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@fcw said:
"don't do that."
The first time I agree to a statement of a forumite on this board.
However, if you wanna make some money with your thesis by selling it as fiction, this title emanates a good portion of mysterium:
"The First Man To Compare The Cheeks Of A Young Woman To A Rose Was Obviously A Poet; The First To Repeat It Was Possibly An Idiot"
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"Actually, dependent on the depth required, you could probably get a dissertation out of tracing the connections between Goldsmith's score for 'Star Trek: the Motion Picture' and various Vaughan Williams symphonies" - fcw
Yes, that was what I was thinking was the only way to do this in some meaningful manner - to severely limit it, as it is right now so vague a subject. Pounding drums? Dissonant, chaotic woodwinds? Loud brass fanfares? Yeah, I guess Stravinsky had that influence. So did about a thousand other composers. And then yes, since his music is good many composers imitated him. Wow, that's a news flash. I do think you need something more intricately detailed, such as what fcw mentioned.
By the way, that was a very good example - Star Trek The Motion Picture score has some serious influences coming from Vaughn Williams, from the Seventh Symphony mainly. Also the Sixth Symphony. I remember in particular a low pp unison horn line that is a very similar orchestrational effect in the context. Though not stolen - the Goldsmith score is a great, spectacular work by a genius. There ought to be a whole thread just about that masterpiece - it has almost everything film music can do, to perfection.
first, your title:
"how has Stravinsky influenced film music?"
is far off in the green, better would be:
"how film composer rip off anything and implying it in their functional movie soundtracks"
For a better understanding of a composer who created original music, and as support for your dissertation, you should understand Stravinsky first and then the copy cats. There is no originality in film soundtracks, it is all cliché, anti-cliché, idioms, snowclone and archetype. Film sound is purely functional music, similar to a TV-spot. I personally would not even call a film soundtrack music. And forgetthat word "Primitivism", that's musicologist nonsense, and none of Stravinky's music is perverse.
Read Stravinsky's transcribed Oxford lectures, I made a PDF for you:
Igor Stavinsky - Poetics of Music IN THE FORM OF SIX LESSONS [1942].pdf (6MB)|
http://www.sendspace.com/file/0djarz
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I see the troglodytic lurker Clematide has re-surfaced from the Lovecraftian netherworld he sunk to after his ludicrous "How-to-do-all-dynamic-ranges-in twelve-steps" thread was mercifully dispatched into the cybernetic non-existence it richly deserved.
Stravinsky originally wanted to do film music but was rejected from a Hollywood studio gig and only then said film music was 'wallpaper." Talk about sour grapes! And yet you believe everything he said. Like many other great artists he was a source of disinformation and distorted opinions concerning other artists - which he didn't happen to be - and other arts - that he did not do - like the art of film music.
well, filmcomposers "stole" from stravinsky... so what... stravinsky himself stole from other great composers... just an example: his idea of bitonality that is very explicitely elaborated in the rite of spring... he stole it from maurice ravel. but guess what: he made it his own. that is what a great composer does... he steals and makes it his own... stravinsky himself said: a good composer does not borrow, he steals.... there is nothing wrong with stealing or ripping off... it is in the way you do it. sure, there is a lot of bad filmmusic out there, maybe even the vast majority (just like in concert music, btw), but saying in general, that filmmusic ist just a huge rip-off, shows that you don´t know that much about the people who are being ripped off... go back to uni...
@ william: thanks for that post... it was one of the wittiest i´ve ever read here...
p.s.: the way you are dissing "functional" music is inherently stupid. stravinsky himself wrote a lot of functional music (i.e. ballets). opera music is also functional (many film composers do also steal from operas). actually you could say that opera is the predecessor of film in a way (200 years ago, star wars would have been an opera, not a movie!). it is just a different medium... there have been many bad operas in the last 400 years and there have been many bad filmscores in the past 80 years... but the best did and will survive... it has always been like that.
concerning your complaint about the lack of originality in filmscoring: do you know that there is not even one single original idea in the plays of shakespeare? all of his plays have been written before, more than 1000 years before his time, but noone wrote them like he did... there are also filmcomposers who can do a similar thing, but you will only find it if you are openminded enough...
well you two, from your responds I must assume that you are both hollywood movie soundtrack tinker
Insist upon yourself. Be original. You've gotta be original, because if you're like someone else, what do they need you for
well you two, from your responds I must assume that you are both hollywood movie soundtrack tinker
Insist upon yourself. Be original. You've gotta be original, because if you're like someone else, what do they need you for
no, i am not. i compose contemporary music. the way you respond just shows that ignorance often goes along with arrogance. nobody is ever fully original. the great masters did copy from others like crazy. i already said: it is in the way you do it.
Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.
