Am I "tricking" myself into liking certain music?

[Will 2,215]

*Another episode where Will attempts to philosophize about his tastes in entertainment.*

 

There is some music which I do not particularly like on first listen, but that I come to enjoy - or at least think I enjoy. I seem to remember The Force Awakens and The BFG being examples of this - whereas I seem to remember Fantastic Beasts and Rogue One as impressing me more on first listen, although it is hard to recall. 

 

Basically, my concerns boil down to this: Is it possible that I'm somehow "tricking" myself into liking music by listening to it repeatedly? I've noticed that the negative reactions of some to TFA and BFG, for example, are very similar to my first impressions of those scores. 

 

I know @TheGreyPilgrim has mentioned this "repeated listening trick" dynamic before, but I wonder if he'd be willing to weigh in in any more detail here. 

 

My questions, directed to all members, are basically...

 

- What do you look for in music? What makes you consider music good? Harmonies that you find satisfying? (really my main attraction to Williams' music) What about rhythms you find fun? Do you ever consider a score "good" if you don't find the harmonies particularly satisfying, but think it's cool how the composer developed a theme throughout? I'm wondering whether I would be better off only considering a score good if I liked the harmonies on first impression (for example, I don't find the harmonies in Rey's Theme very satisfying, but I still have convinced myself that I like it, even though, at the same time, I rarely feel inclined to listen to it). I wonder if I'm, in a sense, wasting time on music that, at least for my tastes, is inferior. I particularly think about this as I listen to Giacchino while others here claim that, while he's OK, composers like Goldsmith were so much better that it's not even really worth listening to Giacchino much. 

 

- What's your general "rule" in regards to whether to listen to a score again? Do you always give a score a second listen, or do you only do that if you truly enjoyed it the first time? Do some of you basically never listen to a score again, even a Williams score, if it doesn't make a good first impression? If so, why? 

 

- Do you like to try out new music (film and/or classical)? What's your impetus for doing so? I was thinking today about how it can be so easy to lapse into listening to the same old favorites. 

 

- I've found that cues that I really, really like for a few days can get over-listened, therefore becoming only great in memory, in a sense, with future listens being only pale if still enjoyable imitations of the past brief experience. In other words, they become rather stale. Sometimes it almost feels like it takes some effort to enjoy them. Does this happen to you? Do you try to prevent it by not over-listening to cues you like? I wonder if this phenomenon could partially explain why I tend to prefer one-off Williams moments to a score's big themes. Perhaps I hear the themes too much and they become stale? 

 

- This is one I'd be really interested in hearing from TGP about. Many here seem to value originality in music (e.g. The BFG was criticized here for being too similar in style to past works). Why, precisely? Do you simply like innovation? Is it also that you just happen to think that the first time a style was used was usually the best use? When listening to film scores, I do sometimes wonder whether what I'm listening to is really just an imitation, and whether I could be missing out on the classical originals. But then I think about how I enjoy many film scores, more than most classical music I've ever heard, and I wonder whether originality in style really matters all that much. After all, isn't style just a canvas, where different notes and chords can be placed? Somehow I still haven't gotten tired of most of Williams' favorite signatures and styles, but many here seem a little wary. Is that just because they think Williams' BFG score, for example, wasn't very good, plain and simple? I found many of the cues very satisfying in a classic Williams way. Did most of you not, or did you like them but ignored that because you thought the general territory had already been crossed too often? 

 

I know this is a pretty dense set of questions but I'd be really interested in hearing from you guys on any or all of them. 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

You're way overthinking.... everything.

[Bespin 8,480]

First, my first true love is Charles Aznavour.

 

All that being said... 

 

I usually love old or aging artists that are already well established. So I know they are good people, honest people, clean people, not scandalous people, people that worked hard and which are not as much "well-kown", than "recognized" by their peers and the public.

