Face it, Michael Giacchino is the new John Williams

[JoeinAR 1,949]

No, FA there really isn't any reason you can't talk MG here, I just was really going after the grandiose statements.

[Luke Skywalker 1,803]

Back to Giacchino...will people look past the pastiche and huge movies he has connected himself to in order to take a look at what he is really doing musically? There is absolutely no substance. You can find 100% of his music elsewhere.

That clearly shows how little you know about Giacchino's music. He has now a distictive voice compared with his Williamesque early compositions, but the more i heard those, the more i realise how much Giacchino's voice was in those too, and how much its just a Williamesque style, but seldom you can hear a rip off. One example is the nazi theme, it sounds like something williams had composed, and i thought it was very similar's to Last crusade's but then i noticed there was not any similarity notes wise.

100%, meh, super overstatement if there ever was one...

Yes, clearly this shows how little I know about his music, ha. What a joke - presumption is king here. I follow as much of his music as I can - I will admit that I have not heard anything from The Trouble With Lou, No Salida or Redemption of the Ghost.

And I never mentioned he had ripped things off - he has, but that's another conversation. You can find his music elsewhere, this is indicative of a composer who lacks a voice (he's the king of pastiche right now). People confuse musical tendencies with having a voice. Giacchino has lots of musical tendencies, but no voice in my opinion.

To keep in line with your presumptions about what you apparently know about me, I will say to you, your post clearly shows how little you know about what it means to have a compositional voice. Pretty arrogant of me to say isn't it? Of course it is not my intention to presume to know about you, nor am I being arrogant - I only pen that line in order to highlight my point.

I look forward to the next presumptuous remark you have about me.

Wow...I'm sorry, i suppose.

Two things though. I dont apologize of critisizing your usage of '100%'. Its excessive and on the other hand no composer has either a 100% originality or original voice.

The other thing, from what i have experienced here, most people who dismiss Giacchino as pastiche composer have only heard a small percentage of his works, got this opinion on him and never tried anything more. You sounded like that. I should not have presumed you were like them since you are very new here.

But, if you let me joke here, 'meh, overreacting if there ever was one'

[Music Manifesto 0]

Yeah, the 100% comment was a bit harsh - just me being a sarcastic ass - criticism deserved.

I just wish Giacchino could break that barrier of sounding "cute." No matter how much I enjoy or dislike something of his (from serious music to comedic), I always come to the same two conclusions, usually in this order:

1) "Man, I just can't take this music seriously" - even when I enjoy it

2) "Come on, will you please modulate sometime in the next hour..." - I find his music to be very repetitive and pattern based, which is fine, my ears just get tired of the same thing over and over again. It seems like he tries to hide this tendency with a lot of textural things, which I find kind of boring anyway (the textures that is).

MOH: Frontline though, my favorite video game music next to Super Mario Brothers (which is so bad and yet so good at the same time).

[Marcus 390]

In general, I would have to agree with Music Manifesto's points.

Let me also add that I think Giacchino's problem is that he actually doesn't have chops, but is rather stuck trying to "emulate" sounds and textures that a really good composer with great technique will know how to do.

This is the basic problem with 99.999999% of film composers and film-music inspired composers.

All of his music has an "involuntary sense of minimalism", meaning everything tends to sound (to my snobbish classical ears, at least ) not quite full enough, or rather, not quite eloquent enough. It seems rough, coarse, and frankly uneducated.

I would still say he ranks higher than most film composers today, simply because he seems to have more musical ambition, but, as I've stated elsewhere, that says more about his colleagues than about him. Unfortunately.

I think his sense of harmony is extremely limited, I hear very limited linear writing abilities. And his orchestrations are not very good, and sound as if they were conceived by a "midi-composer", and not someone with a developed timbral intuition.

The way you attain originality as a composer, and by that I mean true, real originality, not just contrived gimmicky-ness, which is easy, and which is what most "original" contemporary artists do today, it is the tried and true route,-

what it actually takes, is command.

