I just watched the Symphobia 2 trailer. It's simply amazing how formulaic this kind of music is. This is stuff you simply can't listen to, and I find it disturbing that they market this library with such drab examples. Oh well.

@Talino said:

I just watched the Symphobia 2 trailer. It's simply amazing how formulaic this kind of music is. This is stuff you simply can't listen to, and I find it disturbing that they market this library with such drab examples. Oh well.

Exactly! I've seen many people on other forums getting very excited but I fail to see the appeal of making the same music (if you can call it that) as everybody else.

I just had an image in my mind of a composer-minion working deep inside Zimmer's bunker following this thread (for sketches they may be using the VS and other libraries), and showing Hans our posts during breaks, and both of them splitting their sides laughing, especially Hans; for all we know he may have licensed 3-4 Complete Orchestral Packages, be VSL's best customer and a personal friend of Herb's - Hans is German after all... Stone-throw...

@Errikos said:

I just had an image in my mind of a composer-minion working deep inside Zimmer's bunker following this thread (for sketches they may be using the VS and other libraries), and showing Hans our posts during breaks, and both of them splitting their sides laughing, especially Hans; for all we know he may have licensed 3-4 Complete Orchestral Packages, be VSL's best customer and a personal friend of Herb's - Hans is German after all... Stone-throw...

He may have VSL but I remember reading an article a year or so ago where it stated that he had developed and recorded his own library using the London Symphony.  I also remember reading that he had 2-3 full time programmers maintaining the custom package.  I also remember about 8 months ago viewing another competitor's forum when someone stated something about Hans incorrectly and another person replied to correct him.  Well, they exchanged a few post with the one individual with the bad information challenging him "How do you even know" when finally, the other one identified himself, "I know because I AM HANS ZIMMER!".  Can't be sure if it really was but I did a search on the site and that was the only post by that individual out there.....

I guess the moral of the story is if your going to post something, you better know what your talking about - You never know who might be watching......

@William said:

 I recently saw "Inception" which featured a very loud score by Hans Zimmer.  He also did the Dark Knight with the same director. 

Well William,

Your thread just made the most replies for the past three days........

@Chuck Green said:

 I also remember reading that he had 2-3 full time programmers maintaining the custom package.  I also remember about 8 months ago viewing another competitor's forum when someone stated something about Hans incorrectly and another person replied to correct him.  Well, they exchanged a few post with the one individual with the bad information challenging him "How do you even know" when finally, the other one identified himself, "I know because I AM HANS ZIMMER!".  Can't be sure if it really was but I did a search on the site and that was the only post by that individual out there.....

I guess the moral of the story is if your going to post something, you better know what your talking about - You never know who might be watching......

O.K., I'd better come clean then; actually.... I'M HANS ZIMMER!

(as in I'M SPARTACUS!)

Jasen,

Not knowing for sure, doesn't the director have the final say as to what and how much music is applied to the video?  If that's the case, then I don't necessarily think we should hold the composer directly responsible....  Do they get paid on the number of minutes of music they write whether it's used or not?  I know that's not always the case as for some are paid by the project but that would be incentive enough to write as much as possible whether it get's used or not.  Not an expert in this area, maybe someone else would care to chime in and qualify.......

 There are some interesting posts here and I appreciate reading them, but the post stating that we are living in the past really pisses me off.

So doing good complex music that uses orchestration, counterpoint, advanced harmonies and melodies IS LIVING IN THE PAST?

That is disgusting to me.    If it is living in the past then SIGN ME UP, FOR AROUND 1200 A.D. Because that is about the time that music superceded Zimmer in harmonic, rhythmic, melodic and contrapuntal complexity.

Oh no!  I spread some negative energy. I am SO SORRY..  I'll try to be all smiles next time... [:@]

@vibrato said:

I always respected you and learnt from you and Paul in the past over many years.

 Yes, you can talk about it sometimes and yes there are certain problems with every industry. But dont talk like you were present in the 1950's or 70's standing next to Herrmann and know first hand what the situation was.

Well I can't imagine that you ever learned anything from me Tanuj. I hardly ever write any music myself these days and anything I do write is extremely sparse in it's nature. I only ever write anything when the weather is bad for a prolonged period and I can't get out on the golf course. I never ever go to the cinema. The last time I was in a cinema was probably 30 years ago. I'm not interested in being in the same proximity whereby I have to put up with other people's eating habits. And ever since I saw that film Outbreak - cinemas are a no no.

So I much prefer to listen to music other people do than to get involved with it myself. So much easier.