 

Then when I saw enough of the work of such an artist... I dig... I discover... I want EVERYTHING.  Discographies like the ones of Charles Aznavour and John Williams are treasures of infinite richness.

 

That's my passion.

 

So I'm "chanson" first, then John Williams (I have no real interest in movie music in general). And since 2008, I restarted to listen a lot of classical music. Bach is my favorite composer. I can go from Bach to Pink Floyd, to Frank Sinatra and The Beatles.

 

Emotion first, but I'm able to listen to music that I not necessarily "love" af first hearing too. "The function creates the organ", as one would say. I just love well done music written by the best composers, authors and performers on this little planet. 

 

I like to say that "I'm a good public". But I'm totally selective. And I don't just listen, I buy the music, because it's my way of saying to the artists: bravo.

 

That's my life : Music Music Music!

 

[Cerebral Cortex 3,357]

7 minutes ago, Will said:

What's your general "rule" in regards to whether to listen to a score again? Do you always give a score a second listen, or do you only do that if you truly enjoyed it the first time? Do some of you basically never listen to a score again, even a Williams score, if it doesn't make a good first impression? If so, why? 

 

 

If I'm listening to a score for the first time, I usually have to make sure I'm giving it an honest listen in an environment free of most distractions. That way I can say I at least gave it most of my attention and was "paying attention" for the "good" parts. If I find I overall strongly don't like it, usually one of the following has to surface for me to warrant giving it a second listen:

A) Part of it stuck with me. Whether good or bad, if part of that score is running through my head in the days following that initial listen, I need to give the score another listen. There at least was something there that was at least memorable enough for my brain to latch onto it, perhaps I should give it another looksy. 

 

B) If my opinion is greatly different from a majority of the users here regarding a score, I'm definitely curious as to whether or not I missed something and am usually easily persuaded to relisten to that score. This is especially true when users like, for example, you, Crumbs, or Not Mr. Big (i.e. users I tend to find myself agreeing with the most consistently on regarding musical tastes) really care for something that I definitely didn't, in which case I definitely have to give it another listen. Usually, I do find that I missed something, or at least appreciate parts of it in a way I didn't previously.

C) 3 to 5 years have passed. It has been long enough that maybe I should at least try to give it another go.

D) It was a Zimmer score. For whatever reason, a lot of Zimmer's recent works have been very meh for me on first listen and within the month to follow quickly become favorites of mine. Part of this is because of misplaced expectations regarding what kind of phonic experience I felt I would be getting going into the initial listen. Take Man of Steel, for example. While I clearly was an idiot for expecting something more symphonic and akin to what Williams did with the character, I was still a little thrown for how bombastic the score was. The score goes in a radically different direction, and my brain I think rejects that direction at first and has to go through a readjustment period before I can appreciate it. Interstellar is unlike any sci-fi score I've heard, and that straying from the classical sci-fi musical lexicon is what initially made my brain frown upon first listen. Now, that uniqueness is what makes it one of my favorite scores by him, I just needed to go through a mental adjustment of expectations so that I could fully appreciate what it was he was trying to go for. 

In addition, a lot of Zimmer's scores are sensory overload on first listen. Using Man of Steel again as an example, there are several instances where Zimmer goes so batshit crazy that there is almost too much to process on a first listen. You have to let it digest a bit and come back to it. The denseness necessitates that second listen almost by design. 

 

8 minutes ago, Will said:

There is some music which I do not particularly like on first listen, but that I come to enjoy - or at least think I enjoy. I seem to remember The Force Awakens and The BFG being examples of this - whereas I seem to remember Fantastic Beasts and Rogue One as impressing me more on first listen, although it is hard to recall. 

 

Basically, my concerns boil down to this: Is it possible that I'm somehow "tricking" myself into liking music by listening to it repeatedly? I've noticed that the negative reactions of some to TFA and BFG, for example, are very similar to my first impressions of those scores. 

