Musica42

I had a couple hours to kill today so I went to see this based solely on the strength of the score. I was actually annoyed at how much I liked the movie. It certainly isn't the best rendition of A Christmas Carol (or even among the top 2 or 3) but far worse have been made. The thing that struck me was how uneven the movie was. Some scenes were brilliant in every way whereas others were awkwardly superfluous or horrendously animated. There was also a tendency to STOP EVERYTHING and remind the audience they're watching a 3D movie with zooming fly-bys or some such. For the most part, however, the 3D effects were very well done and a few of the gimmicks were pretty darn cool to look at. The voice acting was superb, although I still question Carrey as the elder Scrooge. I settled into his voice eventually but thanks to the MoCap, Scrooge would occasionally do a very Jim Carrey-esque movement. In fact the happier Scrooge got the more his movements became Jim Carry in Liar Liar or Ace Ventura. A bit distracting to say the least... I also couldn't help thinking that this elderly Scrooge has titanium hips given he takes one hard fall after another. A lesser gentlemen's hips would have snapped like graham crackers a dozen times over. Obviously the score is fantastic. The weaving of Christmas Carols through just about every single cue was a really nice touch and the handful of new themes by Silvestri are great. There aren't a lot of Christmas scores that really pull off the exuberance and chear of the season and this one hits it note perfect. The only thing about the score that I didn't like was during some of the more terrifying moments (especially during the horse & buggy chase) the music played against the scares and tried to go a little lighter and wackier with the tone. I'm guessing that was a last minute attempt to make things slightly less frightening, but it felt like a bad decision. Come to think of it, that whole horse & buggy chase sequence was a bad decision.

I was crushed by the news last week of John Corigliano's score getting dropped from Mel Gibson's upcoming movie The Edge of Darkness. It's being replaced by Howard Shore, which is still something to look forward to, but as little work as Corigliano does for film (this would have been his fourth score to date) and as fiercely original as his output is I was REALLY anticipating this soundtrack. He does have a habit of making concert arrangements of his film music, though, so hope fully something of this project will still arise.

A few off the top of my head... "President Shepherd" from The American President. It's brief, but the later half of the track "Where Were You on St. Rino's Day" from Bolt is also appropriate. Also John Frizzell does a nice parody of the inspirational speech trope in Beavis and Butt-head Do America. The track on the CD is appropriately titled "Mr. President, We're Never Gonna Score."

Good to know I'm not going insane. This seems like a really strange assignment for him. How do you go from one of Disney's main composers to American Dad??

I caught the beginning of tonight's episode of American Dad (Brains, Brains, and Automobiles) and could have sworn I saw "Music by: Joel McNeely" in the opening scene. I know Jones and Murphy usually do this show and that combined with McNeely being one of my favorite composers really made me do a double take. I don't have a DVR and its too early to catch it on Hulu or IMDB to verify. Did anybody else see this or was I just hallucinating?

Gotta love the unapologetic cheeze of the 80's

Never one to pass by a chance to use my iTune's search feature: Flying, from Peter Pan by James Newton Howard Buckbeak's Flight, from PoA by John Williams Bastion's Happy Flight, from Neverending Story by Klaus Doldinger

The biggest film letdown I've ever experienced and thus receives the greatest amount of ire I can muster goes to The Ring 2. The degree to which that movie sucked knows no bounds. I loved what Gore Verbinski did with the American version of The Ring and to this day it is one of my favorite movies of any genre. I got myself completely hyped up for the sequal, went to see it opening night, and BAM!!! There were lifelong Star Wars fans that didn't experience the letdown I did. It's ponderously slow, the plot is just plane crap, and the scares are for the most part idiotic. Their car is attacked by a heard of deer. Yah. That actually happens.

Well the real crux of the matter is when the performer is basically making things up, the success or failure of the piece is completely reliant upon that performer's abilities. I've seen performers do this and completely suck and I've seen performers completely mesmorize me. One of the greatest 10 minutes of music I've ever heard was Christopher Deane at UNT improvising a solo with nothing but a tambourine and a metal marble. Words fail to describe that performance but the man is a percussion genius and it was brilliant.

Good to know I'm not the only one to experience stuff like this. I found actually that it was all about being able to babble about the process of composing one's piece that guaranteed an 'A'. I went to a recital of composition student works where a couple of comp majors improvised aimlessly for about 5 minutes on saxophones while another interpreted their sounds and splashed paint and threw bits of cut out construction paper onto a canvas on the floor. After this process, the saxophonists then bent down and stared at the results on the floor and then "interpreted" that with another five minutes of utterly aimless playing. It was one of the most laughable things I saw the whole time I was at the university, but these kids got their passing grade for what amounted to zero composition effort. And unfortunately this was the norm, i.e. elaborate setups to avoid actually being responsible for writing anything. The real aggravation though is not that this kind of thing happened, but rather that it was encouraged over tonal compositions. Things like harmony, form, and counterpoint were all considered the realm of the theory department and while these subjects would arise on the occasion they were always seemingly on the backburner for composing staff. This is a sore subject for me, can you tell?

While I'd agree it's legitimate, I think the rediculous regard it's still shown over other equally legitimate styles in academia is at the detriment to the entire artform. Music can be a lot of things, both cerebrial and emotional, but ideally there should be a blend and it is unfortunate that so many college programs wince at the thought of music being something as pedestrian as emotional.