You will never ever find a post anywhere on the internet where I personally have trashed Hans. Never done it. Never trashed any film score writer because I understand how difficult it must be. The thing about Hans  to me is this. He is basically a side product of the way films went. If you hypothetically were able to get Herrmann to score a film that HZ did - it would never work. Because the film is the main issue here. Not stuff like composers or editors or cinematographers.  The directors and producers are the problem. Actors will do anything and there are always good actors throughout time. But the film content is the problem. You can't score a crap film with Herrmann style scoring and expect it to be suddenly great. People don't remember scores when they come out of the cinema (apart from the shower scene from Psycho) - they remember the storyline or the actors. They mostly couldn't tell you who directed it.

All a filmscore writer can do is to lift a couple of notches what is already a good or great film. For example, take The Magnificent Seven. A film based on a terrific Japanese film called The Seven Samurai directed by Akira Kurosawa in 1954 (can anyone remember the score to that?).  The score to the Mag 7 didn't turn it into  a great film (in it''s genre) from being a crap film. It was already a great film way before any music was put on by Elmer Bernstein. But what Bernstein's score did was to lift it to make it even greater. To remember seeing that on the big screen with a really good sound system that our cinema had in those days is something else. 

If it's a bad film (and even moronic audiences through years of watching can tell most of the time) - you could put a Herrmann/Williams/Zimmer score to it and it won't lift it at all. Won't make any difference. Take for example Heavens Gate. It wasn't the score that made it a bad film.

Then you get silly films. Like Star Wars, for example. A silly film with silly dialogue that only Hollywood can do. What you then get here - is the only really interesting thing about that film that's now left -  the score by Williams. No intelligent person is going to talk about what happens in the film are they? It would be like talking about nonsensical stuff like Harry Potter. Who in their right mind is going talk about that when they grow up? It would be like me telling about all the Famous Five books I read when I was 4.

Regarding the other point - when I was at college Herrmann used to come round when he was living in London quite often. As did quite a few well known contemporary composers whether to do with film or not. These guys were very much a different breed in those days. And they always wore suits and a tie.

The thing that continually mystifies me is that whenever anyone wants to talk about the musicality of Zimmer as compared to Williams, they always employ non-sequitors like "he's popular worldwide" or "his music is effective in the film".  Well, these might be truisms but they have NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TOPIC!  Perhaps this continues to happen because Zimmer's music is so simple that it cannot be studied or discussed at length because of this..  D'ya think?

@William said:

Talino -

that story is disturbing  and very appropriate for this thread.  I find it sickening that an over-the-top ironic joke was taken as great work.   But what this shows is exactly how one can succeed:  do something that sucks so bad it is a joke. You will succeed beyond your wildest dreams.   Try to do something sensitive and intelligent and artistic - like what you did the first time with your knowledge of Kubrick  - and it is rejected. 

Why?

Because an art form is controlled by non-artists with total power.   A recipe for disaster. 

Very true and very to the point.

@vibrato said:

Today a young composer is not only interested in orchestration and orchestral music. There are many more possibilities - not available at the time of Herrmann and Williams.

Tanuj, you may or may not have noticed at least in my posts that I also do not attack Zimmer, but rather the people that allow him and others like him to be considered talented, successful composers in film today.

A very important point to make here from your post (and someone else's before - was it you again?), that a lot of film composers today prefer to focus on sound sculpture for film, prefer blocks of slow moving harmonies and Stormdrum clone-from-one-film-to-the-next-sequences, to a Williams type score with themes, counterpoint, fugati (Jaws), dramatic range etc. There is an unbridgeable abyss between 'preference' and 'limitation'.

My contention is that if you asked these composers today for proper symphonic music they would just leave the room, or embarrass themselves further by staying. They don't  p r e f e r  to write blocks of sound (how hard is it to imagine them sitting in front of a keyboard with their ten fingers pressing as many white keys as they can), no! That is the  o n l y  music they can do! It's not a different "School of Thought", it's a forced regression. It is their great fortune that deaf Hollywood directors/producers throw hundreds of thousands of $ in their direction for that utter crap!

Nobody is forcing people around the world to like Zimmer and Co., but nobody throws as much Goldsmith, Mancini, Barry, and Herrmann at these people anymore for them to compare.

@vibrato said:

But who decided that Film music should only be symphonic?

John Williams cant do electronic music the way Zimmer or some others can.

No one did; in fact during the late 60s and 70s a lot of scores were ensemble/jazz scores; but even with those you could discern the artistry of the composers (Schifrin, Grusin, etc.). That wasn't the argument. IF Zimmer can do good electronic music - and has some artistic integrity - he should stick to it and leave symphonic scoring to others. Maurice Jarre tried his hand at electronic scoring (with the help of Jean-Michel), he was quite good at it, nobody said he was Vangelis but no one complained either, and those scores are really not the reason he is remembered today. As far as fusion is concerned, one of the pioneers to include electronic sounds in orchestral scoring was Goldsmith, but not as a crutch to compensate for symphonic inadequacies...

