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Topic: Who are we really and what connects us?
Scott
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All of us here love film music. We are committed if not addicted to it. Thus I have been wondering what type of person does it take to enjoy this art form? Is there some trade that connects all of us? Are we just morons?People in the classical arena often despise film music. The average joe, sees no point in it. Yet, here we are. Is it a simple case of prejudice? Or, is it a case of non-exposer?
What you guys think?
Scottposted 10-12-2001 10:21 AM PT (US) Spicy Ramen
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quote:
Originally posted by Scott:
Are we just morons?
Yup, were just morons.posted 10-12-2001 11:07 AM PT (US) Lancelot
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Yeah, I like the moron theory....
posted 10-12-2001 11:24 AM PT (US) Jeron
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I think it's simply the case of a minority gathering at one place to discuss something they are all passionate about. It's a similar concept to church-goers. Except I don't idolize this stuff... I just enjoy it and thank God for the talent he's bestowed amongst composers and players alike. Of course, I enjoy converting people over to the benign ways of Jerry Goldsmith.[Message edited by Jeron on 10-12-2001]
posted 10-12-2001 11:35 AM PT (US) Crono
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I agree, just not about the Jerry Goldsmith converting. I didn't know you were creating a colt.--Brian
[Message edited by Crono/Kyp on 10-12-2001]
posted 10-12-2001 11:48 AM PT (US) Jeron
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Creating?
posted 10-12-2001 11:50 AM PT (US) Crono
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Does that mean you actually have a plase where you and your followers go and listen to Goldsmith all day long?your nuts.
--Kyp
posted 10-12-2001 11:52 AM PT (US) Jeron
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quote:
Originally posted by Crono/Kyp:
Does that mean you actually have a plase where you and your followers go and listen to Goldsmith all day long?Yes. It is called moviemusic.com. I'm glad you've decided to join us.
[Message edited by Jeron on 10-12-2001]
posted 10-12-2001 11:57 AM PT (US) Crono
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Your pathetic.--Kyp
posted 10-12-2001 11:58 AM PT (US) Jeron
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Perhaps. Then again, you're still here.
posted 10-12-2001 11:59 AM PT (US) Crono
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I guess so...--Zidane
posted 10-12-2001 12:00 PM PT (US) Jeron
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Kyp? Zidane? Brian? Crono? At least I know who I am.
posted 10-12-2001 12:00 PM PT (US) Justin
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Haha! We're all pathetic don't you get it. We listen to music without lyrics. Who in the world does that?!?
posted 10-12-2001 12:01 PM PT (US) Crono
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quote:
Originally posted by Jeron:
Kyp? Zidane? Brian? Crono? At least I know who I am.I know who I am, I just have a lot of nicknames!
--Brian
posted 10-12-2001 12:02 PM PT (US) TV's Frank
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Grammar check, people!When you write "Your nuts", I read it as a possessive statement, such as saying "Those are your nuts on the table". If you mean to classify someone as "nuts", you need to write it as "You're nuts" - basically "You are nuts" with a contraction.
Same goes for the "pathetic" comment - should be "You're pathetic", not "Your pathetic".
Sorry to be such a grammar cop, it just bugs me when I see mistakes like that.posted 10-12-2001 12:14 PM PT (US) TV's Frank
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Of course, not that I'm perfekt or anything.
posted 10-12-2001 12:15 PM PT (US) wistiti
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quote:
Originally posted by Justin:
Haha! We're all pathetic don't you get it. We listen to music without lyrics. Who in the world does that?!?All the classical music whackos who've done that for centuries...
posted 10-12-2001 12:17 PM PT (US) wistiti
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quote:
Originally posted by TV's Frank:
Sorry to be such a grammar cop, it just bugs me when I see mistakes like that.Yeah, and thanks for the cop attitude. Otherwise I would have had to pick on Kyp and say something stupid.
posted 10-12-2001 12:20 PM PT (US) Marian Schedenig
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quote:
Originally posted by TV's Frank:
When you write "Your nuts", I read it as a possessive statement, such as saying "Those are your nuts on the table".Exactly. Except that I usually don't put mine on the table...
