David Coscina

Gordon said to me last Thursday that he would love to score a Harry Potter film or The Lord of the Rings. Both would be fantastic!

Yeah, it's a terrific culmination of the music ideas he introduced throughout the score. It's very Williams-esque in the genesis of a musical idea to its fruition. Not many composers honestly have this overall sense to their scores. They work moment by moment which is very one dimensional. And, from a film POV, it's cheating the filmmakers out of a real substantive contribution even if they don't know any better. I'm glad there are guys like Gordon out there. He's one of the few who really has his chops and scoring sensibilities together.

Get a local orchestra. Or a highly skilled low-pay one overseas. Have the balls to let someone interpret your music, possibly better than you thought possible, and have the bigger balls to say I want it this way. Use a smaller ensemble. At least their rendition has character It's called leveraging value. Both with the director of your work and musicians. For every professional orchestra there is, there's double their number in the immediate vicinity with virtually equivalent skills who did not make it into the orchestra. Starving artists are the easiest groups to take advantage of, from a business perspective, because everyone wants to make a name, and everyone wants a little money, and everyone wants an opportunity to be part of a project to pad their portfolio, and everyone wants to network. You can assemble a small ensemble of 15 people and pay an affordable fee and using some basic equipment and a room with fairly decent acoustics get yourself a real score. And if you like you can pad that with fakes. Basically you can pay $200 or $150,000 and have your self an ensemble of muscians. As a composer you have to make a value-focused case to the director/producer to make the investment. Why should you? Because by the end of this decade as space and memory limitations rapidly decline, the real orchestra will be obsolete, and its up to people (like you who respect the orchestra) who make the case for it to keep it alive. I was at UC-Berkley a few months ago (during my absence from these boards) and I had an opportunity to see some of the research projects they were doing in music synthesis. All I know is, the composer himself will see a greatly diminished role in the future. There's technology that works like super-powerful actions in Photoshop. You can just about button-push musical scores. All you need is a basic melody. You define parameters, and boom it generates a dramatic underscore...lush sweeping music, heart-stopping action. It also locks up into infinite loops and crashes here and there, but...yeah. Do you write music? Have you tried to make a go of it as a career? I'm just asking because some of your responses seem to be coming from someone who has the luxury of not actually dealing with these issues in the real world. As much as I certainly agree with your ideas from an aesthetic POV, you obviously haven't had people just completely fuck up your piece in performance. It's worse than disheartening. Even the session players I got on a score, while semi pro and not bad, still didn't get the rhythmic accuracy the cue needed. Anyhoo

No Stefan. If you were a composer you would be happy at the fact that you could a. get your music played close to what you envision in your head b. produce realistic mock ups so conductors will actually agree to perform your music with A REAL ORCHESTRA c. get work on projects that don't have the budgets for real musicians d. have your music performed closer to what you want as opposed to semi pro musicians or amateur groups that rape your music beyond recognition. Sorry for calling you an idiot. I honestly don't think you know where guys like Alex or Jesse or myself are coming from on this matter. As for Zimmer, the guy DOES have real orchestras playing his music and it still sounds fake! that's not a problem with the technology, it's a problem with his skill level at writing for real musicians. If you were to listen to Thomas J Bergersen's demo of this library or his music, you would hear a very talented composer regardless of the canvas he's working on. I don't purport to write like John Williams (more like Jerry Goldsmith by my own admission and a few comments from other composers about my stuff) and I would never believe a sample library would automatically make up for any shortcomings I may have. But if this or any other library allows me to translate what I hear in my head better and more accurately into the real world for people to hear, then I get excited about that prospect.

Mind numbingly stupid comment by Stefan, what a surprise. Alex, PM me so we can have a constructive civil conversation about this without the usual stupid idiots chiming in when they have no clue as to what they're talking about.

I wish I could find an example of a contemporary concert composer who hasn't committed the same "offenses" that classical buffs deride Williams of. I also cannot find anyone in the concert hall composing music that is more moving, detailed, and frankly kick ass than Williams. John Adams gets close but I don't hear any greater technique that Williams hasn't displayed. Don't get me wrong, I love concert music, but to go back to someone who really rocked it out would be Shostakovich, Prokofiev or Bartok for me. Or Vaughan Williams.