As far as posting music here that is Zimmer-like, I am prepared to spend some of my time in these collegial discussions but not waste days of my life to make an obvious point. There could be some guys here that would do it, just give them access to Hans' equipment for a few days or even their own setups could still do (mine could not). And wait a while... Soon you will be able to buy Hans in a box! That's how hard it is...

And for the thousandth time, my problem is not with Zimmer per se. It is with the industry which fosters his cloning. And if we MUST have clones - we were doing fine without them a couple of decades ago - I prefer Williams clones (like Mike Verta - example you brought up) who at least know music, than the myriads of Zimmerines spawned exponentially in Hollywood and in personal websites around the Internet, especially YouTube! - "Here is my latest !@#$%^& trite action track for your enjoyment!.. I did it in one hour only!" (Naaah, I could never tell.....)

And lest we forget, clones are never as good as the original. With Williams at least there is a lot of margin left for music, with Hans... brrrrr!......

@vibrato said:

Today a young composer is not only interested in orchestration and orchestral music. There are many more possibilities - not available at the time of Herrmann and Williams.

So just as a curious composers, we like to head into many other directions. And sonically speaking, Zimmer has introduced some great stuff into the film music world. Sculpting a sonic picture throughout a film to give it that polished sound has also somewhat become a composer's job.

Sure, you can be John Williams and just focus on the orchestration etc. But, when you dont have to do that like you did in ET because the orchestration is not as complex in Inception - then you focus on other things.

Interesting comments Tanuj,

As I was reading your post, a thought entered into my mind, something I've been pondering for awhile.....

Some composers, like Williams, use only the acoustic orchestra instruments in their compositions.  The one score that comes to mind in "Memoirs of a Geisha '.  There were some unique sounds but they were created using the acoustic orchestral instruments.  I know this because it was featured on the extra's on my DVD of the movie.  (VSL offers some of these along with some other libraries I have).

On the other hand, some use synthesizers to get unique sounds not found in Western type orchestral music, (i.e. Zimmer and Horner).  I would be curious how individuals in this discussion feel about the blending of synth sounds with the standard orchestra?

@PaulR said:

All a filmscore writer can do is to lift a couple of notches what is already a good or great film. For example, take The Magnificent Seven. A film based on a terrific Japanese film called The Seven Samurai directed by Akira Kurosawa in 1954 (can anyone remember the score to that?).  

The year I was born......

@Fiery Angel said:

Perhaps this continues to happen because Zimmer's music is so simple that it cannot be studied or discussed at length because of this..  D'ya think?

I saw in a Zimmer interview once where Hans commented on how, (paraphrasing) when asked he replied that he felt his music wasn't great.  This was in response to a reference on how successful he has become in the film industry.  He went on to emphasize how great Williams was and that he could only hope to write as good as him someday.....

@vibrato said:

Today, we live in the digital world - and I think its foolish to seperate technology from music now. Technology in music is also an instrument and at the end of the day its a composers loss if he/she is not able to make friends with technology. Even herrmann used technology to his advantage at the time.

I agree with this statement.  The orchestral purist would most likely disagree.  I've always felt that if the technology enhances the final product then it's a good thing.  That being said, it shouldn't reduce the quality of the composition by overshadowing sound orchestral techniques and composition as William refers to in an earlier post.

A recent Horner interview on the Avid website has Jim stating (speaking about Avatar) how he is know moving away from Western type Orchestral Music and blending in electronic sounds -- something Zimmer has been doing for some time......

@Errikos said:

And lest we forget, clones are never as good as the original. With Williams at least there is a lot of margin left for music, with Hans... brrrrr!......

I think that an important concept and goal for a new composer today is the ability to be able to master in coming up with their own unique sound and style setting them apart from the rest instead of trying to be someone else..... 

@Another User said:

All a filmscore writer can do is to lift a couple of notches what is already a good or great film.

Often true, but not always IMHO. I don't think what Nino Rota did with Amarcord (or Hermann with Psycho, and there are many examples) was to lift it up a notch or two, but much more. These compositions set a tone, on the same level as the language spoken, the camera angles and movements, the acting and the cutting.

Just a quick side note,

There's a sky writer above my house spelling 'GO BLUE' and the big 'M' for Michigan.  I live about a mile from the Michigan Stadium (The Big House) and todays the opening football game with UCONN.  Haven't seen that kind of thing in many years.....