 

 

I think that feeling of "tricking yourself" is what I was mentioning earlier about that adjustment period. When the music ventures into soundscapes we weren't expecting or haven't been exposed to, I think it at first just doesn't gel with us because of how it strays from those in-place expectations. We as humans don't usually like it when things go against our expectations, at least at first, and it takes time for us to alter expectations and appreciate that "newness".  And, by definition, unique music has to delve into these unfamiliar places in order to be deemed as such. It's as if the music is showing us a place we haven't really been to before, and we have to think on it for a bit to decide whether it's a place we actually want to go to or revisit. It's not an instantaneous decision. The more times you frequent this unfamiliar place, the more familiar it becomes, the more you find yourself enjoying this familiar place. At least that's my theory. 

Sorry for my usual spewing of verbal diarrhea, incoherentness, and wordy posting. Hopefully it makes some sense. I apologize for not addressing all the questions presented. 

[Will 2,215]

Thanks for offering such lengthy commentary, @Cerebral Cortex!

 

You talk about how listening to a score over and over can reveal subtleties that weren't apparent. But I wonder whether some of that "grower" effect could be simply due to some psychological tendency to like music more the more you listen, if such a thing exists. I haven't really looked into it much, but I've always remembered this post by TGP regarding "Crash Decisions," when I noted that it was slightly growing on me after initially not liking it:

 

 

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

"Familiarity can breed fondness" is shitty phrasing and I'd prefer to say that familiarity can lead to an impression of great inner logic and craft.  Webern on first pass probably sounds like nonsense to most people, but as you begin to know the music intimately, and you begin to know what's coming, it seems to make more sense.  It's like how the first drive somewhere can seem very long, but repeated trips less so because the road is familiar and you can better gauge where you are.  I don't think this necessarily leads to you enjoying something you didn't enjoy at first, though it's possible.  Nor am I sure that this is actually a matter of picking up on sense that is actually there, or if you're putting your own into it as a result of intimate familiarity with it.  Certainly there's method to Webern, but if I bang out some random notes on the piano, and you listen a thousand times, will you become convinced of some order to it?

 

I think what you're asking about is a somewhat different issue.  You're concerned that you're only liking things because you want to like them?  That's something I'm far less equipped to comment on.  Let me read what you've said again.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

It's a trick. Send no reply. Send no transmissions of any kind.

[Will 2,215]

3 minutes ago, TheGreyPilgrim said:

"Familiarity can breed fondness" is shitty phrasing and I'd prefer to say that familiarity can lead to an impression of great inner logic and craft.  Webern on first pass probably sounds like nonsense to most people, but as you begin to know the music intimately, and you begin to know what's coming, it seems to make more sense.  It's like how the first drive somewhere can seem very long, but repeated trips less so because the road is familiar and you can better gauge where you are.  I don't think this necessarily leads to you enjoying something you didn't enjoy at first, though it's possible.  Nor am I sure that this is actually a matter of picking up on sense that is actually there, or if you're putting your own into it as a result of intimate familiarity with it.  Certainly there's method to Webern, but if I bang out some random notes on the piano, and you listen a thousand times, will you become convinced of some order to it?

 

I think what you're asking about is a somewhat different issue.  You're concerned that you're only liking things because you want to like them?  That's something I'm far less equipped to comment on.

 

Yeah, basically. Thanks for the clarification on your Beyond post. I guess I interpreted it wrong! 

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Disco Stu is probably right and you're overthinking most of this, not that there's anything wrong with that as long as you're not getting genuinely angsty about whether or not you should like Fantastic Beasts. 

 

The question of originality is mainly about wasting real estate, I think.  While there's nothing necessarily wrong with another score by such and such composer in such and such style, life is short, scores are finite, and yeah, usually retreads don't surpass the originals, so one wants as much new ground covered as possible.

[Cerebral Cortex 3,357]

31 minutes ago, Will said:

You talk about how listening to a score over and over can reveal subtleties that weren't apparent. But I wonder whether some of that "grower" effect could be simply due to some psychological tendency to like music more the more you listen, if such a thing exists.

