Ludwig
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Posts posted by Ludwig
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Okay . . . time to break the silence on this. Like everyone else, the last six months have made it brutally difficult for me to commit extra time to this project. As the creator and "sponsor" of this thread, I carry an extra helping of the guilties over it--but what's done is done.
I'm going to make a real effort to get back to this, and in a better fashion than I did before. Part of the problem was that I burned myself out a bit in attempting to clean up every article that people imported from Wikipedia (by extracting the useless templates and links that were broken in the transfer process). That was ultimately some pretty tedious and unrewarding work. It got me away from what I really enjoy doing, which is writing the articles themselves . . . and when things got busy for me, the thought of spending my free time doing more of that kind of detailed nitpicking just didn't appeal to me enough to come back to it.
But I've thought about it occasionally, and regretted that we didn't get things off to a better start. And there's still nothing preventing that.
A couple of (belated) responses to comments left before:
Part of the difficulty of this project is the unavoidable perception (whether it is true or not) that Scorepedia duplicates what is already present on Wikipedia. Perhaps the site's purpose is at present consumed by the soundtrack pages on Wikipedia. Scorepedia's name, look, and editable-by-anyone format may be too similar as is. And we've even talked about importing material from Wikipedia. What we have to ask ourselves is, what does Scorepedia offer that Wikipedia does not? If we can come up with something clearly different, we should focus on that and hopefully interest will again resurface. If not, perhaps we should focus on improving the existing pages on Wikipedia.
A project like Scorepedia can be much more specific as Wikipedia when it comes to such specialized topics like filmmusic. Obviously this is true for every specialized wiki.
If I see what trouble the La-La Land Records entry on Wikipedia got I see the value in such a project like Scorepedia.
The greatest problem we have is the will and time to participate. In the last months I was unable to devote any time to the project. But this is the vital point. Having enough time and will to support this idea. So the question is: Shall we proceed with the project? Or should Scorepedia ultimately die to have an answer to the question if such a project useful?
This was an excellent and necessary point. Ludwig, you were the one who wanted to add a "Style of the Score" section to the articles, a detail that would be too esoteric for Wikipedia's tastes. If you go on too long or indulge in fine-print excesses about a subject they feel only deserves a few paragraphs, the editor types get restless and start slashing prose. Scorepedia is exactly the place where that sort of information can flourish--which is precisely why there should be such a place existing independently of WP.
I see what you mean, Uni. And yes, I agree that in-depth information would be great on Scorepedia and certainly set it apart from Wikipedia's soundtrack pages.
Writings about film music have really only flourished relatively recently, and there's still tons and tons out there that has nothing or next-to-nothing on it (I mean, come on - Star Wars, really?). So I would say that the wonderful kinds of details so many of us love on film music would have a happy home on Scorepedia. Count me in.
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But the problem is its all craft, no art. Its deeply engrossing, I love it, but its not art. Its in the service of the artist, whos the director. Its his art.
Heavily disagree with this.
Agree with your disagreement. Copeland betrays here a sentiment that is common among classical musicians - that music is in its "highest" form when it is the central focus of a performance of any kind. The idea that music can participate in a multimedia experience, and therefore be subordinated to other elements, is one that people like Copeland find extremely unpalatable, that it somehow "cheapens" the music.
I would counter that the fusion of music with film actually enhances the impact of the music precisely because there are other elements that add, not detract, from its meaning. And I say this as a classical composer of opera myself, like Copeland. Much of the brilliance of Williams, for example, lies in his ability to key into those other elements of the film and translate them into musical terms, which makes the music feel like a natural, often inevitable, fit with the film, even if one is not consciously aware of its presence.
I think it's fair to say that this is what the best film music does, and so it succeeds in its purpose. An opera is more about the music than is a film. They're different media. Copeland makes the mistake of evaluating one kind of music by the standards of another. Not art? Please. Some would say that about many modern operas.
- Dixon Hill and Sharkissimo
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Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5, "Emperor" - 2nd movement
I once had a German prof who said that he found the serial music of Webern the most relaxing stuff in the world. I don't get it.
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Who's that composer who, in a way, inspired you through Williams' music?
Korngold. Without Williams, it would have taken me a lot longer to get into Korngold's film scores, but Williams provides a bridge to the past, as it were.
Korngold tends to have many more rapid-fire notes in his themes and use more plain triads whereas Williams uses more longer notes, and relies on triads in addition to seventh chords and sus chords in his themes as a result of his early jazz years, no doubt.
