ETMusic
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Posts posted by ETMusic
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Yes, I got the Download Helper plug-in working and was able to save the "Main Title & Test Chamber" cue, however from some of the comments here (like the one above-- "08 - Assault on Kamino is the best!! Plenty of Darth Vader present in that track"), it seems like people are listening to all the rest of the tracks as well and all I'm getting is that one Main Title cue.
Click the next track button and then go back to Download Helper. Rinse and repeat.
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While we're on the Herrmannesque subject of rarely seen wind instruments, I was intrigued by the sight of a contrabass clarinet in John Powell's suite from How to Train Your Dragon at the recent Concert for Care. I cannot imagine how one can lift it, let alone play it.
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.
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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.
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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).
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For outdoor shoots, very little of the actual sound recorded is used, usually everything, including dialogue is recorded afterwards.
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.
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The SW Archive site also has the JW 20/20 interview under 1983. Although you have to endure the seizure inducing buggy background. Can someone extract the video from the site?
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!
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SW: Gold
ESB: Silver
RotJ: Bronze
Probably due to the expanded 2-CD sets that were released in 1997.
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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.
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just thought about the harp tuning thing again, why don't they simply use key signatures??
also how can I make these vertical lines in sibelius? (...and no I wont switch to finale
I'm just getting used to this prog )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.
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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.
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It's not so bad once you get used to it. Up means flat, down means sharp, middle means natural, and then you just have to remember the weird order of the pedals (DCBEFGA). And I'd imagine it's super easy on the harpist's end, because (s)he just visually follows the diagram.
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.
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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."
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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).
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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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Edit - ETMusic, you say you're a union musician? I've heard arguments that the 'historic rate' thing for LEs reduces income for players, and I'd argue that changing from a duration to per-unit rate would increase income - It'd be interesting to hear a musician's thoughts on this.
- Current situation - big movie, big score, movie tanks, studio doesn't want to pay tens of thousands in fees for a score that might not sell = no CD, no income for the orchestra for that score.
- Per unit basis - big movie, big score, movie tanks, but a speciality label knows there are a couple of thousand film score fans who want the music anyway. They only need to give a percentage of the cost of each CD to the orchestra so it's affordable - hey presto, orchestra periodically gets some money for their work.
Also, if a label has to pay the same reuse fees whether the score sells 100 units or 10000 units, it seems to me that the current system is basically shifting 100% of the risk onto the label?
As a union musician, I'd want the union to do whatever gets us the most money.
Most record labels have the opportunity to make a VERY large profit and that is why they usually take all the risk; it's standard practice as far as I know (they have über-hits like Thriller and then a bunch of albums that tank).
There's another issue besides the label and the composer. Many of the movie companies don't want to release the music separately (for some stupid and unfathomable reason). Obviously, bigger name composers have it in their contracts to have a soundtrack release, but that's not the case for "the little guys."
Finally, I've worked for composers who don't necessarily want to release everything. There are some cues (sometimes many) that really are not all that great taken out of the film. Obviously that's subjective, but until the studios/labels/etc decide to pay on a per unit basis (which makes FAR more sense to me in the digital medium since it's so much easier to track and the investment cost is much smaller) we will continue to twiddle our thumbs and say, "Bah-hum-bug" to those who deny us our film score fix.
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What I don't get is when a label re-releases an old LP on CD, but its still limited. For example - Intrada's re-issue of John Williams Monsignor LP, or their re-issue of Jerry Goldsmith's In Harm's Way LP. Why are those limited to 3,000 copies? Weren't all union fees paid the first time around? FSM's Checkmate, Rhythm in Motion, Not With My Wife You Don't, etc LP re-issues were unlimited. What's the story?
I believe that re-releasing from an LP to a CD is considered "new media" and therefore more dues are owed (even as a union musician I don't understand all the random shit that goes on...I just let the union figure it out and send me checks periodically).
However, I think the larger issue is whether the label thinks they will sell much more than 3000 copies. They have to invest money into fees, pressing the CDs, storage, and marketing (although the marketing for film scores appears to be mostly emails at this point). The fan base for the majority of these limited pressings is not really that large (compared to other fields of music of course); obviously, there are exceptions to this, but I see an awful lot of limited pressings that I have zero interest in.
