David Coscina

I'm not sure what a "Zimmer fan" is but yes, I do like some of his music, especially Interstellar. I also like Tyler's fusion scores for Now You See Me and Fast Five- clearly he's carved out a good sound for himself. If you read my long post on VI Index, yes, it was an apology to Zimmer for some of the disparaging things I said about his music over the years, but it was more of an epiphany that came to me as I myself have had some experience composing music for media. It's all good and well to have lofty high minded ideas about what your music or music for film should aspire to but if you need to make a living and please your employer (director, producers etc) you have to find a way to write the stuff they want, but still find creative ways to insert some of your own ideals into the music. VI Control is mostly populated by working musicians, not fans of film scores. I post on there because I appreciate their opinions about hurdles I have run into when I have been working on a project. And you would be surprised which other Hollywood composers lurk over there. Anyhow, I've been away a long time here-so long that I didn't even remember what email account I used for my profile- hence the new one. Generally I've lost interest in film scores, except those by Williams and a handful of other composers. I do like what Hans has been doing these days- he is clearly evolving like any good artist should. Mostly I have been listening to Shostakovich and studying his music. I find it to be more thrilling and engaging to me at 48 than most current film scores. Just my personal preference really. o

New trailer is up and it's....stunning. Using Ligeti's Requiem is about the ballsiest move I've seen to market a summer monster film. Shows what direction the director is taking with this. http://vimeo.com/76248443

Agreed. The level of writing for this franchise was on a plateau that we really haven't seen a lot for the genre or in general. There are a number of films that would have been amazing scores had Davis touched them. Namely MOS. I wonder what he could have brought to the table (I enjoy Zimmer's score well enough as its own entity but I also like McDonalds food once in a while as well).I just revisited these scores and perhaps in my prozacian attempt to like more contemporary film scores these days my music tastes some what atrophied. The level of writing for this series was plain fantastic. Yes, he did take some parts of John Adams' seminal 80s concert works as inspiration but no more than any Golden /silver Age composer took from Mahler,Strauss, Stravinsky and Ravel/Debussy.I got my hands on the orchestral hand written score for the first film and the detail in the writing is just sick. I would say Davis also applied minimalism true to its rhythmic roots rather than provide us with a watered down version of that movement in music history.I actually agree that Revolutions is actually a lot more melodic in its final tracks than much of the series and the penultimate track Spirit of the Universe is as lyrical as any James Horner cue. It's a splendid way if resolving the series music tone- like one long resolution from dissonance to consonance. I mean what other franchise has that kind of over all architecture in its score? Not too many. Also love the way he quoted and re harmonized the Dies Irae. Brilliant.

Glad you enjoyed it. Perhaps a little too third stream for most to enjoy. It needs a little work mixing but I didn't think it was that bad.....

Just messing around with a few genres. Dance, electronic, minimalism, film score, that sort of thing. Enjoy. http://snd.sc/IKgGCs

Check out Powell's Hancock and X Men 3. He has some nice cues on that as well. Welcome to this forum as well Alice.

Alain, nice music. Really refreshing to hear someone write with a flair and competence for orchestra. I'm going to buy your Legend of Silkboy off of iTunes based on the samples. Really nice stuff. Other samples are equally inspired. Love your use of the octatonic scale in Fantastic Highway Chase as well as those pointillistic sections. Keeps the listener entertained. I also like the economy of orchestration. It's not all tutti chords but instead a nice thickness through contrapuntal writing- something that is sadly lacking in a lot of big Hollywood scores. And thanks for using percussion as an accentuation in your action music rather than groove oriented. Personally you've made my week with your music. Cheers!

Most likely because they don't have directors and producers telling them every two seconds to change something or get rid of the melody or "make it sound like Social Network". They have more freedom to write whatever they want.

Hey guys, thanks for the feedback. Obviously my cue is an imaginary one that I came up with based on the trailer for Prometheus but no more than that. It was fun doing it and I'm obviously not getting the scoring gig so it's just a bit of fun. I also composed a more tonal cue but I've haven't finished it yet....

http://snd.sc/z1a44A Another shameless pastiche of a Goldsmith classic with my own spin on it. If I got the job to score this film, I would honor Mr.Goldsmith by quoting his material in places because it's so damned great. Ives did it. Stravinsky did it. I can too! (quote other composers, not Goldsmith obviously)

Pretty decent production. I think you use the samples to their strengths for the most part. Style seems on par with most of what's out there. That last recap of the main melody with that brass heavy part was a little much- try to create some textural contrast in the orchestration. Play different orchestral choirs against one another especially if you are repeating a section verbatim. It helps to keep the listener interested, The techno part sounded good though not to my personal taste. Keep composing, keep learning. Listen to as much orchestral music as possible and attend real orchestral performances. You will learn a lot.

Nope. CineBrass solo horn legato.

Thanks Blumenkohl. Truthfully though, I don't have much good things to say about 90% of the film music that's been released lately and I'm trying to avoid concentrating on negative posts which is why I've been reticent here and at FSM. I have been enjoying older re-releases like Wolfen and Great Train Robbery and especially the recent Chandos Moby Dick release by Herrmann. I've also been working on my own music more and I've been hired to compose some demos for a new string sample library so I'm pretty occupied these days...and that doesn't even account for my day job in which I got promoted to manager...busy busy

Yes, I deeply respect Mike's skills and I'm also happy to get feedback here too. Incidentally, Gabriel Yared enjoyed this piece quite a bit which is a nice chuck on the shoulder. Thor, if you have a moment, please check out my Goldsmith piece I posed elsewhere on here. I was aping his style (awful pun I admit) for a new sample library demo I did.

Thanks for listening and commenting guys!