Blog 9 - Avatar music

Although I did not see Avatar, I did listen to the soundtrack and speak to people who did see the movie in order to make this blog post. It sounded to me that the general soundscape of the film was mostly sweeping sounds of strings and brass, but when the people were with the Na'vi, the music changed to include tribal drums, wordless interjections, vocal choruses, and pan-flute-like instruments. It seemed that they almost wanted the music culture of the Na'vi to sound similar to a mix of African tribal music and Native American tribal music, but not exactly. According to the link professor Young put up, James Horner, the composer of all the music in Avatar, looked into sounds from all over the world, including Sweden, Bolivia, Burundi, Comoros, Finland. So although the music reminded me of the aforesaid styles, really the music is a blend of music cultures from all over this world, which gives the music a very other-worldly quality.
The vocal emphasis throughout the Na'vi's music is meant to mimic that of rudimentary soundscapes. As Wanda Bryant said in her interview, "We always wanted to keep the people grounded in their world, so what that meant is we had to understand the way they live. [With regard to the Na’vi] we thought about aboriginal cultures here on earth." This is also why Horner chose to use the African talking drums as a central aspect of the Na'vi music culture.
Overall, we can see clear attempt at making the Na'vi music in the movie mimic their culture, which is one which resembles Aborigine tribes in our world.