After watching the film Avatar, I looked into the film score and Na’vi music types. Although having some similarities, the film score and Na’vi are quite different. Both music types used membranophones, chordophones, vocals, and aerophones. The music in the Na’vi contains European wordless vocals, combined with Asian and African timbers. Also a main difference is that the Na’vi language was chanted and sung in the native language, while the film score was sung in English with only Western timbers.
In the examples the Avatar theme song can be heard with only western female timbers with a more sound from the diaphragm, while the “Gathering all the Na’vi clans for battle” song contained a short segment with multi cultural timbers of shouting, rather than a western singing like quality. The film score also had more of an up beat pop-like rhythm that was fairly simply with a simple melody, while the Na’vi music had a polyrhythmic scheme as the music escalated like some African music cultures. Although the music from the Na’vi has a few African qualities, they also contain many western music styles of instrumentation that reveals a similar quality to that of World of Warcraft music.
The mix of cultures throughout is what most likely what gives this movie the out of world feeling due to the inability of the viewer to point down to the source of the music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsM6iK_OBFU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEFlJKvBc8s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgkPAxiKkiI
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