Both, however, are brilliant in their film scores.
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Very well conceived. The so-called "homage" is believable, as long as it didn't happen by accident. Since Zimmer did listen extensively to John Williams' original score before composing, the case could be made for both sides. It could be accidental or on purpose; no one can know for sure, unless it is documented as such from the source. As for the brilliance of the score itself..... I'm calling B.S. It's still Zimmer, Inc., and until he changes that approach, his scores will always remain to be Zimmer, Inc. It used to not be that way..... It doesn't HAVE to be that way....
I'm gonna go cry now...
Thanks for your thoughts. One thing you'll notice is that I rarely make value judgements like good/bad, brilliant/awful in my analyses. There's enough of that on the internet. I always strive to offer something more on the objective side of things. (I didn't say brilliant, did I? I think this one was clean of those kinds of statements.)
It's harder with a composer like Williams, where the music is so obviously brilliant that to not say so would be very odd indeed. But with Man of Steel, readers can make of the analysis what they will. I'm simply trying to show what I believe to be objectively there.
As for the Zimmer Inc. thing, being a composer from the classical tradition myself, I certainly understand the criticism. That said, however, I think it's healthy to still see it as a bias. After all, think of past portrait artists like Reubens or Van Dyck. Those guys had armies of people in their studios and the artist himself would basically just do the face and hands. The same also existed in classical music, where composers would sometimes "farm out" the recitatives of their opera to their students instead of writing them themselves.
Now, of course, Zimmer isn't a classical master, but then, that's the point. I think too often we apply the same standards we hold artists to in the classical, concert hall tradition to film composers. In other words, for the past two hundred years, classical music has had the idea that if a piece of music wasn't all written by the same composer, it's no good because it lacks a kind of authenticity, a trueness of expression, if you will. I actually don't buy that argument, but that's the way it is.
Now take film music, which by its nature is a very different kind of music from that of the concert hall. It has a completely different function, different tradition, different expectations, etc.
If Zimmer and actually most film composers aren't primarily concert hall composers, why should we hold them to those same standards?
I'm not defending Zimmer here, but rather the idea of why we criticize film composers when they have help on their scores.
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Very enlightening
My problems with the score have never been the main theme actually, which is a guilty pleasure (I love the trailer music). Nice to see Zimmer did bring something of Williams to the score.
It's the rest of the score that's just either boring or noise to me.
You mean the Joe-El/Kal-El theme or the Superman Heroic theme, or maybe the Superman Introspective theme? Just curious.
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It's funny - I've just personally referred to the frantic action scenes the article describes as "choas and confusion", because I can never get a good grasp on just what is going on. Good to know others feel the same way.
Interesting about the detailed nature of the sound he mentions. I think that's there to "ground" the visuals. In other words, if we can't see the action clearly, we can at least hear it clearly. And that allows us to make at least some sense of what's going on. In that respect, it seems that sound in action scenes has become a more important narrative element than ever before. Our understanding actually hinges on it, whereas it doesn't in a more traditional, say Spielberg-directed, action sequence. The detailed sound in modern action films is something I've been thinking a lot about lately, and I think this is one really big piece of the puzzle.
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Interesting stuff. I think a similarly detailed analysis could be done for Inception, which I feel is another Zimmer score that is unfairly tossed aside as bland synthy droning. It's actually a fascinatingly tight work.
Inception, eh? I'll make a note. I have a list of suggestions I keep and it's only a matter of time before I'll do them. I just rewatched it recently too. There's certainly a lot that could be said there. Thanks.
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Fantastic stuff, Prometheus.
You know, the insertion of diegetic sound effects into the score itself makes me wonder. Why do this? Why not leave it to the foley artists?
I'm starting to wonder if the trend towards these more percussive and sound-effect-like scores with highly manipulated sounds is an attempt to compose music within a framework that is now more dominated by booming sound effects than ever before.
Star Wars AHN was the first film to use Dolby stereo, which basically created the position of the foley artist. From there, it seems sound effects has been developing more and more to the point where, in blockbuster action films like Man of Steel, they are more prominent - not just louder, but also more detailed, and therefore more lifelike - than they've ever been before.
With that in mind, I wonder if scores like this one of Zimmer's has overwhelming percussive elements and this infusion of diegetic sound in order to compete with the bombardment of sound effects.
