indy4

Unless you count his municipal banned!

You think THAT'S stupid..? I think it's stupid when people kick another person in the face for no reason. I think it's stupid when people bully another solely to compensate for their own unhappiness.
This "troll" explained pretty well why he felt it was important and his reasoning was far from stupid. It was stupid of members here to accuse him of asking money from others members. He never did, but somehow that falsehood has preserved, judging from this thread a year later. Now that's really stupid.

People seem to be bored of some of the discussion here lately,so I thought I'd share my "Music Muse Awards", which is little more than a bunch of lists

My opinions aren't going to be very popular I'm afraid, but I'll share them anyways.

http://music-muse.com/2013/02/12/music-muse-awards-2012/

What were your favourites or impressions of 2012?

MIND: BLOWN!

In 2007, John Williams was rehearsing with my school’s orchestra and I spent the week attending these rehearsals since there was so much to learn just from being there and observing. I was back stage and got to meet and talk to him on several opportunities which was very exciting for me.
 
The concert program included his standards such as E.T., Star Wars, Imperial March, Raiders, Jurassic Park, etc., plus the Horn Concerto with Jim Thatcher on horn (he was the horn soloist in “JFK” Arlington cue.). I waited back stage where JW would come to lead the orchestra on the first day of rehearsing and about one minute before rehearsal (after the orchestra was tuned up), he was walking towards me (there was no other way for him to go since I was at the back stage entrance. His eyes met mine and I mumbled something incoherent that must have sounded like cave man talk (“me picture you give”) or something. I was very nervous having him look me in the eyes from just two feet away. I recall him saying: “there will be time for that later.” he was direct but focused since he was on the clock and had to start right then. I sat and watched the first rehearsal back stage from the orchestra’s venue. He started off by telling us what a pleasure it was for him to work with us and how much he enjoyed working with young musicians. He also mentioned finishing up a meeting with Spielberg and Lucas just a few minutes earlier since they were working on “Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the Crystal Skull” at the time.
 
The security was tight and they prevented video and pictures during rehearsal so these were all sneaked pictures. I have several videos as well during the rehearsals mostly pretending the camera was off. I’m still not clear why the extra security but I gather it is just because there is a monetary value on these things so it must be managed. I would be surprised if JW himself cared as much as his managers but I’m sure there are others on this site more in the know than I am.
 
JW never seemed worried, never was condescending when a wrong note was hit, etc. For example, if a horn cracked a high note in E.T., you didn’t get any indication that he wanted to call that out. Instead, he was beyond courteous to the players. One example that I vividly recall was during I believe Princess Lea’s theme, it starts with a long flute solo. He told the young flautist, “you played that so beautifully, I won’t conduct you. Just play as you feel it should be played and I’ll start on bar 3”. It was something to that affect. The whole orchestra applauded her but I have to think being told something like that by JW was life changing for her.
 
He did not explain his music much but always demonstrated respect for the players. For example, letting all the non-essential players (strings) leave for one of the Harry Potter cues that was winds alone. I believe the cue was for that crazy bus. He said they can leave if they go quietly and every one instead stayed in their seats to watch and observe.
 
The overall sense of the man was of a mentor rather than a tyrant. He never raised his voice and anytime he said anything, the orchestra was 100% in attention (rare). Spending the week with him, you also get the distinct impression he is a very generous though guarded man. I recall someone nearly shaking with excitement coming out of his trailer. I asked him what happened and he showed me a letter of recommendation signed by JW. Basically, as I put the details together, this person who I didn’t know had a story that touched JW and he agreed to hear him out and offer his powerful endorsement. I don’t know any more details of who this was or what it was about other than that, but I did think it demonstrated a human, paternal side to JW that is hard to see except up close. It was a very little moment but memorable.
 
He also offered some of us composers personal advice at one stage after that days rehearsal. We all introduced ourselves and his guidance was something along the lines of “follow your passions rather than the flavor of the month”. If this had come from someone else like a teacher or parent, it might have seemed trite but coming from him, it seemed revelatory and profound.
 
