TSMefford

I'm deviating from my planned post momentarily. But, the "Shawm" cue is a source cue. It can be heard in the film. Here, throughout the first minute. I believe it plays for an extended period before this clip begins as well. Maybe another 20 seconds or so): No idea, on why it was excluded. It's been asked, but I'm personally not going to be pushy with it. It's not much of a loss. EDIT: Damnit. I was DOUBLE ninja'd

Forgive me. This is a bit rambly. First of all, I want to express my sincere gratitude to everyone involved in making this set happen. Mike Matessino and La-La Land Records have pulled off quite a feat here. I never thought anyone would convince WB to let this happen first off, but low and behold they have and the results are stupendous. I highly doubt we would have gotten anywhere close to this had WB done this on their own. Mike is extraordinarily dedicated to his craft and it shows. The sound quality is absolutely superb, I mean I felt like I was back in 2001 listening to some of this material for the very first time. There are tracks throughout that I swear I had never heard before, but I had indeed. I had merely never heard them like this (See my next post for some of those examples). Then there’s the plethora of music that was able to be included, and it is phenomenal. Just when you think you have everything, there’s still more great gems to be found (Again, see my next post for my favorites of those). Of course, I can not forget about @Jay. The guy is so busy and dedicated to John Williams scores and just scores in general, and I have no doubt he’s deserved and earned such an awesome experience. I’d imagine and assume that Jay did his best to make sure that we’d all be satisfied with this awesome set, but above all that it was a superior experience of the music. That is definitely accomplished. Also have to give a shout out to the fabulous packaging. It’s has a good weight to it, and it is really something to look at. When I saw the initial package composite used on their Facebook page it honestly did look a little cheap, but when you have it in hand and see the great foiling and texture and again, the weight, you can really tell this is something special. It’s lovely! Probably the best looking score set I own! Now, as for the actual music, I am a bit younger here than I feel like most of you are. Harry Potter was my childhood, I feel like I was around Harry’s age when the first film came out. I also grew up in a rather unpleasant household and greatly appreciated the escape the Potter books, films, etc. provided. Now, I credit Jurassic Park with causing my pursuit of film-making, but despite the fantastic score, again, by Williams there it was ultimately Potter that spawned all this. The interest in film music that is. That music captivated me. And I am not joking when I say I have a memory of sitting in the park with a boombox and listening to the Chamber of Secrets score. I’m sure everyone around must’ve been like: Prisoner of Azkaban was yet another step in the growing obsession. That was in my ears non-stop for a good year I’d imagine. I think I even had the Hedwig’s Theme rendition from The Firebolt as a ringtone for a bit. (Side fun fact: The magic wand sound from PoA has been my ringtone for a good 6 years now. It’s quite the conversation starter.) This music started it all, led me here to the forum as well (I lurked for quite some time before joining the conversation). It has quite a special place in my heart, as do the books and films themselves. So, when I began to discover OSTs did not really have the whole score on them and many marvelous little pieces that I fell in love with in the films were nowhere to be found, I greatly hoped that WB would eventually release them. And it only took over a decade, not to mention 7...8 years after the series had wrapped up for it to finally happen. And sure, the Shawm cue might be missing, some things may be out of order (which I will admit has spawned some Azkaban specific queries regarding what some things actually are), but there is SO much here! Almost 8 hours of three utterly fantastic scores by John Williams for some of my favorite films from my childhood (and adulthood, who are we kidding?) and the presentation is stellar. Others have mentioned a similar sensation, but there were so many times listening to this music again that I felt I swear I’d never heard this or that before. It was a magical experience. So, thank you La-La Land, Mike, Jay, and anyone else I can thank for bringing such an amazing set to fruition and for also helping me relive some of my childhood and the joy I had watching these films and listening to this music. I’ve enjoyed every moment this week listening in the car on the way to work (what a way to start and end the day), and in all the downtime I had. Now, I do have some questions, but first I just wanted to point out some specific cues that I loved in my next post somewhere down the line.

