-
Message Boards
Movie Soundtracks
How have you "evolved" as a listener?Archive of old forum. No more postings.
Please visit our new forum, The MovieMusic Lobby, to post new topics.
Author
Topic: How have you "evolved" as a listener?
Alexborn007
Standard Userer
After recently picking up Ben-Hur by Miklos Rosza and listening after months of saying "I'll get it", something ocurred to me. Would this have bored me to tears when I began collecting soundtracks about 2 years ago? And then it was clear-- Yes it would have.Back when I started this hobby/habit/experience there usually had to be really good and strong thematic action material. For instance, Final Fantasy was purchased with Stargate and SG practically killed any listen time for Final Fantasy (I still haven't given it enough attention after all this time). There was a rush or charge I had to feel when listening to film music, and there was a boredom felt with classics like The Hunt for Red October or To Kill a Mockingbird.
Then, I began to simply need a memorable or powerful theme. Goldsmith and Poledouris (Red October is now one of my favorites) works really helped get me into some of the more eclectic or traditional music , but I still felt bored with scores that wasn't necessarily thrashing or brimming with heroism. The first introverted score I ever really gave a chance was 'Patton'. Thanks to this, there was a gradual (albeit slow) growth in my ability to appriciate the quieter moments of scoring. And more importantly, just well written music. The charge I thirsted for was probably a novelty thing and there was now a sense of patience slowly emerging which enabled me to enjoy almost everything.
To this day, my tastes are evolving. Alex North has recently found his way into my collection (2001 and Spartacus). While there is a lack of connection I can feel (I didn't grow up with these movies like some of their bigger fans), there is still a love for how complex and grand the music is. On a specific note, it's cool to see Ben-Hur's continued inspiration to generations of composers (Listen to The Sand Pebbles for some interesting stylistic similarities). What's funny though is that part of me which loves the loud science fiction music can never be ignored even amidst all of the new and wonderful sounds accompanying the scores I hear these days.
So my question is...how have your tastes changed, evolved, or even stayed the same over these years?
Some scores I probably would have hated as a newbie (but love now lol):
-The Russia House
-Papillon
-Snow Falling on Cedars
-Beyond Rangoon
-Anything by Morricone
-Hamlet or Henry V
-Road to Perdition
-Angels in America
-VertigoCan't wait to hear your responses
posted 06-22-2004 03:35 PM PT (US) DavidOC
Standard Userer
I can definately relate to what you're saying Alex.About 10 years ago I first became interested in film scores primarily because of melody - I was attracted to great thematic moments in a score and as I began collecting discs I found that I became very easily bored with anything that wasn't tonal in nature.
However that has turned around a great deal over the years as my tastes have also evolved in that I now love atonal, complex, dissonant music just as much as the great thematic moments - listening to a lot of great 60's and 70's Goldsmith music has had a significant impact on this.I'm also listening to and appreciating a lot more old film scores from the 50's and earlier - as my appreciation of film itself evolves. North, Steiner and Rozsa scores are finally starting to work their way into my collection after all this time which only has one real downside - needing all the extra money to fund the furthering of my increasingly-diversified collection!!!
posted 06-22-2004 08:56 PM PT (US) James
Standard Userer
This is a fantastic topic, and I hope it gets the attention it deserves. All too often threads like this go unnoticed or ignored (I'm thinking especially of Joan, Ken and Howard).I came onto the film music scene after I went through a short phase of "alternative music." I was listening to Nirvana, Everclear, Sponge, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, R.E.M., etc. I also randomly liked U2 and Pink Floyd - my dad had a lot of their albums - but even with Pink Floyd at that time I generally preferred their straight rock stuff as opposed to albums like Meddle that required a lot more patience and attention.
So I came into film music with a lot of the same requirements that Alex mentioned, although looking back I guess I wasn't as reliant on thematic action material. My first film score was Jurassic Park, and while the action material is fantastic in that score it was the repititions and variations on the main themes that got the most play time. My second score was Congo, and in that case the strong thematic action material was definitely what attracted me the most.
But then there was The Land Before Time, a score I bought because it was one of my favorite films growing up and the music had nostalgic value for me. That's a score I could listen to every part of and be extremely moved; everything from the furious action music in "Sharptooth and the Earthquake" to the long, quiet, somber passages in "Whispering Winds" enthralled me. But this score was definitely in the minority, and I probably tolerated the dramatic portions of that score because of how I associated them with the film.
My dad also had a lot of Erich Kunzel & the Cincinnati Pops albums, which I began devouring once I got into film music. But on albums like, say, "Hollywood's Greatest Hits," I found myself skipping scores like Gone with the Wind, Doctor Zhivago, Romeo & Juliet and especially Out of Africa, which I remember finding unimaginably boring. I would instead skip right to "Parade of the Charioteers" from Ben Hur, the theme from Goldfinger, Jaws and Rocky. And I distinctly remember that I didn't "get" the overture from Captain Blood - it was brash and heroic, yes, but it lacked an easily determinable rhythm and, I guess, it sounded too "classical" for my tastes at the time.
I really don't know what it was that made things start to change, but I do know that eventually I started to favor dramatic scores. Maybe it was teen angst and depression that altered my tastes, but I found myself reaching for those somber piano-and-strings cues more and more. I developed soft spots for Dolores Claiborne and Gattaca; I introduced myself to Goldsmith's A Patch of Blue which would eventually become a very important work to me. It was also around this time that I started getting really fed up with Drop Zone and The Rock, two CDs that had once been favorites, and I gradually found myself siding more often with the anti-Media Ventures people that I had never understood before.
That was all a murky gradual process, but there was a massive milestone for my musical tastes in 1999: The Matrix. Today I consider my tastes to be pretty eclectic, and I think I owe it all to this score. I had never heard anything like it before. To me there was just something so different and so alien about it - it fascinated me, and it was after i eventually heard the isolated version on the DVD that I began to realize I craved more music like this. So I started reading up on it on the internet, investigating Davis's influences, and it led me to the minimalists - and first and foremost to Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians.
Music for 18 Musicians astonished me. It was very rare that I had been so utterly dumbstruck and blindsided by a piece of music. So I bought more Reich, and I looked into his contemporaries, Philip Glass and Terry Riley, and then I went exploring the composers who built upon what they had done: John Adams, Michael Nyman (his concert work and early Greenaway scores, which I had never heard), Gavin Bryars, and up through Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe, David Lang, Graham Fitkin, Aaron Jay Kernis. I became a contemporary music junkie.
Two things began to happen simultaneously afterwards as a result of wanting to know more about where this music came from. First, I started to go further back into the history of classical music, something I had vague ideas about but had never really explored. Generally I worked backwards, starting with the minimalists and taking a step back to the serialism (which at first I didn't understand and didn't like, but now understand and still don't like), modernism, romanticism, etc., going all the way back to medieval dance music, exploring and finding something to love in everything in between.
The second thing that happened was that for the first time since that last alternative music phase, my tastes began branching outside of the realms of film scores and classical music. I think the reason is pretty clear. A lot of the "post-modern" music I listen to (especially from the "Bang on a Can" crowd) is focused on eclecticism, on mixing any combination of styles and instruments at all, on tearing down genre barriers in music altogether. (Indeed, David Lang says he prefers to call his work "other music,"...he imagines a record store that has all of the genres divided into their seperate sections, but with an additional section labeled "Other" for anything that can't be neatly categorized.)