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1. E.T. - never fails to move me
2. Schindler's List - shouldn't need a comment
3. Empire Strikes Back - just...bad ass
4. Raiders of the Lost Ark - also bad ass
5. Seven Years in Tibet - probably the 'odd' one to most people, but I've always loved this score
E.T. is the score that always blows me away though (the score is absolutely perfect...just flawless).
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• Does the iPad function efficiently and properly when opening and displaying large PDF's?
• Due to the screen size limitations, does it allow for ease of readability? Can you actually see anything you're trying to follow?
• Pixelation seems to be a common problem that I'm hearing about. However, I don't know if the files or images themselves were very small to begin with. When the time comes that I want or need to zoom in on a score that has a scanned page size of 11x17", for example - will pixelation be an issue?
I know two people who have iPads and everything EXCEPT iPhone apps have looked fantastic on it. However, I think you're going to run into the problem of screen real estate. For example, the staff paper that Herb Spencer used was about 11x21 (inches) and most pdfs have been scanned and scaled down to 11x17 (or smaller). I think it might be tough to follow dense orchestra scores on such a small screen that is scaling down the images, but I prefer using a 24 inch monitor in portrait orientation for following 11x17 scores and proofreading on a screen.
The pixelation should only be an issue if the original file isn't scanned and saved at a high enough resolution, but I'm haven't seen how the iPad handles large PDFs (it might not like opening up 300 pages of 11x17 scores).
While I admit that the iPad would be a cool and portable way to study scores, I still prefer to print those 11x17 pdfs onto Legal size paper and study it that way (which allows me to make markings and file the scores away for later...burns though the ink cartridges though).
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I was wondering if any of you have any idea what instrument/ or other device might have been used as the gungan battle horn in the phantom menace, I can't get enough of that deep tone!
Not to detract from the Ben Burtt thread hijacking here, but it sounds like a Didgeridoo (with some audio processing) to me.
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Jo Ann Kane Music has A LOT of his scores (or copies of them at any rate) since they handle most (if not all) of his copyist work when he's recording in LA. However, you're not allowed to make copies and I think you can only get in to study some of his scores if you have permission.
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You wouldn't happen to know how to get a convincing timpani roll using the Garritan Personal Orchestra would you? I always thought there was a KS for a sampled roll but cannot find one and the roll that the program does is pretty fake sounding.
I use Logic for mocking up my cues (I also use Digital Performer, but it depends who/what I'm working for/on), so I'm not really sure what's the best way to get a convincing timpani roll since I very, VERY rarely use the playback that is built into Sibelius.
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Also I prefer the Speedy Entry (no MIDI input) to the virtual keyboard that comes with Sibelius. I like typing in my music because I'm fast at it and don't like to be a slave to the keybaord, And there's no other way of inputting notes aside from mousing it in in Sibelius 6.
What? I use both MIDI input and also the QWERTY keyboard for entering notes into Sibelius all the time. Also, I think you can setup the big time signatures to behave however you want in Sibelius, but I'll admit that once I got my personal template setup I haven't gone back to tinker with the settings.
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I've liked what he's done on Human Target so far, too; hopefully that will get a soundtrack release at some point.
His HT music is getting better and better. The episode they recorded this last week sounded REALLY good.
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From what I know the E would always be played on the open E-string and the G on the open G-string...
The E and G strings on a violin are the farthest apart so it's unlikely that a violinist would play a multi-stopped chord on those two strings. Multistops across 3 strings are usually a bit 'iffy' (for tuning and accuracy in performance), but if you're willing to have the chord in inversion that there are two logical options:
1) And 'open' voicing in inversion: G on the open string (lowest note), then E on the D string, and B on the A string; however, this means the violinist is playing a perfect 5th across the D and A strings (it's possible, but you'll be getting some dirty looks from the violinist).
2) A 'closed' voicing that would be higher: G on the D string, B on the A string, and then the open E string.
Personally, I'd avoid using a 3 note chord on the violin. You'd be better off using (in my humble opinion) just writing a double stop using E and G (since the 5th is not as important).
My two cents anyway.
Some composers do, and some composers don't.
in General Discussion
Posted
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).