Here is the War Horse trailer music without Dialogue or SFX: War Horse Trailer Music - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvQtlNO3nP4)

personally the best (new) music I have heard all summer.

See I've never really been one to pay attention to track titles while listening to music, whether it is a soundtrack or a rock album so I don't usually bother to spend much time to get track names when I don't have them. This could have come from having so many Japanese soundtracks where the track names were in Japanese (whether kanji or romaji) and thus I didn't have any available information to follow to begin with.

I do like your alternate cover, although I didn't use that one because I didn't want an image of the movie art to interrupt with my enjoyment of the score. At the time I asked Bi0 to help with the cover I hadn't seen the movie and assumed it was going to be stupid so I tried to find the best cover that avoided such images.

Sure, I can understand that about track titles. For me personally, I love having track titles, it helps give some sort of definition/context to the music. If it's a score to a film I know, then it helps me place the music. And even if it's a score to something I know nothing about, track titles help to kinda create a rough version of the story in my head, or at least know what kind of scene is being scored. I guess it helps it to be more of a narrative musical journey for me. But to each his own. :-)

As to the cover, I liked the artwork, so I used it. Plus oddly enough, the game covers themselves only use movie artwork, not really custom game imagery, which is weird. But I found high-quality images that were dramatic and worked well for a cover design, so I went for it. I thought the film itself was OK, so I certainly don't have any problem "bringing it to mind" when I hear Hannigan's music. Besides, that's what the game is, so doesn't bother me at all. But like I say, now people have options, haha.

Thanks Sirusjr !
Hannigan is an amazing composer !

PROKOFIEV - CANTATA FOR THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION - Prokofiev, Sergei: 'October Rev. Cantata'; 'The Stone Flower'.zip (http://www.mediafire.com/?x8pkxcr5aqx44d5)

I just finally got around to listening to this piece recently and, pardon my salty language, HOLY FLURKING SCHNIT this is good, stupendous even. I was going to upload it myself, but instead found this link to Chrono X's re-up of streichorchester's original upload of the Neeme Jarvi/Philharmonia recording. I guess this is more for those who missed it the first time like myself, but... damn, I need a cigarette. ;)

Also, I recently redid my "Aquarion" edit that I originally posted about a year ago. It's not radically different, but I think the movement/suites flow a little better than before, mostly because now I have a better sense of what NOT to attempt. In case anyone is interested, it can be found here (Thread 78561).

Thank you TazerMonkey. Can someone pls help me divide up the tracks to the various works? I dont know these very well and am trying to get an understanding of which tracks are October Rev or Stone Flower, etc

Thanks!


PROKOFIEV - CANTATA FOR THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION - Prokofiev, Sergei: 'October Rev. Cantata'; 'The Stone Flower'.zip (http://www.mediafire.com/?x8pkxcr5aqx44d5)

I just finally got around to listening to this piece recently and, pardon my salty language, HOLY FLURKING SCHNIT this is good, stupendous even. I was going to upload it myself, but instead found this link to Chrono X's re-up of streichorchester's original upload of the Neeme Jarvi/Philharmonia recording. I guess this is more for those who missed it the first time like myself, but... damn, I need a cigarette. ;)

Also, I recently redid my "Aquarion" edit that I originally posted about a year ago. It's not radically different, but I think the movement/suites flow a little better than before, mostly because now I have a better sense of what NOT to attempt. In case anyone is interested, it can be found here (Thread 78561).

I thought they were tagged, but by track numbers, the first ten tracks should be the Cantata and 11-17 are the Stone Flower exerpts. Hope that helps.

That does help, thank you"!


I thought they were tagged, but by track numbers, the first ten tracks should be the Cantata and 11-17 are the Stone Flower exerpts. Hope that helps.

Onimusha 3 Original Soundtrack (Lossless APE) (Thread 94343)
Performed by Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra

Thanks for this one, buddy! But Ape isn't really my thing, for many reasons. So may I please ask for a V0 rip, this would be awesome!


Also, I've been able to listen to Conan 2011, and it inspired me a little "article" I'll post tonight...

You know, this new Conan score is so representative of the evolution of film music in Hollywood. The comparison between Poledouris's superlative cult score and Tyler Bates' artless, uninspired, superficial turd reveals a lot about how things have evolved, sorry, regressed in modern film scoring.

30 years ago, an incredible score was composed for a film named Conan the Barbarian. Its quality was beyond all expectations. It was a massive, flamboyant, breathtaking effort that almost musically redefined the fantasy genre. 30 years later, people are listening to it, talking about it, and even releasing brand new re-recordings of it. It wasn't just a basic film score, merely serving the purpose of emotional background for the film, it was an astonishing musical experience in itself, an overwhelming technical and emotional achievement. It was art. This is why this score is seen as an unquestionable classic, worshipped by so many score fans around the world, old or new. A classic is a work of art that is not forgettable and that will appeal to the audience many years (or centuries) after it has been created, because it has something "special", because it's so universally appealing that it transcends frontiers and generations. And that's exactly what happened with Poledouris' score.

In 30 years, will people listen to this new Conan score or Poledouris' classic from the eighties? No need to answer. Contrary to what some people seem to naively (and prickishly) believe in this forum, quality do mean something in music. There is such thing as good music and bad music, and just because a piece gives you some positive emotions and makes you "feel good" doesn't mean it's artistically valuable, just like a Mc Donald's hamburger, while rather tasty, isn't really what one would consider as fine cuisine. Not everything is relative and subjective in art, and over time, once the "hipness" and excitement for the score of the moment has cooled down, true value appears. History is a good jugde as it tells who survives and who get eliminated, art-wise. Scores like Conan 2011 are meant to be forgotten (ASAP!) because it's a pitiful, functional, generic score composed by an incompetent, untalented hack.

(By the way, just as a funny side note, it's interesting to observe that all media composers can, to a certain extent, be considered as hacks! Indeed, a hack is someone who makes art not for itself, but for other purposes, generally less noble ones, like money, fame or whatever. And precisely film (or other medias) music's primary objective isn't to shine in itself, but to work effectively in the context of the movie. Artistic value comes (hopefully) in 2nd postion. Therefore, media composers are, in a quite far-fetched way, some particular kind of hacks. But of course, no doubt that most of them have some real artistic ambitions.)

Very few, almost none of the scores produced nowadays in Hollywood will become classics, this is highly probable. Why are there so few potential classic Hollywood scores coming these days, or at least scores having some significant artistic viability? There are several reasons, but based on Conan 2011, we can identify at least two of them:

1) competence: Bates isn't Poledouris, he's not half of Poledouris, he's not even 1/10 of Poledouris. There's a reason why Poledouris is considered as a great composer, who left an indelible mark on film music. He was a man of incredible talent, but also a tremendous music professional, who had a deep understanding of music and a thorough competence in it. But hiring a guy like Bates is just one big joke. Hollywood executives are musically inane and artistically barren. They tend to hire anybody who happens to sound modern, whatever talent and craft he might have. They can't distinguish between really good composers and basic sound designers and producers such as Bates, who are in fact pretty bad composers.

2) opportunity: even when the guy hired is actually a skilled and talented composer, he's simply not allowed to be good, to fully express his capacities, to create the scores he'd like to create, to orchestrate the way he'd like to. He's forced to lower his skills and produce some barely listenable junk that is meant to appeal to the "young demographic", or else bye-bye. The "other" Tyler, the good one, Brian Tyler, is frequently in this case. I remember something he said about this in an interview:


CC: This one's from Thomas in Anchorage, AK. He asks “I was curious how or what Brian does when he hits a wall or rejection, like when he wants to score a film and doesn't get the job, or runs into a problem with the director or studio approving a piece of music?”

Brian Tyler: There's all sorts of reasons that things get rejected. Actually, being as objective as I can, very often it's stupidity to the -core-. [laughs] And it's not just because it's me. I hear about things from other composers too, and they're just absolutely asinine. Twilight. I hadn't heard that, but you know, stories like that are abound.

I've had things where I was scoring films at a fairly young age, and I would have a 64-year old executive tell a 25-year old composer, “That's not what the kids like, let's make this for the young audience.” Here he is talking to the -exact- demographic that's going to go see the movie, and it's just insane. And sometimes you get “Don't use this note” or “I don't ever want to hear violins or oboe.” It's a little tough because it's like “Dude, I've been writing music since before I can remember,” and you hone your craft even before most people know what job they're going to be doing. Even a doctor won't start studying that until college, but we've been composers and musicians since we started it at 5. And so by the time you hear someone that has a very cursory knowledge of what music even is, chiming in and saying things that are ridiculous. One of the things that I've heard was, being familiar with rhythms, “There should be 12th notes instead of 16th notes,” and stuff like that, things that don't exist in the musical language. And for those things you just have to grin and bear at them, but I'll stick up for my music.

CC: So how do you respond or "stick up for your music?"

Brian Tyler: If someone says that they don't like something, I won't say “Hmm, you know, you're right,” do the soft-self, “Oh, it's just not there yet, ok, i'll do that.” I don't do that because of the very fact that if I'm presenting it to them, it's already gone through the most intense, rigorous self-hating analyzation by the worst critic I could ever have, which is -me-. I throw out -tons- of things before I'd ever dare play it for a director or producer, and I only present things that I feel confident about. If I'm not confident about it I just won't play that theme. I'll skip it until the next time. So, I will give the reason why I think it works, and in the end it is opinion, and I can deal with that. It's something you have to have a really thick skin about, and you put it away for a rainy day and say “Ok, I'll just move on and do it again” if it comes down to locking horns and not being able to get past it. But I think that's part of the reason why you try to develop a collaborative relationship with the people you work with, and I've been real lucky in that 95% of the time that's what it is. I've only had a handful of times where an executive will come from there office where they've been doing accounting and figuring out the fiscal structures of release patterns to chiming in about how the oboe harmonizes with the viola. It does happen, but it's pretty rare. And most of the time, it's going to be matters of opinion between you and the director, and hopefully that's how it should be. It's their film, and that's why the studio hired them to do the film, direct it and bring their vision. So I always say “director-first”, and I'll bring what I bring to the table. I find it interesting though, that despite all the intrusions from studio executives throughout the years, trying to put their stamp on it and push composers around, that pretty much no matter the film you're listening to you can still identify who is who. The fact is that the influence of studio executives, no matter how many notes they give you, you're still going to sound like you, because you're you and all their talk really boils down to equaling zero in the end. We can always recognize John Williams, and when you hear Thomas Newman score you know it's him, and James Horner, you name it. So the composer brings what he's going to bring, and you have to know as a composer, “Look, they hired me for me. That's cool, and it's still going to be me in the end. Regardless of how much they tinker with it, it's still going to be me.” And their power to alter things is -so- minuscule in the end, that you as a composer can't just find yourself composing from a position or perspective of fear, which I think has happened to some people, unfortunately. I find that I would rather go all-out on a limb and do something one a scene that's immediately recognizable, or something that you'd really notice, something that changes your feelings about a scene, than kind of hide in the background and do music that doesn't really say anything, just because it's hard to criticize music that's not doing anything. I think that ends up being almost like a drug addiction. If you don't do anything, it'll be hard to criticize and you can move on, but then you lose the reason why music is there in the first place.
Composer Brian Tyler- Interview at Tracksounds (2009) (http://www.tracksounds.com/specialfeatures/Interviews/interview_brian_tyler_2009.htm)

People in Hollywood really need to understand that art, TRUE art, has its place in film scoring, as it had before. They must have more artistic ambition, since art CAN also sell (many of those classic scores were composed for successful blockbusters, such as Star Wars). They have to let the (real) composers give the best of themselves, in order to create scores that they can be proud of, and that won't be forgotten in a few months or years. Doing this will permit again the creation of new classics, like the many that have been composed since the beginning of film music, and notably since the eighties, when thanks to Star Wars, a new wave of fantastic orchestral scores, technically impressive and artistically superb, were produced. Among them was of course... Conan the Barbarian.


(By the way, I precise that I'm open to discussion, and will answer with pleasure to any (polite) comment on this subject.)

I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head Arthierr. I should note that I had a discussion with Lens of Truth about the new Conan and we seemed to agree about the score yet approach it differently in the ratings. To me, so many modern scores have not only been forgettable but also painful that I was pleasantly surprised when I listened to Conan that I wasn't immediately thrown off by it. I also found the lack of significant over-powering synth to be refreshing. However, despite all these things, it was still a disappointment as a score because it has no recognizable theme or memorable passage.

Thanks for this one, buddy! But Ape isn't really my thing, for many reasons. So may I please ask for a V0 rip, this would be awesome!
Sure, here you go: File name: o3-dsv0.rar File size: 262.52 MB (http://www.fileserve.com/file/VVrFepX/o3-dsv0.rar)

Thank you so much! Seems very interesting, since this orchestra already dealt with several beautiful scores in the past.


Sirus: where did you have that discussion with Lens? I'm interested in seeing it.

To me, so many modern scores have not only been forgettable but also painful that I was pleasantly surprised when I listened to Conan that I wasn't immediately thrown off by it. I also found the lack of significant over-powering synth to be refreshing. However, despite all these things, it was still a disappointment as a score because it has no recognizable theme or memorable passage.

From the samples I've heard, I too was slightly pleased by the more organic sound but that last point is really unforgivable in my view. Another case in point is Game of Thrones, which (unlike Conan, as far as I can tell) is a great show that essentially gets by without a score because in nearly every instance the cues sound like something that anyone with a modicum of experience working with synth could whip up in ten minutes. The main titles sequence is slightly better, but it's very frustrating to think what someone with genuine musical talent could have pulled off with that show.


People in Hollywood really need to understand that art, TRUE art, has its place in film scoring, as it had before. They must have more artistic ambition, since art CAN also sell (many of those classic scores were composed for successful blockbusters, such as Star Wars). They have to let the (real) composers give the best of themselves, in order to create scores that they can be proud of, and that won't be forgotten in a few months or years. Doing this will permit again the creation of new classics, like the many that have been composed since the beginning of film music, and notably since the eighties, when thanks to Star Wars, a new wave of fantastic orchestral scores, technically impressive and artistically superb, were produced. Among them was of course... Conan the Barbarian.

This is absolutely correct. Studio executives, while always preocccupied with money, also used to have some genuine passion for the art as well; they were making movies because they wanted to be making movies. In these days of corporate conglomerates, the only concern is money and marketability -- see this insulting article (http://www.slashfilm.com/disney-exec-tentpole-movies-spectacle-story/) for a view into their mindset.

What's even worse than their despicable arrogance is that they revel in their ignorance -- they assume spectacle wins over story because of Transformers and that the MV/RC/droning synth noise appeals more to the younger generation because it vaguely resembles popular music (at least more than a classical score) without noting, as that article points out in the counterargument, that many of the top-grossing films actually do have strong stories... and fine orchestral scores, I might add! Every entertainment, be it an auteur's latest masterpiece or a colossal summer blockbuster, should be made according to each project's demands to the best possible quality, but until there's another paradigm shift, most are at the mercy of whatever the "genius" suits "know" will sell.

I'm not against any sound in particular, but a singular style of scoring was never meant to apply universally. The MV/RC sound does have its place, but that place should not include operatic fantasy. Its proliferation has also allowed a legion of artistically inert individuals like Mr. Bates and Mr. Djawadi to flourish. Hopefully one day soon, musical diversity will be restored to big-budget filmmaking and we can all get back to hearing wonderful new music in this thread's titular idiom.

Good evening folks, it's been a while. Thanks for all the posts and insightful debates since the last time I was around. I don't have any music to post, but I have an article that you (especially those interested in modern classical and avant-garde music) might find interesting.

http://www.philipball.co.uk/images/stories/docs/pdf/Ball_atonalism2.pdf Basically, it's about how we perceive and cognitively process music, and how atonal/avant-garde music undermine the basic principles our brains rely on when listening to music. Unless of course, you are extremely familiar with the type of music... by which time you'll have trained your brain to work within these abstract and 'non-natural' systems.

As for the Tyler Bates/MV debate, well, I can only say I'm still upset at how they're thrown absolutely loadsamoney and huge ensembles+all the resources in the world while much better composers are left sitting staring at a sampler. That's before we even get into the music itself...

To better illustrate my point, here is Djawadi's Main Titles to Game of Thrones:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7L2PVdrb_8

Now, here is the opening titles from another HBO production, also about a coming momentous war with political intrigue:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEsBFQLW8ls

Now, the Lane piece is obviously not totally appropriate for Game of Thrones as written (a little too heavy on the colonial fife) but it's a valid comparison as to what a more developed piece with a similar approach can accomplish.

There are in fact a lot of talented artists in Hollywood. This city concentrates an incredible number of artists in various domains: filmmaking, music, photography, storytelling, etc. Not to mention the masses of super-skilled technicians (this city also concentrates other less noble things that I prefer not to mention here!). Given this situation, one would legitimately expect some overwhelming artistic productions in filmmaking, and yet, it's not really the case. Why?

To freely and fully express their talent, artists need money. And who has the money? The producers. And who advise the producers and take the movie creation process in charge? The studio executives. They're the ones who have the real power in Hollywood. They control things, they take the decisions. But who are these people, where do they come from? Do they have any artistic training or abilities? Nope of course. These people are businessmen. They have been trained in the greatest universities to make money. That's their only job.

Given this situation, no wonder why real art is so devalued in Hollywood. These people's objective isn't to create artistically worthy movies, it's to make products that sell a lot, full stop. Art is tolerated if it can help making more money, otherwise it's just whisked off. Orchestral music or good storytelling won't help sell their products better? So let's just get rid of these and focus on big dumb special effects, with tons of explosions (people love explosions, apparently). Artistic value has become optional in Hollywood, since it's sometimes not required to attract masses of people in the theaters (or so exec believe).

It's greatly time for a change in mentalities in this place. Filmmakers who are true, talented artists have to raise the voice and impose some conditions to be able to make the films they want. It has often happened in the past, so let's hope artistic courage and ambition will be back in Hollywood.

(I also agree that the RC sound can sometimes sound great, very effective, in some big dumb action flicks, like the Rock. But applying it to pirate or fantasy movies is frankly unacceptable.)



Good evening folks, it's been a while. Thanks for all the posts and insightful debates since the last time I was around. I don't have any music to post, but I have an article that you (especially those interested in modern classical and avant-garde music) might find interesting.

http://www.philipball.co.uk/images/stories/docs/pdf/Ball_atonalism2.pdf Basically, it's about how we perceive and cognitively process music, and how atonal/avant-garde music undermine the basic principles our brains rely on when listening to music. Unless of course, you are extremely familiar with the type of music... by which time you'll have trained your brain to work within these abstract and 'non-natural' systems.

Looks very interesting. I'll check this tomorrow and have some comments.

First off Arthierr, I can't share the conversation easily because it was outside of the forum and wouldn't make a good read after the fact anyway because it wasn't the same sort of detailed discussion we might see here.

Second, I think that the problem with modern scores is that MOST modern movies are big and dumb even pirates and fantasy - except for those that are based on a book, in which case they tend to be better. Conan may be a fantasy movie but, according to the reviews, it is also a big dumb action flick with no plot, intelligent dialogue or noticeable character development. In that instance, the score as Brian Tyler wrote it is perfectly fitting to the film. It reaches the base urges of viewers in the same way the senseless violence and over-the-top action appeals to those base urges.

None of this is surprising, especially if you look at the past works of director Marcus Nispel and the sort of score he asked for in the 2007 movie called Pathfinder, composed by Jonathan Elias. Furthermore, consider at the type of score he requested that Steve Jablonsky write for the Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre remakes. The scores were nothing but formulaic, loud action/horror music, but the movies were far dumbed down from the originals. It is no surprise, then, that we got these same sorts of scores for the new Conan movie. Regardless of its rich lore (which I debate, as I could never stand the original 80s film that Poledouris scored), none of that is adequately represented in this new version of the film.

At the end of the day, I think the biggest downfall of modern film scoring lies not on the back of the composers, or even those requesting a certain type of music, but instead the studio executives who ask for the spectacle sort of film.

Hello, sportsfans.... my piece, The Race, which was scheduled to be recorded in May didn't actually happen until last month, but was fun, and indeed, turned out much better than the mock-up. That said, it was actually only a "decent" performance, not a great one, but still possessed some nice gooey Hollywood goodness. I'm excited to be doing my next two projects with the LSO, though, which I've wanted to work with all my life, and should illustrate some interesting stylistic contrasts, playing-wise, between my LA colleagues and our friends across the pond.

Anyway, enjoy.

The Race - Live Recording (http://www.mikeverta.com/Posts/The_Race.mp3)

Recorded at 20th Century Fox Studios, July 18, 2011.


_Mike

That is quite an energetic piece and I very much enjoyed listening to it! I would kill to hear more of this in Hollywood! Outstanding, Mr. Verta!

Fantastic news and great piece of music, Mr. Verta (The little references to Williams are always charming)

Glad to see you again around here, Mike!