1

 

Ah, but do we start liking the music more because of repeated listens or is it because we are liking the music more that we then engage in repeated listens? The questions are endless, Will!

[publicist 4,643]

5 hours ago, Will said:

I particularly think about this as I listen to Giacchino while others here claim that, while he's OK, composers like Goldsmith were so much better that it's not even really worth listening to Giacchino much. 

 

The crummy bit of your theorizing is that you take pretty standard Williams fare, too, that doesn't do a lot of interesting things, musically (polish aside). If you take the time to enter the frightening world of guys like North, Rosenman, (early) Goldsmith or John Corigliano you get to the heart of this matter.

 

Your litmus test should be the following scores: 'Planet of the Apes' (Goldsmith) and 'Dragonslayer' (North). If you 'got' them you will have understood why a lot of film music isn't up to par - doesn't mean you can't enjoy it but still - and what can be musically achieved in this art form (you could exchange the North with 'Cleopatra' or '2001' and the Goldsmith probably with 'Mephisto Waltz' or 'The Illustrated Man', possibly 'Altered States' and so on).

[Manakin Skywalker 4,891]

I clicked on the thread, saw Will's ginormous post, said "nope", and closed the tab.

 

(Then of course I came back just to write this pointless comment!)

[A24 4,331]

Before you can really like it, the brain needs to organize the structure of music. Indeed, you need to familiarize yourself with it. I usually need 3, 4 or even 5 spins before I love a John Williams soundtrack. On the other end, I can organize the music of Justin Bieber from the get-go and already decide after a few seconds that it's not for me.

 

 

Alex

[BloodBoal 7,538]

I'm not sure why people are responding to Will's questions, when all he seems interested in, in the end, is TGP's opinion!

[Naïve Old Fart 9,516]

6 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

You're way overthinking.... everything.

 

The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop-up the drains.

[Manakin Skywalker 4,891]

So that's why my poop doesn't flush anymore.

[Bilbo 3,709]

1 hour ago, BloodBoal said:

I'm not sure why people are responding to Will's questions, when all he seems interested in, in the end, is TGP's opinion!

 

Surely a PM would have sufficed. 

[Will 2,215]

6 hours ago, BloodBoal said:

I'm not sure why people are responding to Will's questions, when all he seems interested in, in the end, is TGP's opinion!

 

Oh, c'mon, that's not true!

 

I'd like to hear from as many people as possible. 

[Loert 2,511]

11 hours ago, Will said:

- What do you look for in music? What makes you consider music good?

 

A piece of music which encapsulates everything I love about music would be something like Ernest Gold's score to "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". Firstly, it's very technically accomplished; the orchestration is ingenious, every harmonic motion feels just right, all the themes are very well sculpted. But also there is a lot of musical wit and a sense that the composer is "toying" with the music. This is something I value very highly, too, along with an unpredictable element.  In fact humour in music has always fascinated me. I only ever started composing because I wanted to write funny music, to take the piss out of other pieces of music, or the performer...that kind of thing (I grew out of it eventually, though!).

 

11 hours ago, Will said:

I wonder if I'm, in a sense, wasting time on music that, at least for my tastes, is inferior. I particularly think about this as I listen to Giacchino while others here claim that, while he's OK, composers like Goldsmith were so much better that it's not even really worth listening to Giacchino much. 

 

There's not enough time to worry about that sort of thing. It's like when Williams was asked by an interviewer once "As you get older do you worry that you'll grow tired of composing" and he said something like "If I do get tired of composing then there's nothing I can do about it so there's no sense in worrying about it beforehand". Genius, amirite?

 

12 hours ago, Will said:

- What's your general "rule" in regards to whether to listen to a score again? Do you always give a score a second listen, or do you only do that if you truly enjoyed it the first time? Do some of you basically never listen to a score again, even a Williams score, if it doesn't make a good first impression? If so, why? 

