A musical theme is a melody with strong recognition value, which is continuously repeated in a composition in varying forms. We all know famous themes, especially in classical music, where themes are those melodies that stay in our heads. The well-known "Dadadadaaa" from Beethoven's 5th Symphony is a good example of how a theme is introduced by the start of a musical work and repeated and modified in the course of the composition.
Themes also play a special role in film music where they are often directly connected to a situation, person, or location, meaning that the theme is played whenever the particular situation, person or location appears on screen. Modifications describe the object the theme is connected to and depending on the situation, a theme can sound sad, happy, threatening. This procedure is called mood-technique and was essentially invented by Richard Wagner who used this approach to characterize the main characters of his operas to give them strong recognition value. The audience knows a person is approaching and what mood they are in before they are even visible on stage.
Browse our royalty-free music library with a wide variety of royalty-free music tracks that convey many different moods.
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