Composer NOTES — Inside of the Score | Three Uncles film score — The Kahiki 3 and Me
A documentary score has a delicate job: it can help us stay with a difficult story, but it also needs to leave room for the people telling it. In this Composer NOTES entry, I invite you inside my Three Uncles film score from The Kahiki 3 and Me. Four short listening windows let you explore its changing energy before hearing the complete cue.
Directed by Amber Monet, The Kahiki 3 and Me follows Nikki Johnson-Alfano’s search for understanding and healing through her family’s history. That context makes the relationship between music and testimony especially important. The people, their memories, and their words remain the center of the film.
This listening guide focuses on the cue as music. Each example is labeled by its position within the audio, beginning at 0:00—not by the film’s picture timecode. The short excerpts have quick fades for comfortable listening; the complete cue at the end preserves the original sequence.
Inside the Three Uncles film score
For directors and producers, a useful way to approach a cue is to follow what happens to your attention. Where does the music gather energy? Where does it relax? Does a change create room to reflect, or encourage you to move forward? These questions connect musical decisions to the experience of watching a film.
The four windows below are invitations to listen closely. They do not replace the full cue: an isolated passage can feel very different when you hear what leads into it and what follows. Try the examples first, then return to the complete piece with those changes in mind.
“A documentary score has a delicate job: it can help us stay with a difficult story, but it also needs to leave room for the people telling it.”
0:00–0:50 — The opening window
Begin with the first fifty seconds. The opening establishes the cue’s initial scale, then its energy grows and eases within this window. Listen to that shape rather than treating the opening as a single unchanging mood.
An entrance matters because it begins a relationship with the image. As you listen, notice how quickly you become aware of the music and how that awareness changes across the excerpt. For a filmmaker, the practical question is how an opening supports attention without filling every available space.
1:04–1:52 — Changes in weight
This excerpt starts just over a minute into the cue. Its overall level shifts rather than making one uninterrupted climb: there is a lighter stretch before the energy gathers again toward the later part of the window. Listen for the contrast between those portions.
A passage can create movement through a change of weight as well as through a bigger musical gesture. When reviewing music against picture, it helps to ask whether that contrast follows a change in the scene or offers the audience a moment to take in what they have heard.
2:08–2:56 — Following the easing
Now move into the middle-to-later portion of the piece. Across this window, the energy eases toward its ending. Pay attention to how your sense of space changes as that happens, and compare it with the more active moments in the earlier examples.
A reduction in musical weight can be as consequential as a build. It can alter how much attention is available for a voice, a look, or a pause. The useful listening exercise here is to notice the easing itself before deciding what meaning you attach to it.
3:16–4:09 — The final window
The last excerpt takes you from 3:16 through the end of Three Uncles. This portion sits at a quieter overall level than the earlier listening windows, with a further drop at the close. Listen to how the ending changes your perception of the passage that precedes it.
An ending does more than stop the sound. It affects what the audience carries into the next moment. Hearing the final passage on its own can reveal its shape; hearing it again after the complete cue reveals the distance the music has traveled to reach it.
Listen to Three Uncles in full
“An ending does more than stop the sound. It affects what the audience carries into the next moment.”
Now listen to the complete cue, approximately four minutes and nine seconds. The intervals between the examples are part of its continuity, so this uninterrupted version is the best way to experience the whole arc. Notice whether an earlier moment feels different after you know where the piece ends.
What did you hear?
Which passage held your attention, and where did you feel the greatest change? If you are a director, producer, or fellow composer, I would also love to hear how you think about giving music space around testimony and personal history.
Everyone is welcome to leave a comment below. I read every comment and would love to respond—whether you have a question, a thought about the music, or simply want to share what you heard.
Film background: https://homelesstolawyer.com/kahiki-3-and-me-documentary/
Thank you so much for reading, and playing :)
Rick
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