De-Emphasizing with Music

It is well known that music can effectively highlight things in a movie by placing a hit-point on it which is effectively syncing up a musical accent with an action or movement or any other important moment in the movie.

The lesser known ability of music however is that it can also consciously de-emphasize which in some cases is just as important as highlighting something.

The ability to downplay something can help in a scenic microcosmos but also help in larger story arcs.

One very common need for musical de-emphasizing often arises in lesser professional productions. Quite often you might have actors that are not particularly subtle and overact which might lead to dead serious scenes being felt as involuntarily amusing. In such cases, a musical approach that steers away from the overacting and rather ignores it or helps perceiving the scene in a more calm way can really help a scene and make a difference in the overall perception. Of course it is essential to not create a too strong discrepancy but that should go without saying as the same applies also in situations where the music has to emphasize.

But de-emphasizing can also become extremely important in longer story arcs. Especially in stories that employ a radical plot twist at some point, music might need to steer away the audience's attention from anything that might make them suspicious to early on and avoid spoiling the plot twist. So in situations where the audience might notice too early on that something might not check out, the music can consciously downplay that moment and act as if it is nothing that needs to be taken particularly serious so that the reveal later on might still be logical but yet surprising.

Musical de-emphasizing could happen by simply ignoring something with the music that you would normally not ignore but accent. Instead you simply play through that moment. But de-emphasizing could also be consciously using music that is at a lower energy level than what the scene might suggest in order to create a calmer impression.

There are other situations in movies where de-emphasizing might also make sense such as massively interweaving story arcs where you need to guide the focus to the important things by making the surroundings feel less important.

The essential thing to undestand is that music really doesn't just work by highlighting things but also by consicously ignoring things to guide the audience's attention.