NP: Anton Bruckner: Symphony #4 (NDR-Sinfonieorchester, Günter Wand)
posted 10-12-2001 12:37 PM PT (US) JJH
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what is this about your nuts?
posted 10-12-2001 02:29 PM PT (US) John C Winfrey
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The reasons why so many of us connect here are many:1. many of us share similar interests in various composers and types of film music
2. some of us are intrigued with the films and the music and the music helps us to remember the film and stirs the emotions
3. a lot of us like well performed music of any kind, orchestral or synthesizer, whether melodic, atonic or any combination thereof
4. some of us like film music because it helps to tell a story, one that many can relate to in one way or another
5. film music helps the film to be bigger than life and that attracts people too, the film music fan I am talking about, not just your average movie-goer, because many of them don't notice a lot of the music unless its a rap or rock song
6. we connect here because we want to share our interests and what we like and dislike and discuss why with someone who might understand, the majority of people I know have no interest in this
7. we connect because there are not all that many of us in the entire world compared to other interests
8. we connect because a lot of the film music is just plain exciting in one way or another
and there are 100s of other reasons. John.
6.
posted 10-12-2001 03:02 PM PT (US) John Zimmer
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Let's just drop the topic JJHJz
posted 10-12-2001 03:10 PM PT (US) jonathan_little
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LOL
posted 10-12-2001 08:09 PM PT (US) justin boggan
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We do not go out and blow up things. We would rather listen to John Williams than beat someone up. WE are more in touch with are feelings and get more out of music and sometimes life than others. We are a peaceful group of people who share a common interest- score.
We are all conncted in a way. When i saw Majestyx's list, i thought of all the impressive titles adn how he would descibe some of them. He has propbably listened to all of them. Then i see that he is going for (not spelling this right) Cemo thearpy.
It is almost like losing a part of you. I feel it is a sad thing to lose someone with such good tastes and such veriety.
It will be a blow against score lovers every where if he losses to cancer.
It brings out the best in us, give us greater understanding of life.
I won't mention his name, but back when i had nothing to really trade, one guy let me has 2 sores free- all i coverd was the shipping. Now there is a gernerous score lover. Wecan be better people, despite Beatrice S an other people who try to take us down.
We are of different races, different religions and different color- yet we are all connected by a single bond. How often does that happen?
I am proud that i deal with sch people sometimes.
My out look on life has been forever changed. Music and left me thoughroly immixed and forever different- and i am a better person for it.
There is probably more i could say, but i got to go and post in clusters as usual.
This is who we are.
posted 10-12-2001 08:23 PM PT (US) John Zimmer
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quote:
Originally posted by justin boggan:
We do not go out and blow up things. We would rather listen to John Williams than beat someone up.Says you come on put em' up.
Jz
posted 10-12-2001 08:40 PM PT (US) Scott
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Justin Boggan,that was a great post. I know exactly how you feel and I absolutly agree.
Scott
posted 10-12-2001 08:49 PM PT (US) OHMSS76
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What connects us?A voracious appetite for the diverse and the bizarre....
NP:The Fury(Williams)
Sean
posted 10-12-2001 09:26 PM PT (US) Lou Goldberg
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A friend of mine, supporting the moron theory, once said that he felt film music collectors were about one notch above comic book collectors.Certainly, one connection between most of the people on the board seems to be a healthy dose of sarcasm (and for the Horner and Zimmer lovers, bad taste).
I think John Winfrey hit it right, it seems to be an emotional response to the excitement of film and music and drama, maybe an extra dose of awareness that sets us apart from the average joe watching a movie or TV or even a commercial that allows us to hear and feel and respond to the music there.
Of course, the classical and opera fan may feel that it's an inability to perceive nuance that sets the film music person apart, but I think that what the film music person loses through the simplicity of the counterpoint, he gains by the directness of the thematic and the dramatic. The c/o fan may complain that in film music, emotions are worn on the sleeve, but better that than be too cerebral, austere, or abstract.
Maybe it comes down to taste and film music is a more popular, proletarian sound, a good can of Coke as opposed to a rarified dry wine. As for me, I'll take sugar over vinegar any day.
posted 10-12-2001 10:53 PM PT (US) Scott
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But Lou,what about people like me who have countless filmscores of movies they haven't even seen yet?
