I Miss the Gold Ole Days...

Other than by soundtrack fans, I don't think the Raiders March was ever considered "great music".

It's a fun piece, and successful "grand style" romantic music, but it's far from being "revered as a great work".

As for Shore, Silvestri and company, there are FAR greater composers around now than those you named. You are limiting your experience of music to FILM composers.

I would say the composers you have listed, other than John Williams, have written some great film soundtracks, but nothing in the way of concert music.

The only "film composer" at this time I can think of, other than Williams, who has composed truly "great" concert works is Elliot Goldenthal. However, even his filmscores display the same colourations as his concert works. I happen to enjoy his concert works AND his filmscores immensely.

Anyways, all that to say, there's some incredible music being composed, and if you spent more time listening to non-film music you might just discover this.

Just check out the American composers of concert music that lived at the beginning and middle of the 20th century to see the start of a great school of music. And from there it's an easy jump to trace the footsteps of those great composers' students and disciples who are active composers right now.

Originally Posted by Johnwilliamsfan

The point, quite simply, is that I've seen intellectuals on YC say things like "John Williams isn't famous because he's good or bad. He's famous because he has connections," and I believe that John Williams is famous because he IS great. Music is still very much alive.

Hey now, I said that. What you believe is what you believe, but the commercial status and fame isn't something you get with just skill or any other such subjective parameter. You get famous because you seek to actively GET famous, so you need to promote yourself, make contacts, etc etc. That's how it works.

Nobody went to John Williams' house and told him "Hey wanna be famous?"

It has nothing to do with music, it's show business.

I wouldn't say it has nothing to do with music. You have to be pretty good, or it doesn't matter who you know (unless you're a novelty, like William Hung.) The way you are wording it is making it sound like you are dismissive of composers who are famous because they have additional skills, rather than just being good.

Originally Posted by Jamie Whitmarsh

I wouldn't say it has nothing to do with music. You have to be pretty good, or it doesn't matter who you know (unless you're a novelty, like William Hung.) The way you are wording it is making it sound like you are dismissive of composers who are famous because they have additional skills, rather than just being good.

No, see, you don't have to be "good" you have to please a target demographic, and function according to trends so people will PAY you to write stuff for their movies and so on. Trends sell, stereotypes sell, market research sells. If you're composing for a target demographic, you can still do pretty cool music (Williams is a good example, but there are many, many others), but I wonder how it'd be without that sort of deciding factor.

Look at the scores for The shining, or Encounters of the 3rd kind(sp?), these aren't your typical scores, but they all function within the stereotype of the movies they go with, because that's what they figured the target demographic will "get", and therefore want to buy the soundtrack perhaps, etc.

So long as money is involved, a lot of stuff changes, and suddenly just making music isn't such a priority as selling a CD, pleasing some suits, audiences, and what not. It doesn't matter WHAT you write, so long as it sells. Surely, if you get extremely famous and can take artistic liberties without getting fired (or any such thing), that's fantastic, but isn't the case most of the time.

Again, I'm stating how the business works, as a business. There's money to be made, and that's all that counts at the end of the day regardless of what music gets made.

What I don't understand is when I hear people bash film composers claiming that they plagiarize. I hear this ALL THE TIME... and I don't get it because to this day, I have not noticed any so-called 'plagiarism' in any film scores that I've heard. Why do so many people accuse film composers of stealing?

Originally Posted by JairCrawford

What I don't understand is when I hear people bash film composers claiming that they plagiarize. I hear this ALL THE TIME... and I don't get it because to this day, I have not noticed any so-called 'plagiarism' in any film scores that I've heard. Why do so many people accuse film composers of stealing?

Star Wars: episode 4, track 4 "the desert / the robot auction" - direct lift from Rite of Spring... now, Williams does NOT do this sort of thing often, so I forgive him for that one.

Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan, sadly I hate this score so I can't tell you the exact track, but it's a direct lift from Battle on the Ice from Alexandre Nevski by Prokoviev

Willow: the main theme is a direct lift from a Schumann symphony. (Horner is a sticky fingered little bastard)

Half of anything Hans Zimmer does is lifted from The Planets.

