Well, Errikos, do you think you are the only one, that is musically educated? I studied piano and after that composition for film. I am very sad, that  most of the time my skills in counter point, harmony and melody don't matter at all when it comes to getting a job. My interest in avantgard techniques of the orchestra can be emulated in a fraction of the time by Symphobia by the push of a button. The more complex harmonic or melodic material tends to get rejected due to the need for simpler material. Of course would I prefer to have more jobs available, that meet my skill set.

What is completely useless is you constant whining about the Zeitgeist today. It is what it is! Your crying want change a bit! So, please grow up and deal with it. When the current taste for music of the film industry is so unbearable for you, then please quit the film business! 

Another thing, you should consider: Your view of the state of film music is disrespectfull to the talents of other composers that you dislike. It takes a great skill set to get a Hans Zimmer sound together. This music is of course not complex in terms of traditional musical skills. But consider this: those are part of musical "handcraft", they are not the art of composing, just skills that can be learned by anyone. As is sound design, the creative use of samples, synthesizer and mixing, etc.. a craft, that can be learned. In the end it doesn't matter what you use to achieve the art. All are just learnable skills, the art is something else (and most of the time its value a matter of point of view).

My bottom line: Your point of view is rather narrow. I don't want to offend you (or any other member of the constant Zimmer whining clan), but I cannot bear your uncountable hate/whine - posts any more! You have that typical naive point of view, that in the (golden) old times, everything was better. That is most certainly not true! Some things might have been better, but some might have been worse. Sometimes I would very much like to have no VSL and music could only be written by people, that have been educated to write a score. But, man, you cannot turn back the wheel of time, so it is completely pointless to wish for that.

Bernard Herrmann himself got fired by Alfred Hitchcock on the Torn Curtain for not writing a "popular tune" for the opening titles. Bear that in mind, when you think of your golden times of music in the film business. There was definately no music technology that was the reason for Hitchcock's musical dumbness ...

Or take Shostakovich: Stalin prefered a popular folk singers compositions over his and said, they had more cultural value than his compositions. There they are, your good ol' times!

Cheer up! Don't take yoursef to serious!

@fritzflotow said:

Bernard Herrmann himself got fired by Alfred Hitchcock on the Torn Curtain for not writing a "popular tune" for the opening titles. Bear that in mind, when you think of your golden times of music in the film business. There was definately no music technology that was the reason for Hitchcock's musical dumbness ...

Or take Shostakovich: Stalin prefered a popular folk singers compositions over his and said, they had more cultural value than his compositions. There they are, your good ol' times!

Those are great examples and it's completely true what you're saying.  In the Golden Age of Hollywood studios, music was ground out like hamburger, just like the Zimmer stuff today, only in those days it was all pseudo Rachmaninoff-Tchaikovsky cliches instead of the current parallel minor chords in brass with taiko accents, choir shouts and chugga chugga strings.  Not better or more complex, just a different set of cliches.   

btw that Herrmann score has now been recorded several times.  It is awesome!  12 flutes, huge brass section of horns, trombones tubas only, huge percussion ensemble.  But it's a little weird how it just peters out at the end - when Herrmann was fired.   Here is a great site that talks about that -

http://www.bernardherrmann.org/articles/misc-torncurtain/

Touched a raw nerve there, did I?... Let's tear it apart piece by piece then, shall we?

@Another User said:

 

Cheer up! Don't take yoursef to serious!

This I cannot help you with. I take myself pretty seriously, but not anywhere near how seriously I take the continuous on-going damage to our civilization, one that brilliant people gave their lives for and lifted us to where we have found ourselves, only for us worthless heirs to hand it back to the Australopithici...

@William: Only if I had to pick between the two, I would take the "pseudo Rachmaninov-Tchaikovsky" any day against the Borgian half-software-half-"human" soundtracks of today. After all, film-music has almost in every case been half-something from the greats of the past. IF I can't have mostly original, give me half-fillet-mignon with bone-marrow sauce, than half-cheeseburger.

@fritzflotow said:

The more complex harmonic or melodic material tends to get rejected due to the need for simpler material.

Sorry, I forgot about the second most important bit: Resistance to what is happening by those who can resist. I'm not saying stay out of a job. But I am saying, if one is capable, one should really strive to educate the musical ignorami that pass for directors and producers today. Always fight to the acceptable point for good music, for characteristic music as opposed to cannned/standardized crap. I'm sure most of them want to make a film that stands out (in a positive way) than the rest, and personal music will really help achieve that. 

