a fountian pen onto a blank page.

These images, sorta, reinforce the quote--Terisa: sensing immanent danger-the very translation of something out of nothing...

(btw Joy: u're silly!

)

Post by **Torrent** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 4:08 pm

I think it's the direkt opposite of what Terisa feels when she hears the horns though.

The horns are a symbol of hope in these books, don't you think?

But on a structural (?) level it is a very similar experience.
Terisa FEELS/HEARS something that is ON THE OTHER SIDE.

Torrent

Post by **danlo** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 4:13 pm

Double edged sword! Prob SRD and his dang paradoxes again!

(gotta love it!)

Post by **duchess of malfi** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 8:59 pm

I love the sound of brass instruments in both classical music and in jazz...

Some things brass immediately bring to mind for me:
a new beginning (like the bugles they blow before a horse race)
the electric excitement that goes with the above...
a fanfare to introduce an important person
a deep sadness ( the sound of a trumpet in jazz can be very moving)

And Damelon came up with these:
sorrow and deep change, as in Taps, which is played at funerals
the horns of the Rohirrim in LOTR (few things are as stirring in all of literature than the Horns of the North coming to Pellenor Fields)
ent calls, which are described as horn like, so a form of communication...

Post by **Earthblood** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 9:32 pm

Horns are sort of always used as a "charge" signal with calvary, probly because they were easy to carry & loud!
This is why I feel exitement when Terisa talks about hearing the horns - it's like "the good guys are coming!!!" and there is hope for a good outcome to the situation

Post by **birdandbear** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 11:12 pm

Duchess wrote:

the horns of the Rohirrim in LOTR (few things are as stirring in all of literature than the Horns of the North coming to Pellenor Fields)

Yes!

And the arrival of Haldir and co. at Helm's Deep....

Because of scenes like this that are ingrained forever in my mind, horns always signify the Coming of the White, a phrase Stephen King uses, that fits perfectly to me...

It's that surge in your belly when suddenly things turn around and the darkness is beaten back, and hope immolates despair and you want to SING....

*desperately need a Coming of the White emoticon*

(a white horse with some kind of corona of light might work....

)

Post by **danlo** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 11:32 pm

(...just not with the "can you hear me now?" guy on Shadowfax-the theater promo they ran b4 TTT-please!

)

Post by **Dragonlily** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 4:04 am

birdandbear wrote:It's that surge in your belly when suddenly things turn around and the darkness is beaten back, and hope immolates despair and you want to SING....

*desperately need a Coming of the White emoticon*

(a white horse with some kind of corona of light might work....)

Love it.

SRD wrote:...she heard horns: faint with distance, they reached her through the sharp air over the hills covered with crisp snow like the call for which her heart had always been waiting.

Post by **kastenessen** » Tue Jan 27, 2004 11:50 pm

Torrent, I also believe that the horns signify a new beginning, hope... well something positive at least.

I actually love the way SRD uses the horns. In one sense they are totally unnecessary. I mean Terisa could have been translated anyway and the story could have proceeded as it did, but these horns creates an atmosphere, they are a premonition of what to come.

Without warning, she seemed to hear the horns again.
Involuntarily, she stopped, jerked her head up, looked around her like a frightened woman. They weren't car-horns: they were wind-instruments such as a hunter might use. The chord of their call was so far away and out of place that she couldn't possibly have heard it, not in that city, in that rain, while rush-hour traffic filled the streets and fought the downpour. And yet the sensation of having heard the sound made everything she saw appear sharper and less dreary, more important. The rain had the force of a determined cleansing: the streaked grey of the buildings looked less like despair, more like the elusive potential of the borderland between day and night, the people jostling past her on the pavement were driven by courage and conviction, rather than by disgust at the weather or fear of their employers. Everything had a tang of vitality she had never seen before.

Joy wrote:

I don't think about it. I just get goosebumps and float out the top of my head

Exactly! This is something of the feeling I get too...float out the top of my head...LOL, Very funny.Love it...

There's such positive rush in those words of SRD. You just surge forward...

kasten

Post by **Torrent** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 12:31 am

It took me some time to actually 'picture' (acoustically) this horn effect.
Maybe that's why I opened this thread. I think my first reaction was - What? Horns?

But you're right - as the story proceeds, the horns become triggers of emotion & suspense...

Great feedback.

Post by **DukkhaWaynhim** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 4:50 pm

Whenever Terisa hears horns, I always imagine French Horns playing a marching call a third apart [ok, it's true, I'm a former band geek

].

French Horns always sound regal, and like a formal announcement at the same time---full of action, promise, hope, very evocative... they always lend gravity to any piece of music. You can tell when a movie is trying to move you if the French Horns start playing.

Does anyone remember TriStar Pictures, before they got absorbed into the Sony/Columbia collective? For the longest time, the Tristar movie logo was a galloping Pegasus---always accompanied by a very regal French Horn call, which is exactly what I think of when Terisa hears horns.

20th Century Fox's musical logo is also a rousing horn call---though these are mostly trumpets....but I can't think of this logo without immediately expecting Star Wars music and big yellow words scrolling up and away.

Another specific instrument choice I thought was interesting was the choice of the sackbut to call High King Festten's Cadwal army to march at the Battle of Esmerel. Can anyone else describe what a sackbut sounds like....it's not a typical band instrument.

DW

Kevin's Watch

Kevin's Watch

The sound of horns

The sound of horns