Does the movie-music connection really have to fit? While most of the classical people seem to detest film music, it seems to me that most film music lovers also love classic music which in form, style and structure are pretty much the same.
Scottposted 10-12-2001 11:43 PM PT (US) Dave
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Its super simple what joins us.MOVIES.
We all love movies. We were all kids at one point (some of us still are) sitting in the theater eating our overpriced tub of popcorn. And we all saw that magical movie that made us just giddy with excitment. That touched us in someway. We all had that movie stuck in our head the whole way home. And most of us probably had the music stuck up in our grey matter as well. My movie was Raiders of the Lost Ark. Best movie IMHO ever made.
After seeing our special movie another thing had to happen. We were all in a store, a mall, or other form of shoping center when we happen upon a music store. Wandering aimlessly through the store we see 'our' movie poster slaped on the side of a CD, record or tape. We grab it and turn it over in our hands not really beliveing the information our eyes are sending our brain. Someone out there actually put the music onto a tape/cd/record. "I have to have this," you feverishly tell yourself. "I have to listen to this. Relive the music. Make new associations with the music to my personal life." Maybe that was a bit deep for a third grader but ... thats what ended up happening.
Then you start to make connections with the composers. If I liked Raiders of the Lost Ark, I bet I would like Superman. I mean comon they are both by John Williams. And suddenly you have 2 movie scores.
The next thing you know you have over 300 movie scores and your almost 30.
I think its the movies.
dave
NP : Planet of the Apes
Or maybe we're just morons.[Message edited by Dave on 10-13-2001]
posted 10-13-2001 02:23 AM PT (US) Scott
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Again,what if you bought half of your scores from movies you haven't even seen?
Lemons, time for you to weigh in. Why did you get into film music? I know I had a little to do with it, but I could have shown you the sounds of coackroaches running around, wouldn't mean you'd like it.
Common people, for some I don't think it is the movies. There are countless people out there who love movies and yet would never ever think to collect the music. How many film critics do we know that collect soundtracks?
It must be something else...must be.
Scottposted 10-13-2001 10:23 AM PT (US) Howard L
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The only thing Lemon means to me, an unabashed from-film-to-music-to-film music progressive, is Jack Lemmon. Whom several folks have informed me I remind them of."Are we just morons?"
Hmmm. ANYWAY, the topic here has always intrigued this respondent in the roughly 3+ years of inhabiting both messageboards. And indeed, the discovery that there are actually folks attracted to film music divorced from the medium of film never ceases to amaze, even if it's something I can't relate to. But re the majority of us and in response to those who criticize the act of getting into films on film music websites, to me it's always stood to reason that if you're especially sensitive to the "obscure" aspect of music then you're probably sensitive to other aspects of film as well. And by and large, you're probably a sensitive person overall.
I like sensitive people. I like to think of myself as a sensitive person. And I suppose we could get into the sociological underpinnings of the whole shebang. Some of the respondents above have done that very well. I have done more than my share of delving into my psyche as an individual to understand why (1) I would step into a plane and fly into Detroit to meet some of us film music nutsos without the benefit of having met any of us earlier in the flesh, (2) I would feel like I just shook the hand of Willie Mays when it was 'only' the hand of Jerry Goldsmith, a film music composer for goshsakes, (3) I would feel compelled to then drive over the border and meet the family of one hellaciously-into-it film music aficionado who had suddenly dropped dead less than a year earlier and (4) I would ultimately be so intrigued by this shared passion for really good film music as to delve into the corridors of creative writing in various forms...among other things. But who needs all this extraneous psychobabble; let me reprint a piece of such writing (done in collaboration with an old sports friend) that perhaps might strike a resonant chord--
HOWARD (grinning, contemplating the bend in the road): Humph. Sometimes it all seems so shallow.
CHRIS: What?
