Film Music in Your Family

[JTN 2,031]

What do your relatives say about your passion and love for film music?
Do they share your enthusiasm for the art form or you’re the odd one out in the family? 

 

[GerateWohl 4,370]

15 minutes ago, JTW said:

Do they share your enthusiasm for the art form

Not exactly.

This morning at breakfast I was listening to John Williams' score to "Nightwatch" and when my wife entered the kitchen she said, that she is worried about my mental health when I listen to such disturbing music and if I could please switch it off.

 

[JTN 2,031]

And did you?

[GerateWohl 4,370]

Of course. 

I recognize a rhetorical question when I hear one.

[JTN 2,031]

Only if you want to stay married.

[JNHFan2000 2,966]

My dad really loves Zimmer's 80's stuff (mostly Rain Man), but that's kinda where it ends. And he really shows interest when I talk about stuff or when sometimes he hears something that catches his ear.

 

They are fine with it being played, but they will never put it on themselves.

But they love that I'm so passionate about it and that's all I could wish.

 

So nobody in my personal life that I can really talk about it with. That's why I love places like these!!

[Thor 7,513]

Odd one out. In my entire extended family, even.

 

I've tried to play some film music for my dad and brother over the years, but nothing has cemented itself. My 10-year-younger brother knows a few composer names he wouldn't otherwise have known without my attempts at influence, but has no particular music interest to begin with. My dad loves and collects music, and is a HiFi freak, but mostly classical and jazz and some old-school rock. Despite my efforts, he never latched on to film music. My sister and mom have no interest whatsoever.

 

I hope I'm able to plant some interest in my niece or nephews once they get older. We'll see.

[Richard Penna 3,694]

My brother, once in a blue moon has occasionally shown an interest in the odd soundtrack. Jon Hopkins' Monsters and the score to Drive being two. Our tastes have diverged significantly the more I got into pop artists over the last 3 or 4 years.

 

My Mum likes folk and some modern classical, both of which provide roots for film scores, and occasionally I'll be listening to something and she'll ask what it is, but more from the perspective of gauging our tastes, and not so much that she likes it.

 

Other than that.... lone wolf.

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

My parents never really cared for it themselves, I think. But they were very supportive of the hobby. We went to two Lord of the Rings concerts together when I was still in high school. One was the LotR Symphony in Antwerp, conducted by Howard Shore. The other was in Amsterdam and featured Sir Christopher Lee reading passages from Tolkien, so that was cool. And they let me fly to Spain on my own when I was 19 to attend the film music festival in Úbeda. It was my first solo vacation.

 

My ex-girlfriend didn't really care much either, although I did hook her up with a complete and properly sequenced copy of Goldsmith's Mulan because she was into Disney stuff and I told her it was pretty much the best Disney score. I could get her on board for Disney stuff or Lord of the Rings or even something like Kingdom of Heaven, but I think that was about it. Which is fine, btw.

 

My wife is almost as big a nerd as I am, though. We've been to a whole bunch of live to projection shows together and she went with me to see Williams in both Berlin and Vienna (some of you met her there), but she couldn't make it to London in 2018. We regularly have full scores playing in the living room, although we mix it up with other stuff too. She still finds some of the wilder action music a little overbearing. Like parts of Jurassic Park. And I don't think I'll be doing her a favor if I play stuff like The Matrix Revolutions or even Aliens.

 

My son seems to react positively to stuff like Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and Hook, but also not so much The Matrix Revolutions. I guess he takes after his mother.

[Stark 316]

I don’t know anyone who cares even 5% as much as I do, but I have identified scores and composers that friends and family do like and I try to keep them periodically returning to my field for more!

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

I dislike 99% of film music, which aligns me pretty well with my family.

[JTN 2,031]

Better to like 1% excellent film music than having to listen to 99% bad film music. 

[Bespin 8,483]

"The music is strong in my family. My father has it, I have it, my sister has it."

 

OK STOP! I don't have a sister. I have a brother, but his taste in music is very doubtful.