Thanks for the recommendations! Rhapsody held several CDs of these composers (except Octavio Vasquez) and I was very impressed. The only composer that I didn't find too appealing was Einaudi, not because the music sucked by any means but because it just wasn't what I was looking for. The other composers I listened to (Higdon, Danielpour, and Vasquez) were very much what I was desiring. And naturally as assumed I am familiar with John Adams. Well, my experience of academic modernism was suffocating to say the least in college. I was a music composition major at the University of North Texas from 2001 to 2005 and the entire direction of the school's composition department was (and still is as far as I know) completely devoted to making students except the calvacade of modernist techniques as the chief means of creating music. The special guests were almost completely from the modernist train of thought (although Libby Larsen and Samuel Adler did make appearances at the campus while I was there). My sophomore year a film/tv composition veteran showed up as an adjunct faculty member and the interest that guy generated among the students was rediculous. He only taught one class that first semester, which thankfully I got into, but there were several kids who audited the class just to hear what he had to say. Anyway, anecdote over.

As I looked back over my CD collection I've decided that the magnum opus of this century will likely stand as the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Additional scores that I already love but will assuredly look back on as defining the decade for me are: A.I. and Prisoner of Azkaban, John Williams Signs, James Newton Howard Road to Perdition, Thomas Newman Finding Neverland, Jan A.P. Kaczmarek Ratatouille, Michael Giacchino Amelie, Yann Tiersen Spirited Away, Joe Hisaishi Big Fish, Danny Elfman The Time Machine, Klaus Badelt Band of Brothers, Michael Kamen

This is vaguely on topic, kick it elsewhere if you must. Anyway are there any newcomer 'classical' composers you people enjoy? And by classical I of course mean orchestral. I'm mostly looking for some new people to listen to. John Corgliano, Libby Larsen, and Michael Daughtery are a few of the people I've been following. But I always hunger for more.

Call it a symptom of A.I. being the first album in my iTunes library, but I've had whole months go by where I listen to mostly this. The movie has long since faded from my memory (didn't hate it by any means, just haven't revisited it in a long time) but this music is among the top scores Williams has ever written, not for bombast or orchestrational brilliance but for shear heart.

I'm still laughing at this. You're totally right.

Well the greatest direct rip of Williams' I know is the Can You Read My Mind theme from Superman aka Richard Strauss' Death and Transfiguration, but I wouldn't have started this thread if I didn't want to hear others. Fire away.

I'd never heard this score of Delerue's before, but the amazon samples are enough to hear what your talking about. They're definitely similar, especially harmonically, but it's not something I'd consider a rip. Beautiful score, though, thanks for turning me onto it.

Oh wow, if you can find what that's ripped from I'd be greatly amused, considering a variation of that build is in at least half of his scores.

Aside from the Firebird bit with Tink's arrival, what else was there?

Yup, that one's pretty damn blatant too. Also I got bored and decided to provide links in my original post so folks can hear first hand what I'm talking about. What Williams did with Star Wars is quite a bit different from the other examples here. When I listen to Star Wars I can hear the influences and nods to other pieces but at no point do I feel like he just grabbed a pre-existing piece and used it as a template. I feel the same way about the Zimmer example. Hans still made the music very much his own and the reference to Mars made sense given what was happening on the screen. Is it a hack thing to do in either case? You could certainly make a case for it, but personally I'd say no. References don't bother me, not when something creative is done with them. But just blatantly, for lack of a better word, stealing another composer's work and calling it your own so brazenly really pisses me off. If you want that piece so badly, purchase the rights for it or at the very least acknowledge the source.

Hahaha. Why does this kind of stuff entertain me so.

Everyone once in a while you hear a piece of "original" music out of a film composer that follows the temp track just a bit too closely for comfort, so close you can easily discern the original piece. And I'm not talking about something temped with their own music. I'm talking about a piece from another composer and usually from another time period. Famous examples that I can think of our Horner's Carmina Burana rip from Glory, or Horner's rip of that Raymond Scott tune all over Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, or even Horner's borrowing of some music from Peter and the Wolf in Land Before Time. The most recent one I caught was William Ross completing ripping off La Gazza Ladra in Tales of Despereaux. I don't mean for this to sound like a Horner bashing, but he is one of the more blatant offenders. Anyone else have a few to add? Edit: 1. Glory by James Horner: vs. O Fortuna from Carmina Burana2. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids by James Horner: score clip vs. Powerhouse 3. Land Before Time by James Horner: score clip vs. Peter and the Wolf - Compare LBT's 1:20 to Peter and the Wolf's 3:50 - Compare LBT's 1:57 to Peter and the Wolf's 5:37 4. Tales of Desereaux by William Ross: score clip vs. La Gazza Ladra

A few more wonderful string only or majority string pieces: - Ray and Rachel, from War of the Worlds - Cybertronics, from A.I. - My Dad's Stories, from Angela's Ashes - Lord, Why Do You Want the Wee Children?, from Angela's Ashes - The Early Days, Massapeua, from Born on the Fourth of July - A New Beginning, from Minority Report - Hatikvah (The Hope), from Munich - Pretty much everything from Schindler's List - Leaving Ingrid, from Seven Years in Tibet - Regaining a Son, from Seven Years in Tibet

As a percussionist, I'd say that passage wouldn't be particular difficult. Loads of fun to play, yes, but not "interesting" in an unusually challenging sort of way. And the toms part would be harder than the timpani part, IIRC. Actually I am (or I should say was) a percussionist as well. Williams has written some fantastic parts for percussionists over the years (that snare part to Midway March alone justifies his existence in my eyes) but I've never really heard anything that struck me as exceptionally hard to pull of. Marc Shaiman has written a few tasty extended xylophone licks in a couple of his scores (City Slickers II has some especially nice ones) but even those could probably be sightread but a college-level player or better. I guess it just takes a lot to stump a percussionist.