In general, I found him to be utterly professional, disciplined, genuinely humble, and sincerely appreciative (dare I say even surprised) of the excited performers attention. He has very discerning ears but also doesn’t nitpick. Most of the direction came in terms of phrasing and a few minor balance tweaks but I was overall surprised how little control he put on the performance. They just understand his intentions and guessing by the fact that we all grew up with his themes, I suppose it’s not a surprise they knew the material so well. There were still moments where I felt the percussion is too loud but he didn’t seem bothered by it. For example, the snare drum in Imperial March was louder than the soundtracks but that wasn’t commented on. An example of how humble he is, he repeatedly stepped aside during the applause to let a soloist stand and get their moment. Since this was a concert where every five minutes came an applause, he was very frequently stepping aside for others to bow who were just starting off. He never demonstrated any hint of stress or pressure that he might be under with his day job scoring a big film. If there was any insecurity ("might I fail? what if India Jones 4 bombs? When will i get the time to write 100 minutes of music?") absolutely none of it was detected. Some composers can be very insecure about how their music is percieved, but here, there was just focused, non threatening attention to details.
 
A few times I did find myself looking at his head thinking how cool it is that all this brilliance comes from that guy who’s brain is just oozing with ideas. There was no moment of "ah hah, now I understand his secret" but rather a reminder of how dilligent hard work and respectfulness can pay off big over time. And I completely agree with Pete in this thread who said: "There really aren't any short cuts. And genetics play a part too. Obviously some parts of his brain are firing off a greater number of little electric charges compared to the norm. A happy congruence of a brain geared for creativity, a love of music, a rich musical childhood, and the timing of his birth giving him opportunities to learn his craft when TV required composers to compose a hell of a lot. Not to mention one hell of a work ethic."
 
It was a wonderful privilege to experience this and every minute was valuable.
 
The top picture is of Jim Thatcher who was playing the horn solo on the concerto. Jim said it was extremely difficult and he was quite nervous.

So you think everything about it is dreadful, but you love it?
Stefan...

THE OMEN of JWFan

Just another happy day at JWFan dawned and the moderator went to work. Until...

Moderator: Well color me purple and call me the antichrist! Who the hell left this petition for Lord of the Rings subforum on my desk?!!! And in Sindarin no less! This devilry has to stop!

Moderator: Damn! I didn't know changing the fonts to Tengwar-only would have this much backlash!
Suddenly everybody is acting like the devil had invaded. But this is a JWFan MB after all! Perhaps I will have to do something about those LotR threads!

Moderator: Honey why is there a heap of LotR threads sticking out from under the bed?
Have you been cavorting with the enemy? In my bed?!!! This devilry has to stop! I am contacting KM. He'll know what to do.

Joey: [Referring to all the LotR threads at JWFan] Look, I'm not just some bystander. I was the one that found them.
Moderator: And I'm the one that's supposed to kill them.
[Revealing daggers from King Mark]
Moderator: These are knives. He wants me to stab them! He wants me to delete the threads, the children of the MB.
Joey: Those are not children.
Moderator: How can he know that? Maybe he's wrong. It's insane. I won't have anything to do with deleting little LotR threads. They are not responsible. I won't do it!
Moderator: [Tosses the knives away]
Joey: Well, if you won't do it... I will!
The powers of the evil Shore/LotR threads were still at large and unfortunately Joey couldn't carry out his task as he was mere moments after taking up the Daggers of KM decapitated by a very sharp and heavy 8 page sheet of the Tolkien thread, which fell off a passing truck transporting it to the MB. And so the evil devilry continued to haunt JWFan.
But there was no escape for the Moderator of his destiny and eventually he accepted the Daggers of KM and with heavy heart set to perform his bloody but necessary business.

Moderator (sobbing hysterically): Die LotR threads! Die!!!

A thief in the night? Maybe Les Mis should have won best score.

Again what does that have to do with 2012? I don't think you understand how annual awards ceremonies work. This isn't the best Bond score ever category.

It shore is.

This is just how I feel.

Let's not frisbee a term like genius. Film composers seldom are geniuses and neither Horner nor Zimmer deserve the honor - for different reasons.

I'd like to hear more prominent but accompaniement piano parts, like in Snowy's theme. I love a solo piano, but I feel a lot of times people forget that it can be very effective in supporting or interacting with other sections of the orchestra.