Only by mastery of craft do we become free, and thereby find our own paths. That, and just writing, writing, writing, writing!!!

Creativity is a muscle; it mus be flexed, and it needs proper nourishment.

To me, Giacchino sounds still a little "under-nourished".

[David Coscina 4]

Marcus, I respect your POV but to say that all of Giacchino's music sounds linear-based is a little general. The pentultimate track on Lost Season 1 where Sawyer, Jin, Michael and Walt leave on the raft has some amazing contrapuntal harmonic variations of Lost theme (not the main titles theme but Giacchino's). That kind of writing with all of the components clearly adhering to proper counterpoint, could not have been "layered" using a MIDI sequencer. I know the difference because I use both means myself to compose. The fluidity of that and other tracks that display the same awareness of vertical writing would suggest Giacchino knows his stuff.

Some of his terse action cues do bely a minimalist sense with repeating short staccato figures with add-on brass flourishes or what-not, but his more melodic material certain is flowing and harmonically interesting enough to be listened to on its own. Even his action music has some interesting aspects to it, whether it's the combination of instruments or alternative techniques.

One question Marcus: who in Giacchino's age group (say 35 to 45) sounds good to your ears? I wouldn'y mind knowing what your criteria is that makes a composer good as opposed to inept. It's a valid question so I hope you don't think I'm needling you.

[Luke Skywalker 1,803]

99.999999%

Very funny

[Marcus 390]

Who in that age group?

Octavio Vasquez comes to mind. (New York-based Spanish(Galician) composer.)

He might be the only one under 45 (seriously....which is a little sad..)

No film composers I can think of right now, actually.

It just seems to me too limited, technically, and too bland, aesthetically. In general.

Desplat might be a little bit more interesting than the rest, mostly due to his timbral sensibility. Unfortunately, he too is severly hindered by a minimal musical vocabulary, especially harmonically speaking. But I guess he's under 45.

----

To me, what makes a good composer, is someone who is in total command of what he wants to say, and who is able to write music fluently at a level of musical excellency, and who knows how to be simple and complex at the same time.

Perhaps the simplicity/complexity balance is a key issue. Another is aesthetic maturity; knowing to do something tastefully, having developed a sense of deeper beauty, and preferably, restraint to some extent (this is more of a personal opinion, though).

So basically, a technical virtuoso who no longer has to prove that he is such, but rather sees beyond abilities, and into the realm of necessities.

[Music Manifesto 0]

35-45 year old composers in film? Or composers in general?

In terms of composers in film, I would have to agree that Giacchino is up there as one of my favorites perhaps my number one. However, as Marcus points out, this is more of a reflection on the sad state of film music than it is of Giacchino.

If MG were writing during the Golden Age, he would be all but laughed at from so many angles. This does not take away from his talent, but in my opinion, his talent doesn't go any farther than being a "method composer." I just don't hear him doing anything truly great.

And to speak very seriously for a moment...music composition, to me, is a harmony game. Forget Western vs. Eastern aesthetics. Harmony is king. Now, I feel that Giacchino lacks control of his harmony, big time. The best composers for me working today in film - John Williams, James Newton Howard, Thomas Newman, Randy Newman, James Horner, Elliot Goldenthal, and the like - all have masterful control of their individual and inspired harmonic language.

When Giacchino can master harmonic control, I will have no choice but to respect his music and his craft. Until then, I will continue to enjoy much of his of music for what it is, to me at least - and that is pastiche, very good pastiche.

[Luke Skywalker 1,803]

if horner is not a pastiche, i dont know what a pastiche is.

[Marcus 390]

35-45 year old composers in film? Or composers in general?

In terms of composers in film, I would have to agree that Giacchino is up there as one of my favorites perhaps my number one. However, as Marcus points out, this is more of a reflection on the sad state of film music than it is of Giacchino.

