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One other thing -
"All this computer crap is just us trying to approximate the great orchestral palette with what we've got -" - mverta
No. That is what YOU are trying to do. Don't assume that everyone else here is trying to do what you are doing. This "computer crap" - as you crudely put it - is a revolution in musical expression that deserves far more serious use than your concept of "faking an orchestra."
...such anger, geez. I think what Mike was saying was that an actual, real orchestra sounds better and is way more flexible in its sound versus what you can produce using VIs. And I'm not quite sure what you mean by your comment that we must use this revolution in a 'far more serious' manner. If I want to produce a 'flippant' score in a most flippant manner, is that not ok with you?
And finally, regarding your previous comments suggesting that American audiences have barely enough sophistication to appreciate explosions, while the Batman score was indeed forgetable, I'd much rather listen to it than to a composer who feels it his duty to remind his audience how ignorant and provincial they truly are.
Oh, and by the way, wasn't it Mozart who composed for the riff raff rather than the highbrow. Hard to tell, he might have loved composing a move like Batman. Leave all those Lifetime Channel gigs to that Beethoven guy :)
@William said:
Yeah, right - everyone at The Dark Knight is wondering "Is this as good as Bach's Mass in B Minor? No, not quite. The counterpoint is not up to Johann's standards."
You misunderstood. I'm saying that they're going to be moved by the music or they're not, and are not going to scale their emotional reaction simply because it's a movie they're watching, and not a symphony they're attending. The burden on a film composer to create great music is as high as it is for a concert composer, usually with more challenges, less time, and more cooks in the kitchen, but the goal is still the same. The best film music, as I've pointed out, is usually that which is musically most satsifying on its own. In fact, the measure of a truly great film score - and today a largely unheard quality - is that it manages to serve the otherwise non-musical picture edit, the director's vision, and the drama while somehow simultaneously maintaining complete internal cohesion within each cue, and taken together as a complete 90-120 minute work. It has to be of a completely dual nature, yet simultaneously existing in complete syngery. When it's done properly, it's a beautiful accomplishment.
_Mike
Anger? What anger? This is me being nice.
Mverta - I did not misunderstand anything. You changed what you said. And it's still wrong.
"The best film music, as I've pointed out, is usually that which is musically most satsifying on its own." - mverta
Where'd you point that bullshit out? Some of the worst film music ever written is brilliant musically on its own, but functions badly in the film. Some of the most banal, simplistic block chords and moronically repetitive themes (i.e. Last of the Mohicans) works perfectly as film music.
@DMac said:
...while the Batman score was indeed forgetable, I'd much rather listen to it than to a composer who feels it his duty to remind his audience how ignorant and provincial they truly are.
So would most everyone else, which is why the militantly highbrow composers end up languishing in the halls of academia bestowing each other with meaningless accolades for their boring music nobody listens to, while decrying the masses. Anyway, you get it.
_Mike
That may be right, but still I would a prefer a film composer who tries to create the best possible music rather than someone who just takes the money and runs. It was mentioned that Mozart wrote for the riffraff rather than the highbrows. Well, I still think the Zauberfloete is pretty good stuff.@William said:
" I don't maintain any illusion that my audience will be in any way forgiving; they'll hold my music right up against the best stuff" - mverta
What planet are you from? That's the funniest thing I've heard in a long time.
Yeah, right - everyone at The Dark Knight is wondering "Is this as good as Bach's Mass in B Minor? No, not quite. The counterpoint is not up to Johann's standards."
Audiences in American cinemas are absolutely, completely subconscious. They are affected mainly by thumping noises, gunfire and explosion sounds. The artistic quality of music is an insignificant decoration slipped in by the composer, usually against the producer's wishes.
@William said:
Anger? What anger? This is me being nice. [...]
May I please ask all participants in this discussion to stick to a friendly tone and to avoid getting even _close_ to personal attacks. Thanks a lot for your understanding.