Since this music is so eclectic, it only makes sense that as I became more accustomed to it (and grew to love it) that I would also come to accept the other styles that influence it. So I've started getting into jazz with Duke Ellington, Django Reinhardt, Dizzy Gillespie and Dave Brubeck, and I've gone back to rock as well. I pulled out those Pink Floyd albums again and found myself loving everything from their harder rock I liked before to the progressive, more experimental stuff that I couldn't stomach ten years ago. I've learned that modern, non-classical, non-film music is not all crap through my enjoyment of bands like One Ring Zero, Radiohead, Godspeed You Black Emperor, A Silver Mt. Zion, 8 1/2 Souvenirs, Modest Mouse, Stereolab, and many more. I even revisited some of the stuff from my alternative phase and discovered that I still liked R.E.M. and a few Sponge songs.
And what's fantastic is that I haven't lost my love of any style for the gain of a new one. I still love and adore film scores (and Jurassic Park would still remain in a top, top spot on my best music ever list, if I were to make one). I love William Byrd's consort music just as much as I love Tom Waits's Blood Money. It feels now like the world of music in front of me is infinitely more vast and untouched, and I doubt I'll ever get tired of exploring every facet of it.
The only caveat? Having a wide range of tastes in anything can get very, very expensive.
Kirk
NP - One Ring Zero: As Smart As We Areposted 06-22-2004 09:14 PM PT (US) Dinko
Standard Userer
My tastes have changed. Whether or not they have evolved is a different story.I started out with Media Ventures, John Williams, Nino Rota, Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner and compilations featuring Gone with the Wind, Doctor Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia. I loved those. Then I began liking other stuff.
I still love The Rock. I still love playing Drop Zone at a louder than recommended volume. But I can't get into any of the new stuff coming from the Media Ventures gang, or anyone who has been at one time or another related to the Zimmer group, with the possible exception of Trevor Rabin whose scores I still like.
James Horner went from being my favourite composer to someone whose music I cannot stand.
As derivative as Goldsmith has become, I still like his style and his scores.
I could live without Williams' scores though.Part of what led to my change in tastes was what I perceived at the time (around 1997) as a drop in the quality of film music which began sounding very generic to my ears.
I still liked orchestral music though, and had to get it from somewhere. After a brief though serious flirtation with Golden Age scores, during which time I realized that I loved Golden Age music but did not care to listen to complete scores in their entirety, preferring 10-40 minutes suites instead, I gave up on those too. I only have two FSM CDs. I love them both. I never listen to them.
As time went on, I turned to classical music. The more I abandoned film music, the more film music seemed to become less interesting. Once upon a time, I would have gone crazy about Van Helsing, Troy or Harry Pooper 3. Now, I might pick them up for $2.99 if they ever make it to Columbia House. But otherwise, I don't care to have, or listen, to them.
I'm more excited by yet another version of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture or Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto no 3, than I am by the latest film scores.
When I look at my CD purchases over the past two years, the most disappointing have consistently been film scores, while the ones I liked most have consistently been classical titles. The Matrix scores being among the rare exceptions, along with film score rerecordings produced by classical record labels (the new Hamlet from Naxos, the new Alexander Nevsky from Capriccio, the Schnittke album from CPO, etc)I also pay more attention to sound quality now than I did when I started, and my criteria for a good-sounding disc have changed dramatically. I used to love the obnoxious Silva-like sound with its fake reverb. It was loud and bright, and that's what I considered "good". Today, the Silva sound gets on my nerves. As does most film music which sounds loud, dry, two-dimensional, in your face and unnatural.
Most well-produced classical albums strive to attain a degree of natural sonics in an attempt to retain and reproduce the performance as one might hear it in a concert hall. It makes the sonic picture much more believable, and in the end, I find classical style sonics more involving than what you might have in film music where to produce a particular effect a single cello might play a tune louder than 5 trombones together. It works in the film, I wouldn't want to hear it on CD.Add to that that too many film composers these days just use giant-sized orchestras because they have the budget, not because they have the talent/capacities to write for so many musicians, and you end up with music which is loud and in your face, but under developed and falls flat.
Take a Brahms symphony and marvel at the many distinct lines, all of them different, and all of them in harmony. Take a recent film score at random and marvel at how the whole orchestra plays the same tune in unison.Then, composers whose music I used to love, either disappeared (Fiedel), or began writing crap (Eidelman, Poledouris), or changed their styles (Elfman). Even less reason to stick around.
How I have evolved as a listener is an interesting question. I still like lame poop like The Rock, but I can't stand Gladiator. I still like all the scores I used to like (even Horner's), but I don't like any of the new ones which are coming out. My tastes have changed. I'm not sure it's evolution.
posted 06-22-2004 10:21 PM PT (US) John Zimmer
Standard Userer
I may have evolved as a listener but not as a reader so don't be offended if I skim.Jz
NP: El Cid
posted 06-23-2004 05:13 AM PT (US) Richard
Standard Userer
I agree, this is a good topic.Until I bought 'The Rock' back in High School, although I had CDs, they were pretty random CDs. Not really eclectic, just random. Anyway, I guess film themes and songs from the movies is what I had always identified with most. I watched a lot of movies as a kid, and I watch a lot more now (another interesting thread would be How have you "evolved" as a viewer), and so began the collection of film score discs. Mostly, I liked the Hans Zimmer crowd. A few scores, a couple of 'random' CDs by varying artists (totaling around 20 discs) and 2-3 years later, I got a part time job. This meant that I was earning more than $5 a week, which meant I could seriously look at expanding my collection. For the next 2-3 years I just bought and bought and bought. Hans Zimmer was cool, James Horner was one talented son of a bitch and mass opinion indicated that John Williams scores are always good.
And mass opinion is always right.
"Boy, if only I could write a cool tune like Hans Zimmer. I'd be famous. The chicks would be all like, 'wow, thats so good, I love you'. Yeah, I could write music for films. IT MAKES SENSE NOW!", I said to myself. And so it was that I decided I would be a composer!
Being a pianist in a school where the general trend is to play the guitar and to like heavy metal guitar based groups, I longed for a group or performer that was piano based. Behold! I discovered Ben Folds Five. They quickly became my favourite band and I bought all their CDs, sheet music, videos, etc. It was really quite obsessive behaviour. Anyway, late in High School I kind of discovered who Bernard Herrmann was. It was really only a passing interest at this time.
Pretty soon, it was time for me to leave school and go to University. I look back at the dreck I wrote in High School and wonder how the freaking hell I was accepted into the course. My musical background was pretty limited up until that point, so between 2001 and present my musical tastes have undergone radical changes. I've gone from knowing practically no classical repertoire to knowing practically no classical repertoire but one thousand times more than I did when I left school.
I didn't know anything about music, but I knew what I liked, so to speak, and this didn't include all that awful atonal stuff, just bashing and tinkering on a piano. I was ignorant back then. Although, I still don't care for that cliched style of atonal piano writing.
The first composer I discovered was Shostakovich and Symphony #5. Wow. Over the next year I was surrounded my people who knew a lot more about composers and classical music than I did, so when they asked me about something, the usual reply I gave was something like "Sorry, I don't know it". While my knowledge of film scores and film composers was extensive, it didn't really matter because to a lot of people, film music is lowbrow. That was a real downer. People criticising the music I liked. It made it hard to enter into conversations because I had nothing to add. The process of becoming even mildly familiar with existing repertoire was a slow one.
In 2001, when my interest in Bernard Herrmann was blooming, I read his biography. Who was this chap named Charles Ives whose name kept on popping up? I went and found out. It was the first one I found, so I grabbed Symphony No.4. The second movement made me nauseous. Really. Still, I liked it, and the other movements were really good aswell. But then, dear reader, I discovered 'The Unanswered Question'.OH - MY - GOD!