If MG were writing during the Golden Age, he would be all but laughed at from so many angles. This does not take away from his talent, but in my opinion, his talent doesn't go any farther than being a "method composer." I just don't hear him doing anything truly great.

And to speak very seriously for a moment...music composition, to me, is a harmony game. Forget Western vs. Eastern aesthetics. Harmony is king. Now, I feel that Giacchino lacks control of his harmony, big time. The best composers for me working today in film - John Williams, James Newton Howard, Thomas Newman, Randy Newman, James Horner, Elliot Goldenthal, and the like - all have masterful control of their individual and inspired harmonic language.

When Giacchino can master harmonic control, I will have no choice but to respect his music and his craft. Until then, I will continue to enjoy much of his of music for what it is, to me at least - and that is pastiche, very good pastiche.

You know, Lutoslawski had a very simple answer:

Harmony, Orchestration& Counterpoint!

[Music Manifesto 0]

if horner is not a pastiche, i dont know what a pastiche is.

Horner is a rip-off artist, not a pastiche composer I think. I guess it's a measurement of blatant versus crafty emulation. Even when he lifts note for note, key for key, certain things, I can always tell, within one bar or a few bars that it is Horner. This is because of his mastery of harmonic control (and orchestration).

[Marcus 390]

Oh dear, looking at my last post, please forgive me: I seem to have suffered a complete linguistic/syntactic breakdown.

"Fluently at a level of musical excellence,"....

And on and on...

[David Coscina 4]

And to speak very seriously for a moment...music composition, to me, is a harmony game. Forget Western vs. Eastern aesthetics. Harmony is king. Now, I feel that Giacchino lacks control of his harmony, big time. The best composers for me working today in film - John Williams, James Newton Howard, Thomas Newman, Randy Newman, James Horner, Elliot Goldenthal, and the like - all have masterful control of their individual and inspired harmonic language.

When Giacchino can master harmonic control, I will have no choice but to respect his music and his craft. Until then, I will continue to enjoy much of his of music for what it is, to me at least - and that is pastiche, very good pastiche.

Using this criteria to quantify musical viability, you would dismiss most of Akira Ifukube's music as well as Toru Takemitsu, Ikuma Dan, Fumio Hayasaka, and othe notable Japanese composers. While I love dense harmonic movement and harmonic extensions off basic triads, this overriding sense of harmonic density IS very Western based. You cannot measure music's worth by a harmony-based scale.

[Marcus 390]

And to speak very seriously for a moment...music composition, to me, is a harmony game. Forget Western vs. Eastern aesthetics. Harmony is king. Now, I feel that Giacchino lacks control of his harmony, big time. The best composers for me working today in film - John Williams, James Newton Howard, Thomas Newman, Randy Newman, James Horner, Elliot Goldenthal, and the like - all have masterful control of their individual and inspired harmonic language.

When Giacchino can master harmonic control, I will have no choice but to respect his music and his craft. Until then, I will continue to enjoy much of his of music for what it is, to me at least - and that is pastiche, very good pastiche.

Using this criteria to quantify musical viability, you would dismiss most of Akira Ifukube's music as well as Toru Takemitsu, Ikuma Dan, Fumio Hayasaka, and othe notable Japanese composers. While I love dense harmonic movement and harmonic extensions off basic triads, this overriding sense of harmonic density IS very Western based. You cannot measure music's worth by a harmony-based scale.

Takemitsu has GREAT harmonic control.

Harmonic control has to do with tension and release.

This phenomenon exists just as prominently in Haydn as it does in Ifukube.

Regardless of language, regardless of style, the way music "conracts" and "expands" detrmines how we feel its flow.

I just think that Giacchino, and most film composers today, have a very limited understanding of harmony.

[David Coscina 4]

Harmonic control has to do with tension and release.

This phenomenon exists just as prominently in Haydn as it does in Ifukube.

Regardless of language, regardless of style, the way music "conracts" and "expands" detrmines how we feel its flow.

