Production Blog: The Music For Murder

 Welcome Back! 


Today, we discussed our music choices for the film! We had a couple of different ideas but were restricted by both time and permitting. Deciding to research on our own, we agreed we would discuss our music choices afterward, sharing our opinions. With this, I wanted to share the research process with you!


Sticking with the genre of the film, I wanted to do a murder ballad to introduce more suspense into the scene and present the theme of murder, composing a Hunger Games-esque apprehension. For this, I looked into Appalachian murder ballads and found a few options such as Down in the Willow Garden. However, Down in the Willow Garden specifically did not have readily available royalty-free music, but was old enough that I could not find a musician to reach out to ask about using the music. This eliminated that option. 


The next one I looked into was the popular song, Goodbye Earl by the Dixie Chicks as it had a similar idea to our film. In the song, a fiancee beats his future wife which leads to her friends killing him. While this is a different plot, it has a similar theme of abuse and murder, but the lyrics and pop feel subtracted from the intro.  This caused us to agree that lyrics might draw away from the scene which eliminated any songs with words. 


After this, I had an hour or two where I struggled to find royalty-free music that fit the genre. We specifically agreed to do royalty-free music because it is much easier than contacting the musicians and provides a level of certainty that we can use the song. On the other hand, this did leave a much more difficult task of finding royalty-free music. 



For a while, I looked into classical music as it the easiest to find copyright free while still fitting in the genre. Sadly, nothing about it really struck my fancy until I found this one website, SlipStream. All royalty-free, it was easy to navigate, and I managed to find about ten options I liked. 


None of the options were specifically Murder Ballads but realized this was way too restricting of a genre. Instead, I focused on a wider genre of a crossover between nostalgic folk and a suspenseful rhythm. 



In the end, we did not decide on one track yet. We agreed to wait until we finished the filming to decide because the right option has to fit the scenes the best which might change depending on the end product of the film. However, I believe the final song will still somehow fit to a nostalgic murder ballad style as it best fits the film. 


Thank you so much!



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