I vividly remember the Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back premieres even though I was very young. As soon as I realized there would be a sequel to Star Wars, I (and all my friends) were so excited. It was the talk of the playground and it felt like the day of ESB premiere would never arrive. As the date approached, there were more teasers and even a few re-releases of Star Wars just to wet our appetites. There were trading cards of Star Wars that would eventually “leak” an ESB card. It totally blew our minds to see those new planets and enemies. I couldn’t have imagined how the characters would survive such new adventures and this completely stirred our imaginations. The day of the premiere finally arrived. I had to wait a few days to see it (which felt like FOREVER!!) and some of my brothers friends had seen it before I. They wouldn’t give any specific details other than to say how great it was and that it definitely felt like it needed a sequel unlike Star Wars. The weekend finally arrived and my entire family went to the Playhouse 4 theater to see it. I was shocked to see a line that wrapped around the theater. I had never seen that before. In line, the only thing anyone could talk about was various theories of the film. It was completely sold out and our seats were quite close to the screen. I recall the anticipatory excitement and how long it felt to be let in. Everyone coming out of the previous screening looked so "enlightened". The feeling of anticipation was so intense. Everyone was excited and at the moment of the “A Long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” there was absolute total silence. Then the B flat blast hit us and the audience and I erupted with unstoppable excitement! This moment had FINALLY arrived!! The closest I could describe the feeling was how a child feels about summer break on the first day of school. It would never arrive but as it gets close your whole being is focused on that approaching date. I vividly remember the range of emotions at the start. From wonder, to fear, to hope, to excitement, etc. I had waited 1/3 of my life for this and immediately felt so relieved to see the old characters I had obsessed about since Star Wars. I remember being completely absorbed in the story and the character’s plight almost immediately. I first thought Yoda sounded a lot like fozzy bear. But seconds later completely forgot about it being a puppet. The action was so exciting and intense. Especially memorable was the asteroid belt and the Hoth battles which my friends and I replayed countless times on the playground. Sometimes I played Luke, sometimes Han, sometimes a villian, sometimes a nobody, but we went through it so, so much exploring the story through every permutation. The sense of dread when Luke finally confronts his nemesis, Vader, was inescapable. Everyone was absolutely glued to the film recalling the shocking end of Ben Kenobi when he confronted Vader. Vader was a very formidable adversary. I remember a lot of people laughing at the jokes like “laugh it up fuzz ball” and the various admirals getting killed by vader. The utter despair towards the end was inescapable and we gasped at learning that vader was luke’s father. No one believed it and afterwards we had to debate it impact and truthfulness of this revelation. It was utterly shocking. The ending was disappointing only in that we MUST know the answer to the open questions. Was Vader really Luke’s father? Why did Obi wan lie? Will Han survive? What will happen to our hero’s next? I also remember being blown away by the score. It was so much better than I expected and I expected a great score. This was a very real memory of just how perfect the music was in every way. I probably saw the film another 8 or 9 times only to reexperience the score. The music at Han's death scene was so emotional and the ending so tragic. I was only 9 years old but clearly remember not being able to get the ideas, characters, and most importantly the music out of my mind. It exceeded my expectation in every way. My playground friends and I could not stop talking about the film and I’m sure I saw it at least ten times.
Thanks for the question and this brief trip down memory lane. Those were good days and I’ll never forget it.

what a wishy washy answer. It is not impossible, you simple pick a piece of music that you keep going back too over and over. What harm is there for you to name one, or several is so be it but it's not a difficult or life and death question.

Incanus' morning ritual.

So I can really download movies for free with this link? Thank you first time poster!

It's sad that nowadays the word "unique" in film music (and I'm not referring to you Taikomochi but the general notion that prevails), means "unique in orchestration".
because there's nothing unique about harmony and melody which are the 2 most important attributes of music.

