What musical element you don't like in film scores?

[filmmusic 1,843]

Percussion loops.

I cannot stand them.

It reminds me of songs, which have a specific drum loop.

The outcome seems to me very poor, and show the inability of a composer to keep the interest of the listener with other means, like constantly changing music..

[Brónach 1,302]

bland percussion for sure. gimme the good percussion.

[GerateWohl 4,377]

Any programed looping synthetical stuff. 

[Thor 7,521]

I am a huge fan of sequencers and loops and stuff, but it needs to be done right. Like Berlin School sequencers (Tangerine Dream and such), various EDM artists and things like that. Or funky synthwave things, using Roland T-808, the Linndrum or other vintage drum machines. The Remote Control/trailer music ostinato thing, which I'm guessing is what you're referring to, is very uninteresting.

 

There isn't really any one element that I dislike in music; it all depends on how it's being used. Even bag pipes.

[Edmilson 7,474]

4 minutes ago, Thor said:

There isn't really any one element that I dislike in music; it all depends on how it's being used. Even bag pipes.

Agreed. Bag pipes have an annoying sound, but Horner used them to great effect. Zimmer did too on the arrival on Arrakis cue from Dune, even though both this score and this cue in particular is not something I'd like to listen outside of the movie.

[GerateWohl 4,377]

Ok. Maybe I should specify, I don't have and issue with drum loops and sequencers in electronic or pop music. I just don't like it in orchestral music. I mean, there were some interesting combinations of this in the Matrix sequel scores. But in general I dislike it very much. 

 

4 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

Zimmer did too on the arrival on Arrakis cue from Dune,

That was terrible. 

[Jurassic Shark 12,093]

2 hours ago, filmmusic said:

Percussion loops.

 

Cue Solo apologists. 

 

27 minutes ago, Thor said:

am a huge fan of sequencers and loops and stuff, but it needs to be done right.

 

Hmm, I prefer when things are done wrong. 

[Edmilson 7,474]

I can tolerate ALMOST anything in film music... But mixing rock drums with orchestra to give a "badass" vibe is something that can be very grating to me.

 

It's one of the reasons I dislike so intensely the Man of Steel score. The quiet ambient parts for piano and synths are good, but when the all-star drumming begins for the action scenes, it gets very VERY annoying. Combined with some really poor orchestral writing and we have one of the most irritating blockbuster scores ever made. And Mad Max: Overrated Road is even worse.

[Bellosh 3,419]

electric guitars

[Brónach 1,302]

55 minutes ago, Thor said:

Even bag pipes.

 

what do you mean even. bagpipes are the best.

47 minutes ago, GerateWohl said:

 I mean, there were some interesting combinations of this in the Matrix sequel scores.

 

as usual, they're incredible

[Faleel 5,363]

26 minutes ago, Bellosh said:

electric guitars

Zam is Eliminated.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,554]

59 minutes ago, Thor said:

Even bagpipes.

 

4 minutes ago, Brónach said:

 

what do you mean even. bagpipes are the best.

 

Come to where I live. You'll hear bagpipes on an almost daily basis 

[Andy 4,147]

Any drums that sound like trailer music. 
 

Tako drums have lost their novelty. Give me dry timpani. 

[Schilkeman 964]

4 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

5 hours ago, Thor said:

Even bagpipes.

 

4 hours ago, Brónach said:

 

what do you mean even. bagpipes are the best.

 

Come to where I live. You'll hear bagpipes on an almost daily basis

To be fair, Horner used the much more mild uilleann pipes.

 

I don’t like monotonous action music common in most big films today. The lack of melody, or anything interesting happening harmonically or rhythmically. Orchestration seems to be a lost art in some circles. Stop studying film music. Go listen to Stravinsky. 
 

When I hear something like the “theme“ to Game of Thrones or the Avengers, my brain oozes out of my ears.

[Faleel 5,363]

2 hours ago, Andy said:

Tako drums have lost their novelty.

[ThePenitentMan1 744]

28 minutes ago, Presto said:

 

I'll be honest, the way this forum handles grammar/spelling mistakes has to be my favorite on the entire internet.

[Datameister 2,044]

Various flutes played with fast, breathy vibrato. Crops up in Horner's work. I've really been enjoying his oeuvre lately, but this is a sound that's always off-putting to me.

[Faleel 5,363]

2 hours ago, ThePenitentMan1 said:

 

I'll be honest, the way this forum handles grammar/spelling mistakes has to be my favorite on the entire internet.

