bruckhorn

Heck, I can't help but step in it. What about the ostinato from Mars by Gustav Holst?

If anyone is going to sue Williams over the theme from Star Wars, it's Anton Bruckner. Listen to the first version of the opening movement of Bruckner's Fourth Symphony and see if it sounds familiar. Not identical, similar. As for Eidelman's Star Trek VI: how about Igor Stravinsky? Listen to the opening of The Firebird (complete ballet, not just the suite). Eidelman "flipped" the opening figure for the beginning of his overture. Yes, classical composers quoted each other. In the first version of Bruckner's Eighth Symphony, he quotes several of Richard Wagner's Themes from The Ring, but does not develop them or quote full orchestration. For Bruckner to do that was understandable: he idolized Wagner and dedicated his Third Symphony to the man. The Adagio for his Seventh Symphony was inspired by Bruckner's thinking that Wagner was about to die; it is musical lore that Bruckner received word of Wagner's death just as he came to compose the climax of the piece. In The Right Stuff arranged by Bill Conti, the credits lists several movements from The Planets, but makes no mention of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, or Glazunov's Seasons. The latter two works were in the public domain and were free game for Conti to use as he wished. According to Conti, after redoing several cues over and over to make them more like Holst, Conti told the director that they had to get the rights to use Holst's music. Very little of that score is original and yet Conti won an Oscar for it. The Holst Foudation has a case. The question is whether the case will go to a jury made up of people not smart enough to get out of jury duty.

For a list of all upcoming Lord of the Rings Symphony concerts, go to: www.HowardShore.com. Also, per post on TheOneRing.net, Shore stated that the Expanded/Complete (no specific term used by Shore) Lord of the Rings should be out in "about a year." bruckhorn, who's :cry: about the LA concert date.

I, too, refuse to watch colorized films. I figure any movie made after 1935 (or so) could have been made in color, so if it wasn't there was probably a reason for it (granted, most of the time the reason would be money-- that's why Kevin Smith's Clerks was done in b/w). If the movie is good, why not see it? The people that refuse to watch b/w movies, citing the "fakeness" of it need to be informed about an exchange that Hitchcock had. He was told that he needed music under a scene that took place in a lifeboat. His argument against it was that there was no explanation of where the orchestra was. The counter argument: When you explain how the camera got out there to film it, I'll explain the orchestra. Quite frankly, I prefer b/w photography. (Not color with the color drained out.) A few years back when some family members were strongly encouraging me to give them recent photos of myself, I had them taken in b/w. I wanted a noir look. I do have To Kill a Mockingbird on DVD. Universal catalogue number 20252. The film is presented in b/w. Even the "Making of" with modern interviews is presented in b/w. An isolated score would have been nice. bruckhorn, who has met Elmer Bernstein and told him that I wished I had footage of him conducting when I got kicked out of conducting class for wanting to do it left handed.

"It's the music that matters; not the hype." - Eddie and the Cruisers II Will these types of accolades and awards make Williams' music any better, more enjoyable, or more likely to be remembered and cherished in the years to come? Granted, I think it's a ******* joke that Alan Menken has the same number of Oscars as Williams and Goldsmith combined. But just think, a couple of years ago AFI (American Film Institute) made a list of the 100 best movies ever and not a whole lot of Best Picture Oscar winners were on the list. The cream will rise and the works that deserve to be remembered will be. It'll just take time. And besides, if Williams did get these accolades, it would take away from his composing (a day for each award ceremony, right?). bruckhorn

When I asked David Raksin which young composers he liked, he told me that he likes Patrick Doyle. Doyle is in his late forties. Uh, I guess that's young for the octogenarian Raksin... bruckhorn

If you want a single piece that will serve as a kick in the butt, try "The Creation" from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein by Patrick Doyle. At 2:00 it packs a lot of pop. bruckhorn

"Strange"? Cripes, Morn, that's one of the mildest words used to describe me... bruckhorn, your favorite hairy oaf, who can't believe that Morn doesn't think that Beethoven has moments.

