@Servandus: I think I have mentioned the Alberti bass in one of my erstwhile posts. I also found the comparison quite apt. There are differences (some of which you mention or hint at): a) the people who used it were musicians; i.e.: they didn't use the device as a crutch, and b) the bass itself wasn't the main subject of the works.

The vast, motley armies of Zimmer-worshipping clones are following that particular composer, not because he is great, but for the simple reason that he's a peach to imitate. His spewccati are the main/only musical idea in a lot of his soundtracks, and that enables the orks to entertain notions of writing for orchestra. Whomever thought that one could write for orchestra using loops exclusively?! - Don't think Glass, Reich, etc. Huge disparities there...

If you bother (don't really) to check the web-videos of those libraries I mention above, you will find that they don't just offer spewccati, scales and arpeggios, but complete and fully orchestrated chunks of music (sometimes comprising 4-5 bars!), with many a successful passage that SOMEONE ELSE came up with, and a lot of the time you can tell who it was too...

While you and I can hear it when a piece of music is splashed and collated together (for the chimps don't realize that no matter how well they audio-engineer it, stacking musical slabs next to one another with spewccato-glue always shows at the seams), directors and producers for the most part cannot, and they hire these people on false premises, and that is just unfair and charlatanistic, and that's exactly what they all are!!

@William: Mahler's 2nd Bill?! A lot of people here couldn't make heads or tails of it... Where are the loops man?! Where's the beat? I can't find any "stabs" or "runs" in it... And wtf are those strings doing?!?

I agree with Errikos - there are many good types of music that either do not require, or exist outside of, notation.

But, here is where it gets interesting, and an example of the "dumbing down" process that really hurts.  At the church I attend interest lies more or less strictly in loud/contemporary electronic music.  To the best of my knowledge, only one of the main musicians is even able to read music.  There is a desire to put together some sort of cohesive musical for next Christmas (text already provided), but from what I have heard, no one has any idea how to even begin to approach that sort of project (the one person who does read does not feel up to the task).  I did not go to the previous Christmas presentation - I value my ears, and there are certain types of performances I prefer to avoid, but there was some indication that what was achieved was rather less than what was hoped for.

While some types of music can excel apart from notation, as in the case above, other types of musical expression become extremely difficult, unless notated, even if using just a series of lead sheets to develop melodic motifs, etc.  In the above situation, even a lead sheet would be near useless, given the ensemble's limitations.

@noldar12 said:

But, here is where it gets interesting, and an example of the "dumbing down" process that really hurts.  At the church I attend interest lies more or less strictly in loud/contemporary electronic music.  

What church is that??....

Errikos, while the church question is a fair question, I'd rather not answer that in a public forum.  I will simply say that the ensemble is indeed very good for what they do.  The intent was simply to point out that however "good" they may be, the lack of a traditional music skill - reading - limits what they can do in certain ways (just as my own limitations mean that I will never be a good contemporary/rock/pop musician).

@Errikos said:

What church is that??....

Dies irae indeed...

@noldar12: I thought that all churches actively encourage proselytism, but of course it is up to you to practise it or not. However, why don't you propose to them to undertake the production of that musical yourself for the following Christmas, involving singers backed by a VSL recording. If pushed, I'm sure you can arrange it so that these """"musicians"""" you mentioned can """"contribute"""" a little by strumming an easy chord here and there...

Sorry to chime in late here and I didn't have time to read the whole thread but I recently purchased EW's Silk and there are some one note performances in that library that I have mixed feelings over.  On the one hand, I agree with Erik that a composer can't call himself a composer, with a strait face, if he/she is leaning so much on these software "crutches" if you will.  In fact, they are more like "wheelchairs" and "retirement homes" for some so-called composers out there.  If they're just runs or tremelos I don't have a problem with that. 

On the other hand, I wasn't familiar with the abilities and attributes of some of the exotic instruments sampled in Silk so the one note performances saved me a lot of research and Google searching.  I must admit that I did apreciate that.

I can honestly say that I never incorporated any of the performance samples from Silk in any of my compositions.

Of course there is nothing wrong with educating one's self by those means. The problem begins when one confuses the absence/waiving of legal copyright to those performances, with the delusion that somehow those performances belong to everybody. It is so lamentable and hilarious at the same time when you visit composers' websites or hear demos where those same IKEA modules occur persistently from one to the next, and all these people claim the compositions for their own...

One of the interesting conundrums of my forefathers was the following: If you own a boat, and you begin replacing one plank with a new one, every bolt with a new bolt etc. weekly, until after a few months all of the original parts have been replaced, is it still the same boat?