A bit of fun I just whipped up:

Well said Jay. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at replacement discs over this. Come on.

Precisely. I am baffled that people assume that frequency cut off automatically means lossy. Not true at all. Sometimes it can mean that, but it does not always mean that. You can’t hear it at all. The end. The sound quality is utterly stunning.

Harry Potter, The John Williams Collection is better than everything.

I do have a lot to say like that @Jay. A rather long post in store that I haven't gotten to finish up yet. I should be able to tonight or tomorrow! The TL;DR / teaser of it is that this set means a great deal to me and is a huge milestone for so many of us, I think. I know I have commented this week whenever things are missing or different, etc. and there will inevitably be more like that the further we go, but I will be making sure that I take the time to let you all know how grateful I am for such an outstanding set. As I said, there is a lengthy post in the works. There is so much to be grateful for and I have some specific examples to call out as well. Coming soon!

Nice!

Yes. Sounds right to me.

So I was...almost right?

I was also under the impression that Williams wrote the teaser music based on the book, not the script or even a cut of the film. Therefore he wasn’t officially a composer for the film. WB needed him to score a sizzle reel, they liked it and decided to bring him on. I thought this was mentioned in one of the interviews with Mike.

Sure! Here ya go.

Shouldve grabbed Cuarón for Episode 9 lol I whole-heartedly agree with everything else in your post, but I did want to single this bit out and assure you that it is possible to do deep technical analysis and still enjoy the actual music. That’s why I specified different hats in my post earlier. Trust me, it is possible my friend. At least for me. 🙂 Oh wow. Just noticed this. That's my current gig as well!

We certainly make it difficult for you guys don’t we. XD.

Wow. That’s very interesting and unexpected. So it’s highly possible they just grabbed some stock percussion and overlayed it. Or did they go deep into the recordings and pull that out of some track? Hmm.

It’s so hard to do for me without writing a novel. LOL

Exactly. I’m not going to lose my head over why certain things were included when we have an outstanding set in front of us. Something I never thought would see the light of day officially, and certainly not this soon. However, that doesn’t mean I’m not curious to hear stories about why something was excluded, and I like to hear everything because I too have a filmmaking fascination and just want to know the process behind some of the decisions or recordings. I’ve mentioned I love music editing. Well, it means I’m fascinated by the music editing as well as the music itself. Which is why I reconstruct film edits for some of my favorite scores. I like to know what they did, how they did it, and why they might of done it so that I can be more educated when making these decisions down the line. Later on this weekend, I’ll be sharing much more about the set and some interesting film edit comparisons for those who are interested. None of this means that I do not appreciate the hard work of @Jay or MM and La-La Land. There’s two different hats being worn and in play here, my composer / musician hat and my Filmmaker / Music Editor hat. I can appreciate something one way and maybe be a little picky from a different angle, but ultimately I can not believe this set. The sound quality is utterly outstanding, the scores are amazing, and the alternates are beautiful and very cool to hear. I’m still working on my big post with thoughts and my favorite gems. So hopefully none of my minor things I’ve mentioned recently is construed as ruining the set for me. Not at all!

Exactly.

That’s Aunt Marge Points the Finger. I was referring to Shawm: Aunt Marge Points the Finger is nothing to fret about, but it’s included anyway so it’s all good.

Yesh it’s not a big deal To be fair, it’s like a minute long (at least in the film), but it seems like it’s mostly just a loop. Meh. It was kind of in that one podcast if people want it

Its just a source cue from PoA, named after the instrument, which Google defines as: Plays in the film before and during “Discussing Black”

My point was, why not include the Shawm cue specifically (a cue that was in the film) if you have 3-ish spare minutes? The set is utterly brilliant without it, but when importing into iTunes I noticed the length and just in the back of my head was like...huh. Why exclude Shawm? I assume there must be some other reason

I have similar questions as well. Disc 2 of Azkaban comes in at 1 hour and 16 minutes (according to iTunes) so there’s still a bit of room.

Hmmm