And this piece is... WOW. I've got more detailed comments about it coming in a moment...

Hello, sportsfans.... my piece, The Race, which was scheduled to be recorded in May didn't actually happen until last month, but was fun, and indeed, turned out much better than the mock-up. That said, it was actually only a "decent" performance, not a great one, but still possessed some nice gooey Hollywood goodness. I'm excited to be doing my next two projects with the LSO, though, which I've wanted to work with all my life, and should illustrate some interesting stylistic contrasts, playing-wise, between my LA colleagues and our friends across the pond.

Anyway, enjoy.

The Race - Live Recording (http://www.mikeverta.com/Posts/The_Race.mp3)

Recorded at 20th Century Fox Studios, July 18, 2011.


_Mike

Astonishing piece, actually.

This is what I call the TRUE sound of Hollywood, the one that made a good part of its glory, and that progressively tends to disappear in these dark ages of musical mediocrity. The piece itself is a wonderful self contained musical entity, a structured cue that looks like a short tone poem, with an intelligent, meaningful development. Its complexity is dazzling, the players must have been really good to perform a piece of such intensity. At some points, things almost go crazy, like after 4:34, which is a pure display of unrestrained orchestral fury.

The two themes I noticed are very good. I loved to hear the more positive one developed in wonderfully romantic and graceful fashion at :23. This theme is so good that it would deserve a full concert arrangement just for it. The darker theme has a sort of bounciness to it that would perfectly fit the big vilain of a pirate movie, for instance, and bravo for stating it in such varied fashions throughout the piece.

The performance is pretty robust to my ears, in fact. You really have to be a cantankerous perfectionist to consider it as just "decent"! I know a bunch of composers who would drop tears of joy for reaching such a level of quality. Of course I don't see all the nuances the composer of a piece can see, having meticulously crafted his piece for days or weeks, but I have to congratulate the players for managing to nicely perform such a complex and vivid piece. I don't know how many rehearsals they had, but the result is pretty impressive.

I don't believe the result turned out much better than the mock-up, I believe it's incomparably superior. I just rediscovered this piece. In my memories, the mock-up wasn't half as good, or so it's the impression I have. The live orchestra brings an amount of liveliness, vibrance, and sincerity that is almost completely absent from the virtual thing. It also brings, well, some imperfections, and oddly enough, this makes the piece much better, since the virtual one eventually sounded rather flat, mechanical, precisely because it was too perfect! The comforting imperfections produced by human players were missing, which took a lot of authenticity away.

Overall, this piece truly is a great achievement, and shows a lot about your skills as a composer. Hollywood needs guys like you, and we orchestral lovers (and everybody in fact) need to hear this kind of music coming from there. Please more of this!

Thank you for such kind words!

For all that's bandied about in discussions about film music, this piece does attempt to have the singular quality I find most prevalent in great film scores - which I argued ad infinitum with my professors at USC about, as they were utterly dismissive of film music at the time- : cohesive internal structure. When a film score manages to serve the triple masters of the picture edit, the director's whims, and independent structural cohesion, it is a thing of beauty, and far greater than the sum of its parts. You can listen to great Williams, or Goldsmith, or Korngold, or Steiner scores on their own, outside of the picture, and hear good ol' fashioned storytelling form laid out with precision. They're stories in their own right, and self-supporting. Of everything we see less of today - and there's a myriad - this is the biggest loss, in my opinion. The music doesn't say anything, ultimately; doesn't develop over the 90 minutes of the film; doesn't unravel and twist and turn the way the script does. (Or used to, anyway.) Music is a language, and the closer it adheres to good writing and dramatic form, the more effective it is. It's also boatloads harder to serve those three masters. But so what? Everything good takes effort. The results are more than worth the work, in my opinion.

You're right that musicians absolutely eat this stuff up. They're mostly starved of work which keeps them having to really focus and bring their A-Game, while still being fun, playable, and satisfying. The attitude in the room was fun to witness. There were challenges in the performance brought about for reasons which would only upset you as much as it upsets me. Short version: if you have a great ballteam, and they never play a good opponent, they get soft. But at the end of the day, the spirit of what I intended is in there. And that's more important than the notes.


_Mike

I certainly felt what you describe there last night Mr. Verta. I was at the La Jolla Summer Fest where they debuted a quartet written by John Williams as well as two west coast premiers of other quartets, including one by Joan Tower. You could just see it on the musicians how into the music they got, especially the clarinet and oboe players. The violinist on the John Williams piece was so into the music that two hairs on his bow snapped (I am not sure how often this happens but it surprised me).

Mike: More comments coming to you by PM! :)

But briefly, you have just confirmed a depressing thought that had crossed my mind more than once... I have often worried about what might happen to these great musicians. Life in a Hollywood scoring orchestra must be a singularly drab experience nowadays, with the occasional respite when the Japanese come a'calling (Afrika, Mushiking, etc) and when a chap such as yourself presents a score. I can well imagine great instrumentalists falling into the trap and upon opening your manuscript, shifting uncomfortably in their chairs and thinking to themselves "Oh... I'm not sure I can play this stuff any more!"

Not that they're bad, or they can't get the notes out, but as you say, if you have a Silver Ghost parked up in your garage and you don't start it for twenty years, it's going to get rusty...

Am I right in assuming that these musicians (or some of them) do not perform in classical-oriented orchestras? If modern Hollywood is literally all they're playing 99% of the time, I'm amazed they got past the first bar.

Yes, without exception, the players who also play "out" regularly, with symphonies, bands, chamber groups, etc., and don't do exclusively studio work, nailed it on the day, and fast. For other players, you can't do ostinatos and striping every session for years on end and not expect to atrophy. For them, it would've taken a little bit of time to shake the cobwebs out, but we didn't have that time. It was the last thing I ever expected to encounter; it never even crossed my mind. But I get it. If you are a player, it used to be that your year's line-up for recording was Williams, Horner, Broughton, Goldsmith, Bernstein, etc.. That'll keep you sharp, alright.

_Mike

cohesive internal structure. When a film score manages to serve the triple masters of the picture edit, the director's whims, and independent structural cohesion, it is a thing of beauty, and far greater than the sum of its parts. You can listen to great Williams, or Goldsmith, or Korngold, or Steiner scores on their own, outside of the picture, and hear good ol' fashioned storytelling form laid out with precision. They're stories in their own right, and self-supporting. Of everything we see less of today - and there's a myriad - this is the biggest loss, in my opinion. The music doesn't say anything, ultimately; doesn't develop over the 90 minutes of the film; doesn't unravel and twist and turn the way the script does. (Or used to, anyway.) Music is a language, and the closer it adheres to good writing and dramatic form, the more effective it is. It's also boatloads harder to serve those three masters. But so what? Everything good takes effort. The results are more than worth the work, in my opinion.

About this, I forgot to mention how I interpret the piece. I could say a lot about it, but here's a brief analysis of its structure. IMO it's called the Race because it's a race between two themes (or whatever entities they represent). There's a positive entity, represented by a "bright" theme, heard since the very beginning in fanfare form. This is obviously the "hero", the main character of the piece. And there's a darker theme, introduced at 1:27 after a clever transition at 1:19 with a menacing horn motif that suggests a danger coming. At 2:25 the extreme intensity of the strings play shows a strong fight in which the dark theme tries to catch up with its opponent. At 3:15, the bright theme, after being overtaken, regains hope. Then the fight fully resume at 4:16. At 4:40 there's a clear positive tone shift expressing the heroic and eventually successful efforts made by the bright theme to achieve victory, which is confirmed by its glorious statement at 4:55. At 5:15, it's the final and decisive part of the race. The intensity of the battle is at its highest, until 5:25, where the bright theme finally pass the finish, which leads to a noble fanfare crowning its victory, immediately followed by a sort of meditative, appeased part, where the bright theme is slowly reintroduced at 5:54, followed by a vivid and optimistic conclusion.

Now that's a good story. The idea of two themes doing a race together is quite clever and should be used as an exercise by all composers to show their thematic development skills, since it's a great opportunity to use and twist two or more themes together.

Thank you for such kind words!

For all that's bandied about in discussions about film music, this piece does attempt to have the singular quality I find most prevalent in great film scores - which I argued ad infinitum with my professors at USC about, as they were utterly dismissive of film music at the time- : cohesive internal structure. When a film score manages to serve the triple masters of the picture edit, the director's whims, and independent structural cohesion, it is a thing of beauty, and far greater than the sum of its parts. You can listen to great Williams, or Goldsmith, or Korngold, or Steiner scores on their own, outside of the picture, and hear good ol' fashioned storytelling form laid out with precision. They're stories in their own right, and self-supporting. Of everything we see less of today - and there's a myriad - this is the biggest loss, in my opinion. The music doesn't say anything, ultimately; doesn't develop over the 90 minutes of the film; doesn't unravel and twist and turn the way the script does. (Or used to, anyway.) Music is a language, and the closer it adheres to good writing and dramatic form, the more effective it is. It's also boatloads harder to serve those three masters. But so what? Everything good takes effort. The results are more than worth the work, in my opinion.

This. This this this. This is my absolute favorite part of a good film score, watching it grow and develop over the course of a narrative. You develop an affection for it because of that, as it changes and surprises you, motifs swell as they are reinterpreted taking on new meanings. I'm also a real sucker for making a central theme absent only to have it return bigger than before. My litmus test for really great filmmaking is that a film has to work if you take all the dialogue out of it, and let only the music and image remain. To me, music and image are the soul mates of the process. Before there was sync-sound, there was live music accompanying the picture. It's a very passionate kind of storytelling that can't survive in the well-oiled machine the industry has settled into following the new wave of the 60's and 70's.

And "The Race" was fantastic. I couldn't agree with Arthierr's assessment more, concerning the interplay between two themes chasing each other. I particularly enjoyed the romanticism of it. To me it evokes the sky and flying and an age in which man was most romantic with the notion of flight. I imagine a dirigible race, the kind of gimmicky races that were held in the early 1900's to demonstrate competing inventions and so forth. Where there was still as much elbow grease and ingenuity keeping those devices a loft as there is in this music!

Mike! Awesome music! This is such a fun piece to listen to. Thank you so much for sharing it with us. It's pure 80's film score goodness to my ears. Reminds me of my favorite movie scores from that era! Fantastic man :D

And getting to work with the LSO, you lucky devil!

can you anyone help im goingf out of my mind on google im trying to find

Arashi songs played by and Orchestra ablum

everywherei go online people are raving about it but not leaving any links

i was download it thanks

Hey. I posted in the last days a handful of asian soundtracks. Among all of them, i selected to re-post here these two soundtracks, because i believe they deserve to be mentioned in the orchestral thread, and of course because they are also entirely orchestral.


The soundtracks are Furin Kazan by Akira Senju and Semi Shigure by Taro Iwashiro.




Fūrin Kazan

Music Composed by Akira Senju
MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=UGE8JX5J)

Furin Kazan has all the ingredients of a good score. The main theme is heroic by nature and very enjoyable to listen. It is played many times in the score, but always orchestrated differently each time. It's not a monothematic score. There are also secundary themes for the moments of action, drama and romance.
The score culminates to a grand finale in what is one of the best tracks 'One Empire Under Heaven', and my personal favorite track of the album.



The second soundtrack is Semi Shigure by Taro Iwashiro.






Semi Shigure

Music Composed and Conducted by Taro Iwashiro

FLAC - MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RFNV3ISU)
MP3 - MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=D3JGXLM1)

If you expect action music here, you won't find any. The soundrack eludes the emphatic and epic to focus on intimacy. It's more in the side of calm and pensive music, in the same vein of other Iwashiro scores (Kaze no Hate, Shinobi, Katen no Shiro). It is focused mostly in the strings, woodwinds, and sometimes with piano.
The soundtrack opens with the main theme played by a large section of strings, and close, again with the same theme, but this time performed only in a piano solo. Out of all 10 tracks, there's only one track 'Deadly Blade', which is an uneasy piece that deviates a bit of the general calm tone of the score.


Enjoy :)

Thanks for posting those in here Sanico. I caught the Iwashiro but missed the Senju one :) Will give them a listen.

Thought I'd re-post this from another thread.

http://forums.ffshrine.org/f72/bastion-ost-320-mp3-93745/2.html


Bastion Original Soundtrack.rar (http://www.mediafire.com/?p1ywdlhcbnb53u3)

It's great music - Western themed, but with a lot of hard synth going on too.

I'd class it as a companion piece to Serenity (Newman) and Cowboys and Aliens.
It's got the Firefly vibe.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I have been looking high and low for John Scott's 20,000 leagues!

Joan Tower - Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman
Marin Alsop|Colorado Symphony Orchestra (1999)
Orchestral|Classical|MP3 VBR V-0|Partial Scans|119MB

Download (http://www.multiupload.com/I7ZXWPL50G)
PSW: smile

interesting share Sirusjr, hadn't heard of this work, but always love a new piece of modern classical work!

Crest / Banner of the Stars



Thematic / Romantic / Majestic / Regal / Synth

Music composed by Katsuhisa Hattori

Download (http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/1VW4SIUG/Crest-Banner_of_the_Stars.7z_links)
MP3 / 320kbps / 50 Tracks

Here's the music to one of my favorite TV shows. This is good old SciFi, more subtle than bombastic. I know it has been posted here before, but only Crest of the Stars. Here's every piece of music from the franchise, and everyone with a passion for the human aspect of SciFi should check out the show. Wonderful romance and characters. The music is wonderful as well, a bit repetitive but with such a wonderful Theme, I don't mind that at all. And the opening reminded me of the good old days of television.

Enjoy

Thanks Crest/Banner of stars klnderfan :)

Dude, please express yourself with *words* instead of acting so mysteriously. It's much more convenient for people to understand you and answer to your posts. You clearly have interesting things to say, so why not to talk with us in a regular way?

Anyway, interesting video. I didn't find it to be musically THAT impressive, though. If this guy won, then the other contestants must have been pretty amateurish. IMO his score doesn't sometimes really fit the video correctly, and there are too many atmospheric underscore parts, which, given the shortness of this clip, isn't really acceptable. However, this guy looks more like a "real" composer than the previous guy you posted. At least he seems to roughly know what he's doing and to have a vague sense of musical development.


And thanks a lot for the last uploads, guys! I Don't have time to check everything right now (will do ASAP), but I already know Crest / Banner of the Stars, which I tried years ago when I had time to randomly download and listen to tons of anime scores to see if there's some good orchestral music in them (boy, I miss those days!). And this one really has some cool material, especially the main theme, which is wonderful and very memorable. I would qualify it as a "romantic space theme", since it's clearly a space theme that brings you towards the stars, but with a deliciously romantic and lyrical side that moves your heart at the same time. Nice stuff!


Also, I'd like to insist on something: this thread is much more than a music posting thread, it has primarily become a discussion thread with (hopefully) high quality debates about various topics concerning orchestral music, film music, etc. I'm pretty sure that many viewers of this thread, seeing the quite bold opinions expressed here, often disagree with such or such statement, and are willing to say it, but for some reason they don't. This is a problem. A debate can only develop if there are disagreements and criticisms made, otherwise there's no real point having debates - or at least interesting, exciting debates. I'd love to see more people telling the people in here that they're wrong and why, so the latter can develop their reasoning with better arguments and additional examples. This is how the best discussions of this thread have been launched.

So please, if you disagree with something stated here, just say so, and it'll be a pleasure to answer! There's no need to be intimidated, especially if you're being polite and bring some good, valid arguments to the debate.

Hear, hear!

Don't forget that the predominant culture on this forum is that talking about stuff is bad. Debate is annoying white noise that gets in the way of download links. Opinions are bad. Feeling strongly about something makes you arrogant. Backing up your feelings with evidence and/or further discussion makes you an elitist snob. This is the general consensus we're up against.

I see people making tentative steps in this thread, but I imagine that they must be making those steps with apprehension, no doubt caused by that perception. Some of the stuff in this thread can get pretty heavy and I think that some people may feel that they will be "out-debated" and will lose by default as a result. They mistake passion for aggression, see the occasionally withering responses handed out to the terminally stupid, and consider that they might be better off keeping their mouths shut, taking the downloads, and running.

It's like turning up at a party full of people you don't know; they're all talking about something you're interested in, and they're all very knowledgeable, opinionated, and passionate. What do you do? You think that if you try to muscle your way into the conversation, they will cut you down where you stand and make you feel stupid. I do this ALL THE TIME in the real world and have probably missed out on some really good debates because of it. Probably those big scary people would've welcomed me into their discussion with open arms and all would've been well - but because I'm afraid of what will happen if they don't, I take the cowardly way out and don't try.

So, from that perspective... SPEAK UP, FOLKS! You are ALWAYS welcome in this thread. If you have something to say, you can say it in a courteous and respectful way, and you're prepared for maybe some quite robust (but always good natured) debate, then DO SO with confidence! As Arthierr says, some of this thread's finest moments have been because people did exactly that. This is not just a download thread; it's a social venue. :)

Thanks for Crest/Banner of the Stars, klnerfan. Some really beautiful and interesting stuff lies therein. The main theme is kind of like a cross-between "Ilia's Theme" from Goldsmith's "STTMP" and Herrmann's "Aria" from Citizen Kane... in a good way, of course. :)

Arthierr, as a suggestion, why not add something akin to what Tangotreats just said in the opening post? I think it will do wonders to put aside alot of the apprehension people have about the discussions here.

Mmmh... Interesting point. So people could hesitate to express disagreements because they might think they could lose?

In fact, I don't see debates as battles of egos, where there are winners and losers. I see them as a great way to get closer to truth. In healthy debates, people expose their knowledge, their experiences, their reflexions in order to better know something, not in order to show off and arrogantly make their "opponents" shut their mouth. We're all truth seekers who (hopefully) want to become better and more learned. Sometimes we're far from the truth (we don't know, or know too little, or believe in false things), so a good debate with people with a real culture on a subject can help us see things we didn't see, and hence get closer to truth. And by that I don't mean that *I* hold the truth, since I'm open-minded and willing to learn and evolve, that's why I asked for good counter-arguments that could possibly point out my own mistakes.

However, it's true that I've been occasionally rather vigorous with some people here, but it's only because they forgot to show some basic politeness and humbleness. You DO NOT tell someone you disagree with that he's "disingeneous" or "tell lies" just because he's got a different opinion than you. Not only is this utterly disrespectful, but if *you* happen to be wrong, then you just end up looking like a complete fool. The same goes for people entering a debate with words like: "you're missing the point" (implying: "you're too stupid and ignorant to really understand the point"). These are not ways to have healthy and courteous debates, here or anywhere else. Happily, this kind of behavior is quite rare and most people know how to behave correctly.

Bottom line is, please don't hesitate to express different opinions because you think you might "lose" or "look stupid" or something. This will not be the case, since this is not a fight. Asking for a discussion doesn't show you're an ignorant, it simply shows that you're an intelligent person willing to learn and become better.


(About putting something like that in the opening post, why not, although I don't believe many people check it.)

Well people like Tango, myself, and anyone else who fails to control their negative thoughts will invariably slink away from any intimidating situation when they constantly repeat their worries over and over in their mind. It is only through thinking confident, positive thoughts that they are able to confront the challenging situation and accept that they will do their best. This idea is more further developed in a book called Psycho Cybernetics, and I highly recommend it for anyone who is struggling with their own real life negative self-images. PM me for more information if you think it might help.

Aha! I love the way things sometimes tend to turn to one of my other big interests: psychology. Excellent recommendation. But please mention the author so people can easily find it.

It is only in this thread where I would imagine we would get a conversation regarding psychology (also a favorite intellectual hobby of mine - I'm taking a survey course of it this semester!). Glorious.

Oh, and I know I mentioned last week I would upload Prince Caspian, but with school starting up (fake bomb threats and all) it totally slipped my mind. I'll get to uploading it tonight so I can promptly post it tomorrow.

And just because I love to tease and see you guys salivating with anticipation: a fantastic score by Griskey and Lennie Moore, a hundred times more suited to the film than the film's score itself. Once again I am proven that the future of music is with video games.

Aha! I love the way things sometimes tend to turn to one of my other big interests: psychology. Excellent recommendation. But please mention the author so people can easily find it.

Well the name of the book when googled easily comes up with it, but the author is Maxwell Maltz. Such a fabulous read and one I have not yet made the most of ;)

I love the word that was coined in the conan 2011 score review. prickishly. Haha. I will have to use that from now on. Great review by the way. I agree with a great many of your points. While i stop short of calling anyone a hack, while I do not care for Tyler Bates musical work in any of the scores he has done, he does have his fans, and I'm not willing to reduce their experience if they find the love in his compositions that I have in, say Basil's, Jerry's, or Miklos.

Anyway - thanks for the interesting thoughts.

