BTR1701

Why? It's not been recorded and mixed to sound like it's being played in a concert hall. Why would it? It has noting to do with concert halls. Orchestras don't sound like that in recording studios, either. I assume the point of using an orchestra is to sound like an orchestra, no? That clip sounds like a 10-year-old got hold of daddy's mixing board and started playing around with it.

Am I the only one sick of thundering electronic drums overshadowing everything in soundtracks these days? Every single soundtrack sounds the same to me. Galloping drums, simplistic themes (if the composer even bothers with themes), and fluttering string ostinatos. These scores can almost be copy-pasted from one film to the next. And whoever mixed that clip above needs his head checked. When the brass section and the violin section sound equally powerful, you've done something wrong.

SYMPHONY CROWD HEARS OF AN ASSASSINATION The radio microphones were present at a Boston Symphony Orchestra concert at an extraordinary moment in American history. On November 22, 1963, conductor Erich Leinsdorf was leading the regular Friday afternoon BSO concert at Symphony Hall. Before the program began, it had been reported across the nation that president John F. Kennedy had been shot by a sniper while riding in a motorcade in Dallas. It was known, too, that his injuries were serious, but that was all the information that was available. The orchestra then went on to play the Funeral March from Beethoven's Eroica Symphony for the grieving audience. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVNKNz-lc6k#t=606 One of the last remaining witnesses to the orchestra's funeral march speaks about his experience: As is evidenced by the radio announcer's preamble few in the hall, even backstage, knew in advance what had happened or what, as far as the concert was concerned, was about to occur. One of those few, and one of the only remaining witnesses to that event still with the orchestra, was its librarian, then and now, William Shisler. In a phone interview, he spoke publicly for the first time about his recollections. The memories, he confides, are still painful. He hasn’t been able to bring himself to listen to the broadcast in the 50 years since. Along with many others he had already heard about the shooting and that Kennedy was hospitalized. "I was in the library working on scoring some music, when my wife called from our home in Needham, Massachusets – it's around 10 miles from Boston," he says, "She liked to watch the soap operas in the afternoon. On this day she was watching one called As The World Turned. And the world did turn. The program was interrupted to report the shooting in Dallas. So she phoned me immediately and I was one of the first to hear that in Symphony Hall." Word quickly spread, but as the musicians prepared for their afternoon concert and the audience started to arrive it was not yet known whether or not Kennedy had been killed. "Nobody in Symphony Hall was aware. It was near 1 p.m. in Dallas when they announced it, which was nearly 2 p.m. in Boston, coinciding almost exactly with the scheduled start of our regular Friday afternoon concert." With the show due to start in less than ten minutes' time, Shisler got a relayed message from Leinsdorf himself. Run to the archives, put out and distribute the music for Beethoven's Eroica Symphony. The president is dead. Such was the rush that Shisler remembers little of his feelings from that moment. His memories get clearer of the minutes immediately following, when it was incumbent upon him to hasten to the stage with scores in hand. "The musicians were already there on the stage, in their places and of course the hall was filled with people. I had to tell each of the musicians as I was handing out the music what was going on. That was the first they knew of the death. It wasn't an easy moment, for them or for me." In the short pause before the conductor strode out with his own heavy burden, Shisler walked, in something of a daze, back into the wings and then out to the auditorium where he took up his favored listening position, at the back of the first balcony where he could hear but not see. The entrance to the library is nearby and he would sometimes slip through the balcony door to listen in during rehearsals and concerts. He was an accustomed presence there, none of the ushers would have detected anything unusual. Everything seemed normal. Only Shisler knew how different this concert was about to be. "I was – standing there," he says, haltingly, trying to express the strangeness of the moment, "Knowing he was going to make the announcement and I was about to witness that moment. I had already had my own gasp upon hearing the news, and now I'm standing there witnessing the audience about to have the same reaction. When it came, of course Leinsdorf came out and announced to the audience and there was this huge gasp, it was very emotional." Some people left, rushing out in grief. But most, he says, stayed as the orchestra played. Many cried. Shisler was among them. "I was brought to tears by the movement of the Beethoven. It's such beautiful music anyway."

Ah, okay. Well, thanks for that bit of info, anyway.

In the batch of Last Crusade sheet music cues, there's one called "6m3 Alternate Start", but there's no main cue 6m3 included. So we have the alternate, but not the original. Anyone know what the title of cue 6m3 is?

Tie for me between LAST CRUSADE and EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.

So the only thing that stops you, is the likelihood of getting caught? Lovely.

Indeed. Which is why a violation of copyright is an entirely different issue than stealing.Yeah, but the guy has made it clear that he has no problem with either infringement *or* stealing. If he wants it, and you have it, and you won't let him buy it, he's of the opinion that he's entitled to take it.

