David Coscina

Not as creative or entertaining as this thread though.... and a little mean-spirited regarding Yared. Like he hasn't had to deal with enough, now his crumby experience is already ben made into the butt of a joke. Not cool.

Yeah that was alittle distracting. But remember that Peter Shickle ghost-wrote that cue. I guess Williams was inspired by his lunacy and thought it would be best to have some continuity in the instrumentation. Incidently, did I read it right that Lucas actually temp tracked parts of Episode 3 with sections of Marvin Hamlisch's BANANAS score? That would explain the inclusion of the kazoo. Oh, I just found a hidden track "Yoda's New Home"(Dagoba). I thought it was exceptionally fitting that his theme is treated in the "Dualing Banjos" idiom. Having the kazoo exhange themes with a mandolin was sheer genius on Williams' part. But I didn't like the sampled bullfrog calls in the background. Was Zimmer at all involved on that?

This thread had me laughing all day yesterday. Kudos to all participants!

There's a few of us. Some of us actually even make some money at it!

I concur. The only Star Wars episode that has aged very well over time is A New Hope. The others IMO are rubbish (although Empire Strikes Back has an amazingly awesome score!).

Did you guys know that Burt Bacharach and Barry Manilow are singing a duet of Williams' epic track "Me and You, You and Me". I guess that underlines the duality in Anakin and Darth Vader. I think it was intended for the closing credits but this is really unprecedented. And it's all done to a hip-hop beat. First Williams uses electric guitars in Attack of the CLones, now street beats in Episode 3. That's really something else. I wonder if the 7 covers has any pictures of Williams bitch-slapping Lucas for gradually diminishing the integrity of this franchise? Does anyone have that cover?

I think this thread is hilarious! Some great (and demented) creative minds at work...

I like the track "Anakin Takes the Plunge". The underscoring perfectly complements the battle between Mace and Anakin. I like how WIlliams used the lightsabre sound effects in his track and implemented those sounds in counterpoint to the shrilling flutes and aggitato string passages. I could have done without the variation of the Yoda theme on slide whistle though...what the hell was Williams thinking? I mean is he going demented or is he fed up with Lucas' poor directorial style and felt like lashing out... oops, I just did some searching on the internet and discovered that this cue was NOT written by Williams but by Peter Schickle aka PDQ Bach. That explains the Baroque-styled scored of this cue complete with a basso continuo part played not by harpsichord but by timpani. Neat!

I agree Mark. This film took a while for me to get into (like the score) but I do find it quite a potent statement on crime, the rights of the individual as opposed to the good of the society, etc. Very well crafted too. Williams score to me at first was very dark, dissonant and seemed to lack anything thematic contintuity. Then I listened to it over and over again and heard the subtleties of his score. A wondeful work for both Spielberg and Williams. As I recall, the movie got good reviews and did well at the box office.

You know, I should have specified the list a bit more....whoops. And I had planned on putting Doyle in there too. Just slipped my mind.

Alex, have you listened to the East West Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra series? I just got the SIlver Edition and I'm really excited over its range and quality of sounds. I posted a few examples on Motifator.com. Check 'em out.

You're a bloody hypocrite. On one hand you say you have the right to your opinion then you tell me to shut up when I say something that's contrary to your viewpoint. If you're entitled to your opinion, than I am entitled to my opinion about your lack of knowledge regarding music when you make assertions, not opinions, about a piece of music. If you had said "I don't like Everyone Runs", than I would have left you be. But you made a proclamation, and a pretty ignorant one at that, hence I felt I should provide an opposing viewpoint on it. And I did give my post some thought before I wrote it. It is you who should perhaps take a few deep breaths before responding.

If you call ostinatos the same thing over and over well.....they are supposed to be. That's the nature of that music device! And I totally disagree with your assessment. There's development of that music within the track. The celli play the ostinato during the dialogue part of the cue and then Williams brings in the triple-tongueing trumpets doubling the the low strings while violins and anvil play hits on the offbeat. I think it's brilliant writing. And you call the string writing mediocre? Tell me something tharpdevenport, do you compose music? Do you know what you're talking about when you make ludicrous statements like that? What would you call exemplary examples of string writing?