In 2002, I discovered the music of Bartok. Over the following 12 months, I became obsessed with it. During this time I also became more and more interested in the music of Schoenberg, Ligeti, as well as Elliot Goldenthal, Gabriel Yared, Thomas Newman and Jazz.
In 2003, while my general awareness of different composers continued to grow, the big standouts were Sir Michael Tippett, Paul Hindemith, Steve Reich (I went though a Steve Reich Phase....wahahaha - get it?) and Arvo Part. I also wanted to diversify my knowledge of 'pop' music. Strangely, the groups and performers I have sought to hear more of have mostly stemmed from hearing one of their songs in a movie. (Radiohead, Elliott Smith, Mercury Rev, Sigur Ros)
My favourite score of last year was probably Terrance Blanchard's '25th Hour'. Since the beginning of 2003, I've probably only bought 15 or so score CDs.Currently, because for the last three years I've really been more exposed to twenieth century composers than any others, I feel like I need to be getting back to some of the 'old school' composers. I've known for a while that I definitely do not like Mozart, but Beethoven is really ringing my bell. Earlier in the year I caught Glen Gould's 1982 (or was it 1981?) recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations on the radio. Man oh man. It just blew my socks off.
My interest in Jazz continues to grow, most recently with Chet Baker. I'm starting to feel like I was shafted by a lot of film composers who have just ripped off existing classical music. I really don't have the time for a lot of film music these days. I just find it banal and uninteresting and I'm starting to say think that maybe all of those people who looked down on film music, dismissing it as second rate, were right to do so. But then I remember composers such as Elliot Goldenthal, Alberto Iglesias (!!!!), Gabriel Yared and Howard Shore, and decide that no, they shouldn't be looking down on it. They should be opening up their minds to what it can be rather than what they think it is.Hans Zimmer and James Horner have gone from being 'Gods' to me to being composers who quite frankly, I cannot stand (save for a handful of their older scores).
John Williams has gone from being someone I felt I was supposed to like to someone I will quite happily admit I cannot stand (save for a handful of his older scores).Some of my tastes have changed radically, some have grown a little, some have remained the same and some, I would imagine, have not been discovered yet. I never listen to commercial radio anymore, only ever to ABC Classic FM (and even with this, its mostly the late night program, which plays such a wide range of music. Its fantastic. Gregorian Chant right though to the "Bang on a Can" crowd. The breakfast show guy is funny, too. But anyway...)
Now I've got a much more critical ear, but I think I'm a fairer and more honest listener than I was 4 years ago. More importantly, I'm a more open minded listener.
NP: Aliens Expanded - James Horner
[Message edited by Richard on 06-23-2004]
posted 06-23-2004 06:04 AM PT (US) Crono/Kyp
Standard Userer
I know I have totally. It's like growing up. The older you get, the more mature type of listener you are.--Bri
posted 06-23-2004 09:28 AM PT (US) Mark Olivarez
Standard Userer
I've always loved film music. The problem in the past was the availability of scores. That more than anything probably hurt my growth as a fan.10 to 15 years ago I had only 4 or 5 composers in my collection now I have some 30 composers represented in my collection thanks to the internet and FSM, Varese, Intrada, Marco Polo, Prometheus and others releasing older scores and special editions
I've been able to expand my collection and finally have the scores I've always wanted. I do think that as a person gets older and wiser he/she views things in a different light and their taste will change.
I've always thought to this day that John Williams was and still is the best film composer with Goldsmith and Rosza coming in second.
I will admit that I've discovered there is more to Akira Ifukube than Godzilla.
Elmer Bernstein was always king of the westerns to me and Bernard Herrmann's scores have appealed to me thanks to his association with Ray Harryhausen.
I still don't understand all of the praise Ennio Morricone receives. I've tried and tried, I even own a few of his cds but they just don't appeal to me. I find James Horner to be dull and bland since the 1990's began. His music is so boring and predictable. This is probably why I don't enjoy listening to Profokeiv that much, I heard it all before.
I still dislike classical music.
10 to 15 years ago I found Zimmer and the early stages of MV to be enjoyable but now I think they are the worst thing that could have happened to film music.
David Arnold was an up and coming film composer after Stargate, now he is overrated and hasn't written anything worthwhile since ID4.
Goldsmith, while losing some of his creativity is still better than most of the composers out there.
Bruce Broughton still doesn't get enough work.
Trevor Rabin needs to focus more on using an orchestra only. He might be pretty good if he could do that.
I miss John Barry.
My appreciation for Alex North and Alfred Newman has grown even more.
Georges Delerue wrotes some of the most beautiful music for films. Thanks to Varese's 2 Disc release I've begun adding him to my collection.
posted 06-23-2004 09:46 AM PT (US) joan hue
Standard Userer
Yep, this is a good topic. I appreciate the details people have provided so that we
trace their music evolution from singular listening to eclectic possibilities.I think the journeys described are pretty universal, even to those of us who are ancients.
We get hooked on something like Star Wars, limit ourselves to a single composer
and genre for a time, and eventually expand our horizens. Star Wars was, for many, a
gateway soundtrack.When I was in high school I would only read science fiction. Eventually I started reading
mysteries, general fiction, and heralded writings from Shakespeare to Hemingway.
My brother brought home Giant when I was young. Then I heard Bernstein's and
Goldsmith's westerns. For a while, I only bought westerns. Those gateway scores
lead me to listen to Biblical epics, and I discovered Rozsa and Alfred Newman.
Media Ventures provided hooks to many on this board, and it is nice to see
them eventually branch out to other current composers and to start the journey
backwards in time to discover Waxman, Rozsa, Alfred Newman and others.
Why limit ourselves to seeing only one snowflake or one sunset?In snobbish, posh terms, it is called catholicity of tastes. We will all reject some
styles. I still can't sit down and listen to horror scores even though I admire their
dovetailing with their respective movies. Also, I still can't listen to a lot of atonal
music, but I'm open to the past, present, and future growth of soundtracks, and
it is delightful to see others expanding their options.[Message edited by joan hue on 06-28-2004]
posted 06-23-2004 10:57 AM PT (US) justin boggan
Standard Userer
Mark Olivarez, I haven't heard much Morricone at all, but I recoomend the following:Lolita
The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (And the others scores)posted 06-23-2004 01:02 PM PT (US) Justin
Standard Userer
I think with the more film music I hear, I learn to start appreciating the original stuff. The actual material that stands out from the rest instead of picking favorites due to a certain composers name being on board. I still have a liking to Media Ventures, but I prefer a huge orchestral score anyday. If you knew me back then, that is a huge conversion
posted 06-23-2004 02:16 PM PT (US) lancer
Standard Userer
When I 1st started listening to scores, john williams,and basil poledouris were the only composers I would give half a chance. I was more of a rocker in those days, metalica, megadeth, and stuff like that. Needless to say I still like my rock, but I now listen to scores much more than I do metal.