 

I am very biased towards technical proficiency, which to me means something like good counterpoint, a good command of harmony, and an effective use of the instruments' sounds. So if I'm listening to a piece of music and I feel the composer has a good technical grasp, I would probably listen to it again so I can absorb all the details. I've made this point before in another thread: note-by-note enjoyment is an absolute must for me. I don't care for "subtlety" or the long line per se. However, those are very important, too. Also, unlike some others on here (it seems), I'm not interested in specific techniques, like certain modes or certain harmonies, or certain instruments etc...What matters to me far more is what the composer does with the elements. 

 

12 hours ago, Will said:

- Do you like to try out new music (film and/or classical)? What's your impetus for doing so? I was thinking today about how it can be so easy to lapse into listening to the same old favorites.  

 

I find this very hard to do, and actually I need to force myself listen to new music, if that makes sense. It's partly because if I listen to a piece of music I really like I sort of get obsessed with it and will keep returning to it for many days. And these don't have to be new pieces to me, too. So I tend to listen to what I already know. Actually, I envy all the people who find it easy just to "explore" new music. For me the attraction of listening to "that piece again" is very great. But then, it was Shostakovich who said to his composition students "Know fewer works, but know them well." So I guess I'm not going down the completely wrong route, although it does mean that I don't often discover pieces which I WILL enjoy!

 

12 hours ago, Will said:

When listening to film scores, I do sometimes wonder whether what I'm listening to is really just an imitation, and whether I could be missing out on the classical originals. But then I think about how I enjoy many film scores, more than most classical music I've ever heard, and I wonder whether originality in style really matters all that much. After all, isn't style just a canvas, where different notes and chords can be placed? Somehow I still haven't gotten tired of most of Williams' favorite signatures and styles, but many here seem a little wary. Is that just because they think Williams' BFG score, for example, wasn't very good, plain and simple? I found many of the cues very satisfying in a classic Williams way. Did most of you not, or did you like them but ignored that because you thought the general territory had already been crossed too often? 

 

What Williams does is a kind of musical "pornography", where he takes various tropes from classical/march/pop music and "magnifies" them in order to achieve a certain reaction from the audience at certain points in a film. That's not to say he hasn't got his own style (e.g. his obsession with b6-♮7 and "boom-tss"). But that's a reason why some classical musicians have a snobbish outlook on him. Personally I am in awe of Williams' compositional skills....end of. I am not that interested in innovation per se. An example to illustrate this would be the composer Myaskovsky. He has supreme technical skill, to my ears, although his style is very conservative, some might even call it "boring". But nevertheless, what he writes, is written of a very high standard, and so I like to listen to it. As I've said already, "note-by-note enjoyment" is the bottom line, everything else comes after.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

11 minutes ago, Loert said:

What Williams does is a kind of musical "pornography", where he takes various tropes from classical/march/pop music and "magnifies" them in order to achieve a certain reaction from the audience at certain points in a film. That's not to say he hasn't got his own style (e.g. his obsession with b6-♮7 and "boom-tss"). But that's a reason why some classical musicians have a snobbish outlook on him. Personally I am in awe of Williams' compositional skills....end of. I am not that interested in innovation per se

 

I largely agree with this.  People sometimes get offended by this notion, but I don't think Williams was or is especially innovative and I don't think that's an insult.  He's just incredibly, awe-inspiringly great at what he does.  Nobody outside of maybe Herrmann has made original scores as integral and necessary to a film's storytelling as he has.  All due respect to the early masters (Korngold, Steiner, etc.) but I feel that they mostly wrote music to accompany a film whereas Herrmann, Goldsmith, and then Williams wrote music that was more intrinsic to the films themselves.

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

I don’t like some music because I’m hangry. The older I get the more I realize 99% of my enjoyment of music is in my head. 