 

Seriously, both of my grandfathers were music lovers. One of them even played the sousaphone in a band. If my father were still alive, I believe I could discuss the film music I listen to with him. As for my mother, she likes music, but mostly popular music. All this to say that I don't have anyone in my family with whom to share my passion for classical and film music. On my husband's side of the family, his parents asked me incredulously last Christmas: 'Do you really listen to all the CDs you have in your collection and post on Facebook?' Even my husband is not a fan of classical music, and his two favorite phrases to talk with me about the music I listen to are 'Are you still listening to Star Wars... again?' and 'EEESH, that's really heavy stuff you're listening to!'

 

So this is why I'm here with you, on this forum!

[Edmilson 7,466]

My father is (or at least used to be) a huge music fan and collector. He has CDs (and vinyls) of mostly rock music (progressive, classic, hard, you name it), but also jazz, classical, Brazilian artists (rock, MPB, soul), romantic easy listening (he loves The Carpenters)... and a few film score albums.

 

I remember he had the OSTs for The Lion King and Braveheart on CD and the John Williams 1969 to 1999 collection. Eventually he also bought every album for the LOTR trilogy (OST, not the Complete Recordings), A.I., Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and maybe a few others I'm not remembering right now. But he's not exactly a film music fan, more like a music fan in general whose tastes also extend (to some extent) to film scores.

 

I have this childhood memory of when I was, like, 8 and me and some friends were writing a play (lol). If I remember correctly it was about a girl who misbehaves at school and then she is punished and learns her lesson. After spending a whole afternoon at my friends' house creating our own Macbeth, I listened to the Lion King album (only the Zimmer score, not the songs) because I wanted to find the right music to play during our play to achieve the biggest emotional impact.

 

No, we never finished the play and I never got to use Zimmer's Lion King music in context... So Disney doesn't need to sue me 

 

Otherwise, no, my family is not interested in film music and doesn't really care, neither my mother or brothers. Which is why I have always listened to my scores with headphones. I didn't want to bother them, and also I can focus on the music better with the phones instead of just playing it out loud.

 

But they do know I regularly access a John Williams forum ("that guy who did Star Wars music") on the internet. My younger brother, who doesn't care about SW, like, AT ALL, feels like this is a weird place where boomers obsess about Star Wars minutia 

 

I also have a best friend who loves to play tabletop RPG. When he is preparing his own adventures where he'll be the master, he loves to go to YouTube and find appropriate music for each scene and each boss fight.

 

Usually it's just Two Steps from Hell epic stuff or just dark ambient for when the adventurers are exploring dungeons or something, but he also used, for example, Bear McCreary's God of War theme and, on our most memorable adventure ever, Ramin Djawadi's score for the Battle of Hardhome from Game of Thrones Season 5. If you heard the music then you can imagine it was supposed to be a very dark scene, but it turned out to be a huge and hilarious mess.

[GerateWohl 4,370]

55 minutes ago, JTW said:

Better to like 1% excellent film music than having to listen to 99% bad film music. 

That might be part of the problem.

At home I am not just listening to film music of which I decided after detailed exploration, this is great film music and these are the highlights to share with my family. I often listen to stuff, that I am also just exploring or where I don't like all of it. That means, sometimes I enjoy about 30% of a score and the rest falls under the category "Hope this will grow on me". Which means, I am playing a lot of music, that I don't necessarily like or enjoy immediately. And of course my family members have got a talend to enter the room exactly in those moments when my least favourite parts of a score play. 

 

Apart from that, my wife brought some soundtrack albums into our relationship, too. "The Cell" from Howard Shore, "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover" and "Le Mari de la coiffeuse" of Michael Nyman.

[Bespin 8,483]

21 minutes ago, GerateWohl said:

Apart from that, my wife brought some soundtrack albums into our relationship, too. "The Cell" from Howard Shore, "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover" and "Le Mari de la coiffeuse" of Michael Nyman.

 

I would be afraid this one would be a subtle message: 'The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover'.

[Schilkeman 964]

My mom liked late Elvis and early Beatles. My dad died when I was 3. I got no, and I mean no, musical anything from them. The rest of my family is into white people's jazz and 70's pop. My wife tolerates my taste in music. Her family is the least sensitive to art of any group of people I've ever met. My kids couldn't care less, although I do try too expose them to new stuff. My son is still very young, so maybe he'll come around. It's lonely, but peaceful here on soundtrack island.

[GerateWohl 4,370]

11 minutes ago, Bespin said:

 

I would be afraid this one would be a subtle message: 'The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover'.

