How to Train Your Dragon: Music from the Motion Picture facts for kids

Quick facts for kids How to Train Your Dragon: Music from the Motion Picture
Soundtrack album by John Powell
Released	March 23, 2010
Recorded	2010
Genre	Soundtrack
Length	72:12
Label	Varèse Sarabande
Producer	John Powell
John Powell chronology
Green Zone (2010) How to Train Your Dragon: Music from the Motion Picture (2010) Knight and Day (2010)
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How to Train Your Dragon: Music from the Motion Picture is a soundtrack album composed by John Powell for the film of the same name and released by Varèse Sarabande on March 23, 2010. The score earned Powell his first Academy Award nomination and his third BAFTA nomination, which he lost to The Social Network and The King's Speech, respectively. The score also won the International Film Music Critics Association 2011 Awards for Best Original Score for an Animated Feature and Film Score of the Year, and was nominated twice for Film Music Composition of the Year for the tracks "Forbidden Friendship" and "Test Drive". The soundtrack received wide acclaim from professional music critics.

Background

How to Train Your Dragon was composer John Powell's sixth collaboration with DreamWorks Animation. Powell had scored many of DreamWorks' previous films, but this was the first of DreamWorks' films where Powell helmed the score on his own (on his previous efforts with DreamWorks, he had collaborated with other composers such as Harry Gregson-Williams and Hans Zimmer). Zimmer had long praised Powell's abilities, and on many occasions, asserted that he was the superior composer between them, thus firmly supporting Powell's first solo animation effort.

Icelandic singer Jónsi was brought on to write and record the song "Sticks & Stones", which plays during the end credits of the film. Director Dean DeBlois had previously worked with Jónsi before, directing a concert film for his band Sigur Rós entitled Heima, and a companion film for his album Go entitled Go Quiet.

In an interview with The Wrap's Steve Pond, Powell talked about his intent for the score:

"I was certainly trying to get a bit more epic. I just felt the animation and the visuals were giving me a broader palette to play with. As a kid I remember watching The Vikings with Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas, and I always liked that score.

[The directors] were really very specific a lot of the time. They did want size and depth and emotion. They wanted a feeling of the Nordic musical past. You could say the symphonic musical past was Nielson, the Danish symphonist. Sibelius. Grieg to a certain extent, although I think he was a little bit more Germanic than he was Nordic.

Sibelius was the key. I studied a lot of Sibelius as a kid, and I've always adored his music. So that, plus it was great to have Jónsi do a song at the end of the movie, because I've always liked [moody Icelandic band] Sigur Rós. They were an influence as well, even though that seems paradoxical. But there is that in a few cues—heavy, dark guitar textures going on at the same time as large orchestration.

We looked at all the folk music from the Nordic areas. And I'm part Scottish and grew up with a lot of Scottish folk music, so that came into it a lot. And Celtic music was something that Jeffrey [Katzenberg] felt had this very attractive quality to it, and a sweetness, that he thought would be wonderful for the film."

Composition

The score has traditional Scottish influences, and uses instruments such as the fiddle, bagpipes, uilleann pipes, Great Irish warpipes and pennywhistle. The soundtrack is 79 minutes long.

Orchestration

According to Powell's book on the score, the orchestra includes 3 flutes, 3 oboes, 3 clarinets, 12 French horns, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, 2 bass trombones, a tuba, timpani, 2 harps, a celesta and piano, a SATB choir, and a string section. Players also double on the piccolo, english horn, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet, and contrabassoon. Other instruments used include the sopilka, hammered dulcimers, gadulka, esraj, yaylı tambur, hurdy-gurdy, accordion, harmonium, Hardanger fiddle, acoustic and electric guitar, and the aforementioned fiddle, bagpipes, uilleann pipes, warpipes and pennywhistle.

The score calls for over 30 percussion instruments. Drums include 5 snare drums of various types, 4 bass drums, 2 goblet drums, 2 surdos, a "small low drum", repinique, a dhol, various brekete, and concert tom toms; pitched instruments include a glockenspiel, vibraphone, marimba, bass marimba, 3 slate marimbas, 2 glass marimbas. Other percussion used include various cymbals, 4 gongs, an anvil, 2 sleigh bells, tambourine, mark tree, triangle, 2 shakers, chimes, crotales, garbage cans, and a pot.

Awards and nominations

Track listing