Also, I'm a slow writer so I really know about time constraints. However, I also know that Williams claims to have composed the original Star Wars in short hand (6-12 staves) in 6 weeks! I don't expect the same quality from any of us for so much music in 6 weeks, and I know that we also have to orchestrate and mix on top of everything else. If that wasn't enough, I know we are not getting paid millions for our work. Still I say, and I'm addressing those that can actually do the writing even without electricity - do as much of the best that you can, fight for as much of the best that you can. It's only a few years ago that directors and producers had at least better taste than today. It is worth turning back the clock in this case as far as I'm concerned.

@Dietz: Sorry also to have apparently treated the forum as my personal blog sometimes (I don't even have one), I'm just too passionate about this.

 Errikos,

You're something of a maniac.  Quite admirable as long as it is channeled peacefully.  I think your rebuttal is inarguable. However I would add that although it was certainly more difficult to write pseudo-romantic stuff in the 40s for a live studio orchestra than it is to press a Symphobia key, they both result in worthless music, so it doesn't end up making much difference if you do it the hard way or the easy way.    

Essentially its a matter of fiber content.   Soluble fiber supplements such as Zimmermucil will aid digestion and the quick passing of soft musical  stools.  Post Pomantic turds are much harder to excrete.

I really needed this hearty laugh William, thanks! [:)]

For what it's worth my opinion on Errikos' outlook is something like this:

I agree that film music seems to be drifting in a way that favours DJs and producers over true composers, and therefore this is bad for composers, and their art form.

It's good for DJs and producers though. So good luck to them.

As far as I'm concerned if someone wants to press a note and call it their composition, good luck to them. Maybe they'll make a career out of collecting great samples and pressing one note at a time, and well done to them, for finding a way to make money out of nothing.  

I just don't care if music as we know it goes down the pan. As long as I have my sequencer, or my piano, or my blank scores to fill and I'm enjoying making music I just don't care.  In fact, I hope the whole edifice of musical knowledge is lost overnight, and then there'd be bound to be some revivalist who'll pay me extra for my secret knowledge.

All I want is to make music for a living. Art and society can go to hell.

:)

Nihilism or 'Levelling" is nothing too new, and as prevalent and trendy as it is today, it is a by-product of the degeneration and decay that began a little over 100 years ago (I mean at large). Still, there are so many societies that "flourished" and perished that we know nothing or very little about. Nihilism doesn't aspire, doesn't leave worthwhile achievement, and doesn't inspire the rest of the population. To every useless pilferer that strives to make our civilization (what's left of it) into just another viral demographic that arrived, pillaged, and died out without leaving anything behind (or at least pass the torch of what our betters left us onwards), I can never wish good luck. I can just add my voice and whatever artistic efforts to the few that celebrate - not just accept - our chromosomal differences. Of course modern day nihilists choose (for the purpose of cognitive consonance) to ignore that it was people of diametrically opposed mentalities that got us out of the caves and put us in front of computer terminals.

Dan, your ooberman url is not lost on me. What makes you want to fill noobermen's brains with delusions of grandeur? Can't your considerable musical and programming skills be put to better use other than to damage our aesthetics? Is your BMW really worth this? I want to make music for a living too, but not if I have to lobotomize myself in the process... You mention money so many times you're a bit off-topic. So you agree that Exxon or BP, or the Japanese whaling syndicates can justify their exploitations simply by citing their financial rewards? 

@Errikos said:

You mention money so many times you're a bit off-topic. So you agree that Exxon or BP, or the Japanese whaling syndicates can justify their exploitations simply by citing their financial rewards? 

Of course they can and should justify them. And anybody who dares to think otherwise is a "freedom"-hating "communist" "totalitarian".

@dagmarpiano said:

All I want is to make music for a living. Art and society can go to hell.

He who pays the piper calls the tune. It's as true now as it was when Bach was around.

I'm not saying it's right...

No question of that. However, he who paid Bach was infinitely more cultivated than he who paid Hans. Let's do our utmost to rectify the situation by educating, being suggestive, etc., when the occasion permits; a step at a time. The world wasn't built in a day, but it can certainly be destroyed in one.

