David Coscina

Excellent analogy

I have made peace with the fact that Zimmer is popular. I don't care if he uses ghost writers or what-not. I'm secure knowing that Williams is, well, a god compared to everyone else out there in film score land at least in terms of his music abilities. I don't think you'll find many professional musicians who would disagree too BTW. I know some critics don't like Johnny's approach, Pauline Kael was one of them, but Williams' name will live on forever whereas hers has even diminished over the past 2 decades (yes I know she's passed on).

Williams got Fred Steiner (I believe) to write an additional cue for Returnof the Jedi but that is all I know about his use of other composers thoughout his career

The point of this is not to worry about whether orchestras will be replaced but to marvel at: 1. the writing level of Williams. This was posted on a musician's forum with guys who have a ton of mad skills and most if not all of them are awed at Williams' technical ability. One person said there is fast approaching a time when we musicians cannot blame the quality of our samples on bad music- just our skills. 2. the transcription and programming skills of the guy who made this. Yeah yeah, he will say it's the samples but I have heard great libraries sound like crap in the hands of someone who does not know how to use them. this guy clearly knows his music. In some ways, I could very easily proclaim Superman to be Williams' masterpiece. It runs the gammut of styles and idioms but still has a solid cohesion to it. I love Star Wars and Empire and CEot3K and Jaws but Superman is epic. There is just so much material to be awed. In fact, I probably would bring this to a desert island above all else because of its variety. I don't think any other Williams score has this kind of breadth of style.

http://vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=180591&no=1#180591 I normally do not care for mock-ups (synth versions of orchestral cues even when they are done on great sample libraries) but this fellow has really achieved the musicality of this cue. It's clear he's got monster musical chops to be able to even lift this piece (I don't think there is an orchestral score out there to use as reference) and his programming of the different orchestral sample libs is nothing short of amazing. Yes, there are a couple moments where it's clear it's samples not real instruments but a large part of this mock up sounds very real and he really stuck with the tempi and feel of the original. Dave

Excellent choice. Thanks Koray- great score by Fumio Hayasaka too. Love Mifune's buffoonish theme played on baritone sax.

Easy, Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai.

There will be Blood Troy (Yared) Hero (tan dun) The Curious case of Benjamin Button The Incredibles ratatouille Memoirs of a Geisha AI The Terminal Unbreakable Signs The Village Hulk (Elfman) Finding Nemo Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death Munich Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone The Aviator (Shore) The Fellowship of the Ring

It is a site for musicians who buy East West products which mostly specialize in orchestral libraries if u peruse the site you will see that a lot of pros use their products.

Here is the link. While his answers are curt and to the point, it's nice to have a professional addressing some questions about film scoring, technology, influences. Powell is far and away my favorite composer from MV-RC http://www.soundsonline-forums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=32

I hear you. When I transferred from Jazz performance to composition in my second year of university, I became increasingly despondent at how the curriculum was being taught. Very little structure and a lot of philosophy of music- you know, music perception and all that. My professor was James Tenney who was very avant garde and threw stuff like Varese's Octandre and that ilk at us. I think I learned more after I graduated by going over orchestration books by Adler and Kennan, Adler's Harmony, and heck, just writing for real musicians and finding out what worked and what didn't. Listening and studying conductor's scores was also helpful. I think my History of Western music classes were also invaluable as my profs would teach analysis of structure, arranging, noting different harmonizations that were indictive of different cultural backgrounds (ie Russian, Polish, French, English, German, Italian). I hear many many stories from various composers regarding academia. I think composition per se cannot be taught anyhow. You either can do it or you can't. Training is invaluable to help shape and develop a composer's toolset but at the end of the day what sets them apart is their own style and compositional voice. My thoughts anyhow.

So here is a more developed version of this piece with a quasi tetrachord intro and more of a lead up. I still need to expand upon this but it goes slowly. http://www.box.net/shared/mdc0b5dkys

I'm with Jesse- I don't have that much time to write these days and when I do I'm either re-copying an orchestral piece that's getting performed in November by a semi pro group or else helping out an LA composer with a couple small projects. Good luck to you gents though.

Yup!

Here's the beginning of a cue I'm roughing out for a documentary I'm scoring. Gotta love the fact that the filmmakers want a Goldsmith styled score. http://www.box.net/shared/bfvc7rusca

Nice work Marcus. Great string writing. In iTunes however, it lists all songs by you. Did you compose those quasi Mozartian piano cues too or did iTunes get the track listing wrong? I like the ornamental writing BTW. Keep up the great work. I would post this on some other forums too so you can get some feedback from fellow musicians. Sometimes this place can be tough for no real reason.

You're glad because... What a stupid post. But not surprising. I wouldn't say your post is any better.

I agree, Dave. By their own incompetent decisions they've made the Best Score award almost meaningless. I think the judges for the Best Score oscar should be those dearly departed Alex North Jerry Goldsmith Erich Korngold Bernard Herrmann Alfred Newman (Tom would have won at least one friggin award by now!) Prokofiev Vaughan Williams Tiomkin Steiner Rosza Fielding only problem is I hear the courier fees for the sweet hereafter are a real bitch!

Meh, what do awards really mean anyhow? They are mostly popular and not awarded based on their functionality in their respective film. For a while, the Oscars were awarding really good composers like Tan Dun, Goldenthal, Corigliano, and Shore. That ended with "Finding Neverland" in my opinion and the trend for mediocre scores continues although Marrionelli's win was okay. Certainly better than Santaolalla and Rahman.

It's actually an amazingly complex dynamic score. I had passed off a lot of Mancini's work because of his lite comedy scores but this is a monster score with some wonderful nods to Bartok, Debussy, and Ravel along with the English composers like Walton and Vaughan Williams. Really amazing score. I also bought Nightwing but it did not resonate the same as this does. I will try it again though.

Yes indeed. I guess I don't frequent this forum as often as I should. I thought his post was an earnest one. My apologies. You are a Bela Bartok fan? I thought it is Bartok in your atavar. I know all the ballets. Still I like Romeo and Julia the most. Prokofiev was a brilliant orchestrator, up there with Ravel, Willams and Bernstein. Yes, I have been enjoying his Concerto for Orchestra and Miraculous Mandarin especially. Would love to see the latter staged.

Yes indeed. I guess I don't frequent this forum as often as I should. I thought his post was an earnest one. My apologies.

Then why the f^^& are you posting in this thread which is clearly about a CLASSICAL composer???

Awesome thread. I have been lucky enough to see both Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella over the past year and while I LOVE the music from Romeo and Juliet, I actually was more captivated by the staging of Cinderella. The National Ballet of Canada did a fine job of it and the two dancers who protrayed the evil step sisters were a riot! Musically, nothing touches R&J though. Truly inspired writing. Dave Clearly you haven't heard the opening for his Third Symphony. It was scare the shit out of Zimmer with its powerful bi-tonal brass chords on top of those demonic string figures. Also,I would recommend The Crusaders in Pskov from Alexander Nevsky. Once again, this is harsh stuff. In fact, there's a whole catalog of Prokofiev works that would decimate most film composers' output for pure aggression. Prokofiev was the Bruce Lee of the classical music world.

Lifeforce by Henry Mancini and it totally kicks a$$.