After a few years of williams, and poledouris, I started to notice others Goldsmith, Horner,Elfman. Then a few more years I started listening to just about every composer out there, now I still prefer that brass power house stuff from poledouris, williams, and goldsmith, but I am beginning to move on to more calm, soothing sounds of the orchestra. I'm beginning to like more of john barry, and henry mancini, two composers of which, when I 1st started collecting scores, I wouldnt have give a chance in hell.
posted 06-23-2004 03:55 PM PT (US) moviescore
Standard Userer
Oh surely it's changed a lot throughout the years. I started listening to film music about 20 years ago and it all began with John Williams of course. Not with his best known 1977 score though - my first experience was Close Encounters which my dad bought. He used to retell the whole film to music and I was in awe.In 1992 I started reviewing soundtracks and I don't know how many reviews I've done but it's hundreds and hundreds. Without any doubt, it takes more than good craftmanship to really get me going these days. The score has got to offer something unique, be it a very strong theme (how many really good themes do we hear these days?), unusual orchestrations, inventive approaches. I am constantly looking for scores with something unique, an element of surprise. That is why middle-of-the-road comedy scores rarely attract my attention, and that is also why I don't like much of the stuff coming from Zimmer and company. I did like The Rock though - but that one was pretty unique when it came and I couldn't care less about its countless clones...
Although modernism can be somewhat formulaic too sometimes, I tend to like more complex music these days than I did before. Alex North is a great hero. Leonard Rosenman did some phenomenal stuff. Of the composers active today, I still feel that Elliot Goldenthal has a very unique voice. Don Davis is doing great stuff with the orchestra. Shirley Walker is fantastic, her overlooked score for Willard was truly unique. Marco Beltrami is very, very interesting and I think that he will be one of the really big ones in the next few years. Chris Young of course is a big hero, also thanks to his unique sound.
Composers with a truly personal voice can be difficult to find in film music these days. I feel that all of the above mentioned have a recognisable voice of their own and I am attracted to that. I do respect the impressive craftmanship a lot of other composers demonstrate, but I often feel that something is missing in their music.
And, to conclude, I don't think I had these thoughts 15-20 years ago. So things have changed!
mikael
posted 06-24-2004 08:22 AM PT (US) moviescore
Standard Userer
Oh surely it's changed a lot throughout the years. I started listening to film music about 20 years ago and it all began with John Williams of course. Not with his best known 1977 score though - my first experience was Close Encounters which my dad bought. He used to retell the whole film to music and I was in awe.In 1992 I started reviewing soundtracks and I don't know how many reviews I've done but it's hundreds and hundreds. Without any doubt, it takes more than good craftmanship to really get me going these days. The score has got to offer something unique, be it a very strong theme (how many really good themes do we hear these days?), unusual orchestrations, inventive approaches. I am constantly looking for scores with something unique, an element of surprise. That is why middle-of-the-road comedy scores rarely attract my attention, and that is also why I don't like much of the stuff coming from Zimmer and company. I did like The Rock though - but that one was pretty unique when it came and I couldn't care less about its countless clones...
Although modernism can be somewhat formulaic too sometimes, I tend to like more complex music these days than I did before. Alex North is a great hero. Leonard Rosenman did some phenomenal stuff. Of the composers active today, I still feel that Elliot Goldenthal has a very unique voice. Don Davis is doing great stuff with the orchestra. Shirley Walker is fantastic, her overlooked score for Willard was truly unique. Marco Beltrami is very, very interesting and I think that he will be one of the really big ones in the next few years. Chris Young of course is a big hero, also thanks to his unique sound.
Composers with a truly personal voice can be difficult to find in film music these days. I feel that all of the above mentioned have a recognisable voice of their own and I am attracted to that. I do respect the impressive craftmanship a lot of other composers demonstrate, but I often feel that something is missing in their music.
And, to conclude, I don't think I had these thoughts 15-20 years ago. So things have changed!
mikael
posted 06-24-2004 08:25 AM PT (US) John C Winfrey
Standard Userer
All interesting reading. Enjoyed all your comments above.My listening is similiar to what it was long ago. If I hear a theme I like, I get the score and listen to it. I hear the various instruments(having been in band and playing many different ones for 11 years-long ago), and if the sound is good, I pick up lots in there.
Most of the composers I liked long ago I still like and most of the scores I liked long ago I still do. In last several years my listening has expanded to several other composers-Gordon, McKenzie, Howard, Shore etc and some of the others. There are lots of the newer generation composers though that are very nondescript and do not have a real style you can grab hold of. Many are still trying to find themselves.
Gordon is one I liked right away after Moby Dick and On the Beach. I did not like his Commander score though. He needs more good films to do. He has great potential.
McKenzie is developing very nicely and a few others also.
J.
posted 06-25-2004 05:51 PM PT (US) Hector J. Guzman
Standard Userer
My story is similar to Dinko's.I at first was excited with film scores coming out, and interested in them... and just like Dinko, around 1997 or 98 I started to dislike the poor quality in the composing aspects, my incursion into classical music, even if I have heard classical music before, started and have been more interested in this music than film scores.
Still, my favorite composer is John Williams, and I still go and buy his latest film score, but I wouldn't care if he stopped doing movies, and exclusivly write for the concert hall. Jerry Goldsmith is still, with Williams, my two top composers, and also wish that he wrote more for the concert hall.
posted 06-26-2004 11:09 AM PT (US) Graham Watt
Standard Userer
Good comments above, some of which kind of go along with my own story. I don't know how much I have actually "evolved" as a listener - I certainly evolved a lot in the first phase of my appreciation of scores. Now I'm far grumpier, far less tolerant towards hack work. I first started collecting in the mid-70s, usually music for horror and SF movies because that's the kind of film I was a fan of. Some of my first LPs were the old Bernard Herrmann compilations. That was when I went as far as to exclude other kinds of film music - I remember being disappointed at first in Jerome Moross' VALLEY OF GWANGI because it sounded like music for a western. But, fear not, I soon saw the light and branched out into jazz scores (thanks to Clint Eastwood movies), adventure scores and, yes, western scores (thanks to FISTFUL OF DOLLARS on TV). This kind of developed as my film-watching habits expanded to embrace new genres.But the branching-out sort of stopped twenty years ago. My film music tastes may actually have narrowed. I certainly buy much less now, and almost exclusively older scores, though I listen to a wider range of non-film music - which has helped to put things in perspective.
posted 06-27-2004 09:52 AM PT (US) CindyLover1969
Standard Userer
quote:
Originally posted by James:And what's fantastic is that I haven't lost my love of any style for the gain of a new one.
That is fantastic. The most encouraging post here, in fact...
posted 06-27-2004 10:31 AM PT (US) joan hue
Standard Userer
I hope more will contribute to this enlightening thread. There's a narrative
intelligence here that allows us to know each other better and to be
exposed to various types (and titles) of soundtracks.I'd love to hear from from all members. I'm very interested in what two
other site soundtrack critics have to say about their own film music
evolution, so I hope Southall and Rkeaveny will tell us if their critiques
have influenced and changed their listening habits. (like critic moviescore.) Has running a soundtrack board changed PeterK's listening preferences? And what about
Ken, Dana, Howard and those lovely Brits like Timmer? Does living in different countries influence our personal growth and change?(You know, did the United Kingdom produce ANY composers??? )
I shall keep nagging to keep this thread abreast with those that are about
music that is not even out yet.NP Hannie Caulder
posted 06-28-2004 11:05 AM PT (US) franz_conrad
Standard Userer
I will be putting my thoughts down here soon. I've just been a bit busy of late to do really think too hard about it.
posted 06-28-2004 03:54 PM PT (US) Howard L
Standard Userer
Personally, I don't think evolution strictly pertains to me in the sense that I was drawn to film music as an infant and simply kept on being drawn. Oh there were most certainly gateways. The family Hi-Fi came with a Lew Raymond rerecording of Around The World In 80 Days, not to mention a fabulous suite of South Pacific arranged by the incomparable Robert Russell Bennett. These two LPs remain an indelible music memory and will remain indelible even if Alzheimer's sets in. The same goes for the Percy Faith rendition of the theme for A Summer Place.If there were any evolving it was when the connection between stand alone listening met with a burgeoning love of film, the gateway for sure being the original airings of Twilight Zone. The evolution makes perfectly good sense: an irresistible pull to music meets an irresistible pull to film and the perfect marriage between film and music, in turn, begets a whole new lifeform, the film music listener.
