jgraves

It had to be an "over the top" horror treatment, so forgive me... (BTW, Is there anything BUT "over the top" music in videogames?) http://www.rednoteaudio.com/Jaws/Loop.mp3

In all fairness, our clips were judged with picture, so it's gonna be hard to give a fair opinion unless you see it with the film itself. The top five were also picked based on our fully written orchestral score of the same piece, dynamics, phrases, articulations and all. I think this year's top five initial submissions are a lot better than last year's final submissions. Improvement is always a plus! Thanks for the great complements from everybody from all five of the top folks. I'll see you other four guys in LA in August! Jason

Checked it twice, and you can see the Millenium Falcon docking at the space sport on the establishing shot after the Jedi crash-land Grevious' ship. It's in the lower left part of the screen more at the end of the shot. Thought it was a great sneak on the animators part. Jason

I've got the Platinum EWQLSO as well as everything else. Here are the strengths/best sounds from any library: violins/violas (including 3 way bowing, double bowing, slow, fast, legato, etc) str fx cb slaps legato celli all brass sounds but trumpets and some fhorn stuff specifically the tbn and tuba sounds are amazing - I've fooled many the low brass player thinking it was live all perc - best I've ever heard and I'm a classical percussionist Here are the weaknesses: most ww, but good solo and legato stuff trumpets are terrible, stc tpts are passible low str have no bite - attacks are too slow even with "fast" marcato patches fhorns have funny "brightness" on some notes but not others This is all general but what I've come to find in the last 6 months with the library. hope this helps! Jason

For things in major keys, especially with lots of brass (and what doesn't have it?), he uses C major and sometimes D major, both of which are considered especially "bright" keys by composers with ears for such things, especially for the big endings. Those two keys are perfect in the upper register of the trumpets, trombones, and french horns, as well as the lower register for bass trombones and tuba. Summon the Heroes - D Star Wars Main title - C Superman Main title - C Raiders Main title - C ET flying theme - C Jason

I just sold my copy of Timeline for $9 on eBay two days ago. Guess you didn't look hard enough. I got the complete score to replace it, BTW. Jason

Ummm, Atlantis is by far one of my favorites. Great themes! Wonderful soundstage as well. Especially the complete edition. But I voted for Sign since it was missing from the list... Jason

I've got a CD-R rip of the whiole thing, rather poor quality, but better than nothing. the only downside is you can't read any of the music when the camera shows a close up. I'd happily trade it out for a few copies of scores, or simply include it in a trade with other stuff. My list is at the top of the trading board as the sticky "Jason's Trade List." Jason

So is eMule a PC thing? I'm on a Mac, PLUS the anal-retentive side of me wins out over the impatient side and really prefers trading CD-R's via snail mail instead of mp3's through the internet. Let me know if you get enough patience mustered up to do a trade with CD-R's. Jason

I've got Young's Hellraiser as well as The Fly II, both great horrow scores. Plus Unforgettable and Species - more thrillers than horror, but still really good. Have you heard Beltrami's Dracula 2000? I've got the 2 disk complete set. Scary stuff. Some other great horror scores I've got: Blade 2 The Relic - Debney promo Coma - Goldsmith Omen 1-3 Poltergiest 1-2 Brainstorm - Horner The Cell - Shore Terminator 3 - Complete 2 disk by Beltrami I'm really interested in getting the complete scores to the Scream series. E-mail me if you're up for a trade: jason@jasongraves.com I'll PM you as well! :spiny: Jason

Some other trade anomolies I've run into: You know you've got too many CD's when: - you have to go look at your collection to make sure you have something (or don't) - you excitedly purchase a rare score in a store, only to realize when you get home you already own it - you pull a CD out you bought four months ago and it's still in plastic wrap I admit, these have all happened to me, and probably all in the last three months (the third with Fitzwilly this morning). Sad, but true! Jason

The horror!!!

Ok, you got me. I laughed out loud on that one.