If that's the case, I also wonder how JW will manage to fit his more traditional-style symphonic score around all these sound effects in the new Star Wars film. Food for thought.
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A different kind of Superman score for a different kind of Superman movie:I've devoted a section to a comparison between Zimmer's Superman theme and Williams'. The two are closer than you might think.Your thoughts welcome as always. Cheers.
I think you're a dickhead for posting this.
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Another great article, Mark.
Could you do a sequel to this, perhaps focusing on some of the recurring harmonic and timbral ideas? I thinking of things like the white note clusters, Eric Norris's world engine sound design (a good example of a diagetic sound being foreshadowed in the score), the chord progressions for the lament etc.
There's just so much in this score, it was hard to know when to just stop writing and say that's enough. Even simple but meaningful things like how the Jor-El/Kal-El theme is in A minor, but the Superman themes are in C major - the father and son are not only physically, but musically, "relatives" of one another, one a more tragic figure, the other more heroic.
Let me think about how to attack a sequel to this article. It would probably focus more on harmonic/tonal aspects - I didn't go too much into it here just for readability.
In the meantime, do share your thoughts on timbre and the world engine design - fascinating stuff, I'm sure.
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A different kind of Superman score for a different kind of Superman movie:I've devoted a section to a comparison between Zimmer's Superman theme and Williams'. The two are closer than you might think.Your thoughts welcome as always. Cheers.
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Great thread idea!
This is a really fun one:
Wow! He must be one of those people who takes any theme and can improvise the hell out of it.
Love the Beethoven version of the theme. I would love to hear a Wagner version of the theme, but that would probably take 4 hours to play.
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I would call these polytonal chords. The spacing encourages hearing them in two halves. Also, the top half is always consonant (or only mildly dissonant) within itself but, in all but one case (chord no. 7), sharply dissonant with the bottom half. This kind of dissonant clash of two essentially consonant sounds is a key element of polytonality and characterizes much of the music in Star Wars, for example. Though here, the lack of rhythmic vitality and the strange timbres give the music that appropriate feeling of being in an alien-like land.
That's where we differ. I hear each chord as one sonority, not two separate halves. They seem more like upper structure chords than polychords, probably due to the omitted thirds and other important intervals. Take chord 4 and 5 (basically the same the chord moved down a whole step - just re-voiced and inverted). I've seen this chord in dozens of other scores and jazz charts (Jerry Fielding and Alex North come to mind) - and to me they're just upper structure Lydian chords.
That said, it's just a different way of looking at the same thing. I'm something of a jazzhead, so I'm always going to see relatively consonant polychords like these (compared to say Stravinsky's 'Petrushka' or 'Augurs' chords or Strauss's 'Elektra' chord) as single entities, for better or worse.
I should clarify that I didn't mean that one hears them only as two halves. The dissonant clash I mentioned is the unified sonority. So you actually get both at the same time. And I think it's possible to hear it this way as well. It's just that if you're very familiar with the sound, you'll likely tend to hear it only as the one sonority even though the halves are still there.
It's a bit like the way new words sound. For example, when they introduced the two-dollar coin over here, the name given to it was "toonie". When it was first introduced, the word clearly sounded like a combination of "two" and "loonie" (our one-dollar coin). But now it's so familiar that people surely hear it as its own new word, even though the derivation is clear.
My symbols for the chords emphasize the combinatorial aspect of the chord, but that's only because there isn't any one standard symbol that explains each one. You could, for instance, call the first chord Dbmaj7(add6/9), but that doesn't do justice to the spacing of the chord with the sixth and ninth situated below the third (!), or the fact that it lacks a fifth. So it doesn't sound like the chord the symbol suggests.
I'm guessing this is why you asked what to call them - you hear them as single sonorities, but there is no single chord symbol that captures what that sonority is exactly.
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Sparked on by recent discussion on suspended chords, I'd like to see others have a go at analysing these chords from Jerry Goldsmith's Planet of the Apes. This passage has always stuck with me. Tonal-sounding chords in an atonal context, though I've got a feeling that they're more colouristic than functional.
Here are the 8 chords with left to right being top to bottom (screen capture isn't working), with my attempts at naming each chord. These are all transcribed from Goldsmith's sketches.
Chord No. 1: Db-Bb-Eb-C-F-C = ?
Chord No. 2: Eb-Bb-Eb-C-F-A = ?