P.S.: Lest we forget, the piper could actually play in "the bad old days".

@Errikos said:

Has it ever occurred to you that throughout history the 'Zeitgeist' mostly sucked? And that it is the fate of the commoners to adapt and follow it, and the fate of the gifted to shape it or replace it?

There is an aspect to this part I strongly disagree with. In my opinion, there is no such thing as the "fate of the commoners" or the "fate of the gifted", and there is also no a priori given line dividing the "commoners" from the "gifted". Achievement in art has much less to do with any inborn "gift" then with the conscious development of one's artistic sensibilities, hard work, and, unfortunately, a considerable amount of luck and happy circumstances.

Secondly, if the achievement in art were merely a product of an inborn "gift", there would be no reason whatsoever to admire this product as an achievement of the artist: to say we should respect or admire somebody for his/hers artistic "gift" is the same as to say we shoud respect or admire them for inheriting a family fortune. In both cases, neither is something they have achieved; they were merely born into it.

As late George Carlin once aptly drove this point home on the issue of "being proud to be Irish" (or Greek, or German, or whatever else...) :

"Being Irish isn't a skill, it's a fucking genetic accident". (A sidenote: Carlin was of Irish descent on both sides).

Analogous to this, if writing great music were "a genetic accident", there would be no reason to either respect or admire those who write it for doing so.

Besides the fact that I certainly believe there is an a priori line dividing the 'commoners' from the 'gifted', it goes without saying that talent alone will get you nowhere in any field where practical physical application is necessary and prior collective achievement simply imposes itself. However, you're confusing 'admiration', with 'recognition' for someone's achievement (which in itself invites a different kind of admiration). Of course you admire a truly beautiful woman, even if she was born that way and all she had to do was maintain that genetic gift by some discipline regarding diet and exercise. However, you admire the beauty, not the woman as a person, whom you don't even know anyway. Of course Beethoven wouldn't have been Beethoven without hard work, but that is a distant secondary consideration. There are so many composers that worked their lower intestines off for decades, but they couldn't hold the relatively lazy Rossini's or the 16-year old Mozart's-Mendelssohn's-Chopin's-Prokofiev's hats. You admire sheer inspiration and talent because they are rare; not because they are the rewards of hard work. Of course talent is moulded into artistic product through discipline, but this is the means through which talent achieves expression worthy of the talent. And I would agree that true artistic beauty is the perfect marriage between talent and discipline. However, with talent you can possibly find discipline; the opposite is impossible: Really hard work has often led to very mediocre, down to pathetic results (as can be confirmed by the hundreds of lesser composers during the last 400 years).

I know of no one that claims that artistic achievement is the mere result of genetic predisposition. In addition to hard work, luck and circumstance play a great role as well. However, if that initial inherent essence is missing, what else is there to be communicated - through whatever disciplinary process and fortunate circumstance - other than empty artifice; hard earned grant you, but empty...

Everybody got the same instruction in orchestration at the Conservatoire de Paris in Ravel's time. However...

Finally, I don't admire Wagner because he worked hard. If that was all, I would admire my father or a conscientious labourer in the same manner. I admire Wagner because of his finished product, which of course also involved discipline and perseverance; but discipline and perseverance are not what I primarily hear during Die Meistersinger, and certainly not at all when I hear the otherwise - puzzlingly - "unlearned" main titles to Cinema Paradiso. Everyone is different of course, but I'd rather have composed that track than all the magically orchestrated animated films, all the fugati in Jaws, you get my drift...

Wow. I hadn't quited realized that composing film music in the style of Hans Zimmer where morally comparable to working as an assassin or exploiting third world countries, and that the current musical trends would lead to the utter annihilation of our civilization. This thread has been a real wake-up call.

In view of Zimmer vs. post-romantics and film scoring vs. modern "skills"...

A tongue-in-cheek slightly OT question of exciting "zzzzzzzzzz's":

Who is better: Zimmer or Zemlinski?

More seriously, most of us (myself definitely) will never be "great".  We simply do not exist on that level.  Nonetheless, that does not mean we should stop pursuing excellence.  Just because something is not "great" does not preclude it from being valuable, of real use, and thoroughly enjoyable. 

What does seem viable to me is that by aiming "high" even if one falls short of the goal - sometimes far short of it - one is still better off than aiming low, or aiming aimlessly, or doing the "one-finger-sequence".

