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The Art of the Score Podcast Thread


Faleel

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Yay, at long last! I reckon I've been checking daily since TFA in concert! Something for the trip to work tomorrow then :)

 

It seems this will be 3 parts, based purely on their recent tweets. Hopefully means they can discuss some elements of TLJ and Williams' development of the TFA material in the sequel.

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4 hours ago, crumbs said:

Yay, at long last! I reckon I've been checking daily since TFA in concert! Something for the trip to work tomorrow then :)

 

It seems this will be 3 parts, based purely on their recent tweets. Hopefully means they can discuss some elements of TLJ and Williams' development of the TFA material in the sequel.

According to their link above it will be two parts.

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They mentioned they have three podcasts in total that they have ready to release, so the third may be TLJ (let's hope so!).

 

I just listened to the first part now, very enjoyable. Not much that I didn't already get from David W Collins' exceptional coverage on Oxygen, but great nonetheless. I do think they tend to reach pretty unrealistic places with some of their musical connections (especially Pogson who is obviously quite a big fan of Star Wars and gets easily carried away with fan theories), while some of the connections that I remain more convinced of (like the Rebel fanfare's influence in the March of the Resistance) remain unexplored.

 

Also, the MoR is not a fugue. It has fugue-like elements in one passage of the concert arrangement, but a fugue it is not.

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Only listened to the first half hour or so but these guys are superb podcasters. It's fantastic having three musically literate scholars discussing these scores -- Collins was the sole voice of intelligence on those otherwise excellent Oxygen podcasts.

 

Nicholas Buc has conducted most (all?) of Williams' live to picture concerts in Australia, so he's heavily attuned to Williams' writing. He's conducting the world premiere of the Close Encounters LTP I believe. He did a superb job conducting TFA as well, was highly impressed with his timing on The Falcon and Scherzo.

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This was a very insightful, fun and entertaining and most of all illuminating podcast. All the three hosts are very articulate and know this subject inside out and luckily also give numerous illustrations on keyboard and from the soundtrack itself to those less musically knowledgeable when they illustrate musical connections and structures and draw comparisons with JW's past works and stylistic traits. Can't wait for part 2!

 

Also I have to check out their previous shows as well.

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Yeah the fact they actually extrapolate on their comparisons with live demos (like comparing the Terminal theme or Buckbeak's theme to Rey's) is extremely helpful, otherwise I'd be scratching my head at exactly what they're getting at. Also the comparisons to classical pieces I've never heard of, which Williams drew upon for March of the Resistance.

 

Really reinforces the genius of Kylo Ren's two themes as well, especially when they compare the bridge of Vader's theme to Kylo's 'hesitation' theme. It just blows my mind away how closely linked everything is in these scores, all thanks to one genius composer still building upon the same framework after 40 years! Incredible.

 

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  • 1 month later...

EDIT: ICE LANDING CLEAN!!!! You can clearly hear the Falcon/Finn motif that segues into the variations on the Rebel Fanfare, super cool! Plus Buc has lots of insight into TFA's isolated score (the final film score was 48 cues apparently, many of which featured multiple cues within each cue).

 

Nicholas Buc (the conductor in this podcast) conducted the TFA live-to-film performances with the MSO and has the entirety of TFA as an isolated track, which is used throughout this podcast.

 

Some really great discussion in this part around the various soundtrack releases for the series, Williams' album assemblies, and even the sound mixing of TFA's OST vs the film mix.

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Any other unreleased music in there? (perhaps the little bit microedited out of Han and Leia?)

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Clean ending of the Vader cue is in there around 40:00 (when Kylo talks to the helmet).

 

About 30 seconds of clean music from the map reveal cue. Thought this was just a dull underscore cue but there's some really interesting development Williams is doing in counterpoint to the map motif. It's in the scene where BB8 first shows Han/Finn/Rey the map to Luke onboard the Falcon.

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26 minutes ago, Fal said:

Any other unreleased music in there? (perhaps the little bit microedited out of Han and Leia?)

There's the quote of Vader's theme from the end of "Legacy of the Darkside" (title on your edit) at 40:13.

 

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20 minutes ago, crumbs said:

Clean ending of the Vader cue is in there around 40:00 (when Kylo talks to the helmet).

 

About 30 seconds of clean music from the map reveal cue. Thought this was just a dull underscore cue but there's some really interesting development Williams is doing in counterpoint to the map motif. It's in the scene where BB8 first shows Han/Finn/Rey the map to Luke onboard the Falcon.

Thanks! if you could include timestamps, I would be eternally grateful. :)

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1 minute ago, CGCJ said:

40:13 for "Legacy of the Darkside" Vader theme ending

53:21 for the map reveal cue

Thanks!

And Ice Landing?

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Great great podcast.......................... except for all the Last Jedi speculation which is just a bit annoying to sit through now.  Thankfully that's not a huge part of it.

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10 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Great great podcast.......................... except for all the Last Jedi speculation which is just a bit annoying to sit through now.  Thankfully that's not a huge part of it.

You're not excited to find out what happens in The Last Jedi?!

