One more scary cue for Halloween! This one is more of a family-friendly kind of scariness, rather than something you’d hear in a film about saws or silenced lambs. In this short cue, a rising orchestral crescendo marks the arrival of the world’s most frightening sea creature (if you happen to be a penguin).


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	The Killer Whale

My goal for this cue was to make a harp sound scary. This might seem like a tall order given the instrument’s angelic associations, but in fact the harp has an oft-overlooked lower register that can sound quite creepy. The orchestral accompaniment helps out here with a non-vibrato string drone and subtle wind pulses that swell in and out.


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	Captured

Continuing the theme of creepy music for October: from Aaron Simms’ supernatural thriller Vermilion, this underscore accompanied the final run-in with a painting come to life. (This was much scarier on film than it sounds in my description!)


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	Encounter

Continuing the theme of creepy music through Holloween: This week’s selection features Native American flutes, bowed prayer bowls, a spring drum, and an unusual instrument known as a Lion’s Roar.

The music was entirely acoustically generated, with no use of samples or synthesized timbres. Though computers can make wonderful sounds, I think that the most expressive music comes from human beings playing physical instruments. This remains true even when the music is disquieting rather than melodic.

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	Flashback