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Composer trade marks


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I love the boom-tzzz!

It'd be neat to test yourself with random film music you haven't heard, and guess which composer wrote it. You'd have to be able to recognize these trademarks and stuff.

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Let's start with James Horner

- "crashing piano"

- female voices

- four note danger motif

- Anvils

Williams:

- leitmotif

- dense orchestration

- boom-tzzz!

- Characteristic timpani writing

Goldsmith:

--experimentation/lots of synth

--advanced composition for woodwinds (particularly oboes)

--main themes primarily performed by strings

- Odd rhythms

- String counterpoint in the repetition of the main theme (in his 90s stuff)

Rosenman:

- Tone pyramids

Marian - :ola:

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Also for Williams:

-running flute lines ("up and over" as in E.T. and Hook)

-instantly hummable themes

Elfman:

-very distinctive choral work; children's choirs "lala"-ing

JNH

-themes/music characterized by moving chord changes

Ray Barnsbury

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Add to Horner and later Goldsmith:

-Main Themes often very blandly accompanied by simple chord progressions with very little or no counterpoint

Elfman:

-very sophisticated frenzy string writing

-accompanying string 16th arpeggiated chords

-some electronica

-very diverse percussion

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One more for Elfman:

-That chord progression from the tonic to the diminished fifth (major) ... He uses that chord progression so often...

Don Davis:

-Dissonant Brassy Crescendos

-Heavy Striking Anvils

-Crazy flying woodwinds ROTFLMAO

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Also for Williams:

-running flute lines ("up and over" as in E.T. and Hook)

Precisely. It was just that what made me love his arrangement for the Chariots of Fire theme... and my roommates crack up hysterically.

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Williams

Use of the Bassoon better them most Modern Composers ...Take alisten, its good stuff. Even the Bass Clarinet.

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I like it when Goldsmith creates full, lush string parts, then, after every phrase, has the horns come in with a little melody to fill in the gaps. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

~Conor

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Williams: Often writes such that "brass is strings"; in other words many of his brass parts are the type that other composers would write for strings. This is particualrly true of his trumpet and horn writing.

Horner: Your either listening to the "Celtic-Irish-ethnic" score or the "action-adventure-loud" score.

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I like it when Goldsmith creates full, lush string parts, then, after every phrase, has the horns come in with a little melody to fill in the gaps. Anyone know what I'm talking about?  

Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm thinking Air Force One, for example. I enjoy that characteristic, though I'm not sure what it would be called. At first I was thinking counterpoint, but since the horn part wouldn't really be played during the string part, that may not be correct.

Ray Barnsbury

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Add to Williams:

xylophone-flute counterpoints

Add to James Newton Howard:

Percussion accents by striking the necks of string instruments (which I love)

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Hans Zimmer - the same damn thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again......

.....apart from maybe Crimson Tide......which I have only recently obtained and am surprised at how much I am enjoying it......

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Hans Zimmer - the same damn thing over and over

:baaa:

Yes, if there's one thing I can't stand, it's how similar Crimson Tide and Black Hawk Down and Hannibal and Mission Impossible 2 and The Pledge and As Good as it Gets and The Fan and The Ring are.... they're practically the same score!

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Add to James Newton Howard:  

Percussion accents by striking the necks of string instruments (which I love)

No kidding, it's really somewhere in most of his scores! So cool! Today I was enjoying that in The Fugitive.

More JN Howard:

-Odd meter (like 5/4) action writing

-Minor/major key shifts

-Ambient, atmospheric synths to augment orchestra

-Slick urban synth beats

-Dense dissonant strings

-Pastoral solo oboe

-Noble "floating" solo horn

-Massed unbridled French horns in action writing :thumbup:

-African/ethnic synth percussion and choral elements

-Dynamic intervallic action writing

Elfman:

-"Music box" themes

-Circus like comical writing

-The accordion LOL

Alan Silvestri:

-"Hymn like" string-based romantic themes

-Sentimental solo piano (a la Feather Theme)

-Action - Aggressive powerful unison brass with strong themes

Elliot Goldenthal:

-Huge Gothic choir

-High trilling brass

-Blatting growling (and other interesting things) brass

-Screeching crawling strings like spiders

-Train-whistle like dissonant brass hits

-Orchestration that creates a "pipe organ" ensemble effect

-Great modern jazz ensemble writing

-Traversing multiple styles from one cue to the next

-The most creative cue titles I've ever seen :mrgreen:

Greta

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Add to Williams:

Harp - lots of it in SW music...not too many write cool harp parts if they even write at all...sweeping harp parts.

Zimmer - the ability to blow out your speakers with pounding orchestrations...bombastic is a good word ... and Gladiator is the first of his scores that doesn't hurt your ears with all that continual pounding...

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