...At least in its orthodox life form.
*********************************************************************[Message edited by Howard L on 06-30-2004]
posted 06-30-2004 01:27 PM PT (US) joan hue
Standard Userer
Good to hear from you, Howard. Neat idea that we are a unique, new lifeform. Looking forward to reading Franz's evolution and others.NP Waxman, Vol II
posted 07-01-2004 03:41 PM PT (US) Swashbuckler
Standard Userer
I want to say that this is one of the best topics I have seen on the board in a very long time. Seeing people outline their personal journeys with this musical genre is wonderful because of how much it is reflected within my own experience and the others on this board. It's the sort of thing that makes this type of interaction more personal. Thanks a bunch, Alex, for starting it.This post started out being much shorter than it has become, but as I went on, I began to fill in more and more. I apologize for the self-indulgence, but I actually found myself forced to contextualize much about what I love about film music in the process of writing this. It has therefore been quite therapeutic to write this, and I hope I'm not too boring.
I also provided links to my own reviews. While this may be even more self-indulgent than the length of this post, my reviews go into detail as to why I feel the way I do about the scores in question, so I think it's germane to the topic.
Of course, you can always skip my post. Sob.
My own film music experience started, like so many others, with John Williams' romantic contribution to Star Wars. The film came out in 1977, when I was three, and my mother bought the soundtrack album. She can't remember a time when I wouldn't walk around humming the themes from that film. There was a brash, in-your-face element about that score that caused a lot of people to sit up and take notice of it, and I, as a youngster, was incredibly impressed.
The first soundtrack album I ever got was purchased for me by my father. It was the LP of John Barry's The Black Hole, and it was full of music that my parents couldn't understand why I liked it. The overture and "Laser" were easy to figure out, they were brassy and bold. Even the title theme made sense to them, because it was so catchy. The fact that I was intrigued by tension cues such as "Start the Countdown" was beyond them.
Despite the fact that the Star Wars and Black Hole LPs played such a huge role in defining what type of music I liked, I never really associated film music with albums. I loved movies, and didn't really listen to much music at all. I loved the music from the films, but it never actually occured to me to look for LPs of it.
My next soundtrack album would be many years later, when I was already a teenager. I found myself in love with James Horner's music from Star Trek II, and then, gradually, I started to really appreciate Jerry Goldsmith's score from Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The latter film had long sequences without dialogue, and I started taping them (it was around here that my interest in home theater began, as taping music off of a videocassette was a problematic question until I graduated to stereo video). I had a friend who was also a Trek fan, and he got a tape cassette of the soundtrack album. That was when it clicked in my head... I could, in fact, listen to film music out of the context of the movie itself if there was an album of it.
This solved many problems, as I already had started liking scores for films that I didn't think were all that good. I began to look for my favorites, and gradually started amassing many tapes. I graduated to CDs with Jerry Goldsmith's Total Recall, and at the moment my collection is gargantuan.
Looking at how my tastes have developed over the years, I have to say that there are several milestones I would point at.
When I first began, I was interested mostly in music for films that I liked very much. I sort of ran into a wall with The Terminator, though. I loved the movie, but I didn't much like the soundtrack album. Part of the reason was because half of it was songs. The other reason was that the score had already dated significantly. I liked the title track and "Love Scene," but found the rest of the score to be somewhat lackluster. I thus learned a good movie does not necessarily a good score make.
Over time, as I began to listen to more and more soundtracks, I gravitated towards several composers, Jerry Goldsmith begin one of my favorites. It was thus a great surprise when I saw Planet of the Apes, noticed that he had scored it, and was fascinated, if appalled, by the music. This was one of the first times I found myself really intrigued by music that I found wholly unattractive.
Danny Elfman's score from Batman managed to hit every button. I had liked his music from Beetlejuice, but this was something else. It was big, it was gothic, it was fun. To be frank, while I liked the film, it wasn't all that I hoped it would be, but that music kept roping me in. The film/music interaction was amazing, striking a strange balance between the epic and the frenetic, fitting Tim Burton's world like a glove. (it reaches a sort of apothesis with "Up the Cathedral," a cue that I still think is one of Elfman's best), but the album was addictive.
I picked up the MCA tape of Basil Poledouris' Conan the Barbarian[/i], mostly because I liked the title theme from Conan the Destroyer. I hadn't seen the first movie in quite a while, and I was disappointed that the title theme wasn't in the first film. At first, I thought "Anvil of Crom," the battle music and "The Orgy" were great, but the rest of the album was... well it certainly wasn't what I was expecting. I found myself listening to this tape over and over again. There was something going on here that I didn't quite understand. I couldn't stop listening to it. Every track began to develop a life of its own in my head. While this is another case where I think that the film/music interaction is outstanding, it is as a purely musical work that I appreciate it the most. That tape never sounded all that great to begin with, but by the time the Varese CD came out, I had almost completely worn it out.
When I first saw Spartacus, my reaction to Alex North's music was that it didn't sound right. I mean, the notes didn't seem to fit together properly in my head. I didn't like it. And yet... I could tell that the music was supporting the drama in a way I hadn't really heard before. Over time, I began to pick out the themes, and realize how they were developing over the course of the score. I also began to realize that once one got beyond the harmonic language of the score, it could be enjoyed in a way very new to me.
A huge change in my musical tastes occured when I started working at Tower Records. My interest in film music is what got me the job, but it was there that I began to listen to other types of music. The films/shows section was in the classical room, and I started listening to baroque, classical and romantic because they had the most in relationship to the orchestral film scores I liked. I found, however, that absolute music was a very different animal than film music. In general, because absolute music is intended to be heard by itself, it tends to have a more vertical construction, while film music, because it must fit the film, is much more linear. The closest relationship that film music has to another genre is ballet.
Working in the classical room broadened my palette immeasurably, but it also caused me to see through some of my favorite film composers. James Horner was obviously one of the worst offenders at the time, but I also found myself gravitating away from the more formulaic scores (although I still liked them when they were done well), and more towards material that was more through-composed. Working at Tower got me into such gems as Howard Shore's Looking for Richard, Akira Senju's The Mystery of Rampo, Debbie Wiseman's Wilde, and many other scores that I would not otherwise have come across.
However, working at Tower meant that I also was exposed to rock and roll, reggae, jazz, blues, and other types of music that I never paid much attention to before. I found that my tastes were broadening beyond the orchestral. I can not stress how important this was to how my musical tastes have developed. Listening to music that is so different from what I was used to gave me a perspective that to this day I find invaluable. Miles Davis' Bitches Brew was one of the most eye-opening musical experiences of my life. I didn't know music like that was possible. I got into the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, the Doors, Soundgarden, John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimi Hendrix, the list goes on. Film music was and remains my favorite genre. It is not the only genre in my life, however.
That has had an interesting effect on how I view films that have songs in them. Before I actually got into other types of music, sound soundtracks were the bane of my existence. I loathed them with every fiber of my being. I still hate most of them, but I began to understand that film music was not just about scores. Films are about people, and people listen to other kinds of music. Certainly a film like Goodfellas would not be served by a conventional score (of course, Martin Scorsese understood how film music works, which is why he got Bernard Herrmann to do Taxi Driver - although I have no idea how Gangs of New York ended up happening).
