Anand, I completely agree with your post.  BTW I loved those John Williams links - the Imperial March was mind-boggling in the power of both music and performance. The fun he must have had hearing that right in front of him...

I will say this about Hans Zimmer...as it pertains perhaps more directly to the thread topic...  I am a huge fan of the Dune score, as I already said.  But prior to that, I have not been a very big HZ fan...and one of the reasons is precisely because he has represented the ultimate commercialization of music.  His studio in L.A. is famous for creating an assembly line process whereby film scores could be cranked out very efficiently under deadlines and lowest possible cost, using sampling, percussive beds and other tricks that sound cool, big, catchy...but do not necessarily involve the same kind of symphonic craftsmanship that some on this thread have advocated, and I would agree with you by the way.

HZ fundamentally changed the game in the film scoring world.  He also happens to be kind of gifted in terms of the art of film scoring, meaning...coming up with the right music for the scene to capture the feeling needed for the story telling, etc.  But unlike John Williams and others who were masters of the symphony orchestra, he used modern tech, numerous ghost writers and created essentially a film score factory in L.A.  

Back to the topic, doing this for fun or for livelihood.  HZ is the ultimate representation of what will happen when "livelihood" is the focus.  He fully embraced that goal and we can now 40 years later observe the outcome.  Master of deadlines!  Yep...HZ and his factory did exactly that!  

-

use of the blue font means this is passing difficult to read in dark mode.

Perhaps just as well, as this kind of post strikes me as less than collegial, frankly

Ah, dammit, I'm sorry about that - wierd, the text is black on my iMac screen in Monterey. I copied it across from Apple text editor. Thanks for the heads up. I'll try to fix it. ....... Done, any better now?

BTW I left college an awfully long time ago; a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then.

I've noticed Zimmer's work twice in my life, that is outside this subforum of VSL Forums anyway. The first was a Youtube going a little bit into his use of cello for the Joker music in one of the Batman pictures. It was quite interesting, to me. Very creative, and stimulating in terms of ideas.

The second time was a Superman picture I very much liked, and the music at the end of the picture really impressed me, a 20th c. style a little reminiscent of Jerry Goldsmith, very well crafted and in an advanced harmonic style. 

Somewhere in here was one of *these* threads where certain members were here to pontificate on what an awful hack is Zimmer. One thing that I checked out here was a Youtube where HZ discussed how he came up with a song in a flick. Ok, the modi operandi here was not at all the usual you've done the part-writing up the yinyang and you talk in terms of figured bass and that area of technique, but a lot more like a rock guy writing a song from chord blocks. Now, I relate to the former and didn't do much of the latter for most of my life, and when I was more naive I wasn't composing that music, but arranging it. The upshot of this story is, the song was freaking gorgeous. :shrug:

Didn't matter at all to the usual suspect doing that dissing, it was however obviously a major confirmation of their bias.

Afterthought - Apples v Oranges

All the fanboy talk here of Zimmer jolted me into a realisation - apples and oranges are being conflated; knowingly or unknowingly. How many music-makers hired for film scoring really are composers, as distinct from what I'd call "music mechanics"? What's the difference?

Usually, composers and mechanics come from two very different cultural backgrounds: middle class and working class, respectively. During the European modern era (from about 1500), the middle class grew and became distinctive owing largely to the exalted role and status of the intellect within their mental physiology. Indeed Hegel insisted (incorrectly, as neurobiologists now tell us) that the intellect is - or should be - sovereign in the mind. Working-class culture, by contrast, characteristically treats the intellect as a service faculty and chooses not to let it ever dominate the mind anything like as much as in middle-class culture.

Popular music is essentially a working-class endeavour; 'serious music' written by composers, essentially middle class. A simple, straightforward, widely recognised typology thus far, right?

Probably so, at least up until the internet age began to bypass or undermine traditional cultural norms, standards and strictures. But furthermore, especially nowadays, we are blighted by a certain widespread and particularly toxic type of so-called "personality disorder". These types are fundamentally weak in musical intuition and sensibilities but try to compensate by forcing the intellect to outwardly mimic a normal personality. And they can all too often manage to masquerade as musically competent and intellectually able to compose music. Yes I'm talking about our old foe - aka the most toxic personality on the planet - NPD.

NPDs typically do not respect boundaries - whether interpersonal, cultural or national. Honesty is ruthlessly pushed aside as needed by the crucial expediencies of maintaining control over their supremely important "fuel supply", (i.e. attention, status, acquisition of character traits and residual benefits). Empathy with others is poor or non-existent. Management of their public image is their art. Controlling others in order to secure their fuel supply is their game.

NPDs have a gaping void where a real, normal, adult personality should be. Instead, they acquire character traits from others and use these to concoct what seems, outwardly, to be a good, sound character of their own. Thus they are unable to speak truthfully and honestly from their heart or soul. This is one of the most obvious giveaways when an NPD attempts to create music, especially orchestral music.