If I had to compare the 2011 conan score to something, I would say it is to music what a Mc Donald Hamburger is to real cuisine: an insult. Don't take me wrong, I enjoy a few of these little fat bastards every now and then, but in no way can I call that "cuisine" (unless it's a homemade hamburger, now that is something else, let me tell you:)). The music is perfectly listenable, it's even sometime quite nice, but I can't remember it. this has nothing to do with it being synths or anything (I was hooked to the score for "The Rock" on the first listening) but it is just consummer good, not art. There was something experimental in Poledouris' work, even if it owed to classical music. there was an impulse, a "soul" if I dare to say (Actually, some kind of "soul" is what much synth music lacks. there are few exceptions, like the early works of Zimmer, or some theme by Gregson Williams, Horner, Newton Howard), which is the reason why some classical pieces of music heard in movies, such as Beethoven's Ode to Joy or Orff's O Fortuna are such epic pieces, old yet so often use even today (See Evangelion for instance). It's also why some younger composers do a lot of great stuff, like Brian Tyler, John Ottman or Trevor Morris (I'm hooked to the main theme for Pillars of the Earth). They have this ability to put a little something that gives life to their music.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian the Video Game

.MP3 VBR | 60 Tracks | Running Time: 3"19'03


http://www.megaupload.com/?d=LI1B858J

1. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Main Title (2:47)
2. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Level Select (3:51)
3. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Cair Paravel (4:35)
4. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - To the Battle (4:14)
5. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - The Battlefield (5:04)
6. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Scaling the Courtyard (4:25)
7. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - The Beach (4:00)
8. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Defending the Battlements (4:39)
9. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Defend Cair Paravel Bonus (3:11)
10. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Boss Battle (3:58)
11. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - The Pevensies Children (4:18)
12. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Beasts of the Woods (4:12)
13. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Through the Caves (4:27)
14. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Bats! (3:59)
15. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - The Beach Again (3:03)
16. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Temerian Scouts (4:18)
17. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - The Ruins of Cair Paravel (4:12)
18. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - The Treasures of the Pevensies Children (4:15)
19. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Scaling Miraz's Walls (3:54)
20. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - The Masked Guard (4:29)
21. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - The Castle Turrets (3:59)
22. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - The Tower Guards (4:12)
23. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - From Rooftop to Rooftop (4:06)
24. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Halls of the Castle (4:18)
25. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Down to the Dungeons (4:07)
26. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Freeing Cornelius (4:15)
27. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Castle Infiltration Bonus (2:34)
28. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - The Courtyard (4:21)
29. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Fighting to the Bridge (4:25)
30. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - The Battlements (3:59)
31. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Slipping Past the Horses (4:28)
32. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Fight in the Stables (4:28)
33. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - The Terrace (4:17)
34. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Assault on Castle Bonus (2:54)
35. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Aslan's How (3:27)
36. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Approaching the How (4:15)
37. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - The Temerian Defenders (4:24)
38. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Inside the How (3:58)
39. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Ring of Combat (4:05)
40. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - The Stone Table (4:24)
41. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - The Battlefield of Beruna (2:10)
42. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - A Secret Plan (4:29)
43. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - The Cistern (4:05)
44. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Surprise Attack (4:04)
45. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - The Battle for Narnia (3:48)
46. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - The Telmarines Retreat (4:05)
47. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Credits (5:01)
48. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - PC Bonus Movie 01 (1:01)
49. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - PC Bonus Movie 02 (0:14)
50. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - PC Bonus Movie 03 (1:04)
51. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - PC Bonus Movie 04 (0:16)
52. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - PC Bonus Movie 05 (0:47)
53. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - PC Bonus Movie 06 (0:17)
54. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - PC Bonus Movie 07 (0:28)
55. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - PC Bonus Movie 08 (0:36)
56. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - PC Bonus Movie 09 (0:51)
57. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - PC Bonus Movie 10 (0:10)
58. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - PC Bonus Movie 11 (0:19)
59. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - PC Bonus Movie 12 (0:34)
60. Mark Griskey & Lennie Moore - Attract (1:47)

As of late, it seems that whenever there is a videogame license to some big profile movie, if you want good music you don't go out to buy the soundtrack but rather rip the music from the game! It's odd how so many times now that the movie tie-ins, which are universally considered to be cheap paychecks for the publisher and developer involved, actually has the tendency to have well written music composed by those that have an actual love for their craft.

Mark Griskey is well known for his dark and meticulous style of music. His main themes are usually slow, adiago dependent pieces that gives a darkened texture on the atmosphere. You can place the main theme from both Prince Caspian and The Sith Lords side by side and you would know that it was Griskey.

Lennie Moore is most well known for being a goddamn genius and his music, regardless of if they are all synth or recorded with an orchestra, being absolutely fantastic and because of these two things he has never seen a full on commercial release and practically nobody knows that he even exists.

Now the bulk of the music was done by Griskey, while Moore was listed as having doing additional music. I would take as saying he took up the final third of the score, although since I have no official documents I can't say whom did what.

The music is great. These are both high class composers, and they had such a great chemistry here. Their music meshes together so well, it might as well have been one composer. I think that is the sign of a great artistic team - when you can sense the individual, but both of the artist's persona just connects together seamlessly. This is probably why Moore is on The Old Republic team.

There are SFX here, but once the music starts they are quickly drowned out by the music. So, by a minute in, you'll barely hear any SFX. So, don't have any worries that this soundtrack is a terrible listening expierence. That is as far from the truth as you could possibly get.

Kudos to Infernus Ameritus of the VGM Legacy for ripping this at my request. Couldn't have done it without you.

Good to see some new faces with fresh opinions in here! Our discussion from last night has been heard, obviously. And precisely, there are some interesting points in your posts that I wish to answer. More detailed post coming up a bit later. ;)


Also thanks a lot for the new Lennie Moore! The guy is one of those terrifically brilliant composers who don't get to compose as often as they deserve while the film and VG music market is flooded with cheap, generic junk. I don't know Griskey though, so it'll be interesting to see what he's capable of in this score.

I love the word that was coined in the conan 2011 score review. prickishly. Haha. I will have to use that from now on. Great review by the way. I agree with a great many of your points. While i stop short of calling anyone a hack, while I do not care for Tyler Bates musical work in any of the scores he has done, he does have his fans, and I'm not willing to reduce their experience if they find the love in his compositions that I have in, say Basil's, Jerry's, or Miklos.

Anyway - thanks for the interesting thoughts.

I think this post hits nicely on the head of a very important nail. I honestly do not believe it physically possible that somebody could love Bates in the same way I love Poledouris, Goldsmith, Rosza, etc. Bates' "music" does not have the same goals; and Bates himself simply does not qualify as a musician of any sort when compared to those venerable greats.

If your involvement is limited, your expectations low, and your musical taste unsophisticated, of course you can love Bates; and that's the source of his fanbase. I don't deny for a moment that these people exist, but I will vehemently argue that these people are fans of Bates because their sophisticated tastes can discern a "special something" - a unique subtlety, an emotional insight, a melodic thread, of greatness that old farts like me just don't understand. The music is crap, and people enjoy it upon that basis.

The McDonald's analogy is old and cliched, but it does serve a useful purpose. People who dine in McDonald's every night are not doing so because they are well travelled, culinary connoisseurs with a passionate love of food. They go in there because they don't give a damn about any of that stuff - they just want to shove a burger in their faces and go home. They do not view food as a source of pleasure, new experiences, intellectual stimulation. It is a high-speed, pre-packaged, functional in the most basic sense, meal. It's their loss, every single time - but we should never, ever allow the lowest common denominator interpretation of something become the standard expectation.

Certainly for the benefit of those who already do see things with a sophisticated eye, nose, or palate. But, more importantly, so there are "caretakers" for the finer things, who will stand ready to help others take their first steps into appreciating them. So many people get in to film music (or orchestral music in general) as a result of Pirates Of The Caribbean, etc - and the moment they step outside of that comfort zone and sample the greats they are well and truly converted. Of course, some folk won't get it - but the power of great music is enduring and it does reach people - but only if it continues to exist and be accessible and available - and only if there are good-natured tour-guides to assist them on their journey.

Great review by the way.
My post wasn't really a review, but rather a global reflection on film music based on that very meaningful pretext. Here's a very brief review though: it's a piece of crap.


while I do not care for Tyler Bates musical work in any of the scores he has done, he does have his fans, and I'm not willing to reduce their experience if they find the love in his compositions that I have in, say Basil's, Jerry's, or Miklos.
You raise a very interesting point that deserves to be discussed further. Basically, one of the things you seem to say (and many people tend to say the same in this forum or other places) is that even though you don't listen to it, you're perfectly ok with the new style of Hollywood's film scoring. If some people happen to enjoy it, good for them. And as long as there will be folks appreciating this kind of music, criticisms against it are pointless, since modern scores aren't artistically inferior to the old-school ones, they're just different. There's no real progression or regression in arts, everything just becomes different, and all is fundamentally equal.

I appreciate your sense of tolerance, but do you realize that such position leads to the fact that there won't be anymore Basil's, Jerry's, or Miklos for the future generations? And when pushing this idea further, it means that if the current trend of film music would have started in the 60's or 70's, you wouldn't even be able to appreciate these composers today, since they wouldn't have been allowed to have the career they had.

I remember one poster in this thread who once basically said: "You have to live with your time. The classic scores are the past, the "greats" of the previous decades had their time, but now it's time for new composers and new styles of music. Get used to it." People saying so tend to mix up art and fashion. The modern style of scoring (let's call it RC style) is fashion. It's hip, it's modern, it looks innovative, it appeals to the "young demographic" which is also the number one movie consumer, but its artistic value is in fact very low, sometimes even close to zero. As it's been often said, it's the musical equivalent of fast-food. It's cheap, generic, simple and functional factory music composed by people who rarely have some significant musical training and classical roots, and aimed at an audience with the same characteristics. Again, if many of the past Hollywood scores have become classics, it's because their artistic value was so high that they can't be forgotten anymore and will be praised by generations to come, contrary to what the aforementioned poster (and lots of other people) seems to superficially believe.

It's a pity that too many people are lax about the situation of modern film music and just let things go. They say that they do enjoy the great composers of the past, but it's perfectly acceptable for them when people nowadays seem to prefer Djawadi or Jablonsky. But the problem is that evolution (which everyone should seek in every discipline) means going up, doing better than what has been done before, not just differently, and certainly not worse. The fact of being ok with the regression of modern film music will only lead to the lowering of musical standards, which ultimately leads to the lowering of human kind itself, since art has a great influence on people's mind. Don't forget that Hollywood's films are exported worldwide and are seen by millions, sometimes billions of people around the world, hence their influence on popular culture is immense. That's why tolerating the dumbing-down of film music is a slippery slope that will lead to the impoverishment of music as an art, and the gradual disappearance of orchestral music as we know it.

A French Horn Tribute to Film Music - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzjEu4o4W_I&feature=channel_video_title)

A French Horn Tribute to Film Music - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzjEu4o4W_I&feature=channel_video_title)

Thanks for that link, such a wonderful video, and a lot of great melodies.

A French Horn Tribute to Film Music - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzjEu4o4W_I&feature=channel_video_title)

Not you too!

Seriously, beautiful stuff and it reminds all of us that real film music is about great themes that give a unique personality and a strong identity to a film. Listen to the theme and you instantly remember the film, the characters, the universe. Pretty hard to do with the generic, interchangeable stuff churned out these days.

And this guy works now on Twilight Symphony ;)

He does? Does he realise what a artless hack job that's going to be? I wonder if they've finished spending their thirty thousand dollars on choir sessions and the recording engineer with such classical masterpieces under his belt as "Glee" and "used to work at Abbeys Road which is where the Beetles used to record their EPIC HITS in the 1970s!"

Oy...

I just love hearing the new samples for it ... you get a beautiful horn section, a live choir going AAHHHHHH and SYNTH STRINGS !!! Perfect.
Also, hearing sample after sample one question comes to mind: Why Twilight Princess ? The music is not that memorable for a Zelda game. The best stuff were the reused themes from the old ones. The best choice for a Symphony would be A Link to the Past or Ocarina of Time. Majora's Mask could also work. Wind Waker would actually work best as a string quartet. But with the upcoming Zelda 25th Anniversary Symphony, who really needs Twilight Symphony ?

Part of me hopes that the upcoming symphony is one big "F**K YOU!" to the ZERO team from Nintendo. Wouldn't that be fun...? ;)

VIVA PI�ATA
GRANT KIRKHOPE

The City of Prague Philharmonic conducted by Nic Raine

MP3-V0
Multiupload.com - upload your files to multiple file hosting sites! (http://www.multiupload.com/Y0UACUW7H7)

I'm gonna quote this old post, for to have the opportunity to say thanks to Lens for sharing Viva Pinata and Arthierr for the suggestion :)
I don't pay much attention to videogame soundtracks, but what a lovely score this is. I liked the subtle orchestrations and the woodwinds playing of this one. There are many moments that shouldn't be missed to anyone wanting to hear a charming and melodious score. In a word, gorgeous.

See, I don�t buy into the argument that film score music is dead. They made that argument back in the 80�s when synthesizers threatened to take over � and in my opinion ruined several promising films for me, such as Ladyhawk and The Princess Bride. But the symphony orchestra prevailed under the glorious baton of Goldsmith, Williams and the other greats of the 80�s due to some visionary, or perhaps retro-minded directors who allowed the power of music to come forward.

Are there bad scores being produced today by dunderheaded executives who wouldn�t know a Beethoven from a Bagel? Yes. Were there outrageous horrors forced on the ears of the movie goer in the 80�s and 90�s? Yes. Does that mean Princess Bride does not have its fans even though I view it as crap? No � it has plenty of avid fans that will defend it to the ends of the earth. Would it have been better with a full flesh & blood orchestra and a classically trained composer � no doubt.

I have read a few differing views on quality of composers as well, especially some rather tersely written thoughts on John Debney and his glorious (IMO) work on Cutthroat Island. Was it derivative? Of course it was, that was the point. Just as Williams� Star Wars was derivative, just as James Horner�s works are derivative. Using Classic music, Golden Age Score Music and their own past catalogues as sources of inspiration. But I see points of light in modern film scoring as well. Look at Elfman, Powell, Tyler (Brian, that is), Bedalt, Debney, Arnold, in addition to a resurgence of some of the 80�s greats like Silvestri (who is hit and miss lately but still shines on occasion) and Horner who are inspiring yet another generation of film goers and music fans alike.

I think there was a tendency to count out the orchestral score in the 60�s because of Song Tracks. I think there was a tendency to count out the Orchestra score in the 70�s because of Funk and Disco influences. I think there was a tendency to count it out in the 80�s because of synthesizers and corporate greed, yadda yadda yadda. But it is still with us. And OK � I will agree � for all to hear, Tyler Bates is a dork � his music is nothing more than rhythms and loops and lacks any sort of thematic cohesion. And I am sick to death that he is providing the score to the new Superman Movie � I mean, Seriously? That is an all-time low for me.

But all in all, I don�t see the end times near. And, in fact, I kind of like Steve Jablonski. I dug his 1st Transformer�s Score � it is highly thematic IMO and his score to Steamboy is wonderful retro fun which again is highly thematic and nicely orchestrated. Not a huge fan of Zimmer, but he seems to recognize talent and is kind of like the Rodin of the music scene, training composers in the business of film and unleashing them on the world. It is hard to deny the influence he has had � for better or for worse (he is a fan of the Wall of Sound) but the likes of Bedalt and Jabonsky and Powel and Gregson-Williams have developed their own sound � and I regularly mix their best works in with my favorites of Rosza, Herrmann, Elfman, Williams and Goldsmith much to my ears delight.

Anyway - I have really gotten a kick out of reading the different reviews and opinions. I love how emotionally charged music can make us. It is simply - wonderful.

-Jazz

The upcoming set doesn't have the skills to compose scores in the same league as the greats, even if the climate where conducive to it, which it's not, and obtaining those skills becomes harder every day, regardless. If the pendulum swings back, it will be a rough road finding people to catch it. And with every passing hour, our connection to the masters who might teach us these skills (they cannot be found in institutions) grows weaker and more tenuous. Every one of the surviving greats knows this, and says so either publicly or privately; ditto their support staffs. The musicians' abilities are eroding; the art is eroding. Even the facilities are disappearing. There are only two rooms left in Los Angeles big enough to record symphony-sized groups, and Sony is trying to close theirs down. There has rarely ever been a significant re-discovery of a forgotten craft. But I notice my 11-month-old son's toys play Mozart, Bach and Beethoven. Great work endures.


_Mike

Part of me hopes that the upcoming symphony is one big "F**K YOU!" to the ZERO team from Nintendo. Wouldn't that be fun...? ;)

if its anything like the performance at E3....... Zreo might win this one. (in terms of certain other fans - not me of course)

@Faleel: Well, I recall that the ZREO Team also didn't like Valtonen's Zelda Poem, but truth be told, it was too complex for them to appreciate. It was not just a simple melody you instantly recognize. But I believe that the Japanese will create a stunning symphony regardless.

Japan in general might be one of the last remaining places for musical craft akin to the greats of Hollywood. At least most of Japanese composers know how to write for orchestra and mix modern elements with an orchestra the right way. Composers like Hisaishi, Oshima, Hirano and Sahashi have crafted many "classics" that can easily compete with the top of my film music collection. Also Japan still has WOODWINDS !!! So even if all hope is lost in the west, there would still be a place for talented composers. But let's hope it doesn't turn out this way. We still have Europe.

Thanks to everyone who has shared songs here, I found so much great music I had never even heard of before!
Thanks <3

Mike is 100% right. It hurts to say it - it hurts even more to acknowledge it - but it's the truth.


if its anything like the performance at E3....... Zreo might win this one. (in terms of certain other fans - not me of course)

Eh? That was a quick and dirty four minute medley performed by a small, inadequately rehearsed pit orchestra. And it still beat the arse off anything those ZERO idiots could have produced in their wildest dreams.

It doesn't surprise me at all that ZERO don't get along with Valtonen's Zelda Symphony. For starters, it reminds them of their own glaringly obvious musical inadequacies. Don't forget, we're talking about a group which has installed as its head of public relations, an illiterate, rude, musically inexperienced, imbecile - a man who I really, really tried to get along with and find some common ground with, but in the end simply could not due to his utterly backwards conception of music. When he told me that ZERO wasn't about music - it was about "epic awesomesauce", I knew that their nonsense project held absolutely no further interest for me - and holds no interest to anybody who is concerned for genuine artistry.

We have already talked at length about what a joke that project is - I really have no desire to go through it all again, so will gracefully withdraw from any further discussion on the topic. Purely because I have already said everything I want to say, and I do not wish to become repetitive.

When he told me that ZERO wasn't about music - it was about "epic awesomesauce",

My God. Did he actually say that? That is something I would say when I was fourteen for God's sake. This man isn't an idiot - he's just a juvenile imbecile. That is the most unprofessional thing I have ever heard anyone say about anything.

That's a combination of two quotes from two different occasions, but the "epic awesomesauce" line is absolutely verbatim. I suspect that talking like that was a deliberate attempt to appeal to their intended target audience - namely imbeciles. I had a long discussion with him some months ago. We were discussing the project and somebody apparently wrote to the guy to tattle. He showed up here and started indignantly defending ZREO. NaotaM spotted exactly what he was very early on, trolled the hell out of him - for my sins, I cut him a bit more slack and found myself in a long and torturous AIM conversation during which he essentially stated that they weren't interested in anything other than loud noise - and that the success of the project was guaranteed because their sample library cost a lot of money! I even earned a special mention as somebody who has "clearly never worked in the industry, clearly never worked on a project of this scale before, and clearly spouts about things he knows nothing about!" which made me laugh.

Oh, well - here's to a poorly orchestrated expensive-but-poorly-wielded synthesiser arrangement of a not-particularly-memorable Zelda score, as realised by talentless fanboy hacks and stage managed by a man with no musical knowledge or ability whatsoever who attempts to compensate for his abject failure to understand the project in even the simplest musicological terms by saying "clearly" a lot (everybody knows that "clearly" is the word that instantly makes your argument justified and correct) and writing hilariously over-the-top enthusiastic (but woefully illiterate) puffery to appeal to the denegerate brains of spotty gamer losers.

And yes, I know that sentence was appallingly constructed; it said what I wanted to say and I'm too tired to re-write it, so enjoy. ;)

Jazzhollister: THANK YOU!

Here's the kind of developed, cultured, intelligent answers I love to get. I'm pretty busy for the moment, but a well deserved reply (in a positive sense) will be sent ASAP.


And BEWARE guys, don't criticize ZREO again or that guy from last time will come back and spank us with his mighty smileys and his lethal word repetition technique, not to mention his very subtle "lack of defense" attitude.

Huh! I'm proud of what I said. I clearly don't need guys like Athriere, who clearly don't know what they're talking about, CLEARLY. I'll show you just how wrong you are! Now, somebody give me twenty thousand dollars so I can go make you cool d00ds (except Arthur, who is clearly a numbskull) some AWESOMESAUCE OH YEAH!