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They must have thought at one point that they'd have the episodes out before TLJ, but it also seems like they were recorded right before TLJ came out.  I wonder how, "we can turn these out in a few weeks" became "it will take us 6-9 months to put out these three parts"

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On 5/11/2018 at 10:37 AM, crumbs said:

EDIT: ICE LANDING CLEAN!!!! You can clearly hear the Falcon/Finn motif that segues into the variations on the Rebel Fanfare, super cool! Plus Buc has lots of insight into TFA's isolated score (the final film score was 48 cues apparently, many of which featured multiple cues within each cue).

 

Nicholas Buc (the conductor in this podcast) conducted the TFA live-to-film performances with the MSO and has the entirety of TFA as an isolated track, which is used throughout this podcast.

 

Some really great discussion in this part around the various soundtrack releases for the series, Williams' album assemblies, and even the sound mixing of TFA's OST vs the film mix.

Also Part 1 has a bit of an unreleased section of Rathtar Escape.

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Yep noticed that at the time but didn't think it was significant enough to point out lol

 

It did give me hope that, if they had access to the MSO's isolated score, they might premiere some other unreleased cues in part 2. Lo and behold, they did! :)

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1 hour ago, crumbs said:

Yep noticed that at the time but didn't think it was significant enough to point out lol

Well, it allows me to get rid of that super loud Millennium Falcon engine noise from my edit!

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On 5/11/2018 at 11:40 AM, crumbs said:

Clean ending of the Vader cue is in there around 40:00 (when Kylo talks to the helmet).

Just listened to this, it looks like JJ did the same slow down trick that Johnson used for Rey's Journey on this, you can hear the stretch, compare to the alternate brassy take from the TFA documentary

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Yep it's very noticeable in the brass in isolated form. The score is crying out for an expanded edition without all the digitised trickery undertaken in the film mix.

 

Help us Mike Matessino... You're our only hope.

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15 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

John Boyega is the only person who's been able to identify Finn's theme. Maybe it consists of only one note?

 

14 hours ago, crumbs said:

Williams probably just told him his theme was the Resistance March to shut him up.

 

Or maybe he got to watch him record "I Can Fly Anything" or "The Resistance" and he thought Poe's theme was Finn's :(

 

Funny, speaking of I was reminded recently of that other random Boyega quote from back in the day when he said he was pleased with the music for Finn taking his helmet off and I remember being confused that first scene with Phasma wasn't some kickass cue. In hindsight I bet he was talking about the use of the SW theme when he meets Poe.

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1 hour ago, mrbellamy said:

 

 

Or maybe he got to watch him record "I Can Fly Anything" or "The Resistance" and he thought Poe's theme was Finn's :(

 

Funny, speaking of I was reminded recently of that other random Boyega quote from back in the day when he said he was pleased with the music for Finn taking his helmet off and I remember being confused that first scene with Phasma wasn't some kickass cue. In hindsight I bet he was talking about the use of the SW theme when he meets Poe.

I remember thinking the same thing, at least in regards to the scene where Finn takes off his helmet. It's just a bunch of low brass. Unrelated but I am reconsidering how I think of the chase/escape motif as the Art of the Score guys consider it a Falcon motif and the case in pretty convincing. 

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Yep, for two years I've considered that Finn's motif but they've made a compelling case for it to be more specific to the Falcon itself.

 

The only curveball to that idea is the unreleased and unused "sneaking music" variation on the motif (with the plucked strings), which presumably accompanied the scene where Finn and Rey are sneaking around underneath the floor on the Rathtar freighter.

 

The more overt motif reapplication would be the Rebel Fanfare though, which both new films use regularly to underpin the Falcon's heroics.

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Was there not speculation that Poe's Theme might be a shared identity with Finn?

 

The little motif that appears throughout Follow Me and The Falcon which the guys here assign to the Falcon, was introduced when Finn tries to step up and help Rey before their encounter with the ship and might therefore be a theme for the character - it reappears in The Rathtar sequence when Rey and Finn reunite and later as they escape in the Falcon.

 

Who knows? Williams and Boyega are conspiring against us?

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Really enjoying this. The interplay between the three presenters is funny, joyous, and clever. The clips they play are really enjoyable (they complain at one point that the OST sounds overproduced—I agree, I can’t stand it). To me, TLJ doesn’t negate or make less enjoyable the TFA-based speculation, at all.

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  • 1 month later...

There isn't a general thread for this podcast so I'm gonna post here.

 

This is definitely my favorite score podcast running, but one thing that really annoys me about it is they rely WAY WAY too much on "sounds like" comparisons.  We get it, music sounds like other music.  Just analyze the score for pete's sake.  For obvious reasons, it got way out of hand on the Gladiator episode.

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Just now, Disco Stu said:

they rely WAY WAY too much on "sounds like" comparisons

 

That.

 

That, and "esque". Y'know the ones: "Walton-esque", etc...

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18 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

There isn't a general thread for this podcast so I'm gonna post here.

 

This is definitely my favorite score podcast running

I so love Art of the Score! Looking forward to exploring TFA at some point on UnderScore :)

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Listening to the 1st Bond episode and just REVELING in the "007" theme from From Russia With Love.  Always been a favorite.  That rhythm!  That leaping melody!

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  • 4 months later...

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