[Will 2,215]

@king mark

 

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on what makes music good (for you), and especially on how much weight, if any, you place in first impressions. For example, after hearing TFA for the first time, had you already made up your mind that you didn't really like the score? 

 

I'm not sure if you're an example of this or not, but I wonder if I might be happier if I just gave everything one listen to decide if I liked it, stuck to familiar genres (e.g. mostly Williams) and generally didn't expend much effort "trying" to enjoy music. 

 

On a rather unrelated note, I'd also be interested in whether others here have experienced what I might call the "great then good" phenomenon, whereby once you start to really like a piece, you listen to it a ton over a few days, and it sounds like musical perfection (perhaps a certain moment just seems incredible in its harmonic deliciousness). But then the magic dies away, and the cue becomes rather stale, being good but never reaching the heights of gloriousness that it once did. This has happened for me with "Harry's Wondrous World" and "Escape from Naboo," among many other pieces. My appreciation of them now is really of a pale imitation of the original. I mentioned this in the OP as well. 

[Fancyarcher 350]

57 minutes ago, Will said:

On a rather unrelated note, I'd also be interested in whether others here have experienced what I might call the "great then good" phenomenon, whereby once you start to really like a piece, you listen to it a ton over a few days, and it sounds like musical perfection (perhaps a certain moment just seems incredible in its harmonic deliciousness). But then the magic dies away, and the cue becomes rather stale, being good but never reaching the heights of gloriousness that it once did. This has happened for me with "Harry's Wondrous World" and "Escape from Naboo," among many other pieces. My appreciation of them now is really of a pale imitation of the original. I mentioned this in the OP as well. 

 

I think this is pretty natural with music in general. From my perspective people can wear out a piece of music to the point where they rarely wanna revisit it again because it seems so "stale". I know this has happened to me and certain themes that I use to listen to ten times just because they were so "catchy / wonderful". It doesn't take away from that particular piece of music, it just means that my tastes have shifted to something else entirely else. 

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

I had to listen to E.T about 100 times before I could really appreciate it. By then, I was really burnt out on the whole thing.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Will 2,215]

18 hours ago, publicist said:

 

The crummy bit of your theorizing is that you take pretty standard Williams fare, too, that doesn't do a lot of interesting things, musically (polish aside). If you take the time to enter the frightening world of guys like North, Rosenman, (early) Goldsmith or John Corigliano you get to the heart of this matter.

 

Your litmus test should be the following scores: 'Planet of the Apes' (Goldsmith) and 'Dragonslayer' (North). If you 'got' them you will have understood why a lot of film music isn't up to par - doesn't mean you can't enjoy it but still - and what can be musically achieved in this art form (you could exchange the North with 'Cleopatra' or '2001' and the Goldsmith probably with 'Mephisto Waltz' or 'The Illustrated Man', possibly 'Altered States' and so on).

 

I followed your advice and listened to Planet of the Apes and 2001 today, the former for the first time and the latter for the second. I was pleasantly surprised by Planet - based on reviews I was expecting a total dissonant mess but it was actually fine. Lots of great jazzy chords and some fun piano action writing. 

 

But it was 2001 that truly impressed me. My first listen to it last year was a pretty negative experience, with the exception of the "Main Title," which I absolutely adored. I had been expecting a big romantic adventure score a la Star Wars before listening (having never really listened to North before) and of course didn't quite get that. But perhaps because of my lower expectations this time, or perhaps because because the music was making more sense to me this time, I found a lot to love in the score, being impressed by almost every cue. If I thought Planet had lots of jazzy writing, this one blew it out of the water on that count. 

 

That said, I don't think I can say that today's listening has brought me an "understanding" of the inferiority of modern film music. But it has given me some new favorite moments, so thanks for giving me the motivation to check out these scores! 

11 hours ago, Loert said:

 

A piece of music which encapsulates everything I love about music would be something like Ernest Gold's score to "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". 

 

I just checked out a suite of that score and enjoyed it. I'll hopefully get a chance to listen to more some other time. 

