just syringed my ears....EUGH!! Thanks for the tip.

You are right though. I didn't know that Elfman did Goodwill Hunting, and that is a million miles away from Simpsons and MIB. Successful comosers do make a bit of a rod for their own backs though. Like someone mentioned, JNH stuff is a lot mainstream. Danny Elfman is well known for his gothic/romantic stuff, and if you are a producer and have heard stuff by someone who does a good job in such a style, then you are going to ask them to do the same for you. He does look right for that kind of music though - kinda quirky!

I hereby publicly apologise to PaulR. I have no desire to upset people on this forum. I am enthusiastic in my profession. Noone can claim to be expert in all areas. I love my job and am good at it. I like the way, though, that PaulR knows everything about me and comments with authority about me. My knowledge of film music runs only to that which I have heard, and not that which I have written. Having had absolutely no opportunity to write to picture, although I would like to, I can not argue intellectually from a composers point of view. Personally, if I had the kind of experience PaulR obviously has, I wouldn't necessarily look quite so hard down my nose at others less capable. It is obvious we are worlds apart, and this forum does not need to read our petty word fights any more. Thus, as far as I am concerned, the air is clear, no more hard feelings, and the matter is safely in bed.

When one gets to Paul R's venerable age one can know things about a person,just by how they say something,or not. [[;)]] Gracious will he be in accepting your apology,hahahaha (in the style of Yoda).Takes some guts to apologise.

Regarding the Elfman: he really has cornered the market of music for a darkened people;he does it so well,and is one of the very few living film originals,in that he cites ,eg, Herrmann as his big influence,yet isn't overt in his borrowing from that composer.That,together with his relative lack of academic background,makes him,for me, a towering contemporary figure.It's very difficult to have your own sound,but he has in in spades.I know the orchestrator can contribute greatly to the "sound" of a composer,but the notes have to be on the page in the first place.Elfman's music can be extraordinarily complex,particularly with regard to rhythm,and that capriciousness suits the film medium very well.Respect to the man.

@strawinsky said:

I know the orchestrator can contribute greatly to the "sound" of a composer,but the notes have to be on the page in the first place. Elfman's music can be extraordinarily complex,particlarly with regard to rhythm,and that capriciousness suites the film medium very well.Respect to the man.

Interesting choice of words, notes on the page...... [:D]

DG

[[;)]]

I hate it when people apologize. Hahaha! I hate it when people cave in so rapidly without putting up a least a good argument. You didn't last very long. What's it going to be like when a piss poor director tells you ' I don't like that music you wrote for this scene - do it again'. Hahahah!

If I was upset, you would have known about it - I don't really ever get upset. Why?

Because in the end, when discussing specifically filmscores and scoring, it's really a matter of taste and unfortunately there is a blurring between taste and and what actually works. This type of discussion generally has no effect on the actual film makers because they are looking at things in an entirely different way to a musician. Therefore, it appears one can be 'looking down one's nose' as you put. And believe me, I've got a big nose.

As Stravinsky so eloquently put it, Herrmann is like God to Elfman - Herrmann is the reason Elfman got into filmscoring for a living basically. That, and the money probably. And thank goodness Elfman did, because he has shown some highly original ideas over the years - for example, some really excellent scoring in say Sleepy Hollow and many others.

A whole discussion on it's own - is when musicians seperate out a score from film - it's generally a nonsense with obviously some great exceptions, like Herrmann, Williams etc.

As Hermmann once said - 'you can write a highly technical score for a film that can be very effective - and you can write really quite bad music for a film, that can be equally as as effective'.

I watched Psycho last night - may not be the best technical music for film ever written (although close) - but in terms of it's effect on the overall film -it sets the standard that all things must be judged by.

Back to the golf.

[:D]

Tiger's not out of the woods yet...

@strawinsky said:

Tiger's not out of the woods yet...

(Sharp intake of breath)

It's going be interesting - very close hopefully. [H]

Oh well, a no win situation. Ok..so I don't apologise. I didn't really mean it anyway. I just thought people would have had enough of your pompous drivel, drivel which I thought you had no time for.

Back to money earning work... Have to deliver a show's worth of arranging so I can pay off the credit card (VSL opus 1/2 !!) and pay my mortgage for this month.

BTW, I didn't cave in, I just realised that my ego wasn't big enough to occupy a thread subscribed to by you, Paul.

Sorry to other guys having to read this crap - I promise I am out of puerile hair pulling...except to say that my spelling is better than Paul's!

