karelm

I thought this was worth its own thread, it's so cool! The Polaris ship is the first fully commercial space walk (meaning not by a country but a private company). Additionally, at 1,400 km (1,000 miles altitude), it's the highest any human has been since Apollo 17 (1972). Here they are pitching music education and playing Rey from Star Wars in orbit! More details: Polaris Dawn astronaut plays 'Star Wars' song in music video beamed from space (video) | Space

John Williams was played in outer space this morning!

Yeah, I've seen bios that say two symphonies and a sinfonietta. I think what it was is more of the 1986 revised version of the symphony was different enough that he might have referenced it as a new work and others took that to imply a new symphony. Similar to how Prokofiev's Symphony No. 4 are two different works. There is Symphony No. 4, op. 47 (1930) lasting about 22 minutes and Symphony No. 4, op. 112 (1947) lasting 35 minutes. To most people these are two entirely different works though the op. 112 is technically a major revision of the op. 47. But I think with JW, the challenge is these work(s) have rarely been available so other than memories of those who performed or heard it, we don't have anything we can look at. He must not think very high of it. I remember seeing it available to rent about 10 years ago but no sign of it anymore.

Over the weekend, I finally saw The Magnificent Seven (1960). A great, great film that is a retelling of Kurosawa's Seven Samari (1954). This one stars lots of tough guys like Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, and a bunch more. What I loved about this film is how much charm, wit, and depth all the characters have. They all have vulnerabilities and longings while never weighing the film down. For example, the tough guys make fun of the villagers for being so weak and unprepared to defend themselves, but they later realize how a life of peace and joy has eluded them as gunmen, making them long for the peace and simple life the villagers enjoy. Chuck Bronson laments not having a family and no one to remember him once he's gone. Even the villain, Eli Wallach, has motivation, depth, and charm. Very good movie with high stakes, charm, and fun.

Totally, they have so, so many great stories that shed a lot of light on JW, his childhood, creative process, and just who he is.

Damn, this music would be great in a godzilla movie.

American Film Institute (wordfly.com) I think it's only at the AFI festival.

It's just combined staff like two horns on a single staff where they play different parts. You should think of it as two sets of multiple players (or two stations with multiple instruments each), but each set might include multiple people if that makes sense. For example, in this excerpt, the top staff requires three players (from top to bottom cymbal, triangle, and suspended cymbal) on a single staff and the grand staff starting at bar 75 changes the suspended cymbal to the glockenspiel. Then there is separately a second part which can also have between one, two, or three players. Sometimes the players have to jump around (glock player in part 1 is also playing vibraphone in part 2 just as an example). Think of it as percussion stations. Each station has multiple instruments and multiple people but the total number of players might just be three or four. There are lots of reasons for this, first the Hal Leonard scores want to be practical translations meant for rental and performance. Having more than three percussionists usually means the orchestra has to hire another player for the entire program and rehearsals. Orchestras tend to not like to do that as they don't have a lot of extra profit to spend so trying to manage the resources to get a good performance is what you are seeing here. What usually happens is the players will take some liberties, but this is showing they are making effort to make this practical and require minimal running around and reasonable number of players to pull off in theory.

That was quite good and shows some nice technique. Does the scene not have dialog? I get you might have had to mute the existing sound with score but be cautious about overwriting and covering up dialog. You are basically scoring the action very heavily and I'd suggest also adding more emphasis on the emotions of the characters. For example, at 0:34, you are scoring the running but what does Ratatouille feel? Is he scared for his life? Desperate to escape and get whatever's in his mouth to someone else? I'd suggest you playing more to the emotion of the scene without sacrificing the action. You can certainly keep the intensity and action elements, but it isn't really helping tell the story which the music needs to do. I don't know exactly what's happening, but you score it as a chase and that's what I see but is that what's actually happening? Without capturing the story, it feels like there are some missed moments and tension risers as the chase proceeds. At around 1:07, the villain seems closest to capturing Ratatouille, shouldn't this be the moment of maximum tension in the cue? Generally, be cautious about following the action/events of the scene too closely at the cost of the story/emotion elements. I don't really get a sense of fear, relief, anger, hope, etc. Just running/chasing. With all that said, you did a very fine job, good themes, and an exciting cue.

As do most conductors. JW prefers the best musical performance which might include flubs over the one that is more correct but lacking magic.

...and that's how I met your mother.

It's easy to track down excerpts from films without score. If that doesn't work, then mute the audio on a clip. Composers have to do that too when they need to get rid of temp sound or temp score. Also just practice on good production - making it sound production ready. The days of it sounding like a miserable computer mockup for demo purposes are gone. Be cautious to musically work around dialog.

A girl was whistling the imperial march in my parking garage. She was out of tune so I whistled it back in tune and heard silence.

Star Wars (1977) was filmed at Elstree Studios in London as was Kubrick's "The Shining" (1980). I just watched a behind the scenes video of the Shining and wonder if the crew had as little faith and disrespect for Kubrick's film as they did for Star Wars. Both Kubrick and Lucas were highly regarded at this time and both were visionary directors but Kubrick seems to have a firmer grasp on his production. First is this true that Kubrick was held in greater respect by the production crew than Lucas at that time? Perhaps the Elstree crew was just cynical to all and hated everyone? I'm curious to know how Kubrick was perceived by this same crew compared to Lucas? List of films and television shows shot at Elstree Studios - Wikipedia

I always felt Emperor's death from Return of the Jedi was multi-religioso in a 1950's biblical epic way. For example, gives off the vibes from Alfred Newman's The Robe. Remember Newman was Williams' boss when he got started in film.