Ice Age soundtrack by David Newman

Other soundtracks by David Newman: Ice Age, Matilda, Serenity, Heathers, Little Monsters, The Phantom, I love Trouble, The Brave Little Toaster, Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, Love is Awake, Tarzan, L'Âge de glace, Love Peace Chant, The Cat in the Hat, Acoustic Chant: Ukulele Kirtan
Serenades, 5 Flights Up, The Affair of the Necklace, Leap of Grace: The Hanuman Chalisa,
Into the Bliss: A Kirtan Experience, ReBliss: Stars ReVisited, Animals United, Bill and Ted's 
Excellent Adventure, Konferenze Der Tiere, Soul Freedom, To Be Home, Travel Well, Mr. Destiny,
The Spy Next Door, and finally Stars.

The songs in the soundtrack are:
01 Ice Age: Opening Travel Music
02 Angered Rhinos
03 Humans/Diego
04 Tigers Going For Baby
05 Dodos
06 Fighting Over Melons
07 Walking Through
08 Baby's Wild Ride
09 Checking Out the Cave
10 Running from the Lava
11 Baby Walks
12 Tigers Try to Get Baby
13 Giving Back the Baby


In general Ice Age has a lot of trumpets, trombones, french horns, clarinets, flutes, percussion, and string instruments. Each piece has a slightly different instrumentation but it normally stays the same throughout. The tracks are very different through out the movie. Some of these songs are songs like Ice Age: Opening Travel Music, and Dodos has a happy march kind of feel to it where as songs like Tigers Going for Baby,   Has a fighting sort of intense danger to it, and songs like Humans/Diego, Checking Out the Cave, has a very soft and calm yet very sad feeling to it. They sound more musically challenging than technically. The songs don't have extremely hard notes or rhythms to them but they need a lot of emotion behind them to bring feelings to the movie. A specific song that shows this is Checking Out the Cave as it has a very sad and soft feeling to. Another song that shows this is Tigers Going for Baby because it has that really intense feel to it. When the composer was writing these different tracks he was trying to bring the movie to life, to have whoever watching it get so invested in the movie like it is real.

It is also fairly easy to picture what is happening throughout the piece because the musical side of the songs is very strong so it is easy to feel they emotion the band members are trying to portray. A track out of the Ice Age soundtrack that is my favorite would have to be Checking Out the Cave and Ice Age: Opening Travel Music. I like Checking Out the Cave because it is a very emotional song and the ensemble plays those emotions perfectly making you wait on their every note to hear what will happen next, and i like Ice Age: Opening Travel Music because it sounds very much like a march and happy. Overall I think this soundtrack did an amazing job of enhancing the movie because even without the movie you gain the emotion of the song so when watching the movie the emotion is enhanced twice as much.

Symphonic Dance No. 3 by Clifton Williams

In the song Symphonic Dance No. 3 by Clifton Williams the instrumentation that I hear is:
tuba, percussion, baritone, trombone, baritone saxophone, flute, bells, clarinet, piccolo, trumpet, french horn. This piece starts off as a dance and turns into a waltz half way though, but then turns back into a dance. There is a lot of dynamic contrast in the piece. Each instrument that has the melody plays at a different dynamic. The piece starts out very loud and bold and also has a lot of forte piano's which gives it a lot more dynamic contrast, but later turns into a quiet soft melody. It switches between the two dynamics a lot. This piece has lots of musically and technically challenging parts. There is a bunch of accents, staccatos,fermatas that are throughout the piece making it technically challenging. There is also a lot of big dynamic changes that make this piece musically challenging. There are no instruments that keep counter-melody. However the low brass instruments tend to keep the bass line through out the piece, and the other brass instruments usually keep the melody. There is also lots of patterns and repetition throughout this piece of music. The melody repeats itself a bunch of times throughout the music. During the repetition of the melody the counter-melody and bass line are the same as well. I particularly like the speed and emotion of this piece. It has a nice melody and very good dynamics. Overall I like this piece because it shows a bunch of different emotions and parts throughout the song. It also has completely different styles in it which is very had to play, and has so many different dynamics and speed.

The Seal Lullaby

The Seal Lullaby

      The song has a lot of different instruments playing, and most of those instruments are softer instruments are the softer instrument that play low to give it the feeling of the lullaby. I think that the style of the piece is a lullaby. In this piece there is a lot of dynamic contrast. There is a lot of crescendos and diminuendos that give this song a lot of feeling. I think that this piece is more musically challenging than technically challenging. The reason for this is because while playing a lullaby you need the dynamics and slurs to be never noticeable. While playing this piece you also need to have lots of air to be able to crescendo and diminuendo while holding a long note. You can hear repetition and patterns during the music. The melody, counter-melody and bass line stay the same though out the piece. The thing that keeps it interesting is the switch of instruments playing the melody, and counter-melody. The melody, counter-melody. and bass line change between instruments a lot, so there is no instrument that keeps a certain part for most of the song At first you hear the clarinet play the melody with the flute and piano with the counter melody. After a while the melody is given to the piano, and the flutes with the clarinet counter melody. The only this that stays the same for the most part is the bass line which is some clarinets, oboes, and  tuba. I think that this piece is somewhat sad. The tempo of this song makes it sound sad. In particular I like the dynamics, because they added feeling and story to this piece. If the song didn't have good dynamics then it wouldn't sound like a lullaby, and it would sound very boring with no feeling in it. Overall this piece was very slow and calming which was very nice. it had a good lullaby feel to it. It sounds like a good speed for a lullaby.

Shadow Rituals

This song as a very dark begging in the percussion section that to me sounds like everyone gathering around a fire and getting ready for a ritual. When the clarinets come in with the melody it sounds like a few people have started saying the ritual, and slowly more people are joining in. When there is a crescendo almost everyone is saying it now as the flutes come in it goes to a different village where there ritual is slightly different yet the same and as you here all of the crescendos and decrescendos along with all of the different parts you here all of the different, villages and kingdoms where these certain people are all having this ritual on the same night. As the song changes to become more major there is a force fighting back against the rituals. it starts as a light force then it in it's self becomes more heavy and is becoming stronger to fight back against the shadows. As the major cords switch between instruments the fight back is getting stronger, the crescendos show it's high points and low points of the spell against the shadows. This continues as the flute runs show the big battle between the two forces of shadows and light, but in the end the light pulls though ending the song in a major cord. is song is also very technically and musically challenging with all of it's dynamics and very technical points with melody. You can also here the repetition in this song between melody, counter melody and bass-line. I liked this song because it tells a beautiful story in my eyes with the crescendos and the decrescendos and the melody switching off between instruments adds to the piece with each instrument telling a different story.