I know that when you work to the specification of a client, like forumite William does, that he does whatever the expectations are of the movie director and obeying to the common cliché, and not breaking out into new music - but I do not understand that you as contemporary composer can not take the freedom to compose whatever you like, meaning inventing new music nobody ever heard before
So it must be concluded from Clematide that all film music is unoriginal and all concert music is original. The only problem with this amusing concept is you don't hear all the copycats of Berg, Webern or Stravinsky in the concert halls because they instantly disappear after one performance, but anything unoriginal written for film continues to be heard as long as the film is playing.
To come onto a forum filled with film composers and say film music is basically bad is insulting and doubly so because people in the early days of cinema used to look down on film music as being second rate. After Herrmann, Korngold, Steiner, Goldsmith, De la Rue, Preisner, etc. etc. etc. that became not only more difficult to do but actually a sign of either ignorance, envy or simple stupidity.
That is an excellent point by aural about Shakespeare and absolutely true. In fact his greatest play, Hamlet, was actually based on a fully written play by someone else that is now lost. In folklore such as the medieval marchen, the quallity of a story was never defined by how original it was, but by how well it was told. it is only in the modern age that originality became the end-all and sole purpose of art. Today, to be original means MORE than to be good. So if someone like Angelo Clematide creates a work of art by excreting on a musical keyboard in front of an audience he will be acclaimed as a brilliantly original creator. BTW Angelo - you can use that idea, no problem.
Hey Angelo, welcome back from your slumber and all that jazz but please... I prevail upon you. Don't Piss William Off.
Do you how long it took us (forum members) to put him back in good spirits after his last, er... "episode." He gets down right nasty when he's pissed!
I understand you're just as passionate as the rest of us but, Angelo, if you continue to poke William with a stick then I would like to ask, is there anybody out there who would like to make a wager as to how long the moderator will allow this thread continue? You know anytime Angelo's name comes up the moderator is sweating bullets with his/her finger on the "Shut This Thread The Hell Down" button.
My wager is 10. 10 responses starting now.
Hey VSL, if I'm correct can I get a free copy of the Vienna Choir?
jasensmith sez: ----> Hey Angelo, welcome back from your slumber and all that jazz but please... I prevail upon you. Don't Piss William Off.
I have absolutely no intention to "piss off" William, and Robert told me that he is a superior talented film composer, and I enjoiyed his underscoring of Prisoner of Azkaban very much, after a long time I felt that my investment for a cinema ticket was a good spending,
of course I was a little surprised by his response above with the capital letter with the great typography which was directed at an another forumite ---> but he is completly on the right track about my persona, except for Stravinsky for which I have no special relation nor any kind of admiration. I only missed a little the dynamics, 3D effect, visual ambience and digital colorist effect in his otherwise great post, so I changed this factors a little to enhance a more to the audience appealing typography and add it to my official CV:
© William, 2010 May 1st
I see the troglodytic lurker Clematide has re-surfaced from the Lovecraftian netherworld he sunk to after his ludicrous "How-to-do-all-dynamic-ranges-in twelve-steps" thread was mercifully dispatched into the cybernetic non-existence it richly deserved.
BTW oh Magnificent Clematide, the Knower Of All Things Eurropean who let me know how little he knew compared to his vast reserve of enless knowledge - DO YOU KNOW WHO LOVECRAFT IS? Quick! Look it up on the internet and give me many references. For your information, I already have TWO COMPLETE ARKHAM HOUSE EDITIONS of everything he wrote, so don't bother.
For your information you pathetic blowhard Clematide, Stravinsky was FULL OF *** concerning film music, which HE ORIGINALLY WANTED TO DO BUT WAS REJECTED FROM A HOLLYWOOD STUDIO GIG AND AFTERWORD SAID FILM MUSIC IS WALLPAPER. Gee, what a shock! Talk about sour grapes! And yet you beleive everything he said. How very predictable.
So don't tire me with your pathetic little references to what this pyschotic (albiet talented) composer said. He like many other great artists was a source of disinformation and absurdly opinionated CRAP concerning other artists - which he didn't happen to be - and other arts - that he did not do - like the GREAT ART OF FILM MUSIC - YOU PATHETIC FOOL! - WHICH YOU ARE INCAPABLE OF IN YOUR INCOMPETENCE AND THEREFORE INSULT - JUST LIKE YOUR GOD STRAVINSKY, you wretched syccophantic slavering troglodyte gibbering incoherently at the nethermost pits of Hell.
... but I do not understand that you as contemporary composer can not take the freedom to compose whatever you like, meaning inventing new music nobody ever heard before
the fact that i do not diss filmmusic does not imply that i don´t intend to write unheard material or that i don´t take the freedom to write what i like... i actually really do that... the difference is just that i am not as pretentious as you.
btw: you could also accuse stravinsky of not being original... just take the rite of spring... do you know how many folkmelodies there are in that piece? these melodies are not even altered... they are quoted literally... so... by your definition, stravinsky must be a lame composer, because he did not come up with one single original melody in the probably most groundbreaking piece of the early 20th century.