 

11 hours ago, Loert said:

That's not to say he hasn't got his own style (e.g. his obsession with b6-♮7 and "boom-tss"). 

 

I'm not learned in music theory - would you be able to give a YouTube time-stamped example of one of those b6-♮7 things (is it a chord progression?) Just wondering. 

 

3 hours ago, BloodBoal said:

Try not to listen to these cues for quite some time (a year or so, or if it's too hard for you, just start with a month or so), then return to them.

 

Great advice. I'd been already thinking about doing something like that, but it's good to see someone else here validate it. 

 

--------------------------------

 

On a general note, in regard to the claim that my concerns as expressed in this thread are petty or unnecessary (probably true): I guess listening to music can be compared to eating food, in the sense that both can give you pleasure (of course, food has the additional health aspects, but that's irrelevant for this analogy). Both are things that we accept for their own sake. I never really question why I like a certain food, even though, technically, it's a perfectly valid question to ask, the answer presumably being a mix of the physical make-up of your taste buds and the foods you've become used to. Like most people, I usually just accept the fact that I like a food without really questioning it. Of course, now this analogy is making me think about that topic, and making me realize that, at least to an extent, enjoyment of food is probably relative, such that if I started eating, say, only fruits, vegetables, and nuts for a while, I might still experience similar levels of pleasure as compared to a diet with "junk food," meat, etc. added in (excluding the sugar rush, perhaps, from stuff like candy, which I'm not sure can be compensated for). 

 

However, in any case, unlike in food there is generally no real health incentive to change your musical diet. Music is, at bottom, a recreational activity (unless you're a professional composer or performer, of course), and thus it does not particularly matter what you listen to so long as you enjoy it. I guess one could always make the argument that he would enjoy some music more than whatever he's currently listening to, but presumably you have to factor in the added stress that comes from worrying about that kind of thing, and suddenly it seems better to just be satisfied with what you listen to. 

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

13 hours ago, Blumenkohl said:

I don’t like some music because I’m hangry. The older I get the more I realize 99% of my enjoyment of music is in my head. 

 

As opposed to in your left thumb?

[Jay 37,352]

Will, I like you.  We need more people like you around here.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

People who talk in circles?  

[publicist 4,643]

5 hours ago, Will said:

 

I followed your advice and listened to Planet of the Apes and 2001 today, the former for the first time and the latter for the second. I was pleasantly surprised by Planet - based on reviews I was expecting a total dissonant mess but it was actually fine. Lots of great jazzy chords and some fun piano action writing. 

 

But it was 2001 that truly impressed me. My first listen to it last year was a pretty negative experience, with the exception of the "Main Title," which I absolutely adored. I had been expecting a big romantic adventure score a la Star Wars before listening (having never really listened to North before) and of course didn't quite get that. But perhaps because of my lower expectations this time, or perhaps because because the music was making more sense to me this time, I found a lot to love in the score, being impressed by almost every cue. If I thought Planet had lots of jazzy writing, this one blew it out of the water on that count. 

 

That said, I don't think I can say that today's listening has brought me an "understanding" of the inferiority of modern film music. But it has given me some new favorite moments, so thanks for giving me the motivation to check out these scores! 

 

Will has been a good boy.

 

Now go for 'Dragonslayer' and, as a dark horse, 'Who's afraid of Virgina Woolf'. That's wonderfully subtle scoring for a (harrowing) human drama. What i'm getting at is not that everything new is automatically inferior, but the richness of the music was much bigger back then as composers were allowed to bring in their unique vision (even asked to do so). The zillionst temp tracked re-do of stuff from the past 30 years really can't hold a candle to it. 

[Will 2,215]

5 hours ago, publicist said:

Now go for 'Dragonslayer' and, as a dark horse, 'Who's afraid of Virgina Woolf'. 

 

Will do! 

 

9 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

People who talk in circles?  