Chord No. 3: Cb-Bb-Cb-Bb-Gb-Bb = ?
Chord No. 4: Gb-Db-Eb-Ab-C-Eb = ?
Chord No. 5: E-B-E-A#-C#-F# = ?
Chord No. 6: Db-Ab-Db-F-C-G = Db Lydian 11
Chord No. 7: G-D-E-A-B-E = G 6/9
Chord No. 8: F-C-A-Db-Ab-Db = F #9 b13
I would call these polytonal chords. The spacing encourages hearing them in two halves. Also, the top half is always consonant (or only mildly dissonant) within itself but, in all but one case (chord no. 7), sharply dissonant with the bottom half. This kind of dissonant clash of two essentially consonant sounds is a key element of polytonality and characterizes much of the music in Star Wars, for example. Though here, the lack of rhythmic vitality and the strange timbres give the music that appropriate feeling of being in an alien-like land.
As for labels, there's no established way of doing that. I would probably just identify the intervals (omitting doublings) above the bass for the bottom half (not an established notation as far as I know), and do the same or give the implied triad for the top half, like this:
Chord No. 1: Db-Bb-Eb-C-F-C = Db6/9 + F5
Chord No. 2: Eb-Bb-Eb-C-F-A = Eb5 + Fmaj
Chord No. 3: Cb-Gb-Cb-Bb-Gb-Bb = Cb5 + Gbmaj [the second Bb you had is actually Gb in the sketch]
Chord No. 4: Gb-Db-Eb-Ab-C-Eb = Gb5/6 + Abmaj
Chord No. 5: E-B-E-A#-C#-F# = E5 + F#maj
Chord No. 6: Db-Ab-Db-F-C-G = Db5 + F5/9 (or Fsus2)
Chord No. 7: G-D-E-A-B-E = G5/6 + A2/5 (or Asus2)
Chord No. 8: F-C-A-Db-Ab-Db = Fmaj + Db5
The 12-tone row is layered overtop of these as something largely independent, a view supported by the fact that it usually isn't part of the polychord sounding.
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Thanks Prometheus.
Another cool one that I'm not entirely sure how to describe happens in the theme to Jurassic Park. Essentially its derived from the temporary switch to Mixolydian (b7 in major):
Here it is in C: https://www.dropbox.com/s/s26g7ekeoy2cb6w/JP.png
1:34ish in the theme song.
There are a lot of ways of describing that chord and choosing the most appropriate name depends on the context. So much of the way harmony is taught emphasizes chords as structures in their own right, when that actually is not the most important factor in harmonic analysis. The two things that are most important are context and function, which go hand-in-hand.
The chord you cite above has Bb-Eb-Ab with Eb in the bass. One might call it a "quartal chord", i.e., a chord built in fourths rather than thirds, but that might be a bit misleading and not really tell us anything about how the chord is used.
The beginning of that same phrase alternates between I and IV chords, so with Eb again in the bass for this chord and having all but the G in common, it sounds a lot like IV, which of course has subdominant function. In fact, from all the IV chords at the start of the phrase, it sounds like the G has been replaced with the Ab. In that sense, the chord might best be described as an Eb chord with a 4th substituting for the 3rd. In other words, an Ebsus4 with subdominant function.
That makes the most sense to me because of the chord's context. There are also other sus chords in this theme, like at the end of the first phrase, where we get Bb-F-Eb, or a Bbsus4 chord with tonic function.
I talk more about this theme on my blog: http://www.filmmusicnotes.com/john-williams-themes-part-5-of-6-theme-from-jurassic-park/
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All John williams needs to do is figuire out all the themes that needs to be created. Lucas and JJ if they are smart and looking forward on their investment, will need to give john williams an idea of whats going on within the three films and what needs to be created. I'm sure it won't take williams a week or two. The rest is orchestrations.
Williams's SW scores are much more than just a bunch of nice tunes and some orchestration.
Well, of course. A composer can be given the same themes and write a score that sounds nothing like Williams. So it's a combination of material and technique.
But there is something to be said for the themes themselves as contributing to the quality of a score. Surely that's part of the reason why Empire is one of the all-time greatest. Vader's theme, Yoda's theme, Han Solo and the Princess - all are iconic themes in themselves. (Another big part would be the unmatched action writing of cues like "The Asteroid Field" and "Battle in the Snow".)
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Can't see your pic Quint
As for Koray's pic I dunno who it is.