@Another User said:

P.S.: I wouldn't make that rent-bet with me if I were you; how will you generate those endless loops when you're homeless and without electricity? You'd have to play an instrument!...

I should produce some loops, professionally since it's something I could get paid well for if I find a way for placing them. I through-compose based in improvisation. I never use someone else's rhythm, basslines, etc.. It's anathema to me. I am so far from fitting your sad attempts to slap up a straw man it's insane. So I endeavored to make myself clear in the first things I typed. Which you decided to forget, or something, in your haste to justify your bs.

If you would like to wager real money that you can provide me with a useful transcription of particulars of my music, I really could use the money. I have no doubts here. It will be a gobsmacking amount of work. I'm in, you?

@civilization 3 said:

Notation for me is a middleman in the thought process I don't need or desire. It just isn't the thing in itself. Before DAWS, it's how we recorded the idea we know we'll forget, and beyond that the convenient means for communicating the idea to another musician. It is utterly inadequate

Yes, notation is so inadequate -  like Mahler's 2nd Symphony for example.  I was just watching a very well-done documentary on it, so it came to mind.  Anyone today would have done so much better with a DAW, wouldn't they?  Notation is so old...

If you would like to demonstrate Mahler's 2nd by a notation program, render VSL, what-have-you from that, my point about its being a short hand of signs to indicate what to do, while the performers behind a conductor provide the missing ingredients, will be revealed in full. Don't kid me about this.

@jasensmith said:

Sorry to chime in late here and I didn't have time to read the whole thread but I recently purchased EW's Silk and there are some one note performances in that library that I have mixed feelings over.  On the one hand, I agree with Erik that a composer can't call himself a composer, with a strait face, if he/she is leaning so much on these software "crutches" if you will.  In fact, they are more like "wheelchairs" and "retirement homes" for some so-called composers out there.  If they're just runs or tremelos I don't have a problem with that. 

On the other hand, I wasn't familiar with the abilities and attributes of some of the exotic instruments sampled in Silk so the one note performances saved me a lot of research and Google searching.  I must admit that I did apreciate that.

I can honestly say that I never incorporated any of the performance samples from Silk in any of my compositions.

The EWQL tunings are also not documented so it's largely a matter of trial and error. Many of them are names that do not have much meaning to a musician of the particular school in fact. And frankly if you rely on google for your understanding it will remain sketchy.

I entirely agree with the idea someone is a joke as a composer if they do not have this understanding and only ever have relied on prefabrications they bought. But the thread title is so bellicose I'm surprised it's even allowed here. 

Civ - I never got a grade above A as far as I can remember. [<:o)]

The fact of the matter is - there will be more and more sample libraries that are solely or include loops of recorded phrases played by orchestras. There are in fact, quite a few sample libraries now that include tutti notes. One of the old ones in samples is effects usually played tutti. I remember doing an orchestral job where we'd set up one or two of these sample orchestral effects and then set about taking them apart in order to notate them for a real orchestra. How insane is that? Didn't take as long as I thought it would though.

The bottom line is the type of films made for current audiences. Films haven't been made for people like me for donkeys years. Ergo, filmcore music is going to be also for current audiences. Let me try to quantify that.

Yesterday, being driven back from an auction, for fun I counted how many drivers I could see, driving while on their mobile telephones. Over a mile distance, I spotted four. Films today are for people who like to drive and use their mobile phones at the same time. And so is the music. It's mainly made for and by people with poor attention spans. Loud noises and big CGI is what they want. And that's what they generally get. That's the big money today. So I wouldn't get too worried about looped sample libraries.

I had a delusion for a very short time of being a classical soloist. I expected to get graded worse by that Henry Meyer, having the gall to play that one. Maybe he felt sorry for me. 

I don't watch a lot of movies. I am watching the tv program "Fringe" now and I have found the music of this guy Giacchino quite distasteful. I think where he isn't strictly from pedestrian (or minimal) he's copying someone's score. Clever boy, but...

Sure the world is going right down the tubes... I would hope my POV on the prefab use and people that are not, will never be musicians and in my experience disrespect musicians out of a special resentment, is clear enough. I found myself tilting at windmills and decided to step back. But as far as these libraries, it's just some tools. I haven't bought any of them. There was that one Zero-G thing more or less for horror movie composers I was looking at, I think it was kind of innovative.

I used to hang at another forum that can get to quite contentious, and I tell you what, a thread title like this thing has would not be tolerated. 

