Three notes. That's apparently all it takes to make the difference between apathy and exhilaration. James Newton Howard's score for Signs is one of the best recent examples of how a musical motif, no matter how simple, can make us care about a story.
The same three-note motif used continuously throughout the movie, played in a certain way to sound frightening, creepy, or painful, alters itself to become beautiful. Because, at the end, it is essentially the same motif that we heard at the beginning of the movie (played in a drastically different way), it gives the film such a rounded sense of completion.
Just something else to demonstrate why I think musical scores are so essential. Some actual soundtrack reviews to follow soon.
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