So it's offical. The Zelda Symphony CD comes with the game in november:

So it's offical. The Zelda Symphony CD comes with the game in november:



Damn. I don't want the game - I don't even have a Wii! - but I would love that CD. I probably couldn't return it - Gamestop would notice it would be missing. It's $70 too...

Bah! If I only I was a billionaire. Of course, I was a billionaire I would fund a traditional orchestral extravaganza as well...

Damn. I don't want the game - I don't even have a Wii! - but I would love that CD. I probably couldn't return it - Gamestop would notice it would be missing. It's $70 too...

Bah! If I only I was a billionaire. Of course, I was a billionaire I would fund a traditional orchestral extravaganza as well...


Well, I'm definitely buying the game on release day, so if no one else gets it that day (which I doubt highly) then I will be happy to rip it and post it here or float through PMs or whatever.

I hope it won't be just three tracks and two minutes a piece :(.

See, I don�t buy into the argument that film score music is dead. They made that argument back in the 80�s when synthesizers threatened to take over � and in my opinion ruined several promising films for me, such as Ladyhawk and The Princess Bride. But the symphony orchestra prevailed under the glorious baton of Goldsmith, Williams and the other greats of the 80�s due to some visionary, or perhaps retro-minded directors who allowed the power of music to come forward.

I often noticed that in almost every place in the web where the decline of Hollywood's film music is discussed, there's someone who pops up to claim that this is not really the case; that people who believe so are too pessimistic, partisan or biased; that bad scores have existed in all of film music history, as well as good scores; that there is hope in the new generation, and that there are some really good composers that happen to create noteworthy scores today; etc.

Let's admit, this is partly true. Indeed there have been mediocre or bad scores since the beginning of film music, even during its most glorious periods (Golden Age and Post-Star Wars), no doubt about it. I can't cite many of them though, precisely because they've been generally quickly forgotten. Also, I acknowledge the fact that there are some composers working today who have some genuine talent and actual competence, and a few orchestral scores produced each year that happen to have some sporadic yet nonetheless real qualities, even if they're not masterpieces, far from there. I never said that all that come from Hollywood nowadays is complete rubbish and entirely devoid of artistic value; this would be caricatural and inaccurate. Nothing is 100% bad, and when scrutinizing it deeply enough, one can often find some hidden qualities not apparent at first glance. It's indeed important to look at things with nuance and objectivity in order to judge properly.

That being said, to deny the progressive rarefaction of Hollywood's REAL grand orchestral music and the significant lowering of its global artistic quality since roughly the last 15 years is like denying the retreat of glaciers: it simply doesn't stand the test of reality.

Before going further, I'd like to precise an important point as a preamble: I will only talk about orchestral film music (or partly orchestral) in this article, since it's the only kind of film music I really care about (there's a reason why I created this thread). It's essential to define it before starting: I call grand orchestral music (some might call it neo-classical or neo-romantic) the kind of music composed for and performed by a symphony orchestra, that has been en vogue many years in Hollywood, but most prominently during two key periods: the Golden Age of Hollywood (roughly from the 20's to the 60's) and the Post-Star Wars era (from the late 70's to arguably the late 90's). It's a form of large scale, complex symphonic music that is quite inspired from classical music, notably from the romantic and impressionist periods (and at times from the postmodern period, see Planet of the Apes (1968) or The Matrix). There's no doubt in my mind that this kind of music is the most evolved, the most compositionally and orchestrationally complex form of musical expression. I don't just say it's only my personal taste, my own subjective appreciation (which it also is); I categorically state that grand orchestral music is intrinsically the most advanced form of music invented by human kind, and that well mastered, it has no competitor amongst any other genre. John Williams said that "symphony orchestras were enormously handy for [film music] because they're elegant and the symphony orchestra itself is one of the greatest inventions of our artistic culture. Fabulous sounds it can produce and a great range of emotional capabilities." Hence its gradual disappearance is a threat to the evolution of music as an art form. It's a regression, a degeneration of the art.

So then, the question is: does real, grand orchestral music, as it's just been defined, tends to slowly disappear from Hollywood since about 15 years?

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: everything that follows.

To make sure everybody clearly understands my points, let's put them in convenient list form:

1) When there's a live orchestra involved in a movie score nowadays, the music is often much more simple, much less complex, compositionally and orchestrationally, than what it used to be in the "old-school" scores. Melodies tend to be scarce and simple; harmonies are under-exploited (often replaced by unison); counterpoint is very rare; chord progressions are basic and repetitive; orchestrations are straightforward, unsubtle and rely too frequently on electronic "enhancements". All of this contribute to end up with scores that a musically trained ear can easily recognize as simplistic, boring and artistically primitive, lacking the sheer brilliance and hectic complexity of the old-school orchestral scores.

2) Moreover, various post-production treatments are often applied to the pure orchestral sound in order to denature it and make it sound artificial, like a sampler, thus ruining the wonderful experience of listening to the glorious sound of a symphony orchestra.

3) As Mike pointed out, even the facilities where orchestral music can be performed and recorded tend to be progressively shut down. And the players' abilities, lacking the bracing practice of highly complex and gratifying orchestral music, tend to get rusty.

4) When the music happens to be roughly as technically accomplished and subtle as those old-school scores, it's generally made by veteran composers (John Williams, Alan Silvestri, Danny Elfman, James Horner, etc.) who happened to be active during those years and who have created then some of those great classic scores.

5) But even then, these veterans often compose scores that happen to be less outstanding, impressive and memorable than those they used to compose (Elfman's Terminator Salvation or The Kingdom; Silvestri's The A-Team or G.I. Joe, Patrick Doyle's Rise of the Planet of the Apes). Either because their style has "evolved" in a wrong direction, or because they're constrained by inept executive orders.

6) Anyway, these veterans composers progressively retire one by one. Leaving the positions to a new generation of composers who sometimes seem to lack some significant musical training and classical knowledge - or so it could be deduced after having heard their music.

7) Even if some of them do have such training and knowledge, they're not given the possibility, the creative freedom to use them properly to compose noteworthy scores. They're forced to produce artistically passable, mediocre or downright inept scores most of the time.


But all in all, I don�t see the end times near. And, in fact, I kind of like Steve Jablonski. I dug his 1st Transformer�s Score � it is highly thematic IMO and his score to Steamboy is wonderful retro fun which again is highly thematic and nicely orchestrated. Not a huge fan of Zimmer, but he seems to recognize talent and is kind of like the Rodin of the music scene, training composers in the business of film and unleashing them on the world. It is hard to deny the influence he has had � for better or for worse (he is a fan of the Wall of Sound) but the likes of Bedalt and Jabonsky and Powel and Gregson-Williams have developed their own sound

Ok, let me state this in the clearest way: I consider Hans Zimmer the *main* responsible for the disappearance of true orchestral music and the degeneration of musical art in Hollywood.

Before explaining why, let's start with a positive note: Hans Zimmer isn't a bad composer in reality (even though many of his recent scores tend to prove the opposite). The guy happened to compose a bunch of pretty nice scores in his career, essentially during the first half of it. Nobody can deny that The Prince of Egypt or The Lion King are some quite interesting scores, with some genuine qualities. He showed several times that he can be competent, creative and versatile, while at the same time composing music that is pleasant and listenable as a stand-alone experience. Of course he's in NO WAY in the same league as the great orchestral composers of Hollywood, but it would be wrong to deny the fact that some of his early scores are quite effective and memorable.

That being said, when one sees how Zimmer and his company Remote Control Productions (FKA Media Ventures) have flooded the market with tons of artistically mediocre scores, how they have imposed in Hollywood a certain trademark sound easily recognizable by its sheer simplicity and cheap "hipness", one can seriously wonder if the guy is a real artist concerned with the preservation of high artistic standards in Hollywood, or a hack. Well, it seems that Zimmer is not only a hack, but he's the biggest of them, the hack-in-chief, since he's the one who decides and controls the nature and quality of the music churned out by his company, even when he's not the main composer. The reality is that the man is also a very good businessman, who gets along very well with Hollywood executives. He knows how to please them, how to convince them, how to sell them the junk they want: "Yes, I know what will appeal to your target demographic. I know what will sell a lot, attract masses of movie consumers in the theaters, and make young people cream their pants. Trust me, you and me will make tons of money!" (I originally wrote this with a german accent, but removed it to avoid a diplomatic incident!) As a result, the RC composers have infested the musical market of Hollywood. They get most of the blockbusters, and compose for them mostly the same kind of simplistic, cliched and highly derivative scores. It's like a dude who gets all the best chicks just to abuse them.

This is disastrous because the blockbusters they usually get are a) action movies, b) epic / historical / pirates movies, c) fantasy movies, and d) sci-fi movies (or some mixes of these genres). All these genres are unquestionably the best musical opportunities to create grand, sweeping, larger-than-life symphonic scores, which is what most orchestral music enthusiasts are eager for. As John Williams stated: "This area, the area of fantasy, is the best one that can exist for music." But when you see how miserable the RCP scores end up being for such movies, you can't but ask yourself what some truly competent and inspired composers, such as John Williams, Alan Silvestri, Danny Elfman, James Horner, etc. (not to mention the new talented generation of orchestral composers, including Mike Verta) would have been able to create. How about some new Star Wars, Judge Dredd, Batman, or Willow?

This even more terrible when you know that most of RCP composers have some real talent and actual competence. They're generally capable of composing noteworthy scores by themselves when they're allowed to. A good example is Steve Jablonsky's Steamboy, which is a very beautiful score he happened to compose in Japan, where people have some respect for orchestral music, and some real appreciation for good music. There are also good orchestrators and conductors in his team, such as Gavin Greenaway, who expertly conducted Sahashi's Gundam Symphony. But all these talent and competence are lost because of the will of His Majesty, who doesn't seem to allow anything resembling great art to develop. (Art doesn't sell, you morons!)

The situation tends to get even worse since other composers, non RC-related, have modelled their production on the typical RC style, since this is what filmmakers seem to want nowadays. There are two kinds of composers who do that: 1) some basic sound designers such as Bates, who aren't good composers anyway, and 2) some accomplished composers such as Doyle, who recently tended to overuse of this style (see Rise of the Planet of the Apes) in order to mould to the current dominant musical idiom - thus making him a hack.

Of course, some people with untrained ear, lack of musical education and / or unsophisticated taste can easily be impressed by the scores churned out year after year by this musical factory called RCP, especially when they're naive enough to believe Zimmer's grandiloquent (and silly) statements about the inventiveness of his music (see interviews for Inception). Some people truly believe Zimmer is a creative genius (some call him a "visionary"), who revolutionized the musical scene in Hollywood. Oh, he certainly revolutionized it, but did he do it in the right direction, I mean, in a direction leading to better music, to more technically accomplished and artistically whorty scores? The answer is no, whatever his gushing fanboys might believe.

Anybody who has a true attachment to great orchestral music knows that there's a serious crisis in Hollywood, that the art is regressing, degenerating, and that the craft is progressively being lost. The first step to overcome this sorry state is to acknowledge it. Only then other steps can be made. I hope this little article has opened some eyes to that effect.

An excellent post. However, just one thing to add:


Of course, some people with untrained ear, lack of musical education and / or unsophisticated taste can easily be impressed by the scores churned out year after year by this musical factory called RCP

And in fact, many people that should know much better praise the RCP vomit. Going round several music departments Universities lately- these are people that are PhDs and professors in the subject- and a lot of them heaped praise on the 'assembly line' approach and Hans Zimmer's one size fits all. Most of them came from technology backgrouds, mind. However, one 'composition' course I came across featured as the main core content sequencing and mixing in Logic. Nothing about melody writing, structure and form, instrumentation. The reason for this, I was told "Hans Zimmer, a great genius composer living today, works like this". I guess there's a point from the perspective that Universities nowadays need to be more relevant and provide skills relevant to the real world. But in this case it seems to be contributing to a problem, not alleviating one.

On a happier topic, I'll have some excellent original content to post soon, courtesy of a friend of mine and the Swiss army band.

I'm a listener with untrained ear,lack of musical education...but I still love orchestral music,I can't suffer Hans Zimmer 's rule any more.Do you know any positive factor to improve the present situation?

As arthierr said, I think the first step is acknowledgement. No more apologist attitudes, no more pretending it's not happening or it's not as bad as it seems. It is happening, and it really is that bad. I understand why some people are bit more lenient and tolerant but those people are shooting themselves - and the genre in general, in the foot. Audiences have to be harsh; and we have to train other people so they can be harsh too. The moment people say "Oh wow, Captain America is a 100% return to form, happy days are here again, the big symphonic score is BACK!" are directly encouraging progress to immediately cease. Tell the truth; it's fun enough, it's a definite change from the current "norm" - but it barely functions as music in the truest sense. It's a step in the right direction, but the road is very long.

I don't understand why producers/directors/studios have allowed this to happen. Even the biggest simpleton should at least be able to handle the train of thought that goes "Right, here's a list of all film scores that are either BIG BIG SELLERS, or are pretty-much universally praised as the most effective. What do they have in common? 90% of them are by John Williams. What does John Williams do? Rigorously trained classical composer informed and inspired by the greats, music a direct evolution of late nineteenth century opera. This guy is amazing - people are still listening to his scores all over the world, even when they're forty, fifty years old. His style hasn't dated at all. He sells CDs, he fills out concert halls, and that style is clearly a highly effective way to score a film and help propel it to the next level. GET ALL THE COMPOSERS WITH A CLASSICAL BACKGROUND ON THE PHONE, TELL THEM TO DO THEIR THING AND WE'LL GET RIGHT OUT OF THE WAY!"

And now the actual thinking that goes "Meh, do what you did last time. Don't care who does it, just toss something together."

Aoiichi: I guess it's in the same kind of music departments that most RC composers gained their diplomas, since those guys do have some real diplomas (Djawadi even got a summa cum laude from Berklee College of Music, probably for his great skills in Cubase sequencing).


Tri: it's not necessary to have a thorough musical education to appreciate great music, happilly. Some people just happen to spontaneously react favourably to grand orchestral music. Education comes afterwards - and multiply the pleasure, since more parts of your brain are then stimulated by music.



Audiences have to be harsh; and we have to train other people so they can be harsh too.

After having had a quick look at another thread, I can tell that the way is quite LONG. As long as those scores are sold and their purveyors praised (see how the Social Network is quoted as "favorite score" ???), there's little chance that the situation gets better, unless the taste of the audiences evolves and gets more refined. It's not by giving an Oscar to this non-musical piece of junk, or Grammy-nominating Iron Man that you'll help the musical art to improve, that's for sure.

As arthierr said, I think the first step is acknowledgement. No more apologist attitudes, no more pretending it's not happening or it's not as bad as it seems. It is happening, and it really is that bad. I understand why some people are bit more lenient and tolerant but those people are shooting themselves - and the genre in general, in the foot. Audiences have to be harsh; and we have to train other people so they can be harsh too. ...

I go through this with my friend at work all the time. He knows what a good score is, and he knows what good music is. We both love Goldsmith, Williams, Rozsa, 80s horner and so on, but when we talk about recent scores he is very apologetic in contrast to me constantly screaming "ADMIT IT'S SHIT, YOU KNOW IT IS." The most notable of these situations was when Tron Legacy was released and we both listened to the score. I--of course--insisted that the score was uninspired, boring, and just plain bad with only one or two cues even worth listening to once, while he insisted (for a couple of weeks) that it was "fine" or even "good".

I totally agree with and echo Arthierr's above statement:



As long as those scores are sold and their purveyors praised..., there's little chance that the situation [will get] better...

I just have to point out that while the majority of Williams etc. music IS orchestral, there is some electronics/synth sprinkled in.

not exactly symphonic, but lot's of piano in it. :)
Hope this make your day somehow my friends. ;)


(http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/689/00coverab.jpg/)
Piano Fantasia Pretty Soldier SAILORMOON Supers (Thread 94989)

Release date: 1995.09.21
Catalogue number: COCC-12881

MP3 VBR -V0 / Booklet Scans

All Composed by: Takanori Arisawa (Except 01 & 11 by Tetsuya Komoru, and 09 by Makoto Nagai)
All Arranged by: Takanori Arisawa
Piano Performed by: Yasuharu Nakanishi, Takanori Arisawa


Tracklist:

01 MOONLIGHT Densetsu ~Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon~
02 Usagi chan ga Yattekita ~Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon~
03 CIRCUS dan no Warudagumi ~Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Supers~
04 SAILOR Senshi FANTASTIC - ACTION ~Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon R-Supers~
05 URANUS, NEPTUNE, PLUTO no ACTION - THEME ~Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon S~
06 TUXEDO KAMEN ~Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon~
07 MY BLUE HEART ~Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon~
08 Chibiusa no THEME ~Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Supers~
09 Otome no POLICY ~Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon R~
10 Sora Kakeru PEGASUS ~Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Supers~
11 ETUDE#1 MOONLIGHT Densetsu
12 ETUDE#2 Usagi chan ga Yattekita

The Painted Veil Score - Alexandre Desplat

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5POY6QZI

This score is slow and relaxing with a heavy emphasis on piano. The melody it has makes the score more memorable than it would be otherwise.

An exerpt of a review of the score from Soundtrack.net
http://www.soundtrack.net/albums/database/?id=4342

Even so, I find the opening cue, "The Painted Veil," to be the strongest overall. It is created out of numerous, small, repeated lines that are slowly layered on top of one another. These lines sparkle and shimmer, creating a deep but not dense sound. On top of these ostinati, Desplat weaves lush melody after lush melody. All his timbral forces are in play in this cue, from the bamboo flute, to various Chinese bells and percussion, to the piano, to the raspy voice of the electric cello. In other words, the score's players, both instrumental and thematic, are all presented for us up front so we can follow their journey.

All in all, The Painted Veil is a subdued score. It lacks the overwhelming power and audacity of Hostage, the charm of The Queen, and the urgency of Syriana, but it more than holds its own with the sweep of its vision and depth of its sound. Lang Lang adds the perfect delicate touch throughout, blending perfectly with the score's aesthetic. It is a strong score that continues to grow with each listening and makes me eager to see Desplat recognized for it. It even has me getting my hopes up when I know I shouldn't.

A little something about Alexandre Desplat

Alexandre Michel Gerard Desplat (born August 23, 1961) is an Academy Award-nominated, Golden Globe Award-winning film composer. Desplat was born to a French father and Greek mother who met at UC Berkeley, California. After their marriage they moved to France where Alexandre was born. At the age of five, he began playing piano and also became proficient on trumpet and flute. He studied with Claude Ballif, Iannis Xenakis in France and Jack Hayes in the USA. Desplat's musical interests were wide and he was also influenced by South American and African artists and teachers, among whom were Carlinhos Brown and Ray Lema. Desplat swiftly became skilled not only as a performer but also as a composer.

Desplat has extensively composed for films, first in France and later in Hollywood, including scores and incidental music for some 100 films among which are Lapse of Memory and Family Express (both 1992), Regarde Les Hommes Tomber (1994), Les P�ch�s Mortels (1995), the C�sar nominated Un H�ros Tr�s Discret (1996), Une Minute De Silence and Sweet Revenge (both 1998), Le Ch�teau Des Singes (1999), Home Sweet Home and Reines D'Un Jour (both 2001), the C�sar nominated Sur Mes L�vres (2002), and Rire Et Ch�timent (2003), among others.

He most recently scored the music for the film adaption of David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass and Zach Helm's directorial debut Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium with American composer Aaron Zigman. Other scores include the Ang Lee movie Lust, Caution, The Luzhin Defence, Girl with a Pearl Earring, Syriana, Birth, Hostage, Casanova, The Nest and The Painted Veil, for which he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score, LosAngeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Music, and the 2006 World Soundtrack Award. He won the 2007 BMI Film Music Award, 2007 World Soundtrack Award, 2007 European Film Award, and received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score for The Queen. He also won the Silver Berlin Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for Best Film Music in The Beat that My Heart Skipped.
(Taken from Wikipedia)

The ending of this movie has a song called "A La Claire Fontaine" performed by "Shang Wen-Jie / The Choir Of Beijing Takah" that is not included on the score. Here is the song:

Rapidshare:
https://rapidshare.com/files/311073952/TPVLS.rar

Megaupload:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4Q84QDJR

I just have to point out that while the majority of Williams etc. music IS orchestral, there is some electronics/synth sprinkled in.

Nobody is saying that music has to be 100% orchestral in order to be good music.

I'm one of the many who frequents this thread but that have never emerged from obscurity. Well, I have a reason to break my anonymity and it's to spread appreciation of a wonderful artist: Toshiyuki Watanabe. He has been mentioned a few times in this thread, he was the man behind the arrangements of the Sailor Moon symphonic album, but he has never got the spotlight he deserved. I really got interesed in his music when I heard the track he did for the Shenmue orchestral album, such a great piece, but the most part of his output are TV or film scores.