Maybe I'm in the midst of contract negotiations with a supplier, maybe my inventory is tied up in probate, maybe any number of things of which you have no clue, but nevertheless apparently believe it's your right to just take a bike anyway, merely because you want one and feel entitled to it. But he apparently doesn't care whether the item is physical or not. He said it in his own words: whether it's a bike or an mp3, if he wants something of mine, he feels entitled to take it, my feelings to the contrary be damned.The only thing that will apparently (and bizarrely) stop him is a locked door.

So the fact that I own the bikes, paid for them with my own money, and will suffer a loss when you take one, is irrelevant to you. You want one, so you should be able to take one, and the fact that I own them matters nothing to you. Want-take-have. Wonderful world-view you've got there. It's bizarre that you have so little regard for the rights of others, but yet you balk at breaking and entering. If you're willing to steal a bicycle (and, one supposes, anything else) from its rightful and legal owner just because you want it and think you're entitled to it, it's strange indeed that something as minor as a closed window or a locked door becomes a rubicon that you will not cross. Or is it just that the penalty is much greater if you're caught doing those things while stealing that gives you pause? That would indeed be more in line with your "it's all about me" philosophy of life.

Really? So if I have a bicycle business and decide not to sell my bikes anymore and close the doors, it's okay for you to break into my building and take whichever bike you want?

I just saw this album on iTunes while doing my monthly perusal of the synthesized dreck that film music has become and saw this under new releases. Clicked on it, only to get "The item you have requested is not available." Then I come over here and find out that not only has everyone here managed to download it, but it contains all sorts of unexpected goodness and it's only available on iTunes, so I can't go anywhere else and get it. Seriously... WTF?

I am contemptuous of every film score. And you... Ah, you're one of those too-cool-for-school types. Gotcha.

Because familiarity breeds contempt? If that's the case, you should be contemptuous of every film score-- hell, *all* music-- because everything is derivative of and influenced by something else. LOL! EMPEROR JOSEPH: My dear young man, don't take it too hard. Your work is ingenious. It's quality work. There are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect. MOZART: Which few did you have in mind, Majesty?

How does one go about punctuating one's ears? Do you shove commas and semicolons into them or how does that work? Why do people keep saying this like it's a bad thing? Copland wrote some fantastic music. Appalachian Spring, Rodeo, Danzon Cubano (admittedly not much Americana in that last one) are amazing.

Why can't you say?

Here's a spoiler: Lincoln dies at the end. And the boat sinks at the end of TITANIC.

Huh, dude, definition of a prequel according to Wikipedia: So, either your definition of a prequel is different to the "official one", or you're wrong, because The Hobbit was written before LOTR, and was in no way intended by Tolkien as an introduction to LOTR when he wrote it. Which is why I used the proper term, prologue. Dude.

Yep. And the literary work itself is a prequel or prologue. No. Just no. Yes, it is. I know Lord of the Rings fans have elevated those books to some divine status where none of the regular rules of story-telling and literature apply, but THE HOBBIT perfectly fits the definition of a prequel (or prologue, to use the proper pre-film-era term). I don't know where you get those ideas. A work's status as a prologue to another work is not dependent on whether the subsequent work was already written or not, nor does it matter whether the author 'had an idea' about the subsequent work. What matters are the works themselves and in this case, THE HOBBIT lays the groundwork for and introduces the RINGS saga.

Yep. And the literary work itself is a prequel or prologue.

That kinda gets right to the heart of it, doesn't it? Parts of LINCOLN might sound similar to WAR HORSE but pretty much every other movie's score sounds just like the one before it. It's like they have a computer database of music they just cut and paste into each film depending on genre. Ostinato string arpeggios over synth drums and the 'themes'-- if you can call them that-- are just long sustained brass chords. Complaining about Williams being repetitive in this environment is the height of irony.

The fanfare at the end of "Never-Feast' from HOOK is great. My all-time favorites are from EMPIRE STRIKES BACK -- the one at 10:37-11:00 in the Battle of Hoth (when Luke ropes up and destroys the AT-AT with a grenade) and the one at 2:25-2:54 in Clash of the Lightsabers.

All I'm saying is that it was big event film of that summer. And it certainly made enough money to warrant further sequels.

Cameron's ALIENS was a pretty serious box office smash the summer it came out. It was all anyone was talking about and everyone I know was seeing it multiple times.

What's funny is that my high school used the music from Jupiter's slow, lyrical section as its alma mater (way back in 1984-1986) and it had been that way for many years before I got there. Good thing the Holst Foundation never knew about us!