Oh, I actually don't use GPO. Doesn't sound very realistic from the demos although I do know that even great sample libraries like EWQLSO can sound so-so depending on who's doing the demo.

There are a good many composers on this board so I figured I'd get an idea of how people get their ideas out there.

Yes, Morlock is right. It took me months to get into Minority Report. But I love "Everybody Runs". I think it's my favorite wIlliams action piece in the 2000's. Really great string writing!

yeah, I forgot Doyle. I thought Arnold and Barry lived in the US nowadays. My bad.

Thought it might be interesting to see who is favored across the pond for film scoring. I picked Yared although I'm also a huge fan of Ifukube and Takemitsu.

I've been composing on MIDI equipment since the mid-'80's and I've always wanted better orchestral samples seeing that I don't have the money to have every idea played by real musicians (pity). So I've been investigating small packages like Garritan Personal Orchestra and such. Well, for the same amount of money, I wisely went with the East West Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra Silver Edition. It is a virtual orchestra at your fingertips. Used as a plug-in with Sonar or Cubase, you can load 8 banks with 8 insstruments per bank totalling 64 instruments. That, coupled with the keyswitch programs that allow the composer to change articulations in realtime (using the bottom keys on an 88 note keyboard) from i.e. staccato to legato to arco to whole or half tone trills. Very very cool. And the sounds are uniformly great. For $240 (US) this is an exceptional value which actually sounds really good. I've included an example to give you an idea. Everything on this track from the piano (Steinway sample) to horns, trilling flutes, percussion, everything was done using the EWQLSO Silver Edition as a Dxi plug-in with Sonar 3.11 see this link http://www.motifator.com/forums/showflat.p...sb=5&o=&fpart=1

I'm assuming these were both written for wind orch. They both sound very good, especially with respect to orchestration. I like your textural choices. And it's always nice to get real people to play your compositions, even if they are semi-pro or amateur. Nice job!

The second half of "You are the Pan" sounds uncomfortably close to some of Delerue's "Agnes of God" score. The harp figure, the slow strings and the flute all playing the same chords...scary. But Williams still rules all IMO.

I do love Sea Hawk by Korngold and Fahrenheit 451 by Herrmann, but I gave my vote towards Alex North who has such a variety of scores and styles, possibly more diverse than Herrmann who honestly was great but had a signature sound. I love Spartacus, 2001, Dragonslayer, Good Morning viet nam, Cleopatra, A Streetcar Named Desire...the list goes on. And North was one of the first composers truly unafraid of employing grating dissonant passages into his work, along with some real modernist techniques. Save for Leonard Rosenman...

Yup, i agree. I think Giacchino has already demonstrated an ability to score the "big project" with his outstanding music for video games and concert pieces. And I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt. Who knew film score fans were such cynicists.

Hey Rogue Leader, what do you think Giacchino would have done for SPider-man 2? Oh wait, we'll know next December when he scores his own super hero movie! YEAH!!

Vaughan Williams- Tallis Fantasia, 5th Symphony, Five Variants of Dives and Lazerus Mahler- Song of the Earth, Symphonies 1-9 Prokofiev- Ivan The Terrible Oratorio, Alexander Nevsky Cantata, Romeo and Juliet, Peter and the WOlf Shostakovich- 5th Symphony Bartok- Music for Strings Percussion and Celeste, Concerto for Orchestra, The Miraculous Mandarin, The Wooden Prince Ligeti- Requiem (warning- this is scary s**t) Barber- Cello Concerto, Knoxville-1915, 2nd Essay for Orchestra Varese- Arcana Rachmaninoff- 1st Symphony (oh no the danger motif, he ripped of Horner, oh waitaminute, the other way around), 2nd Piano Concerto, Symphonic Dances (very aggressive, especially for him) John Adams- Harmonielehre, Harmonium, The Wound Dresser (profoundly moving), Book of Alleged Dances (Kronos Quartet) Goldenthal- Fire Water Paper, Viet Nam Oratorio Williams- Bassoon Concerto, Tuba Concerto, Clarinet Concerto Corigliano- 1st Symphony Copland- Lincoln Portrait and many many more....