I just think that Giacchino, and most film composers today, have a very limited understanding of harmony.

I would say that most composers in general today lack a good understanding of harmony. Prokofiev was one of the few from the 20th century that invented his own stylistic harmonic dictum by using non-traditional modulations, non-key related passing notes, and chords that did not resolve (I read that as a boy he composed mostly triadic music and was scolded by a teacher for doing so he reacted like any enfant terrible and produced music that was distinct harmonically.

Williams is rare. Not even Goldsmith had that kind of ability to write music that adhered to a vertical paradigm as Williams does. Rather than look down on 99.9% of all film composers, perhaps laud Williams for being a modern Prokofiev or Bartok or whomever for his own inherent musical fortitude. Williams is the exception not the norm. Not even John Adams, a composer I like a lot, has that gift of advanced harmonic technique. In fact, no composer, concert or film composer, at this time has the goods on Williams. You'd have to look to oh, Alex North (also a jazz guy), Leonard Rosenman, maybe Herrmann, Alfred Newman, and Korngold for the same deft ability of understanding and employing harmonic motion in their music.

Goldenthal, as much as I love his stuff, is looking back to the Vienna school with Mahler and Stauss for his tonal exploits. Horner of course wisely went with Prokofiev except that he did not really understand his harmonic principals but more that he literally copied them to suit his own needs without really understanding them.

[Marcus 390]

Harmonic control has to do with tension and release.

This phenomenon exists just as prominently in Haydn as it does in Ifukube.

Regardless of language, regardless of style, the way music "conracts" and "expands" detrmines how we feel its flow.

I just think that Giacchino, and most film composers today, have a very limited understanding of harmony.

I would say that most composers in general today lack a good understanding of harmony. Prokofiev was one of the few from the 20th century that invented his own stylistic harmonic dictum by using non-traditional modulations, non-key related passing notes, and chords that did not resolve (I read that as a boy he composed mostly triadic music and was scolded by a teacher for doing so he reacted like any enfant terrible and produced music that was distinct harmonically.

Williams is rare. Not even Goldsmith had that kind of ability to write music that adhered to a vertical paradigm as Williams does. Rather than look down on 99.9% of all film composers, perhaps laud Williams for being a modern Prokofiev or Bartok or whomever for his own inherent musical fortitude. Williams is the exception not the norm. Not even John Adams, a composer I like a lot, has that gift of advanced harmonic technique. In fact, no composer, concert or film composer, at this time has the goods on Williams. You'd have to look to oh, Alex North (also a jazz guy), Leonard Rosenman, maybe Herrmann, Alfred Newman, and Korngold for the same deft ability of understanding and employing harmonic motion in their music.

Goldenthal, as much as I love his stuff, is looking back to the Vienna school with Mahler and Stauss for his tonal exploits. Horner of course wisely went with Prokofiev except that he did not really understand his harmonic principals but more that he literally copied them to suit his own needs without really understanding them.

I agree.

Both with regards to Williams, and with regards to the other composers you mentioned, and their sometimes lacking depth of harmonic awareness.

And I certainly think we should laud Williams, and one way to do so, is to thoroughly study his technique, thereby to gain an insight greater than that of his lesser colleagues, perhaps.

[David Coscina 4]

Marcus, don't you think part of what makes Williams stand apart is his balance of classical and jazz harmonic understanding? I think the most harmonically daring composers had that cross-section of jazz and classical background. Coming from a jazz background myself, I don't think in VI6 nomenclature but more in Ebmin7 flat5 or Dsus4 or A9#11.

I think Williams understands the melodic principles of formal classical music but is rooted in harmonic idioms of jazz which is why he's got a balance sound. The things he does in his music are easily as complex as Beethoven, probably moreso actually. the only area he falls short in is the structure of his concert pieces. I think Williams has gotten used to film dictating large forms to him whereas someone like Horner structurally is adept but has no original ideas to populate his forms with...