Whoever had listened to some of his music knows the incredible talent Toshiyuki Watanabe possesses. He doesn't just know how to orchestrate, he knows how to create memorable themes and how to keep the things interesting. He is capable of writing memorable melodies and the following album is all the proof I need to do that statement:

http://thumbnail.image.rakuten.co.jp/@0_mall/felista/cabinet/0014/00000785273.jpg?_ex=300x300&s=0&r=1
Download! (http://www.sendspace.com/file/7l0fn5)


Title: The Best of Toshiyuki Watanabe ~Melodies~
Artist: Toshiyuki Watanabe
Year:2008
Format:MP3
Bit Rate: 256 Kbps
Size:124 MB
Tracks:19


This album recollects some of his best work, which is mainly focused on themes composed by TV series. Also, amongst the 19 tracks you can find some compositions for anime, films o even videogames. His work is very diverse, so I guarantee you there is much variety stylistically speaking. From action to drama, from epic to intimate, there's everything for everyone. This album is a treasure for everyone who enjoys good THEMES. Enough said.

Nobody is saying that music has to be 100% orchestral in order to be good music.

You seem to have missed my point.

No, you seem to have missed the point all together.

Nevertheless, I'll bite - what's your point?

By the way, does anyone remember which page the ZERO debacle began on? I'd like to read it again, but search isn't being very co-operative...

Thanks for the piano from Sailormoon Orie ;)
And Kanyenda for the Toshiyuki Watanabe album ;)

Everytime I have some kind or related to orchestral stuff I remember you all guys ;)

No, you seem to have missed the point all together.

Nevertheless, I'll bite - what's your point?

My point was not that it has to be all orchestral to be enjoyable, but that most of the music/film scores that are enjoyable (The Empire Strikes Back, Back To The Future, Star Trek: The Motion Picture etc.) are not purely orchestral.

So what? It's not because there's 1% of barely discernible electronics in some of those scores that it fundamentally changes their orchestral nature. Moreover they were used with so much parsimony, subtlety and elegance that electronics acted as an harmonious and appropriate extension of the orchestra, without being intrusive, contrary to the way they're mostly used nowadays.






Title: The Best of Toshiyuki Watanabe ~Melodies~
Artist: Toshiyuki Watanabe
Year:2008
Format:MP3
Bit Rate: 256 Kbps
Size:124 MB
Tracks:19


This album recollects some of his best work, which is mainly focused on themes composed by TV series. Also, amongst the 19 tracks you can find some compositions for anime, films o even videogames. His work is very diverse, so I guarantee you there is much variety stylistically speaking. From action to drama, from epic to intimate, there's everything for everyone. This album is a treasure for everyone who enjoys good THEMES. Enough said.

Oh, excellent post! I actually lost this album a year ago. So good to have it back! Thank you, sir. Very nice composer indeed, and quite a beautiful album. I love some of his works, and particularly enjoy his occasional tendecy to write ample, slender, sweeping melodies performed by the full ensemble. These moments are gorgeous. BTW, it's indeed a pity that such talented composer is very little know by the western audience, so it's a great idea to turn the spotlight on him with this post.

Thanks also for Piano Fantasia Pretty Soldier SAILORMOON Supers! Didn't know this one.




By the way, does anyone remember which page the ZERO debacle began on? I'd like to read it again, but search isn't being very co-operative...

http://forums.ffshrine.org/f92/big-orchestral-action-music-thread-57893/293.html

BTW, I've got personally nothing against that guy. He was perfectly entitled to say something for his defense since his project has been severely criticized by some of the posters here. BUT, the way he acted was simply deplorable. Either you come in such a place prepared, with real arguments to defend yourself and substantial things to say, OR YOU DON'T COME. The guy obviously didn't understand that people here aren't exactly the kind of folks who content themselves with smileys and petty, evasive remarks.

That being said, he's perfectly welcome to come back and argue in favour of his project again, assuming this time around he's got some interesting things to say.

Thanks for "The Best of Toshiyuki Watanabe ~Melodies~"!

The Best of Toshiyuki Watanabe ~Melodies~

"The best of" from the composer I've never heard of... And now I wanna hear a lot more from this guy. Wonderful album! Thanks!

My point was not that it has to be all orchestral to be enjoyable, but that most of the music/film scores that are enjoyable (The Empire Strikes Back, Back To The Future, Star Trek: The Motion Picture etc.) are not purely orchestral.

So what? It's not because there's 1% of barely discernible electronics in some of those scores that it fundamentally changes their orchestral nature. Moreover they were used with so much parsimony, subtlety and elegance that electronics acted as an harmonious and appropriate extension of the orchestra, without being intrusive, contrary to the way they're mostly used nowadays.

Exactly this. Simply adding electronics to the instrumentation of an orchestral work doesn't take away from the orchestral quality. Those "counterexamples" are still fully orchestral works; the electronics are simply a texture woven into the orchestral fabric.


The most notable of these situations was when Tron Legacy was released and we both listened to the score. I--of course--insisted that the score was uninspired, boring, and just plain bad with only one or two cues even worth listening to once, while he insisted (for a couple of weeks) that it was "fine" or even "good".

I will admit to liking Tron Legacy, but only as a Daft Punk concept album. It doesn't reflect the drama of the story (I'm aware of the generosity of that phrase in this context) at all. Actually, ironically, maybe it does. Or not. Definitely not brilliant scoring by any stretch of the imagination. I even *GASP* like some of Social Network, though at best what Reznor and Ross contributed was original library music that Fincher pasted to film as he wished, as they even freely admit in the making-of-doc. Not a film score in any way.

As Korngold is quoted as saying, film scores are "operas without words." I would argue this is the case whether the composer is writing for the London Symphony Orchestra or a guitar, cello, and flute trio. The music must support the dramatic underpinnings of the story, and the best scores transcend this humble goal by being structurally sound and sufficiently complex enough to enjoy outside the filmic context. I think most of us would agree that a well-orchestrated symphonic approach is usually the most accomplished at performing this nearly superhuman feat, as there is very little in this world more capable of expression than a 100-piece symphony orchestra, especially in the context of the fantastic blockbuster.

Regarding raising cultural awareness, I was at a wedding this weekend and the reception just happened to take place at the same hall where my high school orchestra played Carmina Burana. While a friend and I were reminisicing, the husband of another friend asked what we were talking about. When we explained that Carmina was an orchestral work and that we'd both been in the orchestra, the husband replied, "I wouldn't be caught dead playing in one of those. No offense." (None was taken, because I knew he wouldn't be caught dead reading a book without pictures.)

My point being thus: We have a long, LONG way to go up from our current abyss.

Thought some might be interested to note that Intrada just released a complete version of Jerry Goldsmith's Explorers! It is 3000 copies and the previous Varese edition has been rare and expensive for a while, so it may go quickly!
http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.7064/.f

Thought some might be interested to note that Intrada just released a complete version of Jerry Goldsmith's Explorers! It is 3000 copies and the previous Varese edition has been rare and expensive for a while, so it may go quickly!
http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.7064/.f

Very cool, although I'm suffering from a bit of Goldsmith overindulgence and I'll probably pass on it. I'd be more excited for 20,000 Leagues on CD, but I can't get past the tinny sound. I wish there was a chance that it could be rerecorded, but considering the difficulty of finally getting the original out on disc, I imagine the odds of that are infinitesimally small.

Very cool, although I'm suffering from a bit of Goldsmith overindulgence and I'll probably pass on it. I'd be more excited for 20,000 Leagues on CD, but I can't get past the tinny sound. I wish there was a chance that it could be rerecorded, but considering the difficulty of finally getting the original out on disc, I imagine the odds of that are infinitesimally small.

Yeah, I noticed that too, really put me off. I have so many great sounding golden age scores I can't put up with it in others.

My point being thus: We have a long, LONG way to go up from our current abyss.

I think the Abyss is not so much musical ignorance, as musical boredom. Most people just get bored when they listen to music. It does nothing for them. They like catchy sons with lyrics, and a cool guy signing them, and a rocking band. There is just something in the image of rockband, country and pop that just appeals to the vast majority of the population. They see classical music as boring, and it will take half of a miracle for music to ever be popular, in any variety, ever again. Try to explain the difference to your friends between song and music, and they'll just give you a friendly "cool story bro". They just have no interest in learning it - they don't care one way or another. It makes no difference in their lives.

Not everyone becomes as moved by Star Wars, Jaws, or Lord of the Rings (in my case) to want to learn more about orchestral music. They'll say it has very good songs, maybe hum it every now and then, and never ever touch an orchestral CD in my life. My mother loves Horner's score for The Titanic. But she never once bought the tape or the CD. When I asked her why, she just shrugged and said she had no idea. She just didn't.

So, yeah it is an abyss. But it's one we will never see Western society crawl out of in our lifetime.

I have every giacchino film & TV score, enjoying alot of 'em. Got some john williams to. Anyone have any other orchestral TV or film scores they could recommend to me?

Sorry, Wrong thread for my post.

Wrong Thread.

o.O you sure?

I assumed this was a place to ask for ochestral scores, seeing how the topic title is BIG ORCHESTRAL ACTION MUSIC THREAD. Just looking for some suggestions :p

o.O you sure?

I assumed this was a place to ask for ochestral scores, seeing how the topic title is BIG ORCHESTRAL ACTION MUSIC THREAD. Just looking for some suggestions :p

Not wrong thread, just the manner you asked for it was more typical "music download" thread. We are more thorough discussion than just typical "Plz post thx" like in the other threads.

With that said...orchestral music is such a wide range. I mean, I could close my eyes and randomly select something and you could be happy with it. You could just download everything you see in this thread - most of it is gold, the rest is pretty great. The discussions will also give you some insight into the type of music this thread is "designed" for.

If you want, just send me an IM. I could probably give you some pointers.

MasterZ - I would look for any compilations posted in the past few pages, and even farther back if you see any links still alive. My two most recent compilations should give you a good taste without going through my entire collection for suggestions (which would be massive, take all day, and leave you asking for links for half of it!).

MasterZ - I would look for any compilations posted in the past few pages, and even farther back if you see any links still alive. My two most recent compilations should give you a good taste without going through my entire collection for suggestions (which would be massive, take all day, and leave you asking for links for half of it!).

I'll do that, then.


Not wrong thread, just the manner you asked for it was more typical "music download" thread. We are more thorough discussion than just typical "Plz post thx" like in the other threads.

With that said...orchestral music is such a wide range. I mean, I could close my eyes and randomly select something and you could be happy with it. You could just download everything you see in this thread - most of it is gold, the rest is pretty great. The discussions will also give you some insight into the type of music this thread is "designed" for.

If you want, just send me an IM. I could probably give you some pointers.

Alright I'll take a look around, then, thanks for the help & if I need any assistance I'll be sure to do that :p

I meant that I had made a post in the wrong thread, oops... lol.

I meant that I had made a post in the wrong thread, oops... lol.

Please excuse while I laught at your misfortune.

Ha. Ha. Hee. Hoo. Hee.

BWAHAHAHAHA

Hi hi hi there! I actually liked the Tron Legacy score. I tried listening to their earlier work, and was rather bored. But this one sounds as though they put some real effort into it. Though in all fairness I'll likely buy the upcoming remastered re-release of Deus Ex: Human Revolution over Tron, which I'll try to find find used in my local Rasputin Music. I did pre-order Bastion which I felt had some very interesting and listenable pieces in it. As far as orchestral fusion is concerned though, I actually much preferred Jin-Roh (which I bought after downloading it here) and Onimusha 2 (which I plan to buy). I was really impressed by the Gundam Seed orchestral scores though. Completely 100% old school orchestral, and interesting. And recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra no less. All this for a teen drama animated fanfiction? And I'll actually buy those CDs when I can find a decent copy at a reasonable price. And have more money, ha ha. Shame Gundam Wing didn't have the same budget, otherwise it might have been more awesome. Now back to my fuzzy warbles.

I think the Abyss is not so much musical ignorance, as musical boredom. Most people just get bored when they listen to music. It does nothing for them. They like catchy sons with lyrics, and a cool guy signing them, and a rocking band. There is just something in the image of rockband, country and pop that just appeals to the vast majority of the population. They see classical music as boring, and it will take half of a miracle for music to ever be popular, in any variety, ever again. Try to explain the difference to your friends between song and music, and they'll just give you a friendly "cool story bro". They just have no interest in learning it - they don't care one way or another. It makes no difference in their lives.

This is true, though I would argue that it is, to a certain degree, willful musical ignorance. I think you're onto something when you say they like the catchy material; they're not interested in music for music's sake. Instead, music is something to drive to, something to dance to, something to break the ice, something to drink to, etc. Music as a catalyst for social activity or to help pass the time, not for study or introspection. It can be fun, but a lot of things are fun. It's not interesting enough on its own to care, much less learn, about.

However, I think it also depends on what you're looking for, or perhaps how you experience music. I have a good friend who played the piano as a kid, and he's very interested in music. But his interests are more of the indie, "hipster" variety. While he does have a healthy respect for the likes of Bach, Mozart, Mahler, Wagner, et al., he rarely listens to them. Instead he listens to indie rock and folk. Generally, when I play film music for him, his response is that its cheesy and overbearing, but it's not a universal response; he liked the "Widow of the Web" music from Krull, or the main titles of Sommersby. I think he views music more as poetry, more beat poetry than epic, evoking an impression, whereas I'm interested in the power, the majesty, the sublimity of music as an overwhelming experience (I can't imagine why loud orchestral music would appeal to me. :) ). I like some of the indie stuff he's introduced to me, yet while I can appreciate it, I still gravitate towards what I like, and he does the same. (I might point out that he's hated just about any RC score I've tossed his way. "Cheesy, loud, and dumb." ;) )

I also think that the way our society is "evolving" isn't helping matters. Just in the past twenty years in America, we've gone from three or four broadcast networks and radio stations per metro area to the clusterf@#! that is cable/satellite/internet media distribution where every taste can find a home. I'm not saying more choice is necessarily a bad thing -- indeed, isn't it glorious that something like this thread can exist in this day and age? Or Pandora? -- but if someone stays within the safe choices all the time, how will they grow? How will anyone grow? It's easier than ever for people to stay immersed in their own bubble, be it Disney's micro-managed teenyboppers or right-wing talking points. Almost too easy. And if you stay in that bubble, if nothing ever penetrates it and inspires a search for something new, things stagnate. After all, if all you've ever heard are twangy guitars repeating I, IV, and V chords over and over and over and you don't pay attention except to notice that the songs change every couple of minutes, and then you are exposed to a "song" that lasts nearly an hour, you'll be bored to tears. You need context to help guide that first step, along with, of course, a willingness to branch out. Without that impetus, orchestral music is as undecipherable as is calculus to kindergartners.

Because of this, I agree that we're not likely to see society crawl out in our lifetime. It's a brave new world.

None was taken, because I knew he wouldn't be caught dead reading a book without pictures

Now U are unfair towards comic book readers:P. But it's so true, people tend to think that listening to something with violin or - god forbid - clarinet is just not cool, and when they are combined? APOCALYPSE! And playing one of them - neeeerrrdddddyyy.


Try to explain the difference to your friends between song and music, and they'll just give you a friendly "cool story bro".

Yeah, I'm currently trying to learn someone to actually see the difference. Not easy job, althought she knows that those are not the same things, it's still hard for her to get rid of a habbit. We live in a world where every kind of music is a song. " - Hey, have U heard this old song by Beethoveen? - The one with cool synth vocal you mean?";) People don't care, as U mentioned, song means everything now.

Off topic 1: Not that long time ago I had kinda funny thing, I accidently put my phone on speaker while I was listening to music, and - it was Furin Kazan that time. I was in a big shop at the moment and people surrounding me was like: what, where, what... oh, it's probably CLASSICAL music, move along xD. The reaction wasn't even: "turn it off", it was rather "I don't care". And it's worse I guess.

Off topic 2: two pieces of popular music that use orchestral elements and still being completely modern music. One is POP, second is RAP. Yes, RAP with live instruments (althoug it's more of big band...). Not the most sophisticated piece ever, but live instruments just gives so much colour to it... But I'm curious if people who listen to it, hears anything more than "a song" or a beat and vocal...

4hero - Les Fleur - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXK60prBI_w)
The RAah Project - Covered up in Stars - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsLEG3uyJbw&feature=related)

And in that subject, I've got friend who have nothing against orchestra... in background. He can't stand orchestral music, but song with orchestral background is cool. It looks a bit like music itself is too... boring? Uninteresting? Or maybe it's to challenging when U can't hum lyrics? Don't know.

Ha, on the other side I dont care for lyrics, I'm only interested in melody, instruments etc. Have no problem with vocal, but I don't really care what the voice is singing. Problems of humanity or the fact, it's friday - I don't care... Guess I'm an ignorant in the other direction...

Hi, I hope this is the correct place to this:

what is the music of this trailer? => Coraline

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO3n67BQvh0

Thanks

I was really impressed by the Gundam Seed orchestral scores though. Completely 100% old school orchestral, and interesting. And recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra no less. All this for a teen drama animated fanfiction? And I'll actually buy those CDs when I can find a decent copy at a reasonable price. And have more money, ha ha. Shame Gundam Wing didn't have the same budget, otherwise it might have been more awesome. Now back to my fuzzy warbles.

Just a few points to clarify here:

The London Symphony Orchestra albums are re-recordings and expansions of cues into a more cohesive structure; the original scores as heard in the series were performed by a smaller Japanese studio orchestra.

Gundam isn't a teen drama, nor is it a fanfiction - but I suppose that's one of the great things about Japan; making something that genuinely can appeal to everybody. I had quite a number of preconceptions about Gundam, until I actually sat down and watched some of it - of course it has a reputation as a mindless mecha show, but you could probably take out the mecha and still have a very involving series... It's a massively popular franchise so it's not surprising there's some money floating around in the coffers - Seed and Seed Destiny (despite receiving some withering reviews, most of them from die-hard devotees of the original 1979 series) sold incredibly well and Sahashi's scores were routinely singled out for praise. (Hence Sahashi returning to London in 2009 to record the Gundam Symphony - easily the equal of his Seed albums.)

On other topics, agree with all of the above regarding the erosion of culture in society.

Faleel seemed to feel the need to assert that some great music also has electronics; but that was never in dispute. Anybody with half a brain in their head knows that instrumentation has absolutely no impact on the quality of the music. But some people have trouble separating music as a collection of notes on paper, and music as an aural experience. One enables the other to exist, but great music is still great music even if it is never performed. Beethoven's 9th Symphony would be no less of a masterpiece if it existed only as a stack of manuscript paper. Nor would it be if Beethoven had, in a moment of madness, orchestrated it for farting mongoose, harpsichord, and pennywhistle. Some of the greatest film music ever composed features electronic components, but generally speaking they are used in a musical context - Goldsmith always said that he treated his electronics as a part of the orchestra; and what other way could one possibly do it if one is interested in artistic integrity? The contemporary style is to take bad music and drown it in electronic noise to try to disguise the fact that it's terrible. One can argue that point until one is blue in the face; some folk just won't get it. Some folk really do believe that The Dark Knight is better music than Ben Hur.

Music means different things to different people; the key point here to remember is that to most people it doesn't mean anything at all. It is, as Tazer said, a means to an end - background noise, functional. It's important to not take the opinions of people who see music that way in any way seriously. Nobody says that you have to have a musical education to enjoy music, but you do have to be musically minded in the sense of appreciating what music can achieve and how, before you are entitled to state an opinion in that field.

Nobody would take my thoughts on brain surgery seriously; I know that it's very difficult, and that if it goes wrong, you'll die or turn into the guy from ZERO - but apart from that, frankly, what the fuck do I know? (Pardon the language; it was to illustrate a point.) I am not qualified to say that Brain Surgeon A is better than Brain Surgeon B. I am not qualified to tell either of them how to perform the surgery. I am not qualified to quantify their success or lack thereof unless in the purest simple terms - is the patient dead or alive? Therefore, I keep my mouth shut. Thank God we don't hear opinionated people standing up saying "My opinion is as valid as yours!" and claiming that brain surgery is subjective; there is no bad brain surgery! Those who can, do - and those who can't stay the hell out of the way.

Quality is entirely subjective. It's personal preference which is objective; and personal preference is coloured by your personality, your experience, your desires, your education, your nature. If any of those are deficient in the genre in which you are expressing preference, your opinion still important to you but is generally worthless to society at large.

Did anybody else see that Intrada released Paul J Smith's 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea?

20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.7230/.f)

Did anybody else see that Intrada released Paul J Smith's 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea?

20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.7230/.f)

It's the exact same recording I posted on here back in April, my copy was the 2008 release albeit @192kbps.

Intrada recently partnered with Disney as many of you know i.e. The Black Hole amongst others and have given this a proper CD release finally.