The NPD intellect, despite all its cunning and ingenuity, cannot fake good music. It ends up sounding like it comes from a music-mechanic totally out of his depth and class. Honest, normal mechanics of course know their limitations and don't attempt to stray beyond their well-established boundaries. NPDs don't bother with such 'trivialities'. Elsewhere in modern life, NPDs have been able to hide in plain sight - but not in music!

I'm in no way professionally qualified to diagnose NPD. However, as the fast-growing wealth of incisive tutorial videos (including many by licensed clinicians) on the topic tends to indicate, making an informal, well-informed guess at a diagnosis of NPD is well within the capabilities of most of us, once we've taken the trouble to learn conscientiously as much as possible about NPD. So I'll leave it to you to learn to make your own guesses. Join the new game in town!

Good hunting!

Hey Macker what is NPD?  New Product Development?

Anyway, I wanted to mention that the Master of Self-Contradiction and "Professional" Egotism -  Jerry Gerber -  is also head of a fine Baby Food Product line.  Did you know that?  Yes!   He actually he grinds out pablum in his studio along with his symphonies.   Please follow up on this as I think his expertise with zwieback and other teething biscuits could be of great use to musicians.  He is a pro after all...

Collegial in the sense I mean (it's the only sense I know of the word, however I did just see a secondary definition conflating it with collegiate) means you are dealing with the others as colleagues, with a similar or shared purpose.

Civilization 3, Ziimmer's music, honestly, just isn't my cup of tea. Much of it I don't think warrants calling him a composer. But that's just my opinion. I'm not trying to shut down or cancel anyone else's honest opinion.

"Colleagues" in what sense? I'm not aware of any formally structured organisation that I joined by becoming a member of this open forum. Yes we're all customers of VSL, but in my opinion that hardly constitutes us becoming "colleagues".

I've heard more than one of Mr Gerber's orchestral pieces. He's pretty freaking good, and his virtual orchestration is extremely well made and sounds utterly convincing. I don't personally think one is doing one's self any favors talking smack on a personal level (William)

Civilization 3, I reckon it's best if we just agree to disagree. I'm pretty much all talked out on on this thread - sorry about that.. It's all opinion, after all.

@Macker said:

"Colleagues" in what sense? I'm not aware of any formally structured organisation that I joined by becoming a member of this open forum. Yes we're all customers of VSL, but in my opinion that hardly constitutes us becoming "colleagues".

The way you're writing comports well with having never heard it.
No, we wouldn't literally be colleagues, thanks for 'splainin

It's the spirit of the thing. 

I'm going to step away from this, there's no percentage in explaining it to one that doesn't see it or why a spirit of collegiality (or even feigning so) is preferable in discourse to forming enemies to no gain.

William, NPD = Narcissistic Personality Disorder, as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). But in this case I think New Product Developer serves just as well, lolol. (Sorry, being a bit slow tonight. I need a nap - about 8 hours should do the trick, lol.)

Interesting bit of background on Mr Gerber. Teething biscuits indeed. Well I'm sure it's tremendously valuable in helping Mr Gerber to compose. And I suppose he's the only one in any position to explain how it helps, because yes, after all, he proclaims that he is "a real composer".

Well one lives and learns. Making baby teething biccies is his actual livelihood, uh? Who knew? Of course as he has pointed out, I'm in no way permitted to make any comments or have any opinions on "real composers" and "real composing", so I'll just happily rest in the safe belief that baby teething biscuit manufacturing probably ought to be promoted as an essential part of "real composing"!

Lolol.

civilization3 - talking smack??? Excellent!  By all means!  

Macker,  ah, narcissists - yes, very appropriate on this thread, especially with the "real composers." 

I am NOT a real composer.  I am an unreal composer. That is something I've always tried to be and am glad, I've succeeded. Yes, we strive for certain things in life and unreality is one I've accomplished.   Especially since I am a follower of surrealism, and believe that the unconscious mind needs to overthrow reality.  One day, it will happen!    

Ahh, Gianna! You took me back... All those years ago, when we were young and hopeful, and "tore" at each other while Hans shed tears of laughter over this, counting his money...

I wasn't going to comment but it will also serve as a segue to my response to Dewdman42's points on Mozart and electronics. By the way, collegiality goes both ways. Just because I laugh at Hans as a composer - at least his school of film composition of the last, I don't know, 20 odd years (although I thought The Last Samurai was not bad), it doesn't mean that I am biased... I don't know the man personally. I just respond to his "philosophy" and musical choices for films he has scored and that I have seen.

I said it when it was pertinent, and I say it again now, that what Hans did with the cello for the Joker could only impress someone with only the most superficial understanding of synthesis.  As an idea for characterisation for the film, you can take it or leave it. But to call it a 'brilliant' example of synthesis is simply a joke. Which is apt if you think about it.

But how can you like Superman? It's one of his worst! The poster example of what not to do! I remember the scene where Superman first discovers his ability to fly. He bursts into the sky exhilarated and soars over creation. How does Hans 'serve this scene'? Dukudaka-dukudaka-dukudaka-dukudaka and in the minor!!! That's all he can muster, the one trick limping pony.

