As with several Burton's filmography, Elfman incorporated several techniques of popular composers, such as Max Steiner and Bernard Hermann, by complementing the visual style with orchestral music.

[2] In an interview with Hugh Hart of Wired, Elfman said that writing the music for Alice's trajectory was a hard part as "he needed the music to tie it all together as she goes from this kind of confused child to a bewildered young lady to becoming Alice as a hero who finds herself in the center of this big story where she has a huge part to play".

[4] Elfman, however added that the score will not be about the Mad Hatter or the Red Queen, as they play supporting roles in the film, and the story revolves around Alice.

[4] As like most of the soundtracks from Burton's films, Elfman infused the symphonic orchestrations to compliment the visual style, as similar to the works of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Max Steiner, Franz Waxman and especially Bernard Hermann.

Copyist Ron Vermillion had admitted the software helped to write much of the score notes, as manually a large orchestra could not produce much due to time constraints.

[5] In March 2010, as a part of the promotions, snippets from the scoring sessions were broadcast in the Good Morning America television show on ABC News.

"[8] Filmtracks.com said "The experience of its creation may have been a crazy, hectic one for the composer, but he accomplished something not heard since Sommersby in 1993: an unequivocally entertaining, five-star Elfman masterpiece.

[11] James Christopher Monger of Allmusic called it as " one of his most memorable themes since Edward Scissorhands, and a fine return to the dark, gothic, orchestral pop of The Nightmare Before Christmas.

"[12] Hugh Hart of Wired wrote "Underscored by composer Danny Elfman‘s plush orchestrations, Alice treads an extravagantly visual path between waking dreams and comatose realities.