Kind regards,
Hi Mike,
Just want to say that I have followed this thread with interest - I have not read all of the posts yet though - but out of curiosity I decided to go to your site, and I was just knocked out by your music and your demo's. Truly amazing! I think I downloaded nearly every mp3 demo on your site as they are not only great to listen to, but they are full of good orchestration ideas.
Now, this is the one chance, if I get it, to ask a succesful composer for films like yourself some questions. [if that's OK].
1. Listening to the Batman track that goes with the ride, I noticed the orchestration was not only pretty amazingly wonderful [well, marvelous actually].
.. were you able, or are you able, as a film composer that is, access to the actual orchestral score by Danny Elfman? Well, I'm guessing that the rights for the use of the Batman theme may also possibly give you access to the score by Danny Elfman - so, are you, lets say, if you are composing for a Warner Company film, and you want a specific orchestration effect that you liked in a certain film that was done by Warner Company - does that mean you can acess the actual score for that film to see how it was done to help you orchestrate the sound you need?
It's just that I am guessing that film composers and orchestraters for film may be able to access many movie scores that many of us not in that business would be able to - am I correct thinking this?
2. Your orchestration skills are obviously bowling us over in this thread, including myself. How did you aquire such great skllls in this area? Besides the obvious fact that you were already extremely gifted musically and also had a very strong aural memory and the ability to be creative and have the imagination for orchestral sounds in your mind before you started - was there any course of study you did that helped improve and or add to these skills? Special scores you studied? Seminars attended such as the Smalley Seminars? Equal Interval System Training? Obviously nothing beats learning orchestration as actually doing it, and being gifted in this area before starting out as you are, but I suppose I am asking what you feel has been the most important influence on your skills in this area.
3. As a matter of interest to us composers/orchestrators, I notice that more and more of the John Williams scores are available, and I've brought quite of few of them. Are there any particular scores in the realm of classical/romantic/20th century concert music that has been a big influence on your orchestration?
I hope that you don't mind me asking the questions and that you get the time/chance to answer.
best regards,
Steve Martin.
Brisbane, Australia. [:D]
Hi Steve - Thanks so much for the kind words...
In regards to the Batman Ride score: Six Flags/WB MovieWorld had paid Warner Bros. Pictures the licensing fee to use that theme long before I came aboard, (I actually replaced a composer they were not happy with), and I was initially hesitant to use it because, well, it's Danny's. But they'd paid for it, and wanted to get their money's worth, so that greatly influenced the sound of the rest of the score, because I wanted it to be cohesive. They sent me the score for 1m1 - the Main Title theme, and I used it pretty much as-is for a short section near the top of the ride. One change I made immediately, though, was to drop 2 of the Horns (it was written for 6). My engineer, Shawn Murphy, had previously helped clean up the original Batman soundtrack which had a lot of issues with it, and the horns were especially unwieldly and problematic because they were just blasting unnaturally/disproportionally. I'm not sure what motivated the 6 horns, as it was still written for 4, with doubles, but I suspect all the ff and fff and ffff markings everywhere else were wreaking havoc with the balance. In general, orchestras of that size record better about a dynamic marking to 2 dynamic markings quieter than you might think, which tends to make it more musical, gives you more dynamic headroom, and records better. We didn't miss the two horns for one second, and had no balance issues otherwise.
My training is a mixture of utterly self-taught methods, tempered later in life by academic schooling. What happened was that as a young boy, I was making up my own training regimen - just guessing, really - and by the time I got to college, the academic teaching helped organize the practical experience I already had. I had the good fortune of going to a high school wtih 4 orchestras, 4 wind ensembles, 4 jazz bands, a swing choir, a bunch of other vocal groups, two pit orchestra groups, a synth ensemble and a recording studio, so I basically wrote something every day for friends or bands to play or sing. I wrote competition pieces for soloists, or quartet/quintet stuff, or big band charts, jazz combo pieces; I wrote for the student musicals, played in rock bands, etc. Truth be told, I ditched a lot of my academic classes to hang out in the arts wing. It was really a lot of trial and error, hands on, every day.But even before that I was doing a lot of composing on my own - I was basically expelled from the conservatory I studied classical piano at for 6 years because I kept changing the music - they sent me to learn jazz, which encouraged improvisation, and thank God for that. There were a ton of other things, too... lots of experiments playing at parties and studying the ways music influenced people consciously and unconsciously.