Whoops, how did we get off topic???

I do think Giacchino still has much to learn BUT I do hear his growth from project to project. Perhaps, like LOST, I'm seeing a flash-forward into where he will be in the future. Perhaps I lower my listening standards a bit. But honestly, I enjoy his work. I cannot analyze it to the same degree as Williams' stuff but as i said before, even film score greats don't measure up to Williams.

[Marcus 390]

Dear Fiery Angel,

This is becoming interesting!

I for one believe that a chord symbol can be as fruitful/helpful/communicative/ as a functional term. But they describe slightly different aspects of a chord.

Jazz terminology never offers a structural view, but on the other hand, very little tonal music written since 1900 really adheres to the rules of functional harmony.

Harmonic schemes were at one point, and for a long time, integral to structure. It was a major point of argument in the whole ricercare-fugue-sonata development, and even before that, the V-I cadence seemes to be inherently present in basic acoustics.

If we analyze the msuic of Prokofiev, it generally becomes fairly moot to call a chord bVI, simply because, it might not be VI at all anymore, but a new key, or a minor II of yet another key, etc.

I would argue that jazz terminology, as far as harmonic labelling goes, is more helpful in most tonal music from Wagner/Liszt on.

However:

Jazz theory tends to be very limited in how it looks at chordal construction. Looking at Williams' harmonic style, it is fairly clear that jazz has little to do with anything. Close position chords and added note tonalities, yes, but it is used very differently. I would liken his harmonic writing more to that of Walton, perhaps.

He uses those voicings not by default, but because they bring a certain luminosity, a brilliance.

Williams also very frequently mixes quartal, triadic and secundal structures (a typical "Williams Cminor chord" might be spelled D-G-C-Eb-Ab-B, and he might superimpose D-G-Bb-Db on that, and it would still relate to Cminor. But he wouldn't think of it as a Cmin9maj7b13addb9!).

These kind of structures are actually fairly indigenous to Williams, but I think he got the idea from Prokofiev's minor/major juxtapositions, and also perhaps from "re-interpreting" sonorities found in Stravinsky and Bartok, and certainly also Takemitsu (a composer who is actually quite close to Williams, harmonically, at times).

I think Williams has a very, very good sense of structure (I don't see how Horner does, though? Has he ever written for the concert hall?). I find pieces like "Five Sacred Trees", "Duo Concertante", "Clarinet Concerto", etc. very beautifully constructed, and very lucid formally speaking.

This is becoming the kind of thread I really enjoy!

[Henry B 50]

Jazz theory tends to be very limited in how it looks at chordal construction. Looking at Williams' harmonic style, it is fairly clear that jazz has little to do with anything. Close position chords and added note tonalities, yes, but it is used very differently. I would liken his harmonic writing more to that of Walton, perhaps.

So what about "Cantina Band," "Catch Me If You Can," "Jazz Autographs" and just about every pre-1970 Williams score?

[Marcus 390]

Jazz theory tends to be very limited in how it looks at chordal construction. Looking at Williams' harmonic style, it is fairly clear that jazz has little to do with anything. Close position chords and added note tonalities, yes, but it is used very differently. I would liken his harmonic writing more to that of Walton, perhaps.

So what about "Cantina Band," "Catch Me If You Can," "Jazz Autographs" and just about every pre-1970 Williams score?

Nope, they are definitely all way beyond the reach of someone who isn't classically trained.

CMIYC is stylized, as is "Jazz Autographs", but everything beneath the most immediate surface requires an entirely different technique to actually write.

Even Cantina Band is actually a very clever re-read of "Star Wars" musical lingo in a quasi-swing idiom. The free triadic writing, the parallelisms, etc., all stem from the general harmonic techniques employed very prominently elsehere in that score.

Which is also why it blends in so well!

[Henry B 50]

Of course Williams's classical training is evident in that music. My point is that so is his jazz training.