"There are so many composers that worked their lower intestines off for decades, but they couldn't hold the relatively lazy Rossini's or the 16-year old Mozart's-Mendelssohn's-Chopin's-Prokofiev's hats."

That is most certainly true, however, you left out the other two factors I have mentioned, and which I believe are as essential as hard work: cultivating and developing one's musical and general artistic sensibilities and, last but not least, fortunate circumstances. It is true one can work hard, but work hard on crap without even noticing and making no progress whatsoever, no matter how hard the work is. There probably would be plenty of examples to demonstrate that. However, I have all reasons to doubt that a composer who has constantly cultivated his/hers musical sensiblities and also had some additional luck to point his thinking and working procedures in the "right direction" won't, in combination with hard work, in the end produce results which will be both "inspired" and technically proficient beyond what I would call "very mediocre".

To sum the point up: your example above is certainly true in many cases. However, there are also innumerable cases where a long and hard road of development is seen before a composer reached and cultivated the sort of "inspiration" we admire in his music today. Among those who couldn't hold hats to 16-year old Mozart-Mendelssohn-Chopin-Prokofiev are, among others, 16-year old Beethoven, Schumann and Berlioz, or, for that matter, 30-year old Bruckner. However, all of the 16-year olds mentioned above combined together can't hold hats to 55-year old Berlioz of Les Troyens or 60-year old Bruckner of the 5th Symphony, or, for that matter, the 50-year old Draeseke of the 3rd Symphony or 55-year old Taneiev of the Piano Quintet. And that both in the "inspiration" as in the "technique" department. And that seems to me only possible if "talent" (which I grant probably exists variably in the sense of different "inborn" levels of a sort of elementary receptivness to music, both in the passive and in the active sense, but, and I would like to emphasise this, on a very elementary level) is not merely "moulded" by discipline and work, but actually developed and refined by all three factors (cultivating sensibilities, cultivating technique, and sometimes also having some luck). And this doesn't apply just to Bruckner, it applies, only on a different time scale, to Mozart as well. There is nothing in the works of 10-year or even 15-year old Mozart which necessarily suggests he will compose the A major Piano Concerto 15 or 10 years later.

"Everybody got the same instruction in orchestration at the Conservatoire de Paris in Ravel's time. However..."

However, not everybody developed and posessed the same amount of self-criticism, cultivated the same musical sensibilities, or worked on those as well on his technical proficiency with the same rigour and consistency.

"You admire sheer inspiration and talent because they are rare; not because they are the rewards of hard work."

I don't. Why should anything be admired merely because it is rare? Plague is fairly rare today, but I still have many inherent reasons not to find it to be a particularly admirable occurence. Rarity or abundance of something doesn't say anything about its inherent quality or worth. I suppose what you ment to say is that one admires sheer inspiration and talent because of they intrinsic qualities independent of hard work. On that I would agree in the same sense I would agree with your example of admiring the beauty of a woman (or, f.e. the beauty of nature) without necessarily having to admire her personal qualities and skills. However, I have no admiration or respect for either an artist for his "talent" or for a woman because of her beauty if all they had to do for it was to be born with it. Being born into something isn't either a skill or an achievement or a virtue. It is an accidental privilege (or accidental curse).

"Everyone is different of course, but I'd rather have composed that track than all the magically orchestrated animated films, all the fugati in Jaws, you get my drift..."

Ok, I suppose this example also sheds some light on our differences of opinion on this issue. I would, for all the reasons stated above, prefer to have composed the fugati in the Jaws...

@noldar12 said:

In view of Zimmer vs. post-romantics and film scoring vs. modern "skills"...

A tongue-in-cheek slightly OT question of exciting "zzzzzzzzzz's":

Who is better: Zimmer or Zemlinski?

@noldar12 said:

More seriously, most of us (myself definitely) will never be "great".  We simply do not exist on that level.  Nonetheless, that does not mean we should stop pursuing excellence.  Just because something is not "great" does not preclude it from being valuable, of real use, and thoroughly enjoyable. 

What does seem viable to me is that by aiming "high" even if one falls short of the goal - sometimes far short of it - one is still better off than aiming low, or aiming aimlessly, or doing the "one-finger-sequence".

To this I can fully subscribe. Words to live by.