In 50 years, classical music buffs will start to realize that they missed the opportunity to enjoy our era's Mozart in John Williams. Pity for them. Lucky for us that we have and continue to value and enjoy his music.

Nothing like a smart incisive response.

Something that is becoming quite evident in my interviews with other popular film composers is that John Williams is revered more than any other composer for film. It's quite amazing to hear this common sentiment from various composers with various backgrounds and styles. The universal appeal of maestro Williams cannot be emphasized more. Fans like Williams' music because it is tuneful, emotional ,exciting and communicative. Film composers laud Williams' music for its complexity, virtuosity, clarity and genius. I really wonder who future film composers will look up to this highly?

I have EWQLSO PLatinum PLAY, Fab Four, Goliath, and EWQL Symphonic Choirs all PLAY versions. I dunno but I have little to no problems with it unlike many other people. I have a modest set up too- MAc Pro 2.66ghz with 8gigs ram and 2 TB worth of HD all running ay 7200rpms.

at around 6 minutes in when Thomas Bergersen does a realtime performance on HS, my jaw dropped. The most convincing string passage I have ever heard played by samples. Pre ordered the Gold edition. Now, a month to wait......tick tock tick tock.....

I conducted a very lengthy interview with Australian composer Christopher Gordon the other night and listening to him talk about his process of composing, compounded with his actual musical output, I cannot fathom why he hasn't garnered greater appeal among directors. Most film score fans adore his music because it has all of the components that drew many of us to the form in the first place. His most recent output is Mao's Last Dancer and Daybreakers, the latter which could have been a total mess in the hands of many other composers. but Gordon drew on a rich musical tapestry when he approached the film. He employs the octatonic scale (this is used in Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra and John Williams used it in the Aushwitz cue for Schindler's List) for the vampires, a melancholic string elegy for the Ethan Hawke character and a minor/major chord for the humans. he also adds a strong percussive section for the vampire militia and some heterophonic brass for the subsiders (vampires who devolve into a primal bat being when deprived of blood for too long). this is a terrific score although some complain it's too slow. Sigh. Actually, the film tone is very subdued and melancholic itself so the music appropriately follows suit. Gordon has also composed a number of stunning concert works that can be heard on his website. Personally, this guy mops up the floor with popular composers on this side of the Atlantic (er, Pacific actually). It's actually embaressing to realize what we have been living with or making due with as far as strong themes go for film scores these days. I mean, when Williams was at his peak, we were getting some fabulous themes. I would say right up until Memoirs of a Geisha, we were treated to these amazing thematic scores Williams would develop in 10 different ways. Gordon also rarely recaps his themes verbatum and varies them overtly or slightly depending on the scene. For those who are unaware of this talent, check out Moby Dick (the made for TV version with Patrick Stewart), On the Beach (made for tv version with Armand Assante), 'Salem's Lot (2004 remake), parts of Master and Commander that he scored, and the two I mentioned earlier in this thread. You will hear a strong compositional voice at work. I hope Gordon gets more feature film projects from these two recent fare because the world needs to hear a lot more of him and a lot less of some other folks that's for damn sure.

That sucks. The Nolan Batman films are terrific.

I always thought Silence of the Lambs was one of the most over rated films in recent history. I don't see any clever film technique. In fact, stylistically, it could be a slick version of CSI or Criminal Minds. A t.v. show on the big screen. Jonathan Demme does not have the same rich sense of film that Fincher has display even with Alien3 albeit marred by a freshman enthusiasm. Seven is a much better story and Kevin Spacey a much more realistic serial killer. I never bought Hopkin's Lecter. Benjamin Button was a wee too cold and detached but Fincher's other films were good because he's got that emotional detachment, much like Cronenberg.