[Romão 2,274]

I can't really contribute to this argument, but I do apreciate it guys, it is indeed most interesting to read.

[QMM 4]

Have at it you guys

I'll be over in the back enjoying my Giacchino because, you know

I like his music

[Ollie 1,064]

The Q man is wise.

[Red 75]

Indeed. I've said pretty much all I can on this subject.

[John Crichton 4]

But I look forward to saying a whole lot more. Starting this December, no offense to Speed Racer.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Have at it you guys

I'll be over in the back enjoying my Giacchino because, you know

I like his music

that is the best reason to listen to it.

[AI 0]

Of course Williams's classical training is evident in that music. My point is that so is his jazz training.

You don't train in Jazz, you feel it. It's a vibe. It occurs naturally.

Williams has transmuted a jazz sensibility into an orchestral form, but through a strict intellectual process.

[Henry B 50]

Yes... You do train in jazz.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Yes... You do train in jazz.

you can train to be a boxer too, but as AI says if you don't have it in you, then it matters not.

[Henry B 50]

That's true...

... of any artistic genre. You have to both feel and study jazz.

[Ray Barnsbury 8]

And you don't observe a dance class; you dance a dance class!

[David Coscina 4]

And you don't observe a dance class; you dance a dance class!

Nice Friends (Season 1) reference.

I agree with AI in the sense that jazz embodies a feeling improvisation which is intuitive rather than pre-meditated. It's composing on the fly.

[Morn 8]

I don't know much about harmony really. And I focus more on rhyme and orchestration when listening to music.. He seems to me to be fairly competent in harmony though better than your average film composer, I would ask, Marcus, what of his music you have heard and are talking about exactly, I think his best quality music is not necessarily his most heard music...

[Henry B 50]

And you don't observe a dance class; you dance a dance class!

Nice Friends (Season 1) reference.

I agree with AI in the sense that jazz embodies a feeling improvisation which is intuitive rather than pre-meditated. It's composing on the fly.

Yes, it is. But you have to know your chords like the back of your hand. Know your form, know your place in the ensemble... Yeah, it takes practice.

[BLUMENKOHL 1,070]

Boy don't we all feel like idiots now?

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Yes!

Better him then Gia though.

[Quintus 5,399]

I never excepted this amateur theory to play out anyway. Gia can only dream of having the level of musical lyricism and ethos Newman has, and that shit is crucial to Spielberg.

Was never gonna happen, sorry.

[KK 3,307]

Agreed with Quintus.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Me too

[BLUMENKOHL 1,070]

He's still yet to do a deep score outside of that little horror flick. So...while I'm still a hopeful that he will be the next...well...Thomas Newman...I'm starting to get tired of supporting him!

[Marcus 390]

Thomas Newman is a fine composer, and a very good choice, barring Williams. I have to admit feeling a bit stunned by the reality of this, though. Grateful Williams still has his health, and the energy to take on a project of such magnitude as TFA, but the announced absence of a Williams 'Bridge of Spies' score does leave me a little wistful... I imagine Spielberg must be feeling similarly.

[Bespin 8,499]

Michael Who?

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Gachino as it sounds. The guy whose follow up to Star Trek and soon Jurassic Park will show he's no Jerry or Johnny. He's not even a Horner.

[Quintus 5,399]

But you say it as if to imply Horner is a lesser.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Horner is a tad shy of J-squared.

[Quintus 5,399]

I'll admit to that. But when he's on fire (which is extremely rare), he is comfortably their equal.

[Not Mr. Big 4,651]

I'll admit to that. But when he's on fire (which is extremely rare), he is comfortably their equal.

I disagree. Even at his best, he still doesn't stack up to John, Jerry, or James.

[Quintus 5,399]

I disagree. When he's in the zone (which is extremely rare), Horner is breathtaking IMO.

[Not Mr. Big 4,651]

Ah crap

I thought you were talking about GIacchino!

In that case, I agree with you.