About John Williams: he is the reason I'm a composer. His melodic sensibilites are remarkable, but you also don't have to dig very deep to hear exactly where he learned his "thing," and that's what I study. There are tons of pieces to mention, but pieces like William Schuman's Symphony No. 3 or Prokovief's Scythian Suite, or Vaughan Williams' Sinfonia Antartica are just dripping with higher-order manifestations of most of his favorite orchestral sounds. I study film scores for the thing that makes them truly unique: their structure. For the orchestrational study, I listen to repertoire pieces. And of course, not just listen, but absorb, study, transcribe, re-arrange, re-harmonize, etc.
In the end though, I'm just a typical Rimsky-Korsakov orchestrator, with French-School efficiency tendencies - the "less is more" philosophy. I enjoy finding that full, rich sound that somehow looks deceptively simple on paper. "That's IT?" And more importantly, good orchestration is just part of the deal - I prefer to focus on what I'm doing harmonically and melodically. Without those, it's just a lot of forgettable, pretty noise.
_Mike
Hi Mike,
thanks for the answer. I find your statement And more importantly, good orchestration is just part of the deal - I prefer to focus on what I'm doing harmonically and melodically. Without those, it's just a lot of forgettable, pretty noise.
1. Voice leading
2. harmony and melody obviously.
Even though I did do these as part of my Education Studies - I trained to be a music specialist in high schools - I soon realized that these are very important , and if the voice leading/harmony/melody etc is tight, a musical, a "good orchestration" has a much eaiser job of eventuating. As for myself, in my own study - I am also revisiting lots of piano repertoire - Bach, and all of the other 18th to 20th orchestral repertoire and piano music, as I really feel you have to have a good "repertoire" of classical as well as modern examples of harmonies [Holst, Williams, Prokofieff etc etc etc], and their harmonic technique to draw on automatically. I am also studying various Harmony texts in great detail, as I feel that once I am secure in this area - orchestration of a piece of music is much easier and more effective if the original music shows good "composer" skills if you know what I mean. This is very time consuming for me of course, but I personally feel that this music plus the study of harmony etc, are very important- but as you say, without the emphasis on good harmony/melody, the orchestration can be just a lot of noise. I feel you are very right here.
It's interesting that you note the influence of Vaughn Williams on John Williams scores. I myself love V Williams music, and it's interesting that you note his influence on John Williams music.
Even today, when I look at the scoring of the first movement of Beethovens 5th,I am still amazed at the original and very clever orchestration ideas that Beethoven came up with. Some of these classical composers really understood the orchestra as an instrument, and I am still in awe of Good old J.S. Bachs ability to make a small amount of instruments sound just magnificent through his handling of the harmony and counterpoint/voice leading etc..
I must admit that one thing that facinates me about your music is your harmony progressions, and use of melody. The harmonies/counterpoint/voiceleading/melodic lines of your music are just great.
thanks again for your answer Mike. Very, very illuminating on this topic.
best regards,
Steve!
So true. And even without orchestration, beautiful music is beautiful music. There are quite a few works by Debussy and Ravel (and others) that exist as piano versions (or versions for two pianos) and have been orchestrated by the composers themselves (or which was first? i´m not sure). a wonderful possibilty to learn by doing: take a piano version (Ravels "Ma Mere L´Oye" could be a good start), play around with your VI (it will probably sound good) and then see what the champions have done with it.@mverta said:
And more importantly, good orchestration is just part of the deal - I prefer to focus on what I'm doing harmonically and melodically. Without those, it's just a lot of forgettable, pretty noise.
