braaam

See also: BRAAAM

English

Alternative forms

• BRAAAM

Etymology

Onomatopoeic.

Noun

braaam (plural braaams)

1. A low, loud sound, originally produced by brass instruments and a prepared piano but sometimes made synthetically, included in film and trailer scores to increase audience stress.
   • 2015, Seth Abramovitch, “'Braaams' for Beginners: How a Horn Sound Ate Hollywood”, in Hollywood Reporter:

     Most agree that Hollywood's obsession with braaams began with a series of trailers for Christopher Nolan's 2010 film, Inception. But just who invented them is "a very, very, very touchy subject," according to Bobby Gumm, head of music for Trailer Park, the company behind such braaam-filled trailers as Mad Max: Fury Road and Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation.

   • 2016, Adrian Daub, “'BRAAAM!': The Sound that Invaded the Hollywood”, in Longreads:

     From Zimmer’s Batman scores, via the many knockoffs for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, to Marco Beltrami’s score for World War Z, the main ingredients — churning strings hectically repeating the same four- or five-note motif, with a BRAAAM dropping every so often — are both pulse-quickening and exhausting.

   • 2017, Benedict Seal, “Why I’m Worried About the Running Time of 'A Cure for Wellness'”, in Bloody Disgusting:

     The ominous braaam, the sinister boardroom, the horrific imagery, the cloaked cult members, embryonic deformity, Jason Isaac’s German accent, mad scientists’ labs: it’s all very intriguing stuff… then I saw the running time.

   • 2019, Dave Gale, “Review: Audio Imperia Talos Volume Two: Low Brass”, in Music Tech:

     Falling firmly into the aforementioned ‘braams’ category and far beyond, each patch is sample driven, being completely derived from the original recorded content, while allowing for real-time control of high- and low-pass filtering and EQ.