You don't know who Ennio Morricone is? Over here, he's more famous than John Williams.
Well, I guess the thing is that he hasn't done much of anything in the US since De Palma's Mission to Mars in 2000, and that film didn't have a huge impact. I grew up in a household where Morricone's music was prized, so I had the advantage of being exposed to it early. I'm always surprised that he's not more famous than he is in North America.
Still, I feel his music is just as great as Williams' (yes, just as great), though in a different way. Morricone knows how to get the most out of the popular music traits of unique instrumentations and simple chord progressions, minimalist tendencies of repeated musical figures, and how to mix those with the traditional symphony orchestra, especially strings (which always seem to have a distinctive "Morricone" sound to them on recordings for some reason) and trumpet, an instrument he mastered early in his career. His music has the ultimate eclectic yet irresistibly attractive sound.
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I think that's an important point. I remember a thread Stefan started
It's Steef!
Oh...
Sorry about that. Steef. Got it.
At least I didn't say Stef.
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I wonder if the Oscars won't do something similar in the near future.
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Cool. Has he been given any other lifetime achievement awards before?
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Most of my favorite Williams scores are for imaginative, whimsical movies that are not especially grounded in reality.
I think that's an important point. I remember a thread Stefan started on what score made us JW fans, and if I recall correctly the results largely divided among three landmark scores (depending much on our ages): Star Wars for those who grew up in the 70s/80s or before, Jurassic Park for those who grew up in the 80s/90s, and Harry Potter for those who grew up in the 90s/2000s.
Those films are about as fantasy-based as you can get. So I think it says a lot about what kind of music we like best from JW and why he probably hasn't done really any documentary work.
His music seems best at making the unreal a reality.
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But it does fit in with his reticence to discuss his past in great detail. So perhaps less strange and more just damn disappointing.
I'm glad you've been so diligent in collecting biographical information on him. It will be great to have a reputable source on his life.
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Do we know which three cues were used to create the concert version? Sounds like it was a mix of main title and end credit cues (i.e., different versions of those).
Funny thing is, in the film, we don't actually get the fanfare the way it starts off the concert version, with that timpani roll over which the theme is announced. So I'm supposing that came from some unused version of a main title or end credit cue. Do we know if this is true?
SCOREPEDIA: Guidelines, Suggestions, and Q&A
in General Discussion
Posted
Congratulations on some very fine work on Poltergeist, Uni. It's a good example of what's possible on the site. Well done.
For style of the score, I don't know this one well enough to fill it in myself, but what I'm suggesting is a brief paragraph or two that gives us a sense of why the score sounds like it does. The section would discuss some details of the score in terms of:
- Harmony - things like whether it's tonal, atonal, or somewhere in between, and if one dominates the score; also perhaps the genre the harmony evokes - for tonal, there's classical, jazz, popular, folk, and perhaps even more specific breakdowns of these (Mozart-like classical, Coltrane-like jazz, etc.); and for atonal, whether it's freely atonal, twelve-tone, aleatoric (chance music), experimental, etc.
- Melody - whether there are full-phrased themes (a la Williams) or short motifs (a la Herrmann), whether the melody is largely on-beat (more of a classical Hollywood trait) or more off-beat (in a more jazz or popular vein), whether there is a melody at all (often not in modernist scores), and perhaps something of the genre of the melody (this is usually tied to genre of the harmony as described above)
- Rhythm - whether it's generally rhythmically active or more relaxed, whether it has a regular or irregular meter or lacks a sense of pulse altogether, whether there are syncopations (off-beat accents) or not (again, this strongly ties into the genre)
- Instrumentation - speaks for itself, but would be good to describe a few unique aspects of the score in this respect
- Timbres - tone colour, meaning the quality of the sound - especially useful for odd uses of instruments or electronically-created ones
- Textures - whether it's usually the full orchestra blasting away, or small groups from the orchestra, or combinations thereof, or something in between
In analyzing style, different scores will call for emphasis on different combinations of these aspects. If I was analyzing a Williams score, for instance, I would focus on harmony, melody, and instrumentation, whereas if I were analyzing a Zimmer score, I would focus more on rhythm, timbre, and texture.
This may seem overwhelming, but not a whole lot has to be said to cover the main points of a score in these respects. Harmony's probably the hardest because it requires some musical training or at least an ability to discern different musical styles like jazz, pop, classical, etc. from the harmony of the music.
Hope this helps.