I read somewhere that Williams balances the orchestra himself onstage, almost to the point where Murphy joked, "I'm not pulling down the fader - if he wants the ww quiter he can tell them to play quieter." I think it was on the new doc for ET, the live performance on the DVD. they also did a great job shooting Murphy without having any, "Oh my god, does he only have one arm!?" shots. Jason

The flying theme from ET was a direct lift from the Piano Trio. I think it may have been a Brahms piece. It had the same melodic rhythm, but the notes went from the perfect fifth leap (the first two notes) and instead of going down, the rest of the notes went up. Same rhythm, contrary motion. But each phrase went higher and higher, just like the score. Same leaps in the first two notes of each phrase. EXACTLY the same. Believe me, no one would want to deny it more than I. This is one of my favorite pieces we're talking about! But the way they had it set up you listened to the classical piece first, and I immediately recognized it as ET, even though it was Brahms. Wait, E.T. was a rip or that piano trio was a rip of E.T.? ~Sturgis

There was also a thing on NPR about 5 years ago, making references to film composers and the classical pieces they rip off, and I mean RIP off. Among them was Goldenthal's "Meet Joe Black" and some stuff from Horner and New World Symphony (duh). My heart broke when they listed ET (it was on their website with audio clips), and had a file of some piano trio, can't remember who wrote it, that pretty much had the main theme note-for-note with a few rhythmic changes in the melody. But chord-wise and melody-wise an obvious rip. Also the Tatooine music from ANH with something from Stravinsky, maybe Rite of Spring? It was embarassingly close.

"Arrival of Tink" or any of the flying around stuff from Hook (aka busy ww and str) is pretty much a direct study of Stravinsky's The Firebird, but in a good way! And I say "study," because that's exactly whay he did, and applied it in a very sophisticated way to sync up with the film. Speaking of studying... Having literally run into Williams the morning after a concert in DC, I looked down to see him pouring over The Planets with a red sharpie while drinking coffee. Just sitting in the guest lounge, hanging out and studying voice leading and orchestration. LIKE HE NEEDS TO! But that is why he is so wonderful at what he does. He's constantly striving to better himself. When I told him I couldn't wait for the HP music (this was a while ago), he simply replied, "I'll do my best," as if to infer he probably wouldn't be able to match my level of expectation. What an amazing person! BTW, he was looking at Juputer, especially a brass section, lots of red ink, circles, arrows for voice leading, etc... Jason

Am I the only one who also loves The Edge? What great minor-mode atmosphere! And the love theme from The Mummy makes me want to cry like a baby. Same for the love theme from First Knight - brilliant! Powder also has a great John Barry-ish sound to it. Jason

Korsakov 's orchestration book, Vaughn Williams London Symphony printed score, the Nutcracker printed score, Right of Spring ptinted score, Return of the King DVD's, Matrix box set... It's amazing, but I actually have all the soundtrack CD's I need right now, including all the onderful CD-R's I have coming from some friendly folks here on the site... Jason

Sounds great, but all I get is video black - no picture! Jason

Saw this on 60 minutes last night - interesting stuff, from a music composition standpoint: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/24/...ain657713.shtml

...and let's all not forget the infamous tritone spacing of minor block chords = suspense!! Other guys hack it out in such an uncreative manner, But Williams pulls the same trick and manages to do it in new, innovative ways. I believe the best use of this is the wonderful and mysterious Ark theme, especially in the cue "Map Room At Dawn," but of course the Death Star motive is pretty good too... Jason

Speilburg has pretty much got the whole filmmaking thing down to a science. He claims he can shoot WotW in ten weeks, with the whole thing wrapped and ready in about four months (or something REALLY short like that). He remarked in the behind-the-scenes of Catch Me how proud he is of working so quickly. DiCaprio even admited he was blown away at how fast they worked. Plus he has experience "collaborating" with Cruise (we all know how he gets with "his" movies now). Hence the summer 2005 for WotW. Me? I think he's freakin' Steven Speilburg and he could take two years on a film if he wanted, so what's the rush? And let's give Williams and extra few months as well - can you imagine?! Jason

Yeah - my wife watches it and I heard the main title about a week ago. It's a new arrangement with the Patriot main theme played with french horns, some piano and strings in the background. Wonder what they payed for THAT?! Jason