HOWARD: I mean we didn't know Guy from Adam. I don't know you--well, maybe a little more now--Jim doesn't know Josh, and blah-blah-blah. There's a lot of sickos out there blowing people--KIDS away they don't even know because they're mad. Not at them, they're just mad. I mean we all get mad, right? Until yesterday everybody here was just a name and a bunch of taps on a keyboard and it doesn't seem like it should be anything more than that and now I'm not sure what I'm trying to say except maybe there's something wrong with me--with us.
CHRIS: Why, because first contact was made in cyberspace?
HOWARD: Well, yeah...no...oh who knows.
CHRIS (warmly, and with confidence): No, my friend. You do know. They say the Net has shrunk the world but at the same time you know and I know it's not really bringing people any closer together--it's making them more afraid, drawing them apart. And that's the great paradox in all this modern-day mass communication. Think about it: before this century came along people didn't move around and come back and forth, they couldn't pick up a phone--they wrote! Whole relationships were sustained--sometimes MADE--through letters. And people wrote with their minds, their hearts, their souls. And the language? Oh, my God. Think of the letters between John and Abigail Adams.
HOWARD (with wheels turning): Yes. And the Civil War letters in that Ken Burns documentary.
CHRIS: YES! And that's the drawback to all this highfalutin' technology: the art of writing letters has practically disappeared. That is what is truly shallow. It's a shame. Writing letters was an art. But suppose you form a chemistry, find a connection not through the pen but the keyboard--what's wrong with that? It's just another writing tool--true, a highly-developed tool.
HOWARD: But you don't really know them. There's a lot of freaks out there!
CHRIS: Because you haven't met them, in the flesh? We're here, aren't we? You, me, Josh, Jim? Unless somebody's playing mind games, we really get all we need to know from our writings. Before the Net there was this quiet, lonely passion for good film music that meant so much to you and nobody else in the world. There was no one to share it with, no one to relate to. Outside of my wife, in my case. But that was it! Suddenly this whole world opens up, it's fantastic, and here we are sharing and whooping it up like a bunch of long-lost relatives! Guy--think of the way he wrote. Think of the heart he put into it. That's what impressed you, me and everybody on the Messageboard. We all have our images of the other guys, images of (searching)...purity! And images are useful things, sometimes. Maybe you're just afraid of having your pure image of him shattered.
HOWARD: I see all that now, but it's weird, it just feels like someone or something brought us here, like it was meant to happen. And why Goldsmith?
CHRIS: An impulse, a whim...fun. We love to share. That's it--we're sharers! Maybe Jerry is one, too.
***********************************************************************
[Message edited by Howard L on 10-13-2001]
posted 10-13-2001 11:41 AM PT (US) Ken S
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Scott,
I happen to love film music BECAUSE IT'S NOT LIKE CLASSICAL MUSIC. Film music has this peculiar more "straight-forward" sound, which in my opinion is much more accessable than classical music usually.
This particular "sound" is the reason I like film music - that is why I listen to it rather than go seeing the movies.I think that the basic film music lover has a wealthier imagination than the usual people.
posted 10-13-2001 12:09 PM PT (US) John Zimmer
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I was reading Dave's post and it struck me that who here bought there first soundtrack without seeing the movie first. It's an interesting thing becuase when I got a gift certifercet to NRM Music for christmas a couple of years ago my first impulse was to get the music for my favorite film. Which at the time were Insurrection and The Lost World (Lord forgive me). Is there anyone who got their first score to a film they hadn't seen?The Z man
posted 10-13-2001 02:13 PM PT (US) Scott
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Well let's look at this scenario. I have heard people who bought the soundtrack to their favorite movie and later returned it or simply threw it away because they just didn't like the music. They bought the score because there was something they wanted from the movie. Figuring perhaps that they would enjoy the music. Yet they wind up not liking it.How is it that some don't get into it and some do? Why are we such a minority? How can I buy the score for Ever After and love it while I have no interest of ever seeing the movie?
I like Howards take on this, yet I long for more. This is really weighing heavy on my mind as of late, why I have no idea.