I wasn't actually commenting on that haha, I was just referencing the Namco's Taiko no Tatsujin game heh.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiko_no_Tatsujin

[Mephariel 451]

There are no musical elements that I dislike. I don't get this kind of thinking. There is nothing wrong with using drums to keep the listeners interest. It is just another instrument and is effective. And not every score needs constantly changing music. I also don't get some people's dislike of electric guitar. I think during a review, Clemmensen called the instrument "dumb." Can an instrument be dumb? And people really dislike bagpipes? Why? 

[Holko 9,532]

I don't think I have real problems with most instruments on their own, I don't reject any of them as an "intrusion" to the classical idea of a perfect orchestral sound on my high horse. I only have problems when they're used uncreatively or overbearingly in a way that's just unpleasant and jarring to me. It's all in the context and execution. Synths can add wonderful dark or romantic or magical texture, or they can make everything sound stupid and cheap. Strange, old or exotic instruments can greatly enhance the range of textures the composer can work with. Rock percussion and guitar can be really fun or yeah if overdone, make it feel pandering and dumbed down. Bagpipes and accordions have wonderful unique timbres that can be a great asset, to dismiss them outright is baffling to me. Choir can be used in fantastic diverse ways, or it can just be a sampled-sounding mush slapped on to make it "ePiC". Or it can just be the wailing woman over every cue. Or operatic singing, god, that's my least favourite thing, thankfully not very prominent in film scores. But even inside the classical idea of the orchestra, strings can be dramatic or soulful, or they can keep sawing a 3-note unchanging boring ostinato in an amateur way of trying to create tension. Woodwinds are some of my favourite things, or they can be piercing shrieking goddamned things. Brass can be noble and rich, or it can just be slapped on top of itself playing deafening held notes with no melody or accessible structure (oh god why did I listen to Beneath the Planet of the Apes again).

[GerateWohl 4,377]

26 minutes ago, Holko said:

I don't think I have real problems with most instruments on their own, I don't reject any of them as an "intrusion" to the classical idea of a perfect orchestral sound on my high horse. I only have problem when they're used uncreatively or overbearingly in a way that's just unpleasant and jarring to me. It's all in the context and execution. Synths can add wonderful dark or romantic or magical texture, or they can make everything sound stupid and cheap. Strange, old or exotic instruments can greatly enhance the range of textures the composer can work with. Rock percussion and guitar can be really fun or yeah if overdone, make it feel pandering and dumbed down. Bagpipes and accordions have wonderful unique timbres that can be a great asset, to dismiss them outright is baffling to me. Choir can be used in fantastic diverse ways, or it can just be a mush of sampled sounded slapped on to make it "ePiC". Or it can just be the wailing woman over every cue. Or operatic singing, god, that's my least favourite thing, thankfully not very prominent in film scores. But even inside the classical idea of the orchestra, strings can be dramatic or soulful, or they can keep sawing a 3-note unchanging boring ostinato in an amateur way of trying to create tension. Woodwinds are some of my favourite things, or they can be piercing shrieking goddamned things. Brass can be noble and rich, or it can just be slapped on top of itself playing deafening held notes with no melody or accessible structure (oh god why did I listen to Beneath the Planet of the Apes again).

Yes, this pretty much nails it quite well. It is more about the "how" and not the "what". I horribly dislike when a composer uses the orchestra like a DJ just mixing several ostinato layers over each other, a repeating drum layer, a repeating percussion layer, then a sting ostinato, then fill it with some majestic horns and some blaring trumpets to create the impression this is actually an orchestral composition, then more drums, more percussion, now let's put a synth techno ostinato above it all. Ready is the pulsating action cue. 

 

That is what impresses me and excites me everytime when I listen for example to the Dial of Destiny score. No matter how many instruments or ostinaty or percussion I hear, it is always well balanced and at every time composed and developing. That is a pure joy for me of listening to orchestral action music. And not the result of a kid playing with a multitrack composition software program.

 

[1977 1,743]

3 hours ago, Datameister said:

Various flutes played with fast, breathy vibrato. 

 

Would that be something like what John Barry used in the opening of The Deep?

[Thor 7,521]

1 hour ago, Mephariel said:

There are no musical elements that I dislike. I don't get this kind of thinking. There is nothing wrong with using drums to keep the listeners interest. It is just another instrument and is effective. And not every score needs constantly changing music. I also don't get some people's dislike of electric guitar. I think during a review, Clemmensen called the instrument "dumb." Can an instrument be dumb? And people really dislike bagpipes? Why? 