The Discovery Channel is having Celebrity Shark Week. Other than Jaws, are there any celebrity sharks? bruckhorn, who hasn't swam in the ocean since a peg-legged man tried to harpoon me after quoting Melville.

Goldsmith without a ponytail. What's next? Williams without a prominent pate? Horner without plagerism? (Oops! Sorry, that was wishful thinking on my part.) But, gee, Goldsmith sans ponytail. Imagine Williams clean shaven after all these years. bruckhorn

Jimmity Cricket, Pianoman1, I sure hope you have local youth orchestra you could approach (it'll mean rescoring the piece), or perhaps go see the director of the concert band at a local college (with piano version and full score in hand). For the score: there are braces and brackets. Piano (and other keyboard parts plus harp) parts use a brace ({), while brackets (more of a [ design, pick up score or a book on music notation for a more precise glyph) are used to group families: wood winds, saxes, brass, percussion, strings. Hope this helps. bruckhorn, who hopes Pianoman1 gets himself a mentor real quick like.

* = previously unreleased ** = contains previously unreleased music bruckhorn

How about "Someone to Watch Over Me" by the Gershwins (Ira and George)? "If I Should Fall Behind" by Bruce Springsteen "Temptation" by Billy Joel "I Wanna Know What Love Is" by Foreigner "I Want to Spend My Whole Life Loving You" from Mask of Zorro (produced by Mr. Over-the-top himself, Jim Steinman) "Time in a Bottle" by Jim Croce "Woman" by John Lennon and that's the quick list... bruckhorn, who's now thinking of romantic opera arias (and is thus stopping) Red Sox / Angels game.

A little harsh, there, but right. It'll save you a lot of work if you have a better idea about what you're attempting to do. When I wrote a piece for brass quartet, I asked the lead trumpet what kind of range he wanted. His reply was "the higher the better." He was a professional player and I had heard him on recordings really make his horn scream, so I took him up on the challange. The second trumpet saw my "finished" version and had me lower the lead trumpet line a fifth. Back to the compositional process: I had to comply while minding where the other voices were being taken-- I didn't want the trombone line to drop below its range. When the lead tumpet saw the revised final version of the piece, he said it was too high for him. It was the day before it was to be played at my sister's wedding. I was up all night revising it, again. I learned my lesson well. A couple of months later I was writing another piece for brass quartet for another wedding and only had to do it once. (Though the trombone player had trouble with off-beat triplet figures...) Learn the instraments. Clarinet and Oboe have similar ranges, but the Clarinet sounds better low while the oboe sounds better high (but not too high). From the sounds of it, the score is complete. I hope you don't run into too many problems. And be prepared to not like some parts of it. You'll probably end up rescoring sections-- consider it part of the process. And listen to the players. Once a clarinetist came up to me and suggested that a Clarinet in A would be better than the "standard" Bb. He then played a couple of passages and I agreed. I went home and changed the score. But, uh, don't do a Lucas on it, okay? Peace bruckhorn

One of me favorite death scenes: Paul Rubens' character in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. jump1 And another note on Janet Leigh's death in Psycho. Part of the shock of it (you know, other than the way it was shot and Hermann's music) was the fact that it was the main character of the film (up to then) that was being killed; the audience had no idea where the movie was going to go from there. Peace. bruckhorn

Off the top of me head (in no particular order): Star Trek II Brainstorm The Rocketeer The Land Before Time An American Tail The most recent one you'll notice is Rocketeer. These are all back in the days when Horner knew how to use all of the orchestra. Field of Dreams is a close sixth, despite the use of the Japanese Flute. Listen to the End Title from Apollo 13 and then listen to the End Title to Star Trek II. Notice the difference in the accompaning figures. Apollo 13 is a peddle tone. Star Trek II has figures instead of the drone. As for Legends of the Fall as much as I enjoy it, listen to the Revenge track and then listen to Revenge on the Braveheart soundtrack. And think: the same orchestra played both pieces. I'd be embarassed to pull that kind of manuver with the London Symphony Orchestra. bruckhorn