One of the first times I really noticed a song being used well in a film was when Stanley Kubrick used the Rolling Stones' classic "Paint It Black" as the end credits of Full Metal Jacket. Never before had I heard a film's message and tone so perfectly encapsulated by a song.
While I am still disgusted how song albums are often "music from and inspired by the deals by the different companies to put a film's title on an album and try to promote the movie," I have to say that it is not necessarily evil to have songs in a film, or even to have a song compilation connected with the film. The Forrest Gump album is actually a very concise overview of American popular music of the era depicted. The song album for Wonder Boys is actually quite a good collection of singer/songwriter tunes (although I also liked Chris Young's jazzy score) that perfectly reflects the character of Grady Tripp. Almost Famous is about rock music, and it is a perfect snapshot of a particular moment in Cameron Crowe's life.
The other aspect of listening to other genres of music is that it allows one to really pinpoint what it is about each genre that you like. Being into so many other styles of music forced into sharp focus the element of film music that is why it is my favorite:
Drama.
What I love about film music is that it is dramatic. It is about weight. It is about stuff happening. I am a sucker for thick textures and intricate thematic development, and no other type of music can deliver that specific effect. Film music has its own language (an aspect of the genre that accounts for why people into superficially similar forms, such as classical, romantic and modern orchestral music don't really [b]get[b] it), and it is unlike anything else.
My understanding of this fact is what gave me the perspective to be able to appreciate film scores on several different levels. There is the emotional response, which is the primary function of most music in general, and film music in particular. There is the film/music interaction, a subject I find absolutely riveting. There is the nature of the music itself, that is to say what it sounds like and what it is doing. Film music can also be a fertile ground for experimentation in sound and form. There are other elements as well, but those are the main ones that I turn my critical eye towards when listening to music.
This outlook also allowed me to appreciate how the music works in a film I'm not particularly fond of, or how an effective score may not be what I necessarily go for. I also make a strong distinction between music that I like and music that I respect. Most of my favorites fall into both categories, but not I also have personal taste. There are some scores that I admit are fluff, but I enjoy them. There are also some scores that I have never really cared for, but I have to give critical props to. An example of this is the music of Leonard Rosenman. He is a composer whose work I respect, but I have never really warmed up to his music.
My musical horizons were broadened similarly by Royal S. Brown. I initially took his class in reading film music at Queens College (the manuscript edition of the as-yet-unnamed Overtones and Undertones was the textbook), and he made me aware of many of the deeper implications of film music. I began taking his classes every semester (the subject material kept changing, so I could still get credit for it all), and he turned me on to the cinema of Jean-Luc Godard, David Lynch, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Robert Altman and many others.
I can trace my great love of the music of Bernard Herrmann to Royal, as well as my earlier appreciation of Howard Shore, whom I had the opportunity to meet when Royal invited him to give a short talk in the film studies office (he is a really nice guy, by the way). Royal is also primarily responsible for my interest in Golden Age scores, as it was in his class that I first saw The Sea Hawk, Erich Wolfgang Korngold's music for which remains a favorite.
Over time, I have lost patience with quite a bit. James Horner was a quick casualty. I don't want to start Horner-bashing, I'm just saying that his continued lack of originality drives me nuts. I followed Hans Zimmer for a while in the mid-eighties, but he represents everything I hate. I am a firm believer that it is perfectly possible to have art and commerce co-exist. As a filmmaker, an inspiration has always been Alfred Hitchcock, who made very entertaining films that have great artistic value. What I do not like is blind formula. Idiom and style are one thing, and it is to be expected that composers may have commanalities from score to score. They may even repeat themselves from time to time (John Williams uses the same motif every time he scores a scene with a snake, for example. Does this bother me? No. That's what he does for snakes), but the fact that there are a myriad of Horner and Media Ventures scores that are "insert tragic trumpet theme here" or "insert Iron Chef theme here" and have no identity of their own.
On the other hand, I agree that there are problems with the state of film music today, but on the other hand, there is plenty out there that I like very much. For example, Howard Shore's The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is, in my opinion, film music's response to Richard Wagner's Ring cycle. Elliot Goldenthal continues to impress as well. I have also found myself dipping deeper into film music's past, which is possible in today's day and age because of the abundance of recordings available.
So, that a brief history of Josh's obsession with film music. Yes, it is brief. I actually cut quite a lot out of it before posting. Once again, I am quite sorry for having posted something this long.
posted 07-06-2004 09:31 PM PT (US) joan hue
Standard Userer
Hey, Josh, I appreciate the time you took to trace your evolution. Nothing self-indulgent about your writing nor journey. I hope others give it careful attention. I learned a lot from your journey, but I'd like to comment on two parts. One is that I never associated movie music with ballet, but it is starting to make sense as a linear form. Also, you said there was music you liked and music you respected. Rosenman is a great example. Often in movies I'll say that the music worked wonderfully with the movie, but I don't want to purchase it; I respect it, but I don't personally like it well enough to want to listen to it as a stand alone.Finally, I envy your classes from Royal S. Brown. Must have been a wonderful experience.
Thanks for sharing.
NP Kings Row
posted 07-06-2004 10:30 PM PT (US) justin boggan
Standard Userer
Three things came to mind after having read most of your post (and scanning through the rest) Swashbuckler:1. Well, that covers every word in Websters'.
2. Hey! Only Daniel2 is allowed to write that much!
and 3. Taht was an interesting read.
posted 07-06-2004 10:35 PM PT (US) franz_conrad
Standard Userer
A fine contribution! I appreciate some of the remarks on the use of songs in films towards the end particularly.
posted 07-06-2004 10:41 PM PT (US) Swashbuckler
Standard Userer
Joan: Thank you for pretending that I didn't spend pages and pages of text talking about myself. On the other hand, I must honestly say that if anybody has a chance to take a Philosophy/Film class with Royal, jump at the chance. Really.Justin: I did not use the word "indentured" in my post. And, yes, Daniel2 was certainly looming large and threateningly in my mind when I re-read the entry after having posted it.
Franz: As a filmmaker, I have generally leaned towards having traditional original scores for my film. I have just finished collaborating with my current host on a screenplay for which an orchestral (or mock-orchestral) score would be inappropriate. If I were to temp-track the script, it would sound a lot like a cross between David Shire's The Conversation and the bluesier cues from Mike Figgis' Liebestraum. The score would only cover some of the film, however. While I doubt I could ever afford any of the songs that Ryan (my co-writer and host while I'm here in Boston) and I have selected for the temp track, there is a clear aesthetic requirement of this film, and an orchestra doesn't enter into it.
Working on this project has made it all the clearer how difficult it is to select artistically valid songs for a film, but also how rewarding it is when you hit the nail on the head. Sometimes a scene just evolves with a song (often if the song is the inspiration for the scene), but many times one is left not only trying to figure out what is right for the scene, but what is right for the characters. The songs selected thus far (a CD that exists only to give people a clearer idea as to where I'm going with the tone of the piece) have to strike a delicate balance between what works in the context of the movie, but they also have to fit into the world of who is listening to them. One of the ways in which we define the principles is by the music they listen to. One listens to classic rock, one is more of a singer/songwriter and grunge patron, and the other is into goth music.
Because of my interest in film music, I am very concious of what I need from my film musically. While it may seem backwards to have music in mind despite the fact that I have not exposed one frame of film yet on this project, I feel that it makes a lot of sense to decide on a musical approach early in the process because then you can use that music to inform the actors and crew what you want. I have several ideas for how I want the lighting to look, how the shots will be composed and what type of lenses to use for what purposes for this project.