Thread 88724

WildwoodPark: I'm surprised to see an obviously fine connoisseur of film music posting in this thread for the first time. You're welcome anytime to bring your experience and ideas to the debates, or to post some good orchestral music if you wish.


Now, lots of interesting ideas in the recent posts. I'd like to comment on everything (I'll have other comments later), but here's a few comments on the discussion about lyrics, for the moment.

This is a very interesting subject. I'm surprised that it hasn't been discussed before in the thread. It's indeed true that many people just can't conceive music without lyrics. This kind of music (instrumental) doesn't seem to really exist for them, or is relegated as something anecdotal and negligible. I remember that Jean-Michel Jarre (who's far from being one of my favs, I greatly prefer his father!) once said in an interview that people often criticize him *JUST* because he doesn't use lyrics (???).

Personally I've never been able to take seriously popular music with lyrics. This is simply something I don't get and can't listen to. I don't want lyrics, even good ones (but most of them sound more or less stupid to me) to mess with my music. Music, when competently composed, already has all the meaning and emotion it has to have. There's no need to add a layer of silly chatter on top of it. If you want to use words in an artistic context, just do some poetry or write novels, but please leave music alone.

There are however some contexts where I can appreciate lyrics: operas, arias, gregorians chants, some ethnic voices, etc. But the reason is precisely because most of the time, I can't understand the lyrics. Voices in these contexts are used in an highly musical way, and sometimes almost are used as a part of the instrumental ensemble, without being intrusive or dominant. This is exactly the opposite in pop songs, where voices are so much on the front that you sometimes have the impression that the performer sings right into your ears. There's an exception for asian pop songs, though, because the voices (especially chinese female) are surprisingly graceful, harmonious and melodic.

One of the things that really get on my nerves about lyrics in popular forms of music is the ugliness of some of the singer's voices. Some of them sound so juvenile, immature; some others so stupid, vulgar, inelegant. I remember once when I tried to listen to a Tina Arena album (because she looked pretty on the cover - yeah, I know it's lame); I gave up after two minutes because she sounded like a sluttish teenager trying to turn the guys on with her accents of faux-sensuality (no need to mention the dumbness and crudeness of the lyrics themselves).

Speaking of which, here's another big problem with pop songs lyrics ("pop" in a broad sense): their dubious messages towards youngsters, who are by far the number one consumers of such music. There's been numerous articles written about the fact that a large percentage of these songs explicitely mentions things related to alcohol, drugs or violence. Not to mention the very "poetic" sexual lyrics featured in rap music, but also occasionally in other genres.

Here's an extract of an article about this phenomenon:

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine studied the 279 most popular songs from 2005, based on reports from Billboard magazine, which tracks popular music. Whether a song contained a reference to drugs or alcohol varied by genre. Only 9 percent of pop songs had lyrics relating to drugs or alcohol. The number jumped to 14 percent for rock songs, 20 percent for R&B and hip-hop songs, 36 percent for country songs and 77 percent for rap songs.
Under the Influence of...Music? - NYTimes.com (http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/under-the-influence-ofmusic/)

Please give me your opinion about this. Am I the only one who wants to apprehend music and words as two different and separate things that shouldn't mostly go together?

I think you have the right take Arthierr but I am also a HUGE fan of the beauty of the human voice in many of my non-score forms of music. There is nothing I love more than discovering a singer who steals my heart (male or female). This can happen in any variety of genres, pop, rock, blues, metal, etc. My original draw into Metal was purely based on vocals and for a large part I still select bands based on the vocals but now I also listen for the musicianship because I want to hear quality and diversity within songs and within albums. What I love so much about the metal world is they recognize talent so much that many individual players perform on many other albums and are instantly recognized by name.

Am I the only one who wants to apprehend music and words as two different and separate things that shouldn't mostly go together?

I tend to agree that, at their highest levels, the two work best apart. Usually when I'm listening to a song with lyrics, I often find the lyrics borderline incomprehensible, even in English, partly because my attention is divided between trying to appreciate the music and the words simultaneously. Of course, with repetition (and especially with the lyrics written out before me) they become easier to understand, although together they have never evoked a reaction as powerful as reading a Robert Frost poem or listening to Puccini's "Crisantemi." (Nor are they often intended to, I might add.)

Opera, of course, may be the exception to this, but my experience with actual opera is quite limited. The only opera I've seen live was Howard Shore's "The Fly," which was frankly terrible and saddled with a libretto that rhymed "parties" with "smarties." :notgood: And while I've tried to skim through the Ring cycle and certainly appreciate Wagner's orchestral ability, trying to read simultaneously in German to keep my place and English to understand was not particularly enjoyable (I have found an English translation that matches the German syllable-for-syllable, so hopefully I've give it another try soon enough). I'd say musicals such as "West Side Story" and "Sweeney Todd," which are almost operas have come closest to a sort of synthesis for me, and I also greatly appreciate music with a choral element; although, in these cases, I believe I'm mostly reacting to the music itself and not the lyrics. After all, how else can one measure a requiem mass against another, seeing as they all use roughly the same liturgical text, if not by what the music itself expresses?


Music, when competently composed, already has all the meaning and emotion it has to have. There's no need to add a layer of silly chatter on top of it.

My old sig was that quote from Victor Hugo, "Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent." I tend to follow his perspective. Hugo was a poet, and poetry itself uses words to create meaning, occasionally freed from the normal grammatical confines of language but still bound to meanings. But poetry isn't limited to the meaning of words, but also the sound -- harsh and soft syllables -- and their rhythm; great poetry combines all of that. And so does music, only with tones and chords, entirely free of the limitations of words. A single chord can express the scene an author would take thousands of words to describe. I like to think of music almost as pure poetry, pure sound, and I find that an 80-piece orchestra is capable of a far wider vocabulary of expression than two guitars, a drum kit, and, yes, a singer, regardless of whatever words are coming from his or her mouth. Singing can be quite powerful, true, but I believe I'm responding to the voice as an instrument rather than as a conveyor of language.

That said, I love me some rock now and again, be it classic, prog, or metal. But I'm not usually listening for anything profound there, I'm just cutting loose or admiring technique.

TL;DR: I respond more to music itself more than accompanying lyrics. Putting them together cheapens both a bit, IMO.


What I love so much about the metal world is they recognize talent so much that many individual players perform on many other albums and are instantly recognized by name.

I'm guessing you are also a fan of Dream Theater. :)

I'm guessing you are also a fan of Dream Theater. :)

Their later works yes, I LOVE the new album!

Fascinating, guys. I've got plenty of things to say about this subject, but will do tomorrow since I'm half asleep!



Hi, I hope this is the correct place to this:

what is the music of this trailer? => Coraline
"Coraline" Official Trailer - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO3n67BQvh0)

Thanks
Here are your answers:

Coraline Movie Trailer Music - Adtunes Forums (http://adtunes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94280)

Faleel seemed to feel the need to assert that some great music also has electronics; but that was never in dispute. Anybody with half a brain in their head knows that instrumentation has absolutely no impact on the quality of the music. But some people have trouble separating music as a collection of notes on paper, and music as an aural experience. One enables the other to exist, but great music is still great music even if it is never performed. Beethoven's 9th Symphony would be no less of a masterpiece if it existed only as a stack of manuscript paper. Nor would it be if Beethoven had, in a moment of madness, orchestrated it for farting mongoose, harpsichord, and pennywhistle. Some of the greatest film music ever composed features electronic components, but generally speaking they are used in a musical context - Goldsmith always said that he treated his electronics as a part of the orchestra; and what other way could one possibly do it if one is interested in artistic integrity? The contemporary style is to take bad music and drown it in electronic noise to try to disguise the fact that it's terrible. One can argue that point until one is blue in the face; some folk just won't get it. Some folk really do believe that The Dark Knight is better music than Ben Hur.


I may have quoted a bit much here, but I agree with it so wholeheartedly that I have trouble cutting bits out.

I have a mate at work that listens to what I term "hipster music." In other words, this is indie rock, folk, "experimental", etc... When he shows me albums, I will enjoy something here or there but I mostly have one observation: The artists seem to be begging for the listener to appreciate the palette of sound that they used far above the actual music. It would seem this is happening just as much in film music as in rock/pop/whatever else. Good music is to be found within every instrumentation and every genre (although with much variance in level of difficulty of the search :D ). I happen to absolutely adore some synth scores and just hate some others. I think plenty of fully orchestrated film scores are total garbage, and hold others near eye-level with prokofiev and ravel.

Well, I feel like I'm just rambling now but I think I've mostly gotten my point across. ;)

^ Well said.

Sanico - The music to Fūrin Kazan was quite enjoyable. It reminds me of several of the Japanese composers I like including Michru Oshima and Joe Hisaishi. And my new favorite - thanks to some of your earlier posts - Naoki Sato.

I really enjoy hearing a different take on orchestral film music - I wish more American films used Japanese composers, seems to hardly ever happen. Think of the wonder of our French imports, Delerue and Alexandre - and how the Japanese musical voice might enlighten such works as the new Conan through Hisaishi's eyes instead of that abysmal effort that it turned out to be.

Not to say that sometimes Japanese stuff doesn't tend towards the unintentionally schmaltzy. But I can live with that :)

-Jazz

---------- Post added at 10:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:37 PM ----------


Great work endures.


_Mike

That is really sad to hear Mike. About the scoring stages - not about Mozart spewing toys :)

I think in most institutions, people end up being taught by 2nd or 3rd tier people, that's not to diminish their efforts of trying to teach, but the fact that the greats and maybe the system of apprenticing is pretty much a lost art in whatever field.

-Jazz

---------- Post added at 10:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:43 PM ----------

I think the main selling point of the new Zelda game is that solid gold remote. You know how much gold is going for these days? :)

Side note: Here in Taipei I see the Red Wii everywhere - and it plays the Japanese games. I kind of want to buy one.

-Jazz

---------- Post added at 11:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:46 PM ----------

arthierr - I laughed out loud when I read. "(I originally wrote this with a german accent, but removed it to avoid a diplomatic incident!)". I don't think I ever accused Zimmer of being a visionary - but you are right he is certainly an accomplished business man - and big business tends to squash art in all of its forms. (Comics anyone?)

You make some very good points about the Zimmer machine - and I generally agree with them. To say I have been less than thrilled at the latest assortment of releases from Hollywood blockbusters as of late would be quite an understatement - considering the last one I bought was, say a couple years ago. No, my hard earned buckaroonies go to the likes of Intrada and their ilk who dredge up the true classics for little film score freaks such as myself. While I do occasionally indulge in the guilty pleasure of a "Transformers" or, dear diety almighty, "Pirates of the Caribbean" mainly because of their simplistic nature.


-Jazz

---------- Post added at 11:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:00 PM ----------


I'm one of the many who frequents this thread but that have never emerged from obscurity. Well, I have a reason to break my anonymity and it's to spread appreciation of a wonderful artist: Toshiyuki Watanabe. He has been mentioned a few times in this thread, he was the man behind the arrangements of the Sailor Moon symphonic album, but he has never got the spotlight he deserved. I really got interesed in his music when I heard the track he did for the Shenmue orchestral album, such a great piece, but the most part of his output are TV or film scores.


Looking forward to hearing this. Shenmue Orchestral is one of my favorite plays! Thank you!

---------- Post added at 11:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:05 PM ----------


Thought some might be interested to note that Intrada just released a complete version of Jerry Goldsmith's Explorers! It is 3000 copies and the previous Varese edition has been rare and expensive for a while, so it may go quickly!
EXPLORERS (http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.7064/.f)

How could I not buy that - they know they've got my number when Goldsmith comes around :)

---------- Post added at 11:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:08 PM ----------


I think you have the right take Arthierr but I am also a HUGE fan of the beauty of the human voice in many of my non-score forms of music. There is nothing I love more than discovering a singer who steals my heart (male or female). This can happen in any variety of genres, pop, rock, blues, metal, etc. My original draw into Metal was purely based on vocals and for a large part I still select bands based on the vocals but now I also listen for the musicianship because I want to hear quality and diversity within songs and within albums. What I love so much about the metal world is they recognize talent so much that many individual players perform on many other albums and are instantly recognized by name.

I have an easier time with songs if I can't understand the lyrics. For example, if I had to listen to "My Heart Will Go On" one more time I would probably enter a voluntary comatose state, but play the opening theme to Hisaishi's "A Chinese Tall Story - 'Sacred Love'" and I get all misty inside :) Even though it is in essence the type of duet I'd normally tune out of immediately in a theatrical setting IE: End Credits. But there is something about not understanding the words that help it become music again to my ears - (and this one with its Asian instrumentation is fantastic.)

---------- Post added at 11:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:18 PM ----------

by the way - did everyone see this exciting news? John Williams 1941 expanded score!

I wish I was in LA to see the movie and get the disc first!

LA-LA LAND PRESENTS 1941 (http://secure.campaigner.com/Campaigner/Public/t.show?NIsq--9fkW-gkjIm2)

-Jazz

Important news, the PS3 version of Ni no Kuni will have additional music http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBBV7ZVTocg&feature=related I'm still not sure if it's a fullblown sequel with a whole new score or just additional content.

Edit: Way back I posted the "Complete Score" of Anno 1404, my favorite Dynamedion Score. But it was infact not complete. There was also the addon Venice and two lovely pieces that were missing.
So here they are : Anno 1404 Venice (http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/Y8G1I1Q2/Anno_1404_Venice.zip_links)

Important news, the PS3 version of Ni no Kuni will have additional music http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBBV7ZVTocg&feature=related I'm still not sure if it's a fullblown sequel with a whole new score or just additional content.

Edit: Way back I posted the "Complete Score" of Anno 1404, my favorite Dynamedion Score. But it was infact not complete. There was also the addon Venice and two lovely pieces that were missing.
So here they are : Anno 1404 Venice (http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/Y8G1I1Q2/Anno_1404_Venice.zip_links)

OMG - Dragon over worldmap = modern day airship! WANT WANT WANT!!

Can you speak Japanese ? Otherwise you will have to wait a long time before it's released in the west. Shame I can't read or speak Japanese. The little bits and parts I know are not nearly enough to fully enjoy this gem.

Important news, the PS3 version of Ni no Kuni will have additional music http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBBV7ZVTocg&feature=related I'm still not sure if it's a fullblown sequel with a whole new score or just additional content.

Oh, dear God, that's terrible. If Hisaishi arranged that, my whole year is completely ruined. If somebody else has been buggering around with his music, my whole year is equally ruined. :/

Can you speak Japanese ? Otherwise you will have to wait a long time before it's released in the west. Shame I can't read or speak Japanese. The little bits and parts I know are not nearly enough to fully enjoy this gem.

More like IF it is released in the West. I had thought we were past this but the last set of Wii rpgs that they refuse to localize leads me to believe otherwise. Ni No Kuni needs to be localized because it seems like the one game (besides Xenoblade) that has the potential to revive the dying JRPG fanbase before they move on from gaming completely.

So no, I haven't learned Japanese well enough to play it, I tried that at one point then realized that the only reason I cared was to play Japanese RPGs that weren't localized and decided it wasn't worth it.

And now, the news at 5:

KOUSUKE YAMASHITA is scoring a new anime this year - Chihayafuru is a romantic drama and premieres in October. It's a 25 episode series so will undoubtedly have a very substantial score.

YOSHIHISA HIRANO has just finished scoring a new anime, title unknown, in which he interpolates themes from Bizet's Carmen, just as he did with a theme by Paganini in Real Drive.

There is also another fine orchestral score this year from a most unlikely source; a new female composer with a style not entirely unlike Sahashi. More details to follow.

You heard it all here first.

Don't forget the upcoming NAOKI SATO score to Blood-C on October 26 and upcoming YOSHIHIRO IKE on October 5. TOSHIHIKO SAHASHI's Sacred Seven is scheduled for the first soundtrack release on October 5 as well.

Thank you for "Melodies" I love Shenmue Orchestral and Sailor Moon Symphonic. Thanks for sharing

New composer that sounds like Sahashi? Could you be referring to Gundam Age?

Dantalian no Shoka is worth a listen as well, if anyone hasn't already. One of the biggest surprises of the year to my ears.

New composer that sounds like Sahashi? Could you be referring to Gundam Age?

Dantalian no Shoka is worth a listen as well, if anyone hasn't already. One of the biggest surprises of the year to my ears.

That one also has a release date of October 5!
COCX-36945~6 | Bibliotheca Mystica de Dantalian Original Soundtrack Suite... - VGMdb (http://vgmdb.net/album/28398)

I haven't heard a note of music from Gundam Age - just some terrible synthy stuff on the promotional video that I pray to GOD isn't the score... Don't know who's scoring it either... But I'm optimistic.

[Edit: Just spotted a more recent promotional video... YES YES YES! Who is this? Please tell me that is the score...

The "Sahashi-a-like" is Shiho Terada - the anime is Inazuma Eleven Go - the first season of which was scored by Yasunori Mitsuda. Terada's score appears to be a great deal more traditional; rather like Sahashi, and performed by a decent ensemble. :)


Dantalian no Shoka is worth a listen as well, if anyone hasn't already. One of the biggest surprises of the year to my ears.

What a beautiful score! And the series itself looks quite interesting... Thanks! :D

Grab it while it's hot!!
Mussorgky-Leibowitz and Mussorgsky-Ravel at their best! The two afore mentioned orchestrations are delivered with brilliant acoustic quality!





HD-SACD Rip 24/88 (RCA Living Stereo) M. Mussorgsky – Pictures at an Exhibition | BOXSET.RU (http://boxset.ru/hd-vinyl-2488-rca-living-stereo-m-mussorgsky-pictures-at-an-exhibition/)
SA-CD.net - The Power of the Orchestra - Leibowitz (http://www.sa-cd.net/showtitle/6107)

i must say, i don't even post on these forums but will start to, and i've seen this topic grow over the years, displaying such beautiful music i love hearing. And i can't help but say thanks to the posters who had many great discussions and kept this thread active for so long.

Grab it while it's hot!!
Mussorgky-Leibowitz and Mussorgsky-Ravel at their best! The two afore mentioned orchestrations are delivered with brilliant acoustic quality!





Many thanks for this, I've been searching for music from Leibowitz and I've only found the Beethoven Symphonies.

Important news, the PS3 version of Ni no Kuni will have additional music http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBBV7ZVTocg&feature=related I'm still not sure if it's a fullblown sequel with a whole new score or just additional content.

Edit: Way back I posted the "Complete Score" of Anno 1404, my favorite Dynamedion Score. But it was infact not complete. There was also the addon Venice and two lovely pieces that were missing.
So here they are : Anno 1404 Venice (http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/Y8G1I1Q2/Anno_1404_Venice.zip_links)

Hey Kinerfan, thanks for the additions to ANNO, I too love the original, so excited for more stuff!!

i must say, i don't even post on these forums but will start to, and i've seen this topic grow over the years, displaying such beautiful music i love hearing. And i can't help but say thanks to the posters who had many great discussions and kept this thread active for so long.

You're welcome!


The contemporary style is to take bad music and drown it in electronic noise to try to disguise the fact that it's terrible. One can argue that point until one is blue in the face; some folk just won't get it. Some folk really do believe that The Dark Knight is better music than Ben Hur.

Quite right. If someone did a piano reduction of TDK and Ben Hur, the difference would be striking. On one hand some "music" that rather sounds like noise, with repetitive patterns, droning textures and pointless dissonances; on the other hand, some extraordinary, wonderfully composed music, highly expressive, meaningful, complex, and narratively so well crafted that it nearly tells a story on its own.

Orchestrations sometimes tend to hide the mediocrity of a piece of music, like a lot of ketchup can hide the disgusting taste of some bad quality food. Remove them, and listen to the music in its simplest form, and true quality shall appear.


Music means different things to different people; the key point here to remember is that to most people it doesn't mean anything at all. It is, as Tazer said, a means to an end - background noise, functional. It's important to not take the opinions of people who see music that way in any way seriously. Nobody says that you have to have a musical education to enjoy music, but you do have to be musically minded in the sense of appreciating what music can achieve and how, before you are entitled to state an opinion in that field.

In fact, humans have different levels of apprehension of music. To the lowest level, you have people with amusia, whether it's congenital or results from an accident. This people do not get anything about music, which simply doesn't exist for them; music is perceived as a series of meaningless sounds; they just can't process music and don't understand what's the deal with people who sing and dance. On the upper levels, you have melomans: people with a very high sensitivity and reactivity to music; they intensely love music, since their first contacts with it, and often have a deep understanding of it (especially if they happened to get some musical education on top of their natural inclination).

Between these two extremes, there's a lot of variations in the population. Not everyone has the same approach to music. Some people take it lightly, as a fun thing to hear while doing something else. Other people respect it profoundly, care about it - and sometimes create threads about it!


Quality is entirely subjective.

Aha! This is quite arguable! Is the quality of TDK and Ben Hur subjectively different only, or is there an objective difference between them also?