 

Agreed. But there are times when an instrument or a sound may have bad personal associations for you. An example for me is the recorder. It was used in music class as a learning tool when I was a kid, and the terrible sound they made - in unison - when my class mates were trying to learn scales and whatnot, haunt me to this day. As a result of this, I was convinced I would hate the instrument for the rest of my life. However, Williams' use of it in JANE EYRE eventually turned me around. It CAN sound good when applied and played correctly.

[GerateWohl 4,377]

10 hours ago, Brónach said:

 

what do you mean even. bagpipes are the best.

I love them, when Kate Bush used them in her songs.

[Thor 7,521]

4 minutes ago, GerateWohl said:

I love them, when Kate Bush used them in her songs.

 

Hey, hey now...that was her voice. 

 

[Chen G. 3,951]

Crooning female vocals as a shorthand for "Middle East."

[Jurassic Shark 12,093]

Wailing you mean.

[Bayesian 1,364]

You know what I can’t stand? The shawm. What a ridiculous instrument! I mean, honestly, you’d have to be an incredibly bad composer without a shred of talent or imagination to write anything for that thing.

[JTN 2,048]

Whatever instrument they use to make a “BWRAAAAAAAM”. 

[Brónach 1,302]

11 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

 

 

Come to where I live. You'll hear bagpipes on an almost daily basis 

 

 i mean so do i where i live.

 

but they're not the same ones (although i've also seen bagpipes from other countries).

 

there are a bunch of musical things that people see as markers of identity and the bagpipe is one so they bring one to their ska/punk/rock groups as well.

 

the weirdest thing i've heard so far here are electronic bagpipes.

[GerateWohl 4,377]

39 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Crooning female vocals as a shorthand for "Middle East."

 

3 minutes ago, Bayesian said:

You know what I can’t stand? The shawm. What a ridiculous instrument! I mean, honestly, you’d have to be an incredibly bad composer without a shred of talent or imagination to write anything for that thing.

 

9 hours ago, Andy said:

Tako drums have lost their novelty.

 

12 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Bag pipes have an annoying sound

 

The issue I see here is, I mean, these things were not invented by film composers. They come out of dedicated musical cultures and history. And within their original context you experience these things completely differently.

 

These crooning female voices were Natasha Atlas trademark in her oriental music long before she was asked by several film composers to perform that for their motion picture scores. I don't like to blow my nose over musical elements that I don't know a fuck about, but don't like when it for what ever reason becomes a fashion in certain motion picture scores.

 

As I said, even this techno sound, that I dislike in certain action scores has an original context in club culture from the 90s where it has its place. But even though I often dislike the way it is mostly used in film music I wouldn't discredit the instrument or the music style itself.

 

Only one exception: Pan pipes. Sorry. I hate them. But even these might sound nice when played by a shepherd in Chilean mountains.

 

[Chen G. 3,951]

1 hour ago, GerateWohl said:

They come out of dedicated musical cultures and history.

 

I live in the Middle East.

 

The kind wailing that Lisa Gerard and her many copycats since have done have very little to do with the kind of music we have here.

 

Most "ethnic" representations of Hollywood music are more fanciful than anything else, which is not necessarily a bad thing but I do feel like some of these tropes have really becomes parodies of the themselves, and none more so than the wailing woman trope.

[Thor 7,521]

1 minute ago, GerateWohl said:

Only one exception: Pan pipes. Sorry. I hate them. But even these might sound nice when played by a shepherd in Chilean mountains.

 

Not a fan of Morricone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, then? Pan pipes got a bad rep in the 90s, with those cheesy "Pan Pipe Mood" albums, but I've always loved the instrument in itself, when used properly. And Zamfir's playing in that Morricone classic -- goosebumps galore!

[GerateWohl 4,377]

8 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Most "ethnic" representations of Hollywood music are more fanciful than anything else, which is not necessarily a bad thing but I do feel like some of these tropes have really becomes parodies of the themselves.

That's true. And that has always been that way. If you look at the ethnical elements in Holywood scores from the 50s you hear the parodies even clearer.

 

And I understand you. The rare cases when american film composers decided to incorporate German folkloristic Bavarian music to illustrate Germans or German locations are really bad, I guess for everyones ears.

 

8 minutes ago, Thor said:

Not a fan of Morricone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, then? Pan pipes got a bad rep in the 90s, with those cheesy "Pan Pipe Mood" albums, but I've always loved the instrument in itself, when used properly. And Zamfir's playing in that Morricone classic -- goosebumps galore!

I think, these pan pipes are guilty for my disturbed relation with Morricone's music in general.

[Thor 7,521]

They're just tropes. Same as portraying Germans with lederhosen and a pilsner in hand. Useful for getting the point across now and then. Silly, of course, and just clichées and approximations, but can be entertaining and well-made nonetheless. In other words: Expertly crafted, indigenous folk music tends to bore me in film music. Whereas approximations, or "blends" with western styles, I tend to love.