 

Hey! 

 

It's true, though. 

[A24 4,331]

I have the Goldsmith version of Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf. Incredible rerecording. It comes from time before Prague.

[Loert 2,511]

15 hours ago, Will said:

I just checked out a suite of that score and enjoyed it. I'll hopefully get a chance to listen to more some other time. 

 

That suite takes its tracks from a La La Land release of the complete score "ripped" from the movie, so it suffers from poor quality. I would simply listen to the original album instead. 

 

15 hours ago, Will said:

I'm not learned in music theory - would you be able to give a YouTube time-stamped example of one of those b6-♮7 things (is it a chord progression?) Just wondering. 

 

Do you know the harmonic minor scale? The 6th and 7th degrees are b6 and ♮7. Williams likes to use these tones frequently, for instance the Imperial March progression (G minor -> Eb minor) is heavily related to those two tones (Eb and Gb (=F#) are the b6 and ♮7 degrees of G minor).

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I like scores now that I didn't like years ago. I dislike scores now that I used to like years ago. Tastes change as people do. I don't try to understand the barometer in which I find some music worth listening to repeatedly. I just listen to as much as I care to, and keep listening to the stuff I enjoy or am in the mood for. I won't spent 10 hours trying to crack into a particular work, I'll move on. Maybe one day I'll return and rediscover it, but as TGP said, life's short. As I get older I find myself branching out less and less and sticking to what I know. I've been more interested in rock, pop, and other music genres than film scores lately; trying to branch out in those fields to discover more than the tried and true idiom of film music. Guess it ultimately depends on what stage you're on in discovering the music itself. Once you've heard all the Williams, Morricone, Zimmer, Elfman, Howard, Goldsmith, Desplat in the world, the only things to look forward to are the new scores.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

 

That's a trick. How'd you do that?

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

43 minutes ago, Koray Savas said:

I like scores now that I didn't like years ago. I dislike scores now that I used to like years ago. Tastes change as people do. I don't try to understand the barometer in which I find some music worth listening to repeatedly. I just listen to as much as I care to, and keep listening to the stuff I enjoy or am in the mood for. I won't spent 10 hours trying to crack into a particular work, I'll move on. Maybe one day I'll return and rediscover it, but as TGP said, life's short. As I get older I find myself branching out less and less and sticking to what I know. I've been more interested in rock, pop, and other music genres than film scores lately; trying to branch out in those fields to discover more than the tried and true idiom of film music. Guess it ultimately depends on what stage you're on in discovering the music itself. Once you've heard all the Williams, Morricone, Zimmer, Elfman, Howard, Goldsmith, Desplat in the world, the only things to look forward to are the new scores.

 

I went through a similar phase of retreating to what I know and value most.  I wish I listened to more new music than I do.  I know some people who quite deftly keep a defined inner musical circle about themselves while still going out and foraging for new stuff.  When I try to do that, I typically get overwhelmed and shrug my shoulders at the fact that I'll never be able to get to it all.  Recommendations are key for me.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

1 hour ago, TheGreyPilgrim said:

 

I went through a similar phase of retreating to what I know and value most.  I wish I listened to more new music than I do.  I know some people who quite deftly keep a defined inner musical circle about themselves while still going out and foraging for new stuff.  When I try to do that, I typically get overwhelmed and shrug my shoulders at the fact that I'll never be able to get to it all.  Recommendations are key for me.

This is partially why I tried to start that recommendations thread since we all generally know what each of us might be into. Didn't really work out as well as I thought it would. 

[publicist 4,643]

It never does. It takes a bit of discipline to shuffle around new Spotify or other recommendations but it's worth it for the 10-20% of great discoveries. I wouldn't want to listen to new music all the time but a steady diet of film music - what's worse, Hollywood film music of certain genres of the last 40 years - is akin to OCD.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

So... is Will tricking himself or not?

[publicist 4,643]

The Last Jedi and The Papyros will show!