While watching the second season of Netflix’s ‘squid games’, the soundtrack really stood out to me. The first season also had incredible sound design and music, however it felt ramped out and more boisterous this season.
The shows theme song ‘way back then’, starts off with a 3 3 7 percussive rhythm, a traditional South Korean rhythm used to clap people on, similar to a football crowd chant. This addition of cultural context already sets the childlike ‘game’ tone, which is only taken further with the introduction of a recorder and castanets, instruments which the composer Jung Jae-il practiced in school. The recorder plays an awkward out of key melody, sounding amateur and jaunty. This is reflected in the games themselves, based off of children’s games turned deadly.
Another iconic piece used is ‘pink soldier’. Entirely an Capella piece, the songs use of reverb perfects the eerie starkness and simple visuals of the show. The melody revolves around an Ab to E and G motif, however a higher part lingering on the G clouds the tonal centre, adding uncertainty into the mix. The piece is short, catchy and unsettling making it the perfect theme for the guards. This tonal ambiguity works perfectly to create unease and I want to take inspiration from this piece in my scoring work when working on more tense or unsettling scenes.
The show also sprinkles classical pieces and new renditions of more recent songs throughout. Franz Joseph haydn’s ‘trumpet concerto in Eb major’ is used to show the start of a new day and wake up the players in each episode, while Johann Strauss II’s “The Blue Danube” is used to indicate the start of a new game. This creates an air of sophistication that contrasts the violence shown throughout each game, and also embodies the elite upper class of ‘VIPs’ that are watching the games for fun.
The second season also features an electric remix of the jazz standard ‘fly me to the moon’ during the first game ‘red light green light’. In the first season, a more traditional version was used with acoustic instrumentation, however the second seasons is updated. Its inclusion ties back to the same point of the first season, however the update shows a progression, as the main player 456 knows how to play the games this tome around.
I want to use similar techniques within my scoring when working on more serious or eerie orientated media, as I think it works perfectly within squid games.
‘기생충’ 이어 ’오징어게임’까지…정재일 음악감독 “어안이 벙벙” (2021) 동아일보. Available at: https://www.donga.com/news/Culture/article/all/20211010/109632370/1 (Accessed: 06 January 2025).
Squid game soundtrack: What pieces of classical music are used in Squid Game and who composed the score? – classical music: Ghostarchive (no date a) Visit the main page. Available at: https://ghostarchive.org/archive/yNOXn (Accessed: 06 January 2025).
Squid Game: Who Sings ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ in First Episode? | POPSUGAR Entertainment UK | Ghostarchive (2021) Ghostarchive.org. Available at: https://ghostarchive.org/archive/mbEij (Accessed: 6 January 2025).
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