I can't even believe I am wasting my time on this posting. He will want the last word, or words, or thousands of pointless, self-adulating words. Oh, and that is dandruff on your shoulder, not my knowledge. OUTTA HERE!

rawmusic,

I do remember the mockup you are talking about, it was featured in an article in the Keyboard magazine and it was called "The Egg Travels". However I falsely remembered it was Elfman's. However, I had a good laugh at this comparison as it just featured the same real recording with a very small offset in the beginning of either one and just did not show the real Midi mockup by JNH.

The article can be found here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040630005716/http://archive.keyboardonline.com/features/jnhoward/index.shtml
The file links unfortunately don't work anymore and I believe they took them down for their own better. There was also some discussion on NS about it but I can't find that anymore.

On another note, I concur with the opinion JNH would be mainstream. I don't find any other composer coming out with stuff that he does. E.g. there's nothing the the score from "The Village", or something like stuff you kind find in "Peter Pan". "Signs" is always a pleasure to listen to for me, and there are surely a few more from his repertoire that aren't alike any other out there.

All the best,
PolarBear

@Another User said:

However, I had a good laugh at this comparison as it just featured the same real recording with a very small offset in the beginning of either one and just did not show the real Midi mockup by JNH.

Hi.. I'm not sure I understand. Could you elaborate?

@rawmusic said:

BTW, I didn't cave in, I just realised that my ego wasn't big enough to occupy a thread subscribed to by you, Paul.

That's OK. You're not anywhere near good enough or knowledgable enough to have an ego as big as mine.

Polar - don't elaborate too much on that JNH mockup without using the word 'allegedly'. That would be my advice.

Thanks for the tip Paul. Well, I was "lucky" enough to load both versions back that time and I believe I still have them on my old computer somewhere, I'm just too lazy to find them now. These two were clearly labeled pieces, one suggesting to be the midi rendition and the other the real recording. Well. That said, the two were identical files (I triple-checked with wave editor and channel to channel comparison, i.e. I loaded the midi file left the channel to the left channel of a new file and the left channel of the real one to the right in the new file). They were identical once I eliminated a small offset one of the two had. Given the sounds that are enumareted on the site and my ears that I trust most of the times, I assumed they were both the real recording fooling the listeners into believing something outstandable was done there. Of course it could as well have been the mockup twice, but as I said, my ears wouldn't believe that. oh and, in the following I never saw a correction of a perhaps faulty labeled thing, and as you see it's taken offline already, for a reason I don't know.

Hope that was enoug of elaboration,
PolarBear

I find it interesting how Elfman is such a disciple of Herrmann, but writes music that is distinctively his own. He is one of the tiny handful of respectable film composers working now. The number of composers today aping John Williams is nauseating, but now Herrmann has been added to the imitation factory. Perhaps the difference is simply in being passionate about something. In other words, Elfman is passionate about Herrmann, has been intensely inspired by him, and has a true musical mind of his own. When that happens, new music is born.

When on the other hand a musical ape hears John Williams (or Herrmann), the same music is reborn. With deformities and not enough physical soundess to survive into adulthood.

By the way Rawmusic, Paul R is just funnin' with you. You have to realize, he is just naturally a charmer. He just has a way with people and can't help being gracious, polite and sensitive to others' needs at all times.

And Bill's hit the nail on the head as usual.

Of the plethora of composers writing today, we can hear a clear distinction between those, who like great composers in the past, learnt styles, emulated others, admired one or two immensely (Beethoven and Handel e.g.) and then embarked on their own musical journey fortified and inspired by those they looked to, and learnt from.
And then there's the rest who copy others with no sense of individuality, eager to cash in on the groundwork and inspiration forged by others.
There are economic and directorial considerations in this, but genuine groundbreakers are, like the past, thin on the ground, and in my opinion, based on the constraints of economic circumstances, opinions of demographic 'experts', and the ever increasing stranglehold the corporate profit driven owners have on the creative industry as a whole, are likely to get even thinner.
There's a positive side to this though.
Technology gives us the opportunity to start sidestepping the industry, and go out on our own. Never before have we had such fine tools to work with, and the ability to take our work to the public without constraint, with our own websites, for example.
It is certainly, after an initial setup cost, cheaper than ever to write and self publish, and maybe that's the direction to go and change the 'rules' to increase our chances.
It's definitely a goal of mine, as past experience with agents, lawyers, and unscrupulous industry owners has opened my eyes to modern compositional reality,and gives me the determination and sheer drive to eliminate them where possible from determining my future.