[Brónach 1,302]

18 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

I live in the Middle East.

 

The kind wailing that Lisa Gerard and her many copycats since have done have very little to do with the kind of music we have here.

 

Most "ethnic" representations of Hollywood music are more fanciful than anything else, which is not necessarily a bad thing but I do feel like some of these tropes have really becomes parodies of the themselves.

 

hear, hear

[GerateWohl 4,377]

6 minutes ago, Thor said:

They're just tropes. Same as portraying Germans with lederhosen and a pilsner in hand. Useful for getting the point across now and then. Silly, of course, and just clichées and approximations, but can be entertaining and well-made nonetheless. In other words: Expertly crafted, indigenous folk music tends to bore me in film music. Whereas approximations, or "blends" with western styles, I tend to love.

Yes, it is like the food in the foreign restaurant around your corner which in 90% of the cases is presented in a rather localized or americanized flavour than in its original way. 

[Jurassic Shark 12,093]

31 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

The kind wailing that Lisa Gerard and her many copycats since have done have very little to do with the kind of music we have here.

 

Yeah, I guess you listen way more to Wagner and Shore.

[JTN 2,048]

53 minutes ago, Thor said:

 

Not a fan of Morricone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, then? Pan pipes got a bad rep in the 90s, with those cheesy "Pan Pipe Mood" albums, but I've always loved the instrument in itself, when used properly. And Zamfir's playing in that Morricone classic -- goosebumps galore!

I like the pan pipes in Zimmer’s RAIN MAN. 
 

When I interviewed Bill Conti, he told me about working with Zamfir on THE KARATE KID. 

[Sweeping Strings 2,364]

2 hours ago, JTWfan77 said:

 

Would that be something like what John Barry used in the opening of The Deep?

Any movie that starts with extensive underwater footage of Jacqueline Bisset in a t-shirt (and not much else) can do whatever the hell it likes on the score, as far as I'm concerned. 

[Richard Penna 3,696]

3 hours ago, Holko said:

I don't think I have real problems with most instruments on their own, I don't reject any of them as an "intrusion" to the classical idea of a perfect orchestral sound on my high horse. I only have problem when they're used uncreatively or overbearingly in a way that's just unpleasant and jarring to me. It's all in the context and execution.

 

Completely this. I have an occasional 'anti-high horse' with pure orchestral music because I strongly believe that sweeping orchestra isn't always the best or only way to score a film in all cases. A good application of electronics or other unusual sounds can be very effective in the right place.

 

But when it does come to orchestra, the only elements that come to mind that I'm not a fan of are saxophones or anything overly jazzy. That's just purely a taste thing for me.

 

Aside from that I tend to get turned off by orchestration which strongly dates a score. Most of the older (i.e. 80s) ones I'm into feel relatively timeless - Last Crusade, BTTF. It's those that scream (usually by instrumentation) 60s/70s/80s that I'll rarely get into.

[Chen G. 3,951]

1 hour ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Yeah, I guess you listen way more to Wagner and Shore.

 

That's actually not necessarily a bad sequituur.

 

Shore also uses a lot of "ethnic" colour but he doesn't use them in the cliche Hollywood way. Its not just that he picks less cliche instruments - so Nay flute instead of Duduk and Rebab instead of Erhu - its that he transmutes their use.

 

The obvious approach would be to have used those colours for Mordor because "east", but instead Howard uses them as an expression of antiquity and otherness, and therefore uses them principally with the Elves. That alone put it outside the realm of cliche and caricature.

[Thor 7,521]

51 minutes ago, JTW said:

I like the pan pipes in Zimmer’s RAIN MAN. 
 

When I interviewed Bill Conti, he told me about working with Zamfir on THE KARATE KID. 

 

Both of those are great examples of pan pipes in film music too.

[Brónach 1,302]

isn't the French horn a cliche German instrument?

[GerateWohl 4,377]

Maybe you mean this one?

 

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posthorn

[Jurassic Shark 12,093]

Isn't that a post horn? At least that's what we call it in Norway.

[GerateWohl 4,377]

Yes. It is.

But I guess,that isn't typical German either.

[Brónach 1,302]

but wasnt the frenc horn invented in germany from previous horns?

[Chen G. 3,951]

I think you mean the valve horn, and I belive that was actually a Parisian invention. I think cor à pistons is first used by Fromental Halevy in La Juive. I mean, technically Halevy was German...

[A24 4,347]

Filtered drum loops from sample libraries overused by TV composers.