I can't remember which film we were watching last week or the week before, but it had a direct lift from Daphnis and Chloe.


Now...
The thing is, considering the time constraints that composers of film music are under, as well as the idiocy of too many directors who want the EXACT same music as in their temp track, I can see why SOME composers of film music find themselves trapped into actually quoting from a classical source to satisfy the needs of the director.

James Horner, on the other hand, not only steals from others, he constantly borrows from his own soundtracks... he's the Arcangelo Corelli of the soundtrack world - if you've heard one of his scores, you've heard them all.

And I DARE anyone to say that I hate film music. I have a massive collection of filmscores to go along with my huge collection of films.

I'm just realistic about what to expect from a film composer given 2-3 weeks to write 60 minutes of music. I don't expect him to write anything earth-shattering. He's writing music for a contract. He's fulfilling someone ELSE'S expectations for the score.

I don't feel like sitting here and trying to explain the contradiction of why Howard Shore's score to LotR is a brilliant soundtrack, but actually not very good music. As a filmscore, it's wonderful. As "pure music" it's actually pretty bad. I happen to think that only on the very rare occassion do the two worlds coincide: a good filmscore stands as truly great music.

Oh, and enjoying a score isn't a guarantee that it is good. I love a lot of pretty "trashy" music. I hold no illusions about the ultimate quality of that music, however.

OK, you can all go ahead and flame and argue all you want. I've said my piece.

Ah... do you think it happens unintentionally? Or is it, "well I have one day left to finish the music for this scene and this melody from 'Rite of Spring' is perfect for it"?

Originally Posted by JairCrawford

Ah... do you think it happens unintentionally? Or is it, "well I have one day left to finish the music for this scene and this melody from 'Rite of Spring' is perfect for it"?

No, it's more a question of Lucas having that excerpt as the temp track for that scene and insisting that Williams write something exactly like it... thus the quote.

Remember, when most director's finish a film, before the score is done, they ahve something called a temp track, which normally includes music from other films or from the classical repertoire, music that fits the general idea of what the director wants for that scene.

A good composer can work around that and create something relatively "personal" while a bad composer will generally just copy the temp track with minor changes.

The thing about Williams is that at this point in his career, the films he is presented usually don't even have temp tracks, so he's freer than others to write whatever he wants.

Tbh, the new breed of film composition is a worrying trend. Style over substance.

I think it is possible to write great film scores andplease your target demographic. In the good ole' days this used to happen, but unfortunately the film composers who have made it seem to lack the talent of their precursers as far as I'm aware.

The new style is just a blip and we will return to being blown away by cinematic, audial masterpieces just as soon as somebody paves the way.

I agree with Qccowbody that you really do need to listen to concert hall works over modern film scores if you ever want to write something truly masterful. For me, most modern film scores are incredibly clinical in their approach, and it is a real shame for me personally as I really only enjoy films with good scores. There are of course a few exceptions to this, but a film is only as good as the sum of all its parts, and music is a bit part of it!

Originally Posted by QcCowboy

No, it's more a question of Lucas having that excerpt as the temp track for that scene and insisting that Williams write something exactly like it... thus the quote.

Remember, when most director's finish a film, before the score is done, they ahve something called a temp track, which normally includes music from other films or from the classical repertoire, music that fits the general idea of what the director wants for that scene.

A good composer can work around that and create something relatively "personal" while a bad composer will generally just copy the temp track with minor changes.

The thing about Williams is that at this point in his career, the films he is presented usually don't even have temp tracks, so he's freer than others to write whatever he wants.

Very famous example of temp track stuff is 2001 space odyssey. Ligeti was mad, hahaha, but the movie is awesome and I think he ended up liking it too. Kubrick just left the original stuff in. That is, no actual music was written for the film since they just used what was on the temp track instead. Thankfully. I'm not sure how the story goes but I think it's something like that.