I think you have the right take Arthierr but I am also a HUGE fan of the beauty of the human voice in many of my non-score forms of music. There is nothing I love more than discovering a singer who steals my heart (male or female). This can happen in any variety of genres, pop, rock, blues, metal, etc. My original draw into Metal was purely based on vocals and for a large part I still select bands based on the vocals but now I also listen for the musicianship because I want to hear quality and diversity within songs and within albums. What I love so much about the metal world is they recognize talent so much that many individual players perform on many other albums and are instantly recognized by name.

Yes, I know. I must admit that I'm not generally a big fan of the human voice, with some exceptions. Voices tend to distract me from the music itself, especially when these voices sing silly things. I can tolerate a voice over music only if it's very beautiful and graceful, and preferably when it doesn't say anything, or anything I can understand.



Usually when I'm listening to a song with lyrics, I often find the lyrics borderline incomprehensible, even in English, partly because my attention is divided between trying to appreciate the music and the words simultaneously.
Because you (certainly) have been both trained in music and litterature, and happen to perform music and write novels / short novels / scenarios / articles, etc. As it's been already discussed, such people don't experience things passively and holistically only, they also process things actively and analytically (left brain). Sometimes it can even nearly ruin their experience: I remember a novelist (I don't recall who exactly) who said that since he started writing in his youth, he couldn't read other novelists the same way, since he tends to analyze things instead of just being entertained by a good story.



Sanico - The music to Fūrin Kazan was quite enjoyable. It reminds me of several of the Japanese composers I like including Michru Oshima and Joe Hisaishi. And my new favorite - thanks to some of your earlier posts - Naoki Sato.

I really enjoy hearing a different take on orchestral film music - I wish more American films used Japanese composers, seems to hardly ever happen. Think of the wonder of our French imports, Delerue and Alexandre - and how the Japanese musical voice might enlighten such works as the new Conan through Hisaishi's eyes instead of that abysmal effort that it turned out to be.

How wonderful to see someone who's musically open to the east. In fact I'm often perplexed to see how people seem to ignore the great music that lies out there. When you see the banal, unoriginal, terribly mainstream choices expressed in those proliferating "best / favorite scores" threads, you might wonder if people actually have the curiosity to listen to asian scores, or if they're stuck in their tiny universe of "modern north american film music".


Not to say that sometimes Japanese stuff doesn't tend towards the unintentionally schmaltzy. But I can live with that :)

That's a very interesting point. I tended to believe such thing before, but not so much nowadays. In fact, I discovered that it's not Japanese stuff who are too schmaltzy, but western film music which is way too serious and ballsy! Listen to most film scores nowadays: most of them feature muscular, loud action music and / or dark, brooding suspense music for the most part (sometimes the only part). These scores desperately need some delicate, subtle moments of charm and grace, or some grand, vivid moments of pure lyricism, which are happily often present in eastern scores (listen to most Hisaishi scores to illustrate this point).

Quite right. If someone did a piano reduction of TDK and Ben Hur, the difference would be striking. On one hand some "music" that rather sounds like noise, with repetitive patterns, droning textures and pointless dissonances; on the other hand, some extraordinary, wonderfully composed music, highly expressive, meaningful, complex, and narratively so well crafted that it nearly tells a story on its own.

It's funny that you mention that. I agree with you 100%, but it reminded me of something that surprised me a few months ago. On one of Lisa Nakazono's Chopin-a-like albums (Chopin de hoshi ni negai wo) there is an arrangement of Pirates Of The Carribean. It takes the most basic raw material from that dreadful score and extrapolates it into a splendid piano prelude. Somehow, the arranger manages to take that crass, cliched "theme" and turn it into a contemplative piece of modern minimalism - it sounds something like how I'd imagine a Chopin / Michael Nyman collaboration would sound. If ever there's an example of a) an arranger doing an awfully good job of hiding poor quality musicianship and b) that a giant orchestra and a billion synthesisers, with a crap composition, is completely and unequivocably outclassed by a simple solo piano playing basically the same melodies due to the presence of grey matter on the part of the arranger, this is it.


Aha! This is quite arguable! Is the quality of TDK and Ben Hur subjectively different only, or is there an objective difference between them also?

Well, of course there's an objective difference - but that by definition can (and should) differ from person to person. I count "objective difference" as another way of expressing personal preference.

Of course, it's a fuzzy area, but I believe that it's not a matter of debate that a beautiful flower is "better" than a turd floating in a puddle of urine. Just as I would argue that Brahms is "better" than ABBA, despite not particularly enjoying the former and being something of a fan of the latter. ;)

Obviously this quality metric only works in cases of extreme difference, because quality isn't measurable... Ben Hur is better than The Dark Knight - that's easy... But is El Cid better than Ben Hur? Quo Vadis better than El Cid? Superman better than Star Wars? Indiana Jones better than Superman? Now that's where it becomes difficult. With music of such calibre, I find arguments about quality to be largely moot; if most people can agree that X,Y, and Z are at least in the same ballpark of excellence, then personal preference becomes the only metric against which they can be fairly measured.


Orchestrations sometimes tend to hide the mediocrity of a piece of music, like a lot of ketchup can hide the disgusting taste of some bad quality food. Remove them, and listen to the music in its simplest form, and true quality shall appear.

Last week I tried out a new curry restaurant. Some friends had told me it was very good, and I saw that it wasn't too expensive, so I thought I'd give it a go. I went and bought a curry, got it home, and it was a big dish of tasteless bugger-all. Absolutely flavourless. It satisfied a basic requirement for intake of solid food, but I found that I could barely eat it because it just tasted like lumps of hot nothingness. Eventually, I resorted to drowning it in salt and dumping half a pot of chutney over the top of it, just to give it some flavour. This evening I went back to the restaurant I have always gone to, time and time again, and it reminded me of precisely the difference between functional crap and excellence. The eerie parallels between that experience and my thoughts on the world of music just had to be voiced here, I think...


Because you (certainly) have been both trained in music and litterature, and happen to perform music and write novels / short novels / scenarios / articles, etc. As it's been already discussed, such people don't experience things passively and holistically only, they also process things actively and analytically (left brain). Sometimes it can even nearly ruin their experience: I remember a novelist (I don't recall who exactly) who said that since he started writing in his youth, he couldn't read other novelists the same way, since he tends to analyze things instead of just being entertained by a good story.

I hear this a lot amongst musicians too - and it's such a sad place to end up. I have often told and retold the story of my very talented composer friend who got accepted into a prestigious music college and when he got out, he never listened to music ever again; he counted bars, noted signature changes, cringed at modulations that his textbooks said weren't allowed, and on the whole, analysed to a point of actually forgetting the basic purpose of music. He thought me naive and uneducated in that I retain an emotional connection to music, and have the ability to enjoy something on that basis... and worse still, the willingness to comment on the emotional impact of a piece of music whilst he was busy writing a thesis on its form, construction, pedestrian orchestration, obvious neo-baroque influences, and indignation that it started in G Minor but finished in A!


That's a very interesting point. I tended to believe such thing before, but not so much nowadays. In fact, I discovered that it's not Japanese stuff who are too schmaltzy, but western film music which is way too serious and ballsy! Listen to most film scores nowadays: most of them feature muscular, loud action music and / or dark, brooding suspense music for the most part (sometimes the only part). These scores desperately need some delicate, subtle moments of charm and grace, or some grand, vivid moments of pure lyricism, which are happily often present in eastern scores (listen to most Hisaishi scores to illustrate this point).

This. How often do I hear that Japanese scores are too full-on, too noticeable, too melodic, too lyrical, too schmaltzy...? Emotions are like that. Feelings are big, flamboyant, untamed, and melodramatic.

I have never heard anybody complain that the finale of E.T. is too musical... The problem for modern composers (Hollywood in particular) that writing a score that doesn't hide in the background makes plain their inadequacies. Big gestures have to be made with eloquence and sensitivity, or they become offensive. If you don't have the ability to do that, write a non-descript. safe, generic score that adds nothing and takes away nothing. To extend the food metaphor, if you're not a very good chef, you don't try to make extravagant dishes because you will sod them up and nobody will be able to eat them. After a generation of eating baked beans on toast, extravagant dishes gain a reputation for being tacky and over the top; because a) people are used to bland nothingness, and b) on the occasions they have tried something else, it's been incompetently prepared and has therefore put them off for life.

I have never heard anybody complain that the finale of E.T. is too musical....

I have heard that the E.T. themes is too kiddy, and the score is like a car crash until it finds a melody.

OK, I'll rephrase that... I've never heard anybody credible complain that the finale (or any other part of it, for that matter) of E.T. is too musical. ;)

The whole score is a melody, anyway... as for "too kiddy", I think I'd be justified in asking that if the people who believe that are serious about proffering up a criticism of arguably one of the seminal masterpieces of the 20th century, they could at least dignify it with some semblance of detail and consideration...

I'm not going to get into a debate about whether ET is or isn't a good score, even though it undeniably is because that has nothing at all to do with what I was talking about.

If your intention was to remind me that not everybody likes ET, I know! You're addressing a jaded cynic, here.

My point was to illustrate a score which is melodic, powerful, melodramatic, grand, and emotional - which works superlatively and without which the film itself would be a very different, and considerably less convincing, piece of work.

Because you (certainly) have been both trained in music and litterature, and happen to perform music and write novels / short novels / scenarios / articles, etc. As it's been already discussed, such people don't experience things passively and holistically only, they also process things actively and analytically (left brain). Sometimes it can even nearly ruin their experience: I remember a novelist (I don't recall who exactly) who said that since he started writing in his youth, he couldn't read other novelists the same way, since he tends to analyze things instead of just being entertained by a good story.

It'd be a long stretch to claim I'm trained in music, but very flattering of you to say it seems so. I have a similar issue with reading novels, but particularly bothersome is watching films (as that was the focus of my schooling). Nothing takes you out of a film faster than "There's the committal at the end of the first act. Ah, the mid-point escalation. The low-point at the end of the second act; don't cry, it'll get better. See, you reached the third act." Luckily, a strong film can still pull me back in after I've noticed the seams. :)


In fact, I discovered that it's not Japanese stuff who are too schmaltzy, but western film music which is way too serious and ballsy! Listen to most film scores nowadays: most of them feature muscular, loud action music and / or dark, brooding suspense music for the most part (sometimes the only part). These scores desperately need some delicate, subtle moments of charm and grace, or some grand, vivid moments of pure lyricism, which are happily often present in eastern scores (listen to most Hisaishi scores to illustrate this point).

I think you could argue this goes way beyond film music and extends into the culture as a whole, and I totally agree.


On one of Lisa Nakazono's Chopin-a-like albums (Chopin de hoshi ni negai wo) there is an arrangement of Pirates Of The Carribean. It takes the most basic raw material from that dreadful score and extrapolates it into a splendid piano prelude. Somehow, the arranger manages to take that crass, cliched "theme" and turn it into a contemplative piece of modern minimalism - it sounds something like how I'd imagine a Chopin / Michael Nyman collaboration would sound. If ever there's an example of a) an arranger doing an awfully good job of hiding poor quality musicianship and b) that a giant orchestra and a billion synthesisers, with a crap composition, is completely and unequivocably outclassed by a simple solo piano playing basically the same melodies due to the presence of grey matter on the part of the arranger, this is it.

Not that I didn't believe you, but after that description I had to hear that for myself. And HOLY SCHNIKES! Once those runs kick in after the primary iteration of the theme... woof. For anyone else interested, it's the fourth track on the album in this thread. (Thread 86003)

Thanks for the link. I didn't know this thing. Let's give it more visibility so more people know about it:


Thread 86003




Title: Chopin de Hoshi ni Negai wo
Performer: Lisa Nakazono
Release: January 27, 2010
Quality: V0 VBR (~220 kbps)

Piano arrangements of popular Disney songs in the style of Chopin. It's an excellent album, you'll enjoy it if you also liked Nakazono's Chopin de Ghibli pieces. Credit goes to sunleth (http://community.livejournal.com/7music/48602.html) for the original rip.



It'd be a long stretch to claim I'm trained in music, but very flattering of you to say it seems so.

I guess when you can play Carmina Burana, you ought to have some "basic" musical training! I never saw a conductor asking a random guy in the college hallways: "Hey, we're missing an oboe player. Can you play oboe? / Play what? A hobo? / Never mind, just put this thing in your mouth and blow (I mean the oboe). Nobody will notice."



Well, of course there's an objective difference - but that by definition can (and should) differ from person to person. I count "objective difference" as another way of expressing personal preference.

Of course, it's a fuzzy area, but I believe that it's not a matter of debate that a beautiful flower is "better" than a turd floating in a puddle of urine. Just as I would argue that Brahms is "better" than ABBA, despite not particularly enjoying the former and being something of a fan of the latter. ;)

Obviously this quality metric only works in cases of extreme difference, because quality isn't measurable... Ben Hur is better than The Dark Knight - that's easy... But is El Cid better than Ben Hur? Quo Vadis better than El Cid? Superman better than Star Wars? Indiana Jones better than Superman? Now that's where it becomes difficult. With music of such calibre, I find arguments about quality to be largely moot; if most people can agree that X,Y, and Z are at least in the same ballpark of excellence, then personal preference becomes the only metric against which they can be fairly measured.

I tend to believe that quality *is* to a certain extent measurable in music, like I once said in a dissertation comparison (why would music escape evaluation or quality control?). But not anybody can measure it accurately. There's certainly a difference in quality between most Williams scores, but most of us can't really tell since we don't have enough expertise. Yet Williams certainly must consider some of his scores as a notch better than others. He's surely more satisfied with some, and slightly more disappointed with others. As the composer of these scores and a fully fledged master musician, he can see what isn't quite right and could have been done better.

Now, as you said, when the difference is very important, most people can clearly perceive it, since it becomes obvious. But it's not because one doesn't perceive a quality difference that it doesn't exist to a very minor degree, IMO.



I have heard that the E.T. themes is too kiddy, and the score is like a car crash until it finds a melody.

Yes, and Zimmer also said that Elfman's Batman's theme is a "Happy Jolly" theme. It's not because some people say silly and dickish things about some actual great music that they must be taken seriously.

It's obvious that there has been an aesthetic shift in movie music since about a decade, leading to much less lyrical and melodious music, and lot more serious, somber, pseudo-virile, testosterone-fueled music. What was perceived before as lyrical and beautifully sentimental is now seen as mushy, slushy, soppy. Melodies have become old-fashioned and tend to be replaced with simple chord progressions (at best) or atmospheric, textural "music" (see TDK, Inception or Social Network, among others), which is most of the time completely gloomy and depressing. That's so cool, bro! That's what hip people want (along with some antidepressants).

Of course, strictly from a musical perspective, this style of "music" is hardly defensible. I personally consider it as total garbage barely qualifiable as music, even though a lot of people seem to praise it.

I guess when you can play Carmina Burana, you ought to have some "basic" musical training! I never saw a conductor asking a random guy in the college hallways: "Hey, we're missing an oboe player. Can you play oboe? / Play what? A hobo? / Never mind, just put this thing in your mouth and blow (I mean the oboe). Nobody will notice."

Haha, you have a point. I hadn't thought of it that way. But when considering musical theory and composition, I'm just a member of the peanut gallery.


I tend to believe that quality *is* to a certain extent measurable in music, like I once said in a dissertation comparison (why would music escape evaluation or quality control?). But not anybody can measure it accurately. There's certainly a difference in quality between most Williams scores, but most of us can't really tell since we don't have enough expertise. Yet Williams certainly must consider some of his scores as a notch better than others. He's surely more satisfied with some, and slightly more disappointed with others. As the composer of these scores and a fully fledged master musician, he can see what isn't quite right and could have been done better.

Now, as you said, when the difference is very important, most people can clearly perceive it, since it becomes obvious. But it's not because one doesn't perceive a quality difference that it doesn't exist to a very minor degree, IMO.

I think I'm going to have to side with Tango here. We agree that a large gap in musical quality is fairly objective, but at a certain point "quality" becomes harder to define. What is quality? Is it complexity of harmony, orchestration, rhythm? Difficulty of performance? The depth of feeling the music rouses in the listener? Star Wars and Close Encounters are both superb examples of musicianship, both from 1977, and both of course from John Williams. Objectively speaking, Close Encounters is often cited as a more mature musical composition with its dissonance and difficulty, and it elicits strong emotions towards the finale. But Star Wars ain't exactly "Chopsticks" either, and its wealth of readily identifiable themes and perfect exploration of the dramatic line are testaments to its quality. Which is the work of greater genius? Isn't the composer's ability to evoke just as important as his musicianship?

I think this grey area of weighing reaction, which is entirely subjective, against technique, which can be measured somewhat objectively by identifying chords and orchestration, is where personal preference comes in. The gap between one or the other must be so large that overwhelmingly one side will be favored in order to reach an "objective" opinion.

And I must reciprocate and agree in principal with Tazer, although that's not to say I disagree with you, Arthierr, my friend. ;)

Allow me to elaborate a little.

I take the point entirely that even with the likes of Williams, Rosza, etc, there will be off days... I bet that Williams has scores that make him cringe and scores that make him proud. We all probably enjoy them both all the same. Though I think Williams' own personal preference may play a part here, too. Knowing the man's music, it wouldn't surprise me at all if his reaction to such things was largely emotional.

For what it's worth, I know that I've written pieces myself that I find technically very accomplished, and what I would term "good quality" in a strictly musical sense... but I don't really like that... and conversely I have written amateurish crap which for some reason I retain some affection for; affection that I accept the music doesn't really deserve, but it's there nonetheless.

When we're talking about scores which are of such a high calibre - let's talk about Star Wars and Close Encounters, how does one quantify musical quality? At the very least, it's not possible to do it the same way you would if you compared Star Wars to Pirates of The Carribbean, etc.

The difference between �0 and �1,000,000 is staggering and easily quantified... but what about the difference between �1,000,000 and �1,000,100? The gap is narrower... and it becomes harder to see through it. (And less important; at that level, both sums of money are, to all intents and purposes identical.)

And this is a bad analogy because the money can be counted, and can be easily proven that one quantity is higher than the other, however imperceptibly. To corrupt the analogy a little to increase its usefulness, I have two piles of �10 notes. One pile has �1,000,000, and the other pile has �1,000,100. To you, and me, and every other man, woman, and child on the planet, the piles look exactly the damn same. Perhaps the notes on the left are more crinkled up so they look higher than the notes on the right, despite actually being �100 less. Or perhaps both piles look identical.

I now say to you, "You may chose one pile of money and it is yours"... what difference does it make what pile you pick? Either way you're rich. The actual numerical difference between the two piles does physically exist but is rendered unimportant by the vagueness and inaccuracies that plague our lives as human beings.

Tazer suggested that Close Encounters is seen as musically superior on the grounds that it is aurally a lot more risky and utilises more avant-garde composition techniques as compared to Star Wars, which is firmly rooted in the grand Romantic tradition... but to me, those facts alone don't suggest any realistic metric against which quality can be measured. We all know that a certain subset of musical types like to push avant-garde, atonal music as "superior" because it's more complicated and less accessible for the layperson... but do we really believe that a Williams score that takes inspiration from Penderecki and Schoenberg compositionally superior to one which takes inspiration from Wagner, Korngold? I certainly wouldn't make a judgement like that. Star Wars is an exceptionally clever, superlatively written score - and so is Close Encounters. They are both excellent, but different. If there genuinely is a repeatable, reliable, documented means to identify one as higher quality than the other, then I proudly state that I am not qualified - musically, or emotionally - to tell the difference.

So, what technique is better? Is a minor chord better than an augmented chord? Is a dissonant chord better than a consonant chord? Is a fourteen note melody better than a seventeen note melody? Who the hell knows? I don't know. Do any of us? Is this a question that needs answering?

Wow, this thread doesn't have get existential at times... :D

Edit: I conducted a wholly unscientific experiment this afternoon. I played the finale from E.T. - it made me cry. I played the finale from The Dark Knight. It made me bored, closely followed by allowed, and then I started thinking about what I should have for lunch...

Tazer suggested that Close Encounters is seen as musically superior on the grounds that it is aurally a lot more risky and utilises more avant-garde composition techniques as compared to Star Wars, which is firmly rooted in the grand Romantic tradition... but to me, those facts alone don't suggest any realistic metric against which quality can be measured. We all know that a certain subset of musical types like to push avant-garde, atonal music as "superior" because it's more complicated and less accessible for the layperson... but do we really believe that a Williams score that takes inspiration from Penderecki and Schoenberg compositionally superior to one which takes inspiration from Wagner, Korngold? I certainly wouldn't make a judgement like that. Star Wars is an exceptionally clever, superlatively written score - and so is Close Encounters. They are both excellent, but different. If there genuinely is a repeatable, reliable, documented means to identify one as higher quality than the other, then I proudly state that I am not qualified - musically, or emotionally - to tell the difference.

