Poker Night (Scott Glasgow)

1 Wisdom & Hindsight 1:13
2 Four Deuces 3:26
3 Davis 5:04
4 Maxwell 2:33
5 Cunningham 2:07
6 Jeter 3:46
7 Burial Warning 2:17
8 Monsters 2:06
9 Amy 2:48
10 The Wall / Sheeple 3:07
11 Follow My Voice 2:39
12 Parenticide 4:08
13 Super Glued 5:17
14 The Call 4:44
15 The Kiss Story 2:10
16 Reunited 4:07
17 Decoy 3:00
18 Ship Yard Discovery 4:38
19 Calabrese 5:13
20 Reversal 2:05
21 Answers 3:14
22 Escape the Dungeon 2:30
23 Incarceration 2:15
24 Lessons 3:29

COMPOSER’S NOTE

The score to “Poker Night” was a bit of a challenge. The producers of the film wanted an electronica / orchestral score blend. Something new for me but also a fun challenge musically. However after watching the film I realized it was much more of a dark thriller serial killer cop drama which needed something else score wise which included dark orchestral textures too. I set out to create a score with electronic elements blended with some 20th century composer techniques & architectural musical structures.

First I have a “chaconne” (20th c. style) where a set of  chords are repeated in variations. I also decided that I wanted to bring in a “Corelli clash cadence” (a cadence with minor 2nds in the upper voices developed in the 17th c by Arcangelo Corelli) into my chaconne. I also worked in a repeated bass line with variations called a “Passacaglia” (developed in the 17th c.) on the pitches Eb-C-B-D | C-D#-E-C#. Finally I worked in a “tone row” a series of 12 pitches that do not repeat until all the others are used (developed by Arnold Schoenberg in the earth 20th c.) which is heard clearly the upper piano figure throughout the score. However my tone row became a 7-tone row “heptachord” instead. All three of these musical forms used are not developed with traditional variations but as building blocks throughout the score. The “tone row” was presented it a unique way as “growing” from cue to cue starting with only 3 notes in the opening scene, slowly adding one note to the set on subsequent scene, growing to the full presentation of the 7-notes by the final scene even presented as one big chord of all the notes together. Most of these structures are really for the composer to know it is there and for musical balance. Very rarely would a listener or movie audience recognize these however they do add to the cohesion of the musical score even if it is subconsciously to the listener. 

The film is very unique dark crime drama centered around a rookie cop being captured by a serial killer and held in a dungeon— all the while his is trying to remember the stories from the night before’s Poker Night with the veteran cops who all told stories of difficult cases which were to be lessons if the rookie cop ever got into trouble. In the score, I worked in a way to give each of the characters a unique tone to their scenes. The film is based on small vignette stories by each veteran detective— and each had their own musical feel. “Davis” had a percussive element with synths that ran through his scenes; “Bernard” scene were all flashbacks to the 70s with some groove vibes; “Maxwell” was primarily characterized by traditional orchestra minimalism music; “Cunningham” was more electronica and “Calabrese” was more brooding low orch brass elements since he was more in the modern timeline and less about flashbacks. All these techniques and music considerations hopefully blended into one score. 

I hope you enjoy this unique score of modern electronica of loops with aggressive synths blended with 20th century composer techniques of a tone row, a chaconne and a passacaglia.

Scott Glasgow, November 2015