If she bought it, when she got to know me, then I could have referenced it to me. But she oened it since long before she knew me. Luckily.

[enderdrag64 624]

My dad's music collection is maybe 50% film scores, he's got perhaps a hundred or so OSTs from the 1980s-2000s. 

 

I definitely remember being introduced to film music at an early age through his collection, he'd play a lot of scores in the car while driving us around when I was growing up.

 

I got him the 2-CD Serenity album for Christmas since he always really liked that film and he had the OST for it 

[Tallguy 3,399]

Nobody like me. (You post about this stuff on the internet?!?)

 

But my Dad introduced me to film scores with Grand Prix and The Pink Panther. He had Midnight Cowboy but I'm sure it was for the songs and not for John Barry. Although he did have a Roland Shaw Bond album. He also used to hang out with the Boston Pops (Fiedler) musicians when they played golf in Stockbridge. (My JW autograph is on a score card.)

 

Both of my brothers are musicians. The middle one credits Star Wars for getting him into music. Actually my first Star Wars LP was his since it was bought for his birthday.

 

Heh, for my youngest brother by the time he was 10 it must have just been like breathing to have Williams, Goldsmith, and Horner playing. Now he makes a nice living writing license free music for sale that sounds like film scores. He's a T. Newman / John Powell fan.

[bollemanneke 3,349]

They're happy for me when I'm happy about a new release, but definitely don't listen to film music themselves.

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

9 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

Nobody like me.

 

We like you.

[Tallguy 3,399]

7 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

We like you.

 

Damn fool I KNEW you were gonna say that!

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

Ooh, I KNEW you were gonna reply that!

[JTN 2,031]

I'm the only film music listener in my family. 

My Father loved classical music, mostly listened to opera arias. 

My Mom loves all kinds of music, but mostly listens to music of the 70s and 80s. 

When I started listening to film music, both my parents approved of it and supported me. 

When I showed them some of the scores, they liked them.

My Dad's favorite was naturally John Williams, because his music reminded him of classical music, e.g. Mozart.

But none of them ever purchased or put a film music CD into the CD player to listen to it.

 

I used to listen to scores with my Dad. We would be sitting in the living room together and listened to something I knew he would enjoy, like Indiana Jones. His favorite JW theme was the Theme from SCHINDLER'S LIST and "Dry Your Tears, Afrika" from AMISTAD. I would play them to him a lot, setting the volume so loud that it felt like the orchestra and the choir was standing right before us, the music and vox humana resonating all around us. 

 

Oo bee ya mah yee ah
Bee len geisia tee yamanga
Mu ya mah mu yeh
Mu ya mah mu yeh
Mu ya mah mu yeh, Afrika

 

The last score we listened to together was THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, and my Dad was really impressed by it. He said that it's like some of the greatest classical music. He knew how much I adore John Williams and was so proud of me when the Maestro wrote to me or when I interviewed all those great film composers. 

 

I will never ever listen to anything with him sitting beside me. I would give anything if I could see him sitting in his favorite chair with his eyes closed enjoying the African rhythms and the chanting of the choir of AMISTAD, one more time. Just my Dad and me, Father and son together.

[JTN 2,031]

I just found this.

I made this for my Dad once. I translated the tracklist and wrote a one-word summary to some of the tracks so that he would read it while listening to the score together and understand what scene the specific track was written to, like with an opera.

[Tom Guernsey 2,286]

I don't think my family have ever really understood my film music obsession, but have been very supportive if needed. Notably, when I was at school (1996 and in the 6th form, so I'd have been 17 or 18), I wanted to go to the JW concert with the LSO where he'd be doing all the greatest hits, plus the premier live performance (I think) of Summon the Heroes. In order to go, I'd have to miss an afternoon of school (the joys of living on an island). Given that, at the time, I wanted to be a composer and was also over 16 and thus no longer legally required to be at school, my parents were quite surprised to be told that they wouldn't give permission for me to go. I think they went in and had a meeting with the principal and had to persuade him of the rarity of the opportunity to see such a concert and point out all the music I'd written. He eventually relented. What a vile old bastard he was. Still, it was a great concert and very glad I was able to go. Just annoyed I lost my tape of it as I think it was broadcast on Radio 3. Ah well, the memories...