"John generally makes a very good sketch. If you look at it carefully, all of the information is there, but sometimes there are suggestions back and forth. 'Why don't we do-?' He might buy that and say, 'Yes, let's do it that way.' He always plays it for me exactly in tempo. He's a good enough piano player that he doesn't stumble through it. The tempo and the intention of the sound -- everything is right there." Herbert Spencer quoted on page 37 in Listening to Movies - The Film Lover's Guide to Film Music by Fred Karlin, Schirmer Books, 1994. Elsewhere in the book Karlin states that Williams usually composes seven-line sketch scores. From experience, I can tell you, a lot of information can be contained on those seven lines. When composing full orchestral music, I usually use a six-line sketch score. Guess that extra line is the difference between Williams and myself. Well, that and talent. Peace bruckhorn

A South Park episode with a moral? I can't $%^*%* believe it! I loved it. They were right on the money with it. Really dug the mock commercial for the the new special edition of the South Park pilot episode. But still, a South Park episode with a moral-- what is the world coming to? bruckhorn

So, you ever wanna bitch slap Horner? bruckhorn

Luke looking at the binary sunset from Star Wars. Second is in Superman when Clark Kent is about to leave home. Yea, I love big, sweeping moments. bruckhorn Saving Private Ryan

The low-tech way is to use the headphone jack from your DVD player and use an adaptor (1/4" to RCA, RCA cord to 1/8" jack) to get it to the audio input of your computer. Then play DVD and record the audio on your computer using any of a plethora of programs. (I use Felt Tip Sound Studio for Mac.) Edit the audio tracks as needed and copy to CD. Using this technique, I've dumped the audio tracks from 1941, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band - Live in NYC, and Billy Joel - Live at Yankee Stadium onto CD. The high tech way requires software that "rips" the audio tracks from the DVD and put them directly on your hard drive. There are programs that can do that, but I've been told that it requires free space on your hard drive the size of a DVD: 4.7 GIGS. A web page that lists DVD with isolated scores on them: http://www.treuherz.de/ralf/scores/dvdlist.htm Hope this helps. bruckhorn, who plans on making CDs from the isolated score tracks from Quest for Camelot, Legends of the Fall, and Rudy.

I blame my poor spelling performance on two things: my dyslexia (a bit of a family trait, sadly) and spell checkers. Mispell something, screw it, spell check will get it. Problem is, Netscape doesn't have spell check for message board posts. If it does, I don't know how to use it. As far as the poor grammer on the board, I blame that on the schools and the homes. I learned more about grammer from School House Rock than I did in school. The schools I went to had the philosohy that the only requirement to writing was to gt the idea down. Getting it down cohernently so somebody else could make the slightest bit of sense was apparently not in vogue. And if no one in the home is making sure to pass on proper grammer techniques... bruckhorn, who's last name is a verb (that's what's happenin'!)

It's funny, but while I remember holding up a couple of microphones to the TV to record the main title from Superman when it was aired on ABC in the late seventies, I didn't get into orchestral music (and soundtracks specifically) until 1985. It's been fifteen years since I got my first CD player and I can tell you what the first three CDs were that I bought. One of them was the original RSO version of Return of the Jedi. The store is no longer there, but its name was Licorice Pizza. "That was so long ago, I forget." Bogart as Rick in Casablanca when asked where he was the previous evening. When asked what his plans were that night, he replied, "I never plan plan that far ahead." bruckhorn

Soundtracks that I really dig, but haven't seen the movie: Stanley and Iris (Williams) Son of the Morning Star (Safan) Magdalene (Eidelman) O Pioneers (Broughton) And there's plenty of other soundtracks that I own, but haven't seen the movie (but I don't "really" dig them). Plus there are those that I picked up and because of the score, saw the movie (i.e. Hummie Mann's Year of the Comet and Doyle's Much Ado About Nothing). bruckhorn

Going deep in the well here, sportsfans, but how about Laura scored by David Raksin? B-movie from the 1940s that is still known today because of Raksin's score. It's theme (one of the most recorded pieces ever) was recorded by JW on one of his Cinema Serenade discs. bruckhorn