@civilization 3: (with the risk of providing too much entertainment for moderators and friends)

1) Don't try at this late stage of the game to contradict yourself, it's too late for that sadly... Never before have you "agreed" that using sets of fully composed-orchestrated-performed measures of music was (as you chose to say) an anathema, which is all I ever said really. But what am I saying? You have a split personality (apparently war-tugging for that single brain-cell). In the same post you suggest that when you call someone to extemporize on your chords/rhythm/whatever, you still consider the whole piece to be your music. Well, legally it is (I never addressed legalities - you can spew out a whole track made completely out of Symphobia-stencils and legally it's still yours...), but in reality, those measures that any other musician contributed from their own imagination are a collaboration! And don't bring up examples like Lutoslawcki, Ligeti, or Cage (not that you would/could), I have explained about them in older posts. And of course I have in the past qualified my objections to such practices by admitting that true professionals who actually can notate/program those performances, sometimes use these softwares for reasons of expediency or quality of sound (as they are actually recorded live), so again, line 1 of this paragraph...

2) This is a symphonic forum, the Vienna Symphonic Library forum. My signature pertains - and always has - to symphonic music and I include film-symphonic-music to my definition. Although I believe that a composer in any genre must be able to either write/program or play his music (or he does not merit the title), in this forum I am concerned almost exclusively with symphonic music, so don't talk to me about my signature.

3) Your "lack of articulateness" is a given. And there was never a "desperate attempt to dismiss" what you have said on my part, I just never addressed anything that was off-topic (see symphonic music pertinences)

4) Maybe you should restrict yourself to that other totalitarian and politically correct (hence, retarded) forum where they sensor free expression when it is considered offensive. Lest we forget, my title here is not targetting anyone specifically, unless... you read too much of yourself into it?... Which leads us to 

5) If you feel the need to tell us what a great musician you are by citing Meyer (who knows, maybe he liked your  t i t s - I can see Hal flashing Dietz), it is too late for that as well. In fact, you know nothing about music, do you? At all I mean. I'm greatly surprised to see PaulR is even bothering with you... I can safely make that kind of generilization since you believe that the most gifted composers of the western tradition (~1750-~1910) "wrote puerile melodies". That includes Mozart, Schubert, Bellini, Chopin, Bizet, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, etc., while you NEVER refer us to any superior composers of melody. Further, you publicly suggested that Wagner's entire contribution to music was the invention of "some horns"(!!). Don't make me waste time digging up that post of yours...

And don't say I am being elitist, since a) I at least have never heard anybody from Jazz, Rock, Ethno, or other kinds of music, disrespecting or failing to appreciate the incredible melodic gifts of the above composers, summarily! And b) I am not necessarily ensnared by the masterpieces of the classical tradition, nor do I make "gods" out of a specific kind of composer. Each to their own in matters of taste of course, but for example, in the proverbial desert island scenario, I will take the entire oeuvres of Pink Floyd and Abba with me, rather than those of say Glazunov and Nielsen (to cite well known composers).

P.S.1: You have a syndrome against notation. No one said it's perfect, but I think it is because you know ****-all about that as well, so it scares you. I'm certainly game to take you on with that bet of yours - I certainly will use the money, provided it is worth my while, and that you remember that 'music notation' provides for its own meta-typography, and even verbal instructions, regarding musical passages that cannot be "conventionally" scripted. That includes the use of symbols and drawings for when the effect is more important than the actual pitch or rhythm (see Penderecki, or for more extreme example, Logothetis).

P.S.2: Will you please stop sharing your straw-fetish with me henceforth...

Erik, I think the days of just using one sample library for working writers is long gone. Actually, Symphobia has a great sound to it as I'm sure you'll agree. I hear VSL mixed with many other similar genre libraries all the time. I've had Symphobia for about 4 years maybe and never used it enough. I think what I'm going to do is some library music with many mixed sounds from VSL and others and see what it sounds like. I haven't done anything for a year since my Logic Desk broke down. But it's now been replaced. I can't sit there clicking with a mouse. I have to have a Logic Control Desk or it's a no go. Time to do some music.

Just for fun - someone give me a style to write in. Not classical but more film like. NOT John Williams. That would be like copying my m- m- m- mother!  

[O]

Yes of course I agree Paul, if I had enough in the bank I would purchase most of what there is in order to combine the best of all worlds, and not because I need someone else to orchestrate an augmented chord for me, but at least you are someone that has the background to understand my objections...

... someone called me ...?

@Dietz said:

... someone called me ...?

Hey Hal, it's about time.  What's up with those pod bay doors dude.  It's a bit nippy out here so any time you want to open them...