The new look of my post, with emphatic typography, is quite alluring so I must thank Angelo for clarifying the tender feelings expressed in it which were revealed to me under the illumination of a draft of fine vintage from the deep-delved earth. Actually I have to revise something concerning the gelatinous and amorphous entity known as "Clematide" - his dynamic range thread, which sank into the tarn outside the melancholy house of Usher at the same time Madeleine clawed her way out of the coffin and leaped fatally upon Roderick, was potentially useful. I didn't want to use it personally, but it could be of value since one has to evolve something of the kind eventually.
however, these personal insults have got to stop - Prisoner of Azkaban? I did NOT score that film! I scored the Prisoner of Kazhakstan, a much more adult-themed film about the later adventures of Harry in a men's prison.
@aural said:
btw: you could also accuse stravinsky of not being original... just take the rite of spring... do you know how many folkmelodies there are in that piece? these melodies are not even altered... they are quoted literally... so... by your definition, stravinsky must be a lame composer, because he did not come up with one single original melody in the probably most groundbreaking piece of the early 20th century.
I believe that in one piece (Petroushka?) he even used a melody that was still under copyright and and ended up having to pay a royalty.
I always want to hear exactly what people who complain about originality do THEMSELVES. Let's just hear YOUR originality. They sit on the sidelines and ridicule film composers for having no originality. So what do they do?
I have heard this kind of stuff many times. For example, people who were not composers started saying this about John Williams as soon as he was successful. They said he stole everything and would give examples, like a section from Stars Wars sounds like Rite of Spring, etc. But if you write tonal music it is inevitable that you will sound like something else at some time. Also, inspiration will lead to similarities that are not necessarily plagiarism. But in the end, despite all that, his own style is unmistakeable. One knows it is John Williams within about four or five bars. People copy John Williams now. So if he is so unoriginal, how could you copy him? THERE WOULD BE NOTHING TO COPY.
The reason is that "originality" is contained within the overall piece of music that is the composer's style, not in simply contradicting everything previously done which would be idiotic (and has been done many, many times). J. S. Bach was considered old-fashioned - IN HIS OWN TIME. He was not new and "ORIGINAL." Of course the new and original people of that time are LONG GONE. Whereas Bach is played all over the world, every day, centuries after his death.
yes, indeed.
what people also forget ist the fact that filmcomposition involves a tremendous craft as a musician. since i know both sides, i can say that it is far easier to write something abstract (you can´t do that much wrong when you´re abstract... if people don´t like it or if it´s crap, you simply can say: "it is art!"... it´s actually pretty easy to behave as if you are contemporary... postmodernism allows for anything to happen...) than something "concrete".
you really have to know both sides... as a filmcomposer, you have to be accustomed to all sorts of styles and write in those styles within a splitsecond... the fact is, that the really great filmcomposers also do write contemporary music (actually incredibly well, but hardly anyone will ever have the chance to hear such pieces) and you can hear it in their filmscoring that they are experienced in post WW2-music (does mr.C actually really think that for filmcomposers the musical history ends with mahler and stravinsky???)... it is just a huge difference... (actually all filmcomposers i know personally do also write contemporary concert music at a very advanced level... yet all straight edge, arrogantly behaving contemporary music composers i know are not able to score for film... and if they try, they come up with something like a lachenmann-string-quartet (which by itself sounds very good, tbh) in a kissing-scene, because they could not ever forgive themselves if they wrote something tonal... so... there must be something wrong here, right???) but people like mr. C. just know the abstract world... believe me... being "original" in that realm is really simple... just do something that a composer would never do... and whoom... there you go... academics will love you for being unconventional when you write a concerto for a derailing train.... in contemporary music "arbitrariness" is often confused with "originality" (as in filmcomposition or any style for that matter)
again: i am neither dissing filmmusic, nor contemporary concert music... i am just saying that it is not a black or white issue... there is good and bad in both sides...
You are right about the craft, which is extremely difficult at times. it even thwarts the finest composers. An example is the great Max Steiner who is without question one of the best composers in the history of film, but who could overwrite a scene terribly. Or another example of the craft but the reverse - being exceptionally well done - Lord of the Rings. At first I was leery of Shore but now think he did an amazing job. The range of music that must be done simply to get a score down for that project, let alone to do it well, is almost unimaginable. In fact, it is on a Wagnerian scale. I have often thought that Wagner was trying to create film scores before there was film. Perhaps the greatest example of craft as well as pure composing for film is Herrmann. I say that because never once, in all the films and tv shows that had his music (of which I have heard every one), never did I hear a scene that was overwritten, or weak, or not right for the film. He had the most unerring sense of what was needed for a film score of any composer. But also, his music was extremely good from a pure compositional standpoint. Like the score to Vertigo - it is better than most concert music written at the time, and music that will last. He developed a style that was Romantic, and yet minimalist, thereby isolating himself from the Post-romantic Rachmaninoff-Liszt-Tchaikovsky-amalgamation so common at the time (1940s - the time of the first score he did which was Citizen Kane). He was both Modernist as well as Romantic.