Why shouldn't I, who is obsessed with music, have ideas for what music I want where and how the composer might handle the score? The challenge is to allow the composer the free reign to be themselves, something a lot of filmmakers are afraid to do.
Of course, many films have their music-tracks filled with music that is there to sell records, but there are also cases where the filmmaker themselves fall in love with a stupid idea.
Part of the problem is that filmmaking, by nature, is often the province of control freaks. I won't lie and say that my own interest in the art form is totally divorced from that (I like to rehearse actors before the shoot to lock a performance and I do my own storyboards and editing, after all), but I am also aware that I am dealing with artists who also need to express themselves. Furthermore, there is no way one person could possibly be able to concieve of every possibility. I want to hear my actors' ideas. I want to hear my cinematographer's ideas. I want to hear my composer's ideas. Sometimes I might think that their idea won't work in context of the whole. Most of the time, though, they will come up with either a better idea than you have or a viable alternative.
I was most heartened when my cinematographer read the script and had many of the same ideas for the visual style of the film as I did, and thought my lens ideas were cool. That means that given enough time, he will come up with his own stuff and present it to me... but that he already knows what I'm going for and will have that in mind when we're working on the film. On a particular shoot with him, I had planned out a rack focus shot, but the lenses we had access to were too good, and we couldn't get either part of the frame out of focus. In order to preserve the transfer of attention from one point of the screen to the other, we had to improvise an alternative composition on the fly.
How does this relate to where I started?
Simple. Many film directors have either been editors or cinematographers, or at least gone through a period where that's what they did. Few film directors have ever been composers. In addition to the communication problem that causes (something which I have thankfully been able to sidestep because of my sick and twisted devotion to film music), there is also a cognitive gap between them. A filmmaker usually knows how a camera works, and therefore knows what it is the cameraman is doing. A filmmaker has studied intellectual montage, and understands how one shot attached to another will be percieved.
When it comes to music, however, most filmmakers see it as a sort of magic process. This dude comes in who hasn't been involved the entire year you've been sweating blood on this project, and thinks he knows better than you what to do, and the worst part about it is that you won't find out how wrong he is until it's too late!
Of course, this could be avoided if the filmmaker could be bothered to learn enough about film music to understand that:
- It's not all about what type of music you like. I'm not really all that into goth music, but it is an aspect of that particular character. Granted, I went for stuff that I liked within that genre, but I am still at the mercy of an unfamiliar idiom.
- A song has to be there for a reason. Just putting a song in the background for a scene is not going to work. The song must be germane to the sequence in question for whatever reason. "I like this song, so I'm going to use it" is stupid.
- Many songs can have specific connotations for the audience. This can work in your favor (I have lost count of how many covers of "Mrs. Robinson" has been used in various movies), but it can also work to your detriment. Pre-existing music can either be absolutely perfect or a near miss that only accentuates how inappropriate it is. I mentioned Kubrick's use of "Paint It Black" in Full Metal Jacket. Well, a few years later, the same song was used in The Devil's Advocate. Sorry, folks, it's the wrong song. "Sympathy for the Devil" is what you needed, but for some reason you couldn't use it because Guns N' Roses covered it for Interview with the Vampire.
- Music is something to be agonized over in a scene. The simple fact is that the score is the voice of the film. It sets the tone for the entire movie. People don't realize how incredibly influential a music score is for a film. We do, of course, but that's are bag.
I seem to have strayed way off-topic here.
Sorry.
Wow, another overlong post.
[Message edited by Swashbuckler on 07-07-2004]
posted 07-07-2004 05:10 AM PT (US) SCimmerian
Standard Userer
Well, my musical evolution has been traveling the great oceans and lands of the majestic and heroic. Exploring tributaries and lakes of Sibelius,the seascapes of Bax,the dark battlefields of Shostakovich,the rolling green hills of Vaughan Williams,the thunderous mountains of R. Strauss,the majesty of Rome with Respighi,the passion filled soul with Rachmaninov and Tchiakovsky,the bluest cloud filled skies of Debussy and Ravel,the mysterious forests of Herrmann and the heavens of Holst and Wagner.
posted 07-07-2004 11:36 AM PT (US) Swashbuckler
Standard Userer
Now that was epic![Message edited by Swashbuckler on 07-07-2004]
posted 07-07-2004 01:54 PM PT (US) franz_conrad
Standard Userer
quote:
Originally posted by Swashbuckler:
Of course, this could be avoided if the filmmaker could be bothered to learn enough about film music to understand that:- Many songs can have specific connotations for the audience. This can work in your favor (I have lost count of how many covers of "Mrs. Robinson" has been used in various movies), but it can also work to your detriment. Pre-existing music can either be absolutely perfect or a near miss that only accentuates how inappropriate it is. I mentioned Kubrick's use of "Paint It Black" in Full Metal Jacket. Well, a few years later, the same song was used in The Devil's Advocate. Sorry, folks, it's the wrong song. "Sympathy for the Devil" is what you needed, but for some reason you couldn't use it because Guns N' Roses covered it for Interview with the Vampire.
I wonder similar things about 'Bladerunner' - at one point in the film they wanted to use a period song 'If I Didn't Care' (which ended up appearing over the main titles of the otherwise orchestral Shawshank Redemption). It would have been loaded with meanings in the context of the scene between Rachel and Deckard. Ultimately a royalties question restricted them to using another song which was not so loaded in its meaning. A shame.
posted 07-07-2004 03:09 PM PT (US) Howard L
Standard Userer
LOL
Many moons ago in another galaxy far, far away I accused Swashbuckler of a talent for pushing just the precise buttons to kick my everloving film music appreciation into gear...which often times resulted in overblown long-winded but deliciously posted treatises that, quite honestly, made me come to know why I loved really good film music and certain composers especially. And now looky here, the tide she has turned. But still...3 years old when Star Wars hit the screen? and sometime at the end of this month is my 30th h.s. reunion??Say it ain't so.
To both.
PS
overblown long-winded responses to several items in this thread to follow...*********************************************************************
[Message edited by Howard L on 07-09-2004]
posted 07-08-2004 10:22 AM PT (US) Howard L
Standard Userer
My dad also had a lot of Erich Kunzel & the Cincinnati Pops albums, which I began devouring once I got into film music.Captain, this is quite a coincidence. I mentioned the impact of listening to a South Pacific suite as a toddler. The album's label was Somerset and the music was performed by something like the "New World Orchestra." I think it may even have been what they used to call a monaural recording. Anyway, a few years ago I was driving in Ithaca, NY with the radio tuned into a local station when to my astonishment they played the same arrangement. But it was clearly stereo and just as clearly performed by another outfit. The whole thing was a real stunner, it just blew me away to hear this blast from the way past. Sometime later in the day I got a hold of the station and found out that the recording they aired was a Kunzel/CP performance. In all honesty, I had never heard of Kunzel before; just the same, I found the audiocassette (RODGERS and HAMMERSTEIN SONGBOOK for ORCHESTRA) and it remains a staple in my car listening collection. Maybe I prefer the Somerset recording out of misbegotten nostalgia or something, yet to me it has more of a dramatic sound--stage echo and all vs. the other, which is recorded-in-a-studio crisp . That element of "drama" is hard to verbalize, much as your evolutionary stage into listening to dramatic scores. Oh but it's still quite distinctive to the mind's ear.