Hello guys,

yesterday i put online my new piano tribute, a medley on the music of E.T

here is the link.



soon, will come 2 new tribute on star wars.
it's called episode 7 for hook and episode 8 for E.T because the episode 1 2 3 4 5 6 will be exclusively done on star wars (logic !! ). episode 1 has already be done on Yoda. you can find it as well on my channel at www.youtube.com/didiermartini , including other tributes to christopher reeve, john barry, alan menken, etc ...

thanks for watching and your comments.

thank you very much ! (i love the Twin Peaks soundtrack ! )
the only thing that i can tell who can explain the fact that it's not as perfect as it must be or that i would be (i play this much much much better normally if i can use my ears. for example, i play usually over the moon like on the record) is that i'm an hearing trauma guy (i had an hearing accident during a jam session 18 years ago and can't listen to any sound anymore. the complete reverse of being deaf. sound become painful.) and that i record all my videos in one take without almost hearing what i played, and never listen again what i recorded because sound make pains to me. i did the video/audio editing etc by watching my hands on the video to know what i was playing and when, not by listening the recording. usually i never edit the piano recording track but E.T has been a nightmare to do, and i had to do it (that's why so some fade by moment).
same, if it's not good, i can't record it again, because i don't know if it's good or not (i ask to other people to tell me if it's "ok" to publish it or not" so it's never perfect, and usually, i suffered so much to record it, that i always try to never record it again and publish it "like it is" with his mistakes or issues.
E.T has been a nightmare in every step to do, 2 months of work to make the video right.
usually it take me 1 month per video to make the subtitles, make the video being ok, watching the midi editor to see if i didn't do any note mistakes during the recording, asking to a friend to listen to my recording and he tells me if i played bad one passage etc and try to fix it myself or he fix the issue himself etc ...
i never listened what i recorded again (that's the same thing for my others videos), sometimes i'm forced to do it, and i listen one time only after recording it so i can hear if i did very "bad mistake" during the recording and take the decition to put the take in the trashcan or not, of if i can save it.
so i have absolutly no idea if it's good or not. it's a friend of mine who mix the piano, so it's his piano taste in term of reverb . i have certainly other taste in term of piano sound, but i will (maybe) never know it .
so i have absolutly no idea as well if there is too much reverb or not for my taste, i'll discover it one day if i have a new healing .
it's completly improvised and as i can't play piano anymore or pratice it (i didn't do it since 18 years) i take the original sheets, make a basic arrangement with only the melody and notated chords and i improvise on it by filming myself.
my speakers are in an another room to where i am when i record a tune, to lower as much as possible the sound of the piano so i don't hear 90 to 95% of the sound of it when i play it. (because each sound and notes make pure pains),
i almost listen and hear nothing when i record the song, the biggest issue is the pedals. without hearing the decay of a note, i do usually a lot of mistake on it, and a friend of mine or the one who do the mix usually fix it for me.
i put this "technic" to an upper lever as i recorded some videos with the amp completly turned off so without listen to what i was recording at all because i did them in a time where i couldn't listen to anything at all. it's still the same, but i recorded .E.T, Hook for example at a very very low volume, because, well, sometimes, it's so much frustration to not being able to listen to what you're playing that you accept to suffer to do it.
here are some examples recorded without hearing what i played at all : i always put a warning message on the videos who have been recorded this way without hearing nothing at all :



here is the only video where i played it by completly hearing and listening to what i was playing normally at full volume during an healing time in 2008. (hello to Marc who accepted nicely to play on this version of marion ! )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erxxeAnG-BA
thank you very much for taken the time to listen to my video and much more , commenting it, because it's unfortunatly very rare ! thank you !
you can see / listen to everything i recorded on my website here : http://www.didiermartini.com

Fantastic! Thanks so much for posting, Marty.

Agreed Roald. The composer has been pushing the bounds of his range all throughout his illustrious career. He's played with synths, exercised many avant-garde techniques and explored many diverse musical styles (ex. minimalism, atonality, atmospheric stuff, etc). I don't think you'll find another composer who continues to push their boundaries like Williams does.
And what does it mean to be "innovative" nowadays anyways?
Williams has a unique musical voice, and that's something I really appreciate and love.

Am I the only one here who loves Williams' music exactly for what it is..?
The man has proven to be extremely diverse. From the rock/electric guitar solo in The Eiger Sanction to the choral writing of Empire Of The Sun. From the jazz pieces of his earlier scores to the ethnic Memoirs Of A Geisha. From the techno-beat sequence in A.I. to the orchestral bombast of Jurassic Park.
Williams has done it all, literally. And yet we 'accuse' him of not straying too far from familiair roads.
I really don't understand...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMdCx-4TmuU