Scottposted 10-13-2001 03:38 PM PT (US) Jared Cowing
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[Message edited by Jared Cowing on 06-05-2010]
posted 10-13-2001 05:43 PM PT (US) jonathan_little
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quote:
Originally posted by Lou Goldberg:
Certainly, one connection between most of the people on the board seems to be a healthy dose of sarcasm (and for the Horner and Zimmer lovers, bad taste).Nah, Lou... ya think?
posted 10-13-2001 06:34 PM PT (US) Ken S
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Scott wrote:
"How is it that some don't get into [film music] and some do? - - How can I buy the score for Ever After and love it while I have no interest of ever seeing the movie?"My dear Scott, I think the answer is not philosophical, but a simple matter of TASTES. Ofcourse this thread is about film music lovers in overall perspective, but we have to remember that even amongst our kind of "intelligent, sensitive" people there is a lot of different tastes - for example I happen to love George Fenton's score for EVER AFTER even more because I love the movie itself. Earlier I have mentioned that I myself love the "Magic Sound" of film music and therefore the styles of Ennio Morricone or Hans Zimmer have never affected on me. And, yes, I also love the orchestral turbulence of marvelous "Gothic Symphonies" but still Silvestri's THE MUMMY RETURNS was too much for me...
All about TASTES, you see!Scott, you also wrote:
"- -They bought the score because there was something they wanted from the movie."I myself get very often disappointed in so-called "soundtracks" of the movies I have seen and wanted the score. Your writing made me to wonder, WHAT IF even those people were disappointed because the soundtrack DIDN'T deliver what it should have delivered..? Just for a thought..!
Scott, BE HAPPY - you have the choice to love and dislike the scores and the movies and everything else in this world. There should be no "dilemma" in the fact that YOU GET INTO IT while some others don't. Be also happy that you can share your loves and hates with us
Regards,
KENposted 10-13-2001 10:03 PM PT (US) Lou Goldberg
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Scott brings up the point of film music as pure musical experience.Once hooked on the film music sound, I could easily enjoy scores for films I'd never seen or even ever could see. I've had the experience of liking a score on its own and not liking it in the movie it was written for.
Morricone is a composer I came to without any previous film reference and love his stuff without having seen most of the films it was written for.
It's interesting to think of someone who's not a big movie fan who gets into film music and, although I've been listening to film music since the first TV shows I watched as a kid, I'm sure there are people who match that scenario.
It's interesting to note who in the industry does and doesn't listen to film music. I have a friend who is very sharp when it comes to film, who is very aware of the scores as he watches movies, but who loves rock and jazz and wouldn't dream of playing film music on its own as meaningful entertainment. I'm sure many critics and directors follow suit.
So what connects us? Is it a certain sensitivity? Awareness? Cinema? A responsiveness to music? Something else I'm not putting my finger on?
Obviously we've found an obscure and often maligned or just plain ignored and misunderstood stray cat kind of art form and decided to take it home with us. Does that make us special or just strange (or both)?
Maybe it'll turn out we've all got a similar gene thing going on in our DNA. For now, it's an unsolved mystery with no Butler in sight.
posted 10-13-2001 10:29 PM PT (US) Howard L
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Scott, looks like your topical question requires a two-fold response--that is, one which addresses people and the other music itself. Here's my 2nd fold/take:If I'm not mistaken, FSM and maybe others have run polls which indicate the vast majority of film music listeners listen to film music as the result of viewing the film or film in general. That being the case, I propose that the power within a perfect marriage of film with music bespeaks a collaborative artform but for most folks the visual remains the thing, whereas the music is incidental--except for the learned ones (ta dah!) who know and understand the power of music, and most importantly, have no qualms whatsoever in giving the most emotional artistic medium the credit it deserves for making the motion picture experience that much more enjoyable, even if most folks don't want to get into it, at best, or have their heads in the sand, at worst.
In udda woids, giving the underrated the rating. And I believe you stand-alone listeners are attracted by this offshoot of the most emotional artistic medium no less, recognizing a special power within short, compact bursts (otherwise known as "cues") vs. a symphony. Sort of like preferring short stories over novels.
I don't think anything I've said here hasn't already been suggested in one way or another. Make any sense?
*******************************************************************[Message edited by Howard L on 10-14-2001]
posted 10-14-2001 01:04 PM PT (US) Old Infopop Software by UBB