Which means we can look forward to another noise-induced mind-numbing score by one of his stable of music be-yatches. If Fincher was hired (and sorry Joey but aside from Alien3, he has given us some amazing films like Seven, Fight Club, and Zodiac) he would at least have an interesting composer score it. I would love to hear a David Shire Spidey score or perhaps even a Schifrin score. Someone who is able to get that urban sound mixed with some jazz and contemporary influences. I like elfman a lot but his choral operatic music never sat well with me for Spidey. Hell, Fincher would have the balls to get someone like Stu phillips whose Spidey theme is my all time fave.

Ohh yes, he's Australia's best composer at the moment, I love him. He lives in Sydney. He did rather good piece of music on Sydney too. http://www.christophergordon.net/SydneyAStoryofaCity.html Anyway, my vote is Alex North. He's a composer equal to if not better to Williams and Goldsmith. Yet he's underappreciated. Agree on both counts. Gordon is one of the best composers working in the film realm and Daybreakers really brings it. It's wonderfully diverse and epic. I cannot wait to interview him this week. EDIT- in a recent interview when he was asked what film he would have loved to score, Gordon said "Lord of the Rings". No offense to Shore but Gordon would have given us a really damn good symphonic score. And, once again, no disrespect to Shore, but Gordon is the finest choral composer we have got working in film currently. It would have been amazing. Sigh. Alex North is a god IMO and is in fact just as great as Williams and Goldsmith (I hear a lot of North in Goldsmith's seminal '70s scores actually).

I think Munich was a very accomplished film. Spielberg has simply graduated past the popcorn thrillers he made his name on. I also found The Terminal and Catch Me if You Can to be fine films- not spectacular but mature in that they don't say "hey, look how cool I am" the way some of his films did when he was younger. I still think JAWS is his best ever film but that's just me.

I agree. Terrific Williams score too. On my 10 Best of the decade actually.

I am inclined to believe.

Joey, I find more and more that I'm agreeing with your POV.

maybe one day Zimmer will have one good score. Gladiator, which isn't only a good score, but a great one. I thought it was effective inside the film. Not much of a listen on its own for me though.

The little bit I heard of it was gorgeous.

Williams and Herrmann.

this is true.

Okay here's a little reality- and most of you know this anyhow- film composers don't often get to write music they want to write. That luxury has been taken away (if it even existed in the first place) with over zealous producers, focus groups and all that crap. Even on a smaller scale, composers must constantly wrestle with their creative vision and the directors in the hope they will align at some point. I do agree that the Michael Bays and Jerry Bruckheimer's of the world do demand a heavy handed approach. So I look away from the blockbuster efforts of these composers and more towards the smaller films where the composer can be given more latitude by the director. Funny enough, the Media Ventures stuff still sounds pretty much the same, regardless of whether it's for a large scale overblown popcorn ride or a smaller film. The approach and style is often very similar with the exception that the orchestral or instrumental resources having been scaled down. This argument also doesn't wash in many ways because someone like Michael Giacchino composed a lovely, if not sentimental, score for UP! in a very old fashioned style. This was a big budget, A list film and he was obviously given some room to do what he felt the film needed. So if Gia can score a film using these types of scoring devices, why can't someone like Brian Tyler? Well, for one, Tyler just doesn't have the same range that Giacchino has. I have heard a LOT of his output and will continue to with the optimism but thus far he hasn't shown me anything special. Same for Ottman who by all accounts is a delightful person and an enthusiastic supporter of film scores. The problem with both of these guys is in their abilities insofar as range of technique and style compounded with their understanding or lack thereof of structure. Yes guys, even film scores benefit from this. This is why something like Superman works so well. Williams deliberately set out to create a narrative dramatic arc so that the music progressively develops throughout the course of the story which underlines the dramatic genesis of the film. Guys like Tyler or Ottman, in the projects I have seen/heard, seem to lack this fundamental imperative. Everything is for the moment with little to no regard for the score as a whole. David Raksin once said in a film bio on Bernard Herrmann "almost anyone can come up with one good melody in his/her life. The key to being a composer is how you vary it and develop this melody in many different ways. Benny was a master at doing that". I know a lot of you don't put much stock in what I say so I'm hoping you regard Mr. Raksin's comment with more respect.