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ETMusic

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  1. There are WAY too many film/TV composers who insist on conducting their own scores, but due to their shoddy (at best) conducting abilities they actually hamper the recording of their music (or make it take WAY longer than it needs to); however, most of the professional musicians who record film scores are actually playing despite the conductor. That being said, there are plenty of good conductors (like Williams) out there. Personally, I think there are many composers who need to put their ego aside and let a professional conduct their music (JNH, Giacchino, et al).
  2. Click the next track button and then go back to Download Helper. Rinse and repeat.
  3. Every time I've seen the contrabass clarinet used it is on a fancy stand (even the bass clarinet is resting on a small 'spike'); however, supposedly it's a pretty uncommon instrument.
  4. Just a note that in the recording studio, it doesn't matter what is 'standard' in an orchestra. Williams could have 18 piccolos if he wanted (I believe he had 6 on The Patriot). Herrmann called for 8 bass clarinets in one of his scores (I don't remember which one though). I would bet that Williams is calling for a synth celesta for control over intonation/tuning. Hell, Williams is one of the few guys who still records most (if not all) of the percussion with live players.
  5. I've seen good music engineers hear ridiculous things (even on stereo recordings). I know one who did blind tests with three different premium microphone cables (ONLY the cable was different) and one of the participants was able to name which mic cable was which. I've even heard stories of one engineer who was able to hear the difference between different batteries (no idea how that's even humanly possible though).
  6. Really? I never realized. Is it on the actor or the sound editors to make the voice sync up? Both. A lot of time spent in ADR is the actor doing retakes so what they're saying lines up.
  7. If you're using Firefox, download the plugin "Download Helper;" it allows you to download Flash files (and some other streaming formats) to your computer. Also, thanks for pointing out this interview!
  8. SW: Gold ESB: Silver RotJ: Bronze Probably due to the expanded 2-CD sets that were released in 1997.
  9. Only featured viola that comes to mind is Danny Elfman's score to "Wolfman;" however, with the weirdness and chop-job that happened to his score I'm not sure that this will be terribly helpful.
  10. You would end up some pretty funky key signatures sometimes (e.g. when you want the harp to play a pentatonic scale). Use the plug-in "Check Harp Pedalings" - I think it's under Plug-ins>Proofreading. You can set the notes you want and it will draw in a harp pedal diagram for you.
  11. I'm surprised no one mentioned 'Angela's Ashes' as a contender (assuming you either disregard the narrator OR have the Oscar promo version). Personally, it's a toss-up between E.T. and Angela's Ashes.
  12. My composition teacher claims that although harp tunings should be written in as a courtesy, a harpist will rarely follow them. They're pretty self sufficient people, after all. (When have you ever heard a bad harpist?) I think that depends on who the harpist is AND on the experience/abilities of the orchestrator. If you do the harp diagrams well, then most harpists that I've worked with appreciate it. However, most professional harpists also insist on getting the parts in advance so they can go through and double-check and/or change the harp tunings that there.
  13. I don't think this is a fair question. The best music (in my not-so-humble opinion) is that which successful combines pitch, harmony, and rhythm into a cohesive and satisfactory whole. Sometimes a piece, movement, or cue relies more heavily on one or the other, but I find that music that touches me utilizes all three; however, I think it's also fair to say the majority of music does use all three. Of course, some composers have attempted to create music that does not (4'33" anyone?), but I find that most of that "music" is more appropriately described as performance art. There. I avoided your question entirely and brought up a totally different discussion. "You can about your business. Move along."
  14. I used Finale for 10-11 years and swapped over to Sibelius 6 (about a year ago) because I was the only one NOT on Sibelius on this particular team. I am totally in love with Magnetic Layout; it does weird stuff sometimes, but most of the time it's fantastic. Fiery Angel, in Sibelius you need to use the keypad for the same sort of note entry that you're talking about. In fact, most orchestrators I know (who use Sibelius) use a separate keyboard with a numpad if they're working on a laptop. On an aside, I haven't found anything that I could not do in Sibelius, but sometimes I have to be a sneaky about it (same goes for Finale really). The biggest problem I have with Sibelius is that it doesn't handle staff formatting the same way as Finale (I miss my Staff Menu Options).
  15. I think Goldsmith was a work-a-holic. He would rather be working on crap films and turning out tons of scores. JW seems to inclined to work on his own concert works (albeit very slowly) and play golf, than score tons of films. I'm pretty sure JG averaged 4-5 films a year while JW averages (averaged?) 1-2.
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