This brings me to Dewdman42: You seem pretty confident about what Mozart would do were he alive today. I am not so certain. Most of the orchestral Composers alive today are pretty happy composing solely for acoustic forces (including orchestra). Very-very few of them also compose electronic music. Even fewer compose for film. And while you and Anand agreed on the orchestra's potential as far as timbral possibilities are concerned, I am going to concede that electronic music has the greater range in that regard.

But not the electronic music that you are talking about (I am guessing). Certainly not the kind that people like Cliff Martinez, Aphex Twin, or Hans are offering, and not that they should or are bad at what they do - the first two.

If you are genuinely interested in the cutting edge of what pioneering electronic music sounds like, I suggest you dive into the realm of academic computer music. Imagine music that doesn't start with a sequencer or a sampler like, say, Omnisphere. Electronic music with no beat. No ostinato. Imagine hitherto unimagined sounds that you create from scratch(!) without sampling(!!), by way of computer programming. Algorithmic or other. No music keyboard during composition, no sampled acoustic instruments like the VSL (heavily frowned upon, you should make your own instrumental samples - if you must, and then only to render them completely unrecognisable). Then examine possible, very complex structures and sonic manipulations, determined or indeterminate, that can be implemented though algorithmic programming, synthesis, etc.

jsg: Your article really took me back... I got my DX7 in 1984. I was a kid then, my parents could afford the latest (OK, not the Synclavier), so I got it. I knew nothing about synthesis then - you could make a point that it was wasted on me but, through playing those sounds, my compositional thoughts grew deeper, more acute.

In that same article you suggest that if no live players are ever going to perform an orchestral work, why does it have to be confined to what's possible and written down professionally, or words to that effect. I can't think of a reason either. However, that takes us immediately away from the realm of orchestral composition, and into the realm of computer composition, exclusively. I perceive such works purely as computer music works, and not as orchestral works; not even in potentia! One composes for orchestra or one doesn't (even if it is a hybrid score). A free-composed quasi-simulation of the sonorities of instruments existing in the physical world, one that does not take on account all their physical properties, qualities, and limitations, is not a composition for said instruments. The staves on the score may just as well read 'Instrument 1', 'Instrument 2' etc., instead of 'Flute', 'Oboe' etc.

I never said that a composer must by definition be either/or in my post, but I can see how you could infer that from my strong positions. Of course, anyone can be an acoustic as well as computer music composer. He can be a gynaecologist! Like Borodin. My point was that it is one thing to claim professionalism (in all its facets!) for oneself - in multiple musical disciplines to boot - and another to be recognised as such by others. I proffered my own standards for professionalism, others may have their own. Borodin certainly was recognised by top professionals in both fields.

Macker: What was that Rosana thing about? As soon as I heard a few seconds of that awful rendition, the uploader - whoever he was - removed it...

@Another User said:

Macker: What was that Rosana thing about? As soon as I heard a few seconds of that awful rendition, the uploader - whoever he was - removed it...

As usual Macker was trying to attack me.  That was a script that I wrote to perform midi sequences in Apple MainStage, a feature that is not built in.  I downloaded a std midi file of Rosanna, I did not not make the midi file; merely to have a proof of concept that the script worked.  It has no relevance to this thread whatsoever other than Macker is intent on finding ways to ridicule me and embarrass me in any way possible...I have no idea why...I don't know who he is...but he has been obsessed with attacking me for several months now.  But he seems to do that to other people too...so whatever.

Dewdman42: I really don't know where to begin, so I'll just say this: I didn't miss your point at all. You missed all of mine... For just one example, orchestral composers alive today are very much aware of the possibilities that electronic music has to offer and still most stay away from it. By extension, I guess that Mozart might have done so also.

However, I didn't realise that your familiarity with electronic music more or less extended to what Hans did in Dune. In that case, and by comparison, the orchestra has -by very far- the larger acoustic palette.

@Another User said:

In that case, and by comparison, the orchestra has -by very far- the larger acoustic palette.

In  your last post you said the opposite.  And I agree with that last post.  The symphony orchestra does absolutely NOT have the wider sonic palette.   What it has is a tremendous organic quality that is very difficult to obtain, currently, with electronic instruments.  What it has is a large scale group performance aspect that is also very hard to get from electronic instrumentation.  it also has a "tradition", which is not to be under-estimated.

@Errikos said:

My point was that it is one thing to claim professionalism (in all its facets!) for oneself - in multiple musical disciplines to boot - and another to be recognised as such by others. I proffered my own standards for professionalism, others may have their own.

Strictly speaking, this is bogus.  "Professional" means: paid to do it.  That's it.  The are professionals with poor skills and professionals with top level elite skills...and a huge range in between...but there is no standard whatsoever to dictate that some certain skillset or level of skill is what deems someone to be a "professional".

Your favorite composer Hans Zimmer is a professional, regardless of whether he has or doesn't have the same kinds of skills as the esteemed orchestral composers you have referred to.

Being considered a professional musician doesn't prove a single thing, other then someone was willing to pay you for whatever you do.