For me it would be John Williams.

Yet, perhaps best of all, I would like to mix it up. Be able to orchestrate and be as melodic as Williams; write action music like Goldsmith and be as versatile and humble as Aaron Collins. Wow, now that would be cool....

Scott

But if I could cut loose with an orchestra, I think I'd do pretty well. I've come up with a couple themes I would love to hear conducted by an orchestra, with timpani, strings, brass, and symbals.

As for JJH, Herrmann and Burwell would make a great mix! What is this Burwell compilation?

I'm with James on this one... I'd compose like *me,* though who knows what that would sound like. Hopefully it would be something people wouldn't criticize too heavily.

I've written some things over the years -- piano, percussion ensembles -- and know how thoroughly derivative they are. But I also know that I'm not sufficiently dedicated to composing music to really buckle down and write and write and write until I've found something to say. I may NOT have much to say, musically.

I don't know who I'd sound like--I'd just hope my love themes were as pretty as Barry's and Delerue's, that my dramatic cues had the guts of Rozsa, Herrmann, or Tiomkin. I'd also hope I had a dramatic sense, an inner knowing of just what music would best enhance an image or story. I'd think of the two audiences--the one watching the film in the theater and the other at home listening to CDs and try to find a music that worked in both locations (sure the film would come first but to compose a nothingness that couldn't be played elsewhere seems as much an insult to the film as it does to music). I'd hope for real talent to move people--I'd want to be good at it.

Actually, I CAN compose. There's a performance of my music every day for 15 minutes while I'm in the shower, but I wouldn't advise anyone with a weak stomach or sense of taste to listen to this stuff. Unfortunately, we sometimes have to listen to the works of people who can't compose either (Horner, MV) but haven't the same humility to bow out and leave the work to those who can.

What's with me today? I can't post anything without slamming these people. Both Horner and Zimmer have written scores I like quite a bit. Think Star Trek II and Beyond Rangoon. There, I'm on the road back to niceness. But wait, up ahead, there's MI2 and Deep Impact. Oh no! I'm not gonna make it, my land rover meets an impasse....

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Originally posted by Andre Lux:
Definitly Jerry Goldsmith and Ennio Morricone.

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Getting off-topic... The Special Effects IMAX film recently premiered in Vienna, coupled with an exhibition about films and special fx, and I went to see both yesterday. While the exhibition wasn't too overwhelming, I was positively surprised to see a part about film music. Several parts of the exhibition were interactive, and in the case of film music, you could watch 4 different movie scenes (from Vertigo, ID4, Romeo & Juliet and...err...forgot the last one). For every one of these, you had 4 different choices of music, one being the original score and the other 3 being other music. Playing Carmen's famous Aria over the museum sequence from Vertigo or "Gabriel's Oboe" during the arrival of the alien spaceship in ID4 was really funny.

Definitely get canned if he tried to be the next Kid Rock like in this one vacuous big event sequel flic this last weekend.

The music that came out was part oompah Danny Elfman, part subdued Williams - with an occasional Goldsmith ostinato - and tagged on to the end was a massive choral conclusion in the SHADOWS OF THE EMPIRE-mode. Interspersed with this was small band Mancini-pop that segued in and out of orchestral outbursts.