Wow, Roc, you
are an oldster (like me). I'll bet you've even got some of that stuff on the original vinyl, bought back in the US Bong/Glass Head days.
@Shadowgandor: OK, there are many things one would take into account when selecting a piece of music for such a scene.
What sort of mood do you want to convey? Sadness? Loss? Foreboding? Whimsy? The grinding anomie and ennui that is the zeitgeist of our post-relativistic gestalt? Choose music in the appropriate
key. Major keys are generally more yang, if you will, while minor keys are generally more yin. The more sharps in a particular key signature, generally speaking, the brighter and more sparkling the music sounds. The more flats, the more introspective and downbeat it sounds (also very generally speaking).
What kind of sound mix will you use in the final edit? Do we also hear ambient noise, of her surroundings? Do we hear dialogue, either out of frame, or perhaps behind or in front of her with a change of focus? What is the camera doing at this point? Who or what do we see? Who or what should we hear, in addition to the music? Will the relative sound levels be constant, or will the music swell or bed down to accent or make room for the dialogue within the soundscape? What is the audio environment at the time the music is heard and how will you edit it in and at what levels (again, generally speaking).
How long is the scene or shot in which we see this person? How much of that scene or shot needs music? How long is that, exactly, in minutes and seconds? Will the music swell or stifle? Should the piece be loud, jarring, soothing, comforting, long, short, quiet, peaceful, pastoral, bucolic, deathly, horrifying, etc.? What sort of dynamic are you looking for? Should it start out quiet and end up screaming, like a Linkin Park song? Should it be urban, contemporary, classic, timeless, with a groove, thundering, tinkling, instrumental, with a male/female vocal, a choir, a rock band, a symphony, a B-3 combo? What sort of timbres, tones, noises, voices and sounds should we hear, and most importantly, how should they make us feel (and how long is that feeling supposed to last for)?
That said, check out:
Spinal Tap -
Lick My Love Pump (
d minor, the saddest of all
keys)
Joan Baez -
At SeventeenRavel -
Pavane pour un enfant defunt (Sad Song for a Dead Princess; also check out Debussy & Satie)
Bach -
The Well-Tempered Clavier (select a prelude in the appropriate
key) [I highly recommend the Angela Hewitt renditions]
Bach -
Violin Concerto in E Major - Adagio (check out
this version by Kyung Wha Chung, if it doesn't make you weep, you have no soul; this second movement is probably in a minor key)
Chopin - it's mostly all heart-rending solo piano pieces, find a second movement (adagio, andante or largo), an etude or a prelude in the appropriate key
//Oh, and Jim
Foetus, the guy who did the music for the
Venture Bros., (recently?) released an industrial classical album that sounds fraught with scariness.
//
Here's a quirky version of Albinoni's
Adagio in g minor for Violin and Strings (or Organ and Strings) as rendered by The Doors. If you can get a good recording of a version done with church organ, solo violin and strings, it is one of the saddest pieces of music you will ever hear, played back at an appropriate (slightly loud) volume. If you turn it way up, and stand back from it, and it's recorded nicely, it's impressive. It won't be by the Doors, it'll probably be by the Slovak National Orchestra on the Naxos label, but meh, a good recording is a good recording.