I still can't sit down and listen to horror scores even though I admire their
dovetailing with their respective movies...Often in movies I'll say that the music worked wonderfully with the movie, but I don't want to purchase it; I respect it, but I don't personally like it well enough to want to listen to it as a stand alone.Boy do I relate to this and I'll see you even further: the vast majority of my soundtracks were purchased to listen to just a few cues, at best! This again must be part of film music listening orthodoxy i.e. seeing the flick and being wowed by the score prior to any purchase consideration i.e. the AntiStandAloneListener. The albums I do purchase to listen to the whole shebang are most cherished, in this regard. I could never evolve into a pure stand aloner. M'habits are hopelessly beyond benign mutation .
The problem in the past was the availability of scores. That more than anything probably hurt my growth as a fan.
Never a problem for my kind, Mark! But perhaps in a devolutionary comparative way, the lack of quality film over the past several years seems to have run in tandem with the lack of really good music. This is where fools like me get hurt in just the fashion you describe, on a different level. I mean last time I was reasonably wowed was the opening credits sequence in Catch Me If You Can!
I still dislike classical music.
Have you ever tried Gershwin? Always considered his music highly 'cinematic' if not penetrating in a Herrmannesque way. Ah, what that talent-cut-down-in-its-prime could've...WOULD'VE done with movie music.
Not with his best known 1977 score though - my first experience was Close Encounters which my dad bought. He used to retell the whole film to music and I was in awe.
Your Dad has exquisite taste. Perhaps he too made it to the Ziegfeld Theatre and had the cinematic/aural experience of a lifetime?
Anyway, late in High School I kind of discovered who Bernard Herrmann was.
Hey Richard, try kindergarten!!
http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/articles/1999/13_Jan---Mr_Herrmann_and_The_Twilight_Zone.asp*******************************************************************
[Message edited by Howard L on 07-09-2004]
posted 07-09-2004 11:37 AM PT (US) Swashbuckler
Standard Userer
Howard, reading your post made me feel really good. I'm always glad to help rekindle that fire because I look at how inspirational film music can be.But, yes, I'm only going to be thirty in September.
Sorry.
posted 07-09-2004 01:31 PM PT (US) Howard L
Standard Userer
And if I'm not correct, "James" is a recent h.s. grad (?). Our little triumvirate seems a good metaphor for generations of filmgoers/film music listeners sitting on a Friday night in front of the same screen.I never really associated film music with albums. I loved movies, and didn't really listen to much music at all. I loved the music from the films, but it never actually occured to me to look for LPs of it.
I may stand corrected--there is something to this evolutionary thing in my case. I never looked for LPs either, that is until after looking for LPs of film musicals. The latter were collected after being bowled over by h.s productions of Carousel and Brigadoon. And it was also around that time that I got hooked on Gershwin after that "Highlights of the Classics" commercial starring the Brit actor John Williams (Joan--remember that one?). The love and respect for film music was already there but album seeking of same definitely came later.
I'm gonna havta think some more on this. It's starting to weird me out.
I thus learned a good movie does not necessarily a good score make.
I realize this is another topic, but my experience--in most cases--is that it is not possible for a movie to be bad if the score is good. The music is such a large part of the motion picture experience so as to compensate for shortcomings in other aspects. Do you know what I mean?
To be frank, while I liked the film, it wasn't all that I hoped it would be, but that music kept roping me in.
oops you do.
I don't want to start Horner-bashing, I'm just saying that his continued lack of originality drives me nuts.
It is not bashing to some if not many of us who acknowledge the man has marvelous cinematic instincts and started off like house on fire but then we felt betrayed just a short while later when accusations started rolling in...and the accusers, much to our chagrin, were right.
***********************************************************************
[Message edited by Howard L on 07-09-2004]
posted 07-09-2004 02:25 PM PT (US) joan hue
Standard Userer
Hey Howard, like you I tend to listen to specific cues in film music.
If I'm watching an opera, I don't mind all the recitative parts between
arias as I have the visuals on stage, but when I listen to opera, I
track to the main arias. Same with film scores. Once in a while
I discover scores that I can listen to all the way through like
Barry's DANCES WITH WOLVES and Baldamenti's COUSINS.
Both are thematic almost throughout.You said that, "in most cases it's not possible for a movie to be bad
if the score is good." But in some cases, we've seen wretched movies
with wonderful scores. Just ask Goldsmith. We did one time on the
boards try to name superb, outstanding movies that had horrid scores,
and we were rendered almost mute. Whenever I think of the really
great movies, they do have amazing scores.NP Superman
posted 07-10-2004 07:13 PM PT (US) Vinylscrubber
Standard Userer
Not to jump off your subject thread, Joan, but I often find myself pondering how interesting it might be to take films that were unscored, scored by source music, and "concept-scored"(i.e.--LITTLE BIG MAN), and put an honest-to-God developed score to them. There are many fairly good films that might have lifted off with the right music to support them.In the unscored category, I'm thinking of things like THE BEST MAN (although someone does get some music credit on this) and Sturges' MAROONED, which I'm convinced might have actually seemed less deadly with a taut Goldsmith score attached. Budding composers out there, get the DVD of this lumbering, would-be techno thriller and show us your stuff. It's a film scoring lab waiting to happen. Lumet's FAIL SAFE is another that's got a dry soundtrack waiting to be played with.
And I know there are several people who have stated their affection for John Hammond's work on Penn's LITTLE BIG MAN, but what might that film have been with a real, life-breathing score under it?
posted 07-11-2004 07:47 AM PT (US) franz_conrad
Standard Userer
quote:
Originally posted by Vinylscrubber:
Not to jump off your subject thread, Joan, but I often find myself pondering how interesting it might be to take films that were unscored, scored by source music, and "concept-scored"(i.e.--LITTLE BIG MAN), and put an honest-to-God developed score to them. There are many fairly good films that might have lifted off with the right music to support them.
Recent candidates for the treatment:
* The Singing Detective
* Mystic River
* Gangs of New York... oh wait, there was a score - did anyone hear it?posted 07-12-2004 03:57 PM PT (US) BigT1981
Non-Standard Userer
Good topic here...I started getting heavily into film scores when I took band in Junior High...back in 94 I believe...can't remember since it's been a long time ago lol. But anyhow, my first CD I bought was Star Trek III The Search For Spock....and back then I didn't have much in my collection either...but as time went on it steadly grew and now I've got a lot of scores. I've had an appreciation for the film score music like I said since 6th grade. I'm now 22 and still love it.This is all I mainly listen to. I really don't listen to any vocal music IE: Country, Rap, Heavy Metal or whatever unless I'm with someone else, and since I have to listen to it lol...just showing respect for my end. But whenever I'm at home on goes the film score music ...and some scores there might be a particular one where I'll just listen to for an entire week or a few weeks non stop...that's just the way how I am.
Trent
posted 07-12-2004 04:35 PM PT (US) joan hue
Standard Userer
Welcome to the board, Trent.Hey Mark T. I do think there are some movies waiting for a score, or at least a decent score. (Yeah, franz, Mystic River's score was too elementary and lacked emotional connection.) I kind of liked the silence in Fail Safe, especially with the sound of the melting phones. I wish, however, that The Birds would have had a soundtrack. I was never scared by it, and Herrmann could have added some scary pizazz. (Hedren's lack of acting skills ruined the movie for me too.)
posted 07-12-2004 05:14 PM PT (US) BigT1981
Non-Standard Userer
Thanks Joan lol...even though I all ready introduced myself in the "Generations" thread a week or so ago....but thanksTrent
posted 07-12-2004 10:07 PM PT (US) Old Infopop Software by UBB
- It's not all about what type of music you like. I'm not really all that into goth music, but it is an aspect of that particular character. Granted, I went for stuff that I liked within that genre, but I am still at the mercy of an unfamiliar idiom.