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David Coscina

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Everything posted by David Coscina

  1. 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
  2. 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
  3. 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.
  4. 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.....
  5. Just messing around with a few genres. Dance, electronic, minimalism, film score, that sort of thing. Enjoy. http://snd.sc/IKgGCs
  6. 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.
  7. 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!
  8. 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.
  9. 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....
  10. 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)
  11. 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.
  12. 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
  13. 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.
  14. Thanks for listening and commenting guys!
  15. I composed this to demo a new sample library and wanted to do something different than the usual contemporary film score style. Also I hated Doyles score for the most recent Apes score and wanted to try my hand at what I would have preferred hearing. http://soundcloud.com/dcoscina/rise-of-the-apes-mix
  16. Thanks guys for your feedback. Yes, the jazz does bookend this piece much better as I envisioned it as a suite of reflections of my memories of xmas. I do see where blumenkohl is coming from as Mike Verta also commented on that too. Perhaps just adjusting the mix so it's not so up front? The reason I put the glock in there is because the staccato winds were buried behind the countermelody and I needed to accentuate them. At least that was my reasoning at the time. And yes, a lot of people like the jazz but don't dig the sax sample. I should get a real sax player to go over that part. pixie, I was trying to go for a little Herrmann mid way through. Did that at all sound like Herrmann where the low brass comes in? And yes, you did pick up on the Debussian part that follows thereafter. Thanks for that!
  17. This just kind of fell into place a few weeks back. I did do a longer piece with a jazz ending but I'm not sure a lot of you dig jazz so this is version 2, http://snd.sc/suHIMl
  18. I think some of it is real orchestra- or they have a sampled string library that is so good it sounds really real. And I own most of those so I think they did hire a group. The string bowing usually reveals samples and I don't hear anything that sound synthetic except the strings on the first example. Everything else sounds real to me.
  19. I'll miss Mark's posts too. He has been one of the few level-headed rational people on the internet. I think I understand where Mark is coming from as far as film scores are concerned. The landscape is far from what our generation grew up with (and got spoiled on). It's harder and harder to get enthused in the same way we did with Goldsmith, Williams, Barry, Horner, etc etc 10, 20, 30 years ago. It's just not the same game. And it's not too much fun as such. I share much of the same taste in film scores as Mark and I respect his opinions. They are measured and well thought out. He also respects fellow forum members. Anyhow Mark, all the best. You will be missed! David
  20. The march is rousing and fantastically arranged. I wish more of the score sounded like this. As is, it's good, better than what passes for action scores these days, but I think I still like Super 8 the most of all summer fare...until Williams' stuff shows up!
  21. Yeah, Temple is getting his degree in composition at college and he's got a string piece on their which clearly exhibits his ability to write for real musicians. As someone who uses samples and sequencers, I think the technology is really hurting music. It's much harder to think in terms of melodic shape and phrasing when you've got that damned fascist little metronome bleeping at you as you play stuff in line by line in realtime. This also lends itself to static meters and tempi with little to no fluctuation in either. Writing on paper or even Sibelius or Finale allows the composer to think in terms of these fundamental compositional ways. It's less about formal training and more about the interface. One allows the composer to "freeze" a thought or moment, distill it, then take it apart and re-shape it (traditional). the other one forces the composer to conform to the lexicon presented by its interface (technology) which seems almost antithetical to producing music that embodies the elements most of us fell in love with and which most humans can connect with. I know that Temple does compose most of his stuff on Sibelius and realizes it afterwards in Sonar for mock ups. It's clear in the writing the clarity of the ideas here. It's why someone like Williams now is pretty much standing apart from everyone else in Hollywood. He writes traditionally.
  22. Did you check out Into the Lair? His other stuff is pretty terrific too. Maybe it's just because I also compose, but I really appreciate this guy's skill. Writing music like this ain't easy.
  23. This guy has been doing some amazing work for a while now and it's worth getting his name out to fans of classic film score sound. Scary thing is the guy is in his early 20s. Whew. Mounds of talent. In this link, check out Into The Lair in particular. Just phenomenal stuff. http://soundcloud.com/search?q%5Bfulltext%5D=alex+temple
  24. There are some very good moments in this score to be sure.
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