What genre is NGE's OST?

[unitM]

I really like the music like NERV. What genre of music is it?

[Reichu]

You do realize that the topic title invites joke responses of "anime soundtrack", right? This probably belongs in Everything Else, as well.

Alas, I'm too stupid about music to provide anything actually useful.

[TMBounty_Hunter]

It's not a genre.

It's an EVENT.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

It's not a genre.

It's an EVENT.

This.


.......But, in the interest of bringing nuance to it: Generally speaking, a lot of soundtracks that have a western influence of any kind share a lot of similarities to classical music. When following the genres within, we see that many soundtracks can be considered either Modern or High Modern 20th Century Classical Music.

Here’s the progression of classical music throughout history:

The major time divisions of classical music are as follows: the early music period, which includes the Medieval (500–1400) and the Renaissance (1400–1600) eras; the Common practice period, which includes the Baroque (1600–1750), Classical (1750–1830), and Romantic eras (1804–1910); and the 20th century (1901–2000) which includes the modern (1890-1930) that overlaps from the late 19th-century, the high modern (mid 20th-century), and contemporary or postmodern (1975–2000) eras, the last of which overlaps into the 21st-century.

If you want to follow how these styles evolve in America particularly, watch a few of these following YouTube videos:

Fanfare for the Common Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NjssV8UuVA
Written by American classical music/film composer Aaron Copland.

Marty Stouffer’s Wild America: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGPHkzNzTJk
Written by American television composer Neil Argo.

Jurassic Park - End Credits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prgmufg66g0
Written by American film composer John Williams.

For whatever reason, Aaron Copland is traditionally thought of as a classical composer, whereas John Williams isn’t traditionally thought as such, even though you can most certainly hear the similarities octave choices, orchestration, and instrumentation. (To add to that, Aaron Copland also composed for film. Why aren’t other film composers traditionally thought of as being classical composers as well?)

Now, in Japan things get a little different. Throughout the 40’s Japanese people listening to Western Classical music was seen as them being a little eccentric. Though Japan and other Eastern cultures have adopted Western instruments and certain orchestrations for a while now, they have a different musical scale, which selects different notes to be more commonly played in a piece of music over others. So, whereas much orchestral Japanese soundtracks can be considered yet another extension of classical music, it certain contains Eastern influences to it.

But the soundtrack for NGE doesn’t simply keep itself at classical orchestration and instrumentation. Often times a standard pop drum set is brought in to keep rhythm with a piece of orchestrated music in Eva, which turns the genre into the Easy Listening genre, again with a Japanese musical scale. This genre started appearing in the 60’s and 70’s in both America and in Japan (and in America even briefly became a part of the Disco Classical scene in the 70’s, with the help of a few electronic pianos and jazz organs), and, when discussing solely the mixing of the orchestra with modern instruments, really his its stride in America in the 90’s with artists like Michael Bolton, though in Eva it seems to be used as only a flashback to something nostalgic for the production crew.

And then you have the sort of Experimental music that usually accompanies the introspective scenes where Shinji is mentally trapped with an Angel or in the Eva, and tends to be painted across most of EoTV.

Basically, Eva doesn’t have a hard time being whatever genre it wants to be, with the NTE films having Shiro Sagisu taking larger leaps into electronic instrumentation within orchestral movie soundtracks than anything Hans Zimmer has ever done. (It’s especially helps that Sagisu works with an actual orchestra before including electronic instruments, whereas Zimmer uses mostly orchestrally programmed synthesizers.)

[pwhodges]

A very nice summary, that.

Why aren’t other film composers traditionally thought of as being classical composers as well?

I've seen a lot of recent releases of non-film music by "film composers". And very many classical composers have also contributed film scores. Vaughan Williams, Prokofiev, Walton, Britten, Boulez even.

There is no real divide.

[Yaywalter]

For what it's worth, the reaction I got from people who don't watch anime when I played the soundtrack was "this sounds like something from Indiana Jones".

[unitM]

So uhh... Does anyone know the genre?

I noticed old Japanese films use similar themes in their music than what Anno presents in, for example, NERV, so I doubt it's genre-less.

[Guy Nacks]

You cannot put a genre on a soundtrack that has so many different styles and moods of music to it. That's like trying to describe the ethnicity of Earth as a whole.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

The genre is mostly Classically inspired with Japanese musical scales as opposed to Western musical scales, with both Easy-Listening and Experimental genres coming in at the drop of a hat.

[ChaddyManPrime]

I would honestly love to see some reggae on the next soundtrack.

They got a nice variety of everything else I like, I really want some reggae though. Or some goddamn country for Shinji, he could really go for the music of pain right about now.