Hi Clemenshaas,
That's a good point, and Interestingly enough, Peter Alexander at Truespec sells a pdf booklet which shows Ravels original piano score for hims Mother Goose Suite, with Ravel's orchestration immediately above it, which also helps a orchestrator see Ravels choice of orchestration.
best,
Steve.[:D]
Yes, I have really appreciated Mike's open answers and his info he has shared. Seeing his website and reading this thread has inspired me to get back to score study and other related things. I'm another one who would love to get a peek at this score that has been discussed.
Thanks again Mike,
Steve[:D]
Damn, why am I always too late with my ideas? 😊 When you´ve done with Mother Goose, you could proceed with Ravels Rhapsodie Espagnole (two pianos, later orchestrated by himself) or Debussys Six Epigraphes Antiques (orchestrations exist, but not from the master himself). Hey Mike, did you do any orchestrations of classical repertoire? I would be very interested to see what you would do.@Steve Martin said:
That's a good point, and Interestingly enough, Peter Alexander at Truespec sells a pdf booklet which shows Ravels original piano score for hims Mother Goose Suite, with Ravel's orchestration immediately above it, which also helps a orchestrator see Ravels choice of orchestration.
You could also take the oppurtunity to improve your skills in Sibelius (if necessary). 😊 Just in case your handwriting... Before I totally forget my good manners: good job on the star trek theme, and excellent mixing.@mverta said:
I did try taking a picture, actually, and it sucked. But I've actually taken this opportunity to buy a new scanner, a large-format Epson, and as soon as I'm done with a commission I'm working on, I'll scan a bit.
_Mike
@clemenshaas said:
Hey Mike, did you do any orchestrations of classical repertoire? I would be very interested to see what you would do.
Nah, not really... not since college. Because I was self-trained initially, I didn't come from a traditional "explode the piano sketch" point of view; I have always viewed orchestration and composition as intrinsically linked, so I compose orchestrated. I can do it, but it feels like writing with my toes. I always do better work when I conceive the music in its final form, orchestrationally. Obviously, I can re-arrange and re-orchestrate, but I don't actually like it that much. That's part of why this Star Trek theme is totally re-harmonized: straight re-orchestration is kind of boring, I feel. Good practice, yes; good to be able to do, yes...
_Mike
Oh yes, RE-orchestration ist absolutely, totally, tremendously (feel free to add other attributes) boring, being topped only by mocking-up existing orchestral works 1:1 using virtual instruments, which is - if you allow me to abuse your metaphor- like not even fucking your blow-up girlfriend, but masturbating on it. 😊 (very good practice both, though). NOT boring ist to orchestrate beautiful music - say piano-works - that do not exist as original orchestral works, because maybe the composer saw no possibility to hear it performed otherwise (and he had no vsl) or whatever the reasons could be. There´s a Suite for two pianos by 16 year old Shostakovich (I love love love it) - I do not really know, but maybe he didn´t write that as a piano concerto because he thought that no orchestra would play a teenie´s work. Or his Concertino op.94 (two pianos as well) - ok, then he could be sure it would be performed, but listen to it and tell me that it does not cry out loud: "please, PLEASE, orchestrate me!". :)@mverta said:
straight re-orchestration is kind of boring, I feel. Good practice, yes; good to be able to do, yes...
Hi Mike,
i listened a few months ago to your score for the "forbidden warrior" movie.
What a really pleasant music.
I liked the dark moments;
any strings and brass parts too a lot.
But oh my god the sound...
oh the recording...
the recording and mixing are so impressive.
I ' ve recently upgraded my monitors and converters... i am speechless.
It sounds so smooth,
the depth, the wideness... oh the precision of each instrument in the stereo field.
warm yet crystal clear.
It sounds like the orchestra is supended in the air like " the audio hanging gardens of Babylone".
Who contributed as sonic architects and which tools they used to create this beauty ?
Best regards.
Laurent