Regards and success to you all,

Alex.

rawmusic -- paulr can be a forum jerk, in my opinion -- and in my time on these forums, have never seen him get better than having reasonable points of view sprinkled with unnecessary profanity, but was hoping for steady improvement. So the charm and talent others have mentioned must be from some far distant past before I got here too. But you're right, he needs to get the last word in. Last thread of altercations got so bad that it was deleted, and these forums smelled not so good for weeks afterwards. There are others (s ... ) who will probably join in too for some reason defending pr.

polarbear, I too did the egg comparison with a wave editor, and they were definitely the same recording posted twice. Was not impressed, naturally, but one never knows who made the error or why.

[post moved]

@Another User said:

I watched Psycho last night - may not be the best technical music for film ever written (although close)

Hey Paul, just curious what you mean by that. Do you mean that the way it works with the picture isn't as brilliant as the music itself, but almost?

(My favorite is the going up the stairs cue.)

Either Psycho or Vertigo is the best score ever written, one of the two certainly. Technically Psycho is perhaps the more effective - at least in a spectacular, tour de force way. Artistically, as a pure musical creation, Vertigo is the greatest, also some of the best music of any kind written in its time. Though of course it functions perfectly as film accompaniment as well. It is very difficult to judge between the two. And when one starts thinking of the other Herrmann like Hangover Square, or North by Northwest, or On Dangerous Ground, and even more he did, the only thing which stops them from being considered equal is the films themselves which are not quite up to the level of the first two. Though as a reviewer of the weak de Palma-Hitchcock-derivation "Obsession" once put it, Herrmann could make even blank film compelling.

@Nick Batzdorf said:

Hey Paul, just curious what you mean by that. Do you mean that the way it works with the picture isn't as brilliant as the music itself, but almost?
(My favorite is the going up the stairs cue.)

Well, maybe Vertigo is technically better Nick - that is a matter of conjecture. What I meant (strapped for time at the last post) is that regardless of a person's taste i.e whether one likes Psycho or not as a movie, the film is a template on how all films could be made. What do I mean by that? Well, you would probably have had all this rammed down your throat at Berklee, I don't know.

The way the film is cut. The way, after cutting, Herrmann uses the techniques he does regarding the cues. The music is obviously nothing but strings all the way through i.e no horns, windwinds etc. The strings are all muted with no vibrato for that cold effect. He employs creepy serialism etc. Loads of filmic teqniques etc - that have been copied over and over again.

Yeah - haha! The going up the stairs with Martin Balsam is a great cue - no vibrato and very ppp until the now almost cliche sliding of the strings to high pitches - perhaps the most famous cue in cinematic history as used in the shower scene. As you know, Hitchcock didn't want any music at all for the shower scene - so this could lead one to think that logically he didn't want any music for the going up the stairs scene. Don't know the answer to that one.

My favourite cue from any film actually on personal taste level is the driving through the rain cue, which is also the opening Saul Bass title with very slight variations - also used when she drives away from the cop when found asleep in the car. Amazing piece of writing. Also the serialistic final cue named Madhouse. The bit with the fly on the hand. A hugely humerous film in places - yes, as I get older, I can see what Hitchcock meant when he said he thought Psycho was actually funny in places.

On a non personal basis, this is surely the most effective music to film ever written in movie history. Who else then, or even now, could have written that score. I would suggest no one. The man was a genius at times, and downright lazy at other times, depending on his mood, which could be 'difficult'.

In terms of effectiveness, which should be paramount to any filmscore writer, Psycho takes it - but reagrding Vertigo, as Bill mentions, then you are talking about a score that is very much part of the actual narrative of the film. Long periods of no dialogue that is filled with the mood Herrmann wishes you feel. On top of that, one has the opening Saul Bass titles, which has arguably the best opening scoring of any movie, leading into the actual chase scene on the rooftops. Quite a staggering piece of work that maybe only musicians can really appreciate, although this music from the start is explaining to the audience they are definitely not watching a comedy, for instance.

North by Northwest just shows huge depth in the writing of the opening titles, again by Saul Bass. Very exciting music and expertly written - and difficult when analysing. Great music to have on in the car - loud. You suddenly find yourself driving at 120 mph along a cliff top - hammered out of your mind. Hugely exhilerating.

All in all, these three examples of Herrmann's work are a must for anyone interested in filmscoring - provided that they don't seperate the film from the music. That is the whole point of this type of writing in the first place.

I would say that even crappy, bollocks-up musicians, like gugliel, would gain a modicum of positive energy from this type of writing - naturally based on limited IQ etc.