I would like to clarify that I personally agree with this point. Saying that Close Encounters is more "advanced" because it utilized those techniques was a hypothetical, "academic" quantification of musicality that I don't particularly agree with as a way of illustrating how one might "objectively" measure musical quality. Your next paragraph pretty much pokes holes all through that possibility:


Is a minor chord better than an augmented chord? Is a dissonant chord better than a consonant chord? Is a fourteen note melody better than a seventeen note melody? Who the hell knows? I don't know. Do any of us? Is this a question that needs answering?

EDIT: Answering the unanswerable is ZERO SUM ERROR

I just enjoy scores, I weigh them by emotional responses, if I react to more cues in one score than the other, the one I react to more is the winner.

The only way to know would be to measure how the listener is affected by the technique, which comes back round to personal preference. And even then, based on what? The composer's intention? Isn't it possible that a listener could have a totally different yet equally valid reaction? Sometimes those bring about even better results, and sometimes worse.


But then we find ourselves dangerously close to arguing that there is no such thing as quality... opening the door for "Tron Legacy is the best score ever written!" and similar monumental nonsense...

Q.E.D.

Can we talk about cake instead? Or Shiho Terada? She's really cute... Megumi Ohashi and Yoko Kanno might get a bit jealous if I date her, but it'd be worth it.

Tron Legacy is the best score ever written.







If your a tone-deaf idiot.

Can we talk about cake instead? Or Shiho Terada? She's really cute... Megumi Ohashi and Yoko Kanno might get a bit jealous if I date her, but it'd be worth it.

How about pattycake? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If6A-jeyBlQ#t=0m39s)

Dammit, now I want to watch Roger Rabbit. And marry Jessica.

So, in order to better understand your point, gentlemen, I tried to think of various examples, in musical and non musical fields. One example happened to be particularly convincing: imagine three gorgeous girls, being nearly identical, almost clones, except that one is a sweet blonde, another is a spicy brunette, and the third one is a flamboyant redhead. All three have the same level of beauty and attractiveness, yet each has a different style. In this case, I clearly see that they can't be distinguished in terms of "quality", and it becomes obvious that to choose one of them would be indeed a matter of personal preference, of individual inclination, of subjective appreciation.

But in way, isn't this very close to what I said here:


YES, everyone should like a score mostly the same way. I don't mean this in terms of genre: people who like romantic music will prefer such cues, and those who favor virile action music will prefer it to other cues. I mean this in terms of musical quality: a dull, generic romantic cue is a bad quality one, even for people who like this kind of music; a cheaply made, repetitive action cue is a bad quality one, even for action music fans.


Yet, even though I better understand and acknowledge your point, I believe it's essential to firmly state that quality is to a certain extent measurable and objectively evaluable in music. Because if you don't, you leave the door open to those who absolutely want to claim that all is equal, subjective and relative, and that therefore the Social Network is musically, artistically as good as Indiana Jones, or Britney Spears easily compares with Wagner. Stating that musical quality is subjective and unmesureable is not only IMO a fallacy, it is also the denial and invalidation of all forms of judgment expressed on music (in this thread, this forum, or anywhere else), and would give plain legitimacy to those who try to bring down artistic valour and technical craft.

I'm sure it wasn't your intention, of course. I know that your opinions are much more subtle, nuanced and thoughtful than that. I just say that some people might interpret your words in such a way, and possibly use them to legitimate some actual bad quality music.



What is quality? Is it complexity of harmony, orchestration, rhythm? Difficulty of performance? The depth of feeling the music rouses in the listener?


how does one quantify musical quality? At the very least, it's not possible to do it the same way you would if you compared Star Wars to Pirates of The Carribbean, etc.

[...] but to me, those facts alone don't suggest any realistic metric against which quality can be measured.

This is a vast and very tricky topic. I tried to give an answer, but it would take me a very long post to say something barely convincing. So perhaps another time! But what I can say for now is that it certainly has something to do with 1) craft mastery and technical complexity, and 2) emotional appropriateness and efficiency. You can be almost 100% sure that the more of these, the better the music, and conversely.

I feel almost guilty for interrupting the debate with music! That's a really nice feeling, and not one I'd have in any other thread. :)

So, actually, that was a lie. The music is coming tomorrow - but I just had to do this little "intention to post" thing that is so annoying...

Clues: It's a brand new score, released just a couple of days ago. It's Japanese (Surprise, surprise.) It's a wonderfully melodic, symphonic score. It fits into my favourite category - "Bloody hell, Japan... you scored that piece of trash like this???!!". The orchestra is not enormous (it's your typical Japanese freelancing orchestra) but it's one of those scores that's so earnest, so florid, so tuneful, that you find yourself able to forgive the occasionally weedy ensemble.

It's coming tomorrow evening. Hold on to your hats, folks. :)

God damn you Tango. Now I actually have something to look forward to tomorrow!

Japanese? Is it the soundtrack for the 1974 movie Tidal Wave?

That would be awesome.

Just passing by, catching up and reading the amazing discussion and announcing a new upload as well, something different this time .. something from my childhood.

I almost forgot how much affected I was by orchestral music even when I was little. I had this theme flying around in my head for years but couldn't remember it's origin, a few days back I had a conversation with a friend about the different shows we watched as a kid and how most of them were much better than the stuff children have to grow up with today (with that I mean a show that does not insult your intelligence, has likeable characters, themes and a clear sense of direction and can be enjoyed by all ages) and then I finally remembered everything. I searched for it and was pleasantly surprised that the score was also really good. So here it is:



Thematic / Sweeping / Romantic / Adventure / Action

Music composed by Christopher L. Stone

Download Link (http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/0J3BLQIZ/Disney%27s_Television_Scores.7z_links)
MP3 / 192 ~ 320 kbps / 32 Tracks

One of my favorite scores for a Cartoon.
I've also included some related and equaly great music.
Enjoy.

Can anyone explain to me what the HELL is going on with the Charging Fort Wagner track from Erich Kunzel's/City of Prague Philharmonic's Music of James Horner? Did they lose the sheet music and get someone to do a sucktastic rewrite? Is it some alternate/rejected version Horner wrote that wasn't used in the film? This is why I'm glad I download BEFORE I decide to purchase.

SHINJI MIYAZAKI
Pokemon Movie 14: Victini and the Black Hero: Zekrom / Victini and the White Hero: Reshiram



Download SM-PM14.rar from Mirrorcreator - Upload files to multiple file sharing sites (http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/0CJBXV34/SM-PM14.rar_links)

(2 CDs, 58 and 48 minutes respectively. 183mb including scans.)

Not my rip, but my encode and repack from FLAC original from BakaBT. LAME 3.98.4 at -V0. Scans included.

Pokemon. Yes, really.

Seriously. Trust your old pal Tango.

Shinji Miyazaki has been involved with Pokemon right from the beginning, though if your only exposure to it is from the butchered USA dub, you wouldn't know it, since his score got tossed out. He's scored every movie, and every TV show since. I usually keep an ear open for the movie scores, and there is usually something decent in there... but this one marks a sudden and very happy departure in styles. Whereas the previous scores have spent most of their runtime drowned in electronica - often to try to disguise the inadequate ensemble - this one appears to have benefitted from a considerable budget increase. 95% of the score is fully orchestral, and unadorned. As if from nowhere, we end up with a truly wonderful adventure score with all those things we miss so much from Hollywood; themes, grandeur, heroism, romanticism, tension, and glory.

Actually, we get two. You see, Pokemon's 14th movie did something a little bit weird; it got split into two different films - they both start off roughly the same but branch off in different directions to follow a different protagonist. Each film has received its own individual and self-contained score. The happy side effect is that there is bucketloads of music to be had; no less than ninety minutes of score in total, of which the vast majority is just the sort of thing that makes us old farts weak at the knees.

As hinted previously, this is no Warsaw score... sadly, the budget has not extended to a full strength symphony orchestra. This one is performed by the ubiquitous 50-60 piece freelancing ensemble, so if you're looking to get bowled over by sheer volume of noise, or the force of fifty french horns blasting C in your face, this isn't the score for you.

The orchestra is just fine; it never feels undersized, and the performance is very good as usual. I know some very fine people who would label this "small ensemble" but to do so would be a grave injustice as it implies a very different sort of score to the one actually presented.

So, give this one a listen; if Fractale hadn't been so magnificent, it'd be my instant contender for score of the year. You won't be disappointed.

Yup, this really IS Pokemon!

Thanks for the rip. Pocket Monsters has always been one of my favorite scores from any anime, alongside One Piece.

Annnd Tango has done it again! Saved me from going through all the Pokemon scores and finding the ones that are worthwhile. I was thinking it might be a good idea to listen to some of it a while ago but I decided against the daunting task, so you saved me the trouble :) I'm going to be on the road today so this will do nicely.

Huge Thanks for Pokemon, Tango ! Always loved the music. Miyazaki's Music was used in the german dub as well as in many Nintendo Games so I still have a little connection to it.

It's a great pleasure, gentlemen. I was expecting a little bit of fun with this, but instead I got a grand old adventure score just like they used to do in my day! ;)

While I think of it, I'm sliding off to Japan again in October... Whilst I shall spend a reasonable percentage of my trip getting very drunk, flirting with every attractive woman within leering distance, and making a lovable ass of myself trying to speak Japanese, I am also planning to do some shopping; I would happily take a limited number of requests for stuff to look out for in second hand stores. I'll be going to Disk Union in Shinjuku, which is in itself like a small country populated with CDs and records instead of people... If it exists, or used to exist, they probably have ten copies of it. Even if it doesn't exist, they STILL might have it. When I was in Tokyo a couple of years ago I simply ran out of time (and money... damned Ghibli museum...!) and never made it there but I intend to remedy that this time around.

I'll also be spending some time in Tower Records and HMV in Shibuya, both of which are utterly ridiculous. So, if there's anything you really really want and you haven't been able to find it through usual avenues, let me know and I'll see what I can do. If it's something I like, this will help my enthusiasm. ;)

Also, on the offchance that anybody is going to be in the vicinity between 15th and 22nd of October, and want to get together - also, let me know.

Thanks for both Talespin and the new Pokemon!

About Pokemon, it's again important to reprecise that people really must focus on the music itself, and forget the context, IE the show it comes from. You have to do this very often with japanese scores, since these people have the bizarre habit of using orchestral music (and at times some very good one) in the most silly or kiddy shows.

Personally I discovered the orchestral music of Pokemon some years ago, just out of curiosity. I haven't been disappointed. Of course I downloaded all the stuff I could in order to compile a big pack of orchestral music out of it. Miyazaki is really a good composer who deserves to be discovered, with a very fluid, virtuosic and naturally melodic style, and he's got a real talent for composing energizing, exciting, catchy action pieces.

Sirusjr: I didn't listen to this movie score yet, but if you want some scores to start with, I'd recommend the first TV OSTs, which feature (if I remember correctly), the most notable and memorable pieces of the series.



So, if there's anything you really really want and you haven't been able to find it through usual avenues, let me know and I'll see what I can do. If it's something I like, this will help my enthusiasm. ;)

Thank you very much for your generosity, Sir! Since you kindly propose so, I jump on this opportunity to ask some Sahashi and Yamashita stuff I've never found anywhere. (Of course, as you already know, these requests are purely formal and don't commit or oblige you in any way.)

I would love to have these, or have them in better quality:

Seijuu Sentai Gingaman (some glorious music in these, but atrocious sound quality)
Yukan Club (disastrous sound quality)
Celeb to Binbo Taro (can't get it)
Reinoryokusha Odagiri Kyoko no Uso (can't get it either)

If you can get only one of these, I would prefer Gingaman in priority. If you can't get any, absolutely no problem! Thanks again!



Can anyone explain to me what the HELL is going on with the Charging Fort Wagner track from Erich Kunzel's/City of Prague Philharmonic's Music of James Horner? Did they lose the sheet music and get someone to do a sucktastic rewrite? Is it some alternate/rejected version Horner wrote that wasn't used in the film? This is why I'm glad I download BEFORE I decide to purchase.

Yeah, I already notice this terrible track in one of their previous albums. The piece was barely recognizable, and seems to be performed by a drunken college orchestra.

Ok so I am looking at the GINORMOUS pokemon music collection on BakaBT and I have no idea what to grab to get the good stuff, there is just so much here. I grabbed TV Anime Pocket Monsters Original Soundtrack Best 1997-2010 Vols 1 and 2 but beyond that I have no idea. Suggestions would be very much appreciated.

I am wondering why Hans Zimmer must ruin everything I like: Film, Game, and orchestra music. IGN has reported that Hans Zimmer along with Lorne Balfe will be writing Assassin's Creed Revelation. I liked Jesper Kyd's scores to the series and by removing him from the series, that signature sound is gone. I could deal with the fact that Kyd would no longer be scoring the AC games as long as a capable composer who wrote experimental music could step up and push the music forward. The idea that Ubisoft would want Hans Zimmer to score it, is like pouring salt into a wound. Harry Gregson-Williams would've even been a better choice... What does everyone think of this news? Although, I'm pretty sure on the consensus ;)

I think this might be a good chance for Zimmer and Balfe to write a decent score and show their talent. I wasn't really a big fan of Jesper Kyd's scores to begin with so the change doesn't bother me. It will be nice to see if they are given some freedom to write what they want and end up doing something thematic and wonderful. One can hope.

I am wondering why Hans Zimmer must ruin everything I like: Film, Game, and orchestra music. IGN has reported that Hans Zimmer along with Lorne Balfe will be writing Assassin's Creed Revelation. I liked Jesper Kyd's scores to the series and by removing him from the series, that signature sound is gone. I could deal with the fact that Kyd would no longer be scoring the AC games as long as a capable composer who wrote experimental music could step up and push the music forward. The idea that Ubisoft would want Hans Zimmer to score it, is like pouring salt into a wound. Harry Gregson-Williams would've even been a better choice... What does everyone think of this news? Although, I'm pretty sure on the consensus ;)

I am willing to bet that it is because Kyd is working on Assassin's Creed 3. I would be surprised if they permanently got rid of the man who scored the last 3 entries.

I just found out the new Zelda will have over 90 minutes of "cinematic" cutscenes and over 50 ~ 100 hours of playtime. If that doesn't scream for a great symphonic score I don't know what will. November can't come soon enough.
I'm also warming up to the Trailer Theme (Main Theme ?) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYxPbBltn6U

I want to suggest that everyone in this thread give a listen to the two Every Little Thing songs on the Pokemon Movie 14 soundtrack. They happen to be two of the best recent songs by the group. Every Little Thing has long been one of my favorite J-Pop groups, primarily because of the amazing emotional vocals from their singer. The song at the end of the second disc, Koe, is especially amazing and touching.

Siriusjr,

True and I would give it a try anyway since I really wish Zimmer would make a score like he did in his early career.

DoubleHex,

I hope you are right because it would make me doubt Ubisoft's judgement. Kyd's music, imo, was a nice accompaniment to the mood and atmosphere of the game. True it isn't a symphonic masterpiece nor will it ever be, but it was different in its own right. I admire that.

Well, as a PC gamer, I have some words about Ubisoft's judgement as of late. :D

I just found out the new Zelda will have over 90 minutes of "cinematic" cutscenes and over 50 ~ 100 hours of playtime. If that doesn't scream for a great symphonic score I don't know what will. November can't come soon enough.
I'm also warming up to the Trailer Theme (Main Theme ?) Zelda: Skyward Sword - TGS 11: New Mechanics Trailer - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYxPbBltn6U)

I really like its appearance in the Suite that was played at E3 2011.

speaking of that, here it is, I re-mixed it to my listening specifications and decided to post it heyah: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0V4SC9HI

Thanks Tango und kInderfan for the last shares ;)
Don�t like Pokemon series very much, but the music is good^^

New upcoming game scores definetly worth checking out:

Dragon's Dogma (Early 2012) - Orchestral Fantasy Score, sounds very promising (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNGw1jXe9uU)

Anno 2070 (Winter 2011) - Next Dynamedion Score (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUgDKhVLYD8)

Gravity Daze (TBA) - "Typical Japanese" Orchestral Score, sounds great (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS8rvkDm7VQ)

Dark Souls (Winter 2011) - Dark Fantasy Score, similar to the first one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yopt1hJtzQU)

Kirby Returns to Dreamland (Winter 2011) - Come on, it's Kirby ! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrusOVB--NA)

Dynamedion also has an orchestral recording in november, according to certain sources, it's going to be big (2 day recording, 66 piece orchestra).

Dragon's Dogma and Gravitiy Daze sound good. I'm not very excited about Anno 2070, as I suspect they will drown it with synth like Crysis 2. Dark Souls doesn't really excite me as the first game had a pretty poor score. New Kirby may be good, but I wasn't very excited by the sound of the last score.

Lets not forget that Uncharted 3 soundtrack is coming soon and will be released in a 2CD version by La La Land, so that should be exciting.

Ah, almost forgot Uncharted 3. I really hope Nate's Theme will be used more often, unlike Uncharted 2.

As for Anno 2070, I am not excited as I was for the previous Anno but a few great tracks is better than nothing.
I liked Demon Souls. It was interessting, chaotic and minimalistic. Let's hope they improve it.
About Kiby ... I LOVE Epic Yarn. Don't ask why, I just do. I would be the first guy to storm Nintendo to demand an orchestral score for the next Kirby but Epic Yarn was so charming and lovely, I can forgive them.

Dragon's Dogma (Early 2012) - Orchestral Fantasy Score, sounds very promising (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNGw1jXe9uU)

Indeed, but the dialogue...gah! As an aspiring author, it's like forcing knives into my ears. I have always criticized Japanese games for awkward dialogue and story, and this is no exception. You can just tell the voice actors do not feel all that comfortable with the lines. I suspect it has something to do with the translation.


Anno 2070 (Winter 2011) - Next Dynamedion Score (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUgDKhVLYD8)

It does sound very nice - I especially liked the display of strings toward the final third. I don't think it will be as synth heavy as Crysis 2 - look at who was leading the project. I suspect this will be a thoroughly Dynamedion project that we will enjoy.


Gravity Daze (TBA) - "Typical Japanese" Orchestral Score, sounds great (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS8rvkDm7VQ)

Ah yes, another game where Japanese picture the leading female protagonist as sexily clad. Also, mummy in a suit. God bless you Japan.

oh and the music is good too.


Dark Souls (Winter 2011) - Dark Fantasy Score, similar to the first one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yopt1hJtzQU)

Oh Good Lord. This is absolutely wonderful - the realistic aesthetics, the mythology, and of course the music that is actually dark! I love it. If I was a console gamer I would be all over this.

Well the dialogue in Dragon's Dogma is indeed awful, but not every game can be written like Legacy of Kain ;)

Going a bit off-topic: Japan truely excels in the visual department (most of the time). Creativity and sheer imagination were always one of Japan's strong points. The best japanese games I have played were always more emotional than intellectual demanding. Cultural influences also play a huge part. As for the sexy female protagonist: what's wrong with them ? If it's an artistic choice for the protagonist to wear THAT, fine. Catherine is a good example of this, it's tasteful and mature with sexuality and not once have I felt uncomfortable playing it. I believe it depends on the visual world and the artstyle the creators have crafted for their game.
I could talk for hours how creative experiments like Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Fragile Dreams or Catherine are things the gaming world desperately needs. A new strategy or action game now and then is fine, but if you want to experience something more in games than pure satisfaction, these games are necessary to show the potential of the medium. Another thing these games have in common is subtlety. A simple story evoking so much emotion from me through visual expertise and subtle writting is something I have rarely experienced in western games. But it depends on your preferences: Do you want to be entertained? Do you want to experience something else? Or do you want both?

Well the dialogue in Dragon's Dogma is indeed awful, but not every game can be written like Legacy of Kain ;)

Why not?! >:|


Going a bit off-topic: Japan truely excels in the visual department (most of the time). Creativity and sheer imagination were always one of Japan's strong points. The best japanese games I have played were always more emotional than intellectual demanding. Cultural influences also play a huge part. As for the sexy female protagonist: what's wrong with them? If it's an artistic choice for the protagonist to wear THAT, fine. Catherine is a good example of this, it's tasteful and mature with sexuality and not once have I felt uncomfortable playing it. I believe it depends on the visual world and the artstyle the creators have crafted for their game.

I could talk for hours how creative experiments like Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Fragile Dreams or Catherine are things the gaming world desperately needs. A new strategy or action game now and then is fine, but if you want to experience something more in games than pure satisfaction, these games are necessary to show the potential of the medium. Another thing these games have in common is subtlety. A simple story evoking so much emotion from me through visual expertise and subtle writting is something I have rarely experienced in western games. But it depends on your preferences: Do you want to be entertained? Do you want to experience something else? Or do you want both?

First off: fixed some grammar for you. No need for a space between the last word and the question mark. :)

I will first deal with the artistic design of many Japanese games. For the most, Japanese games tend to be very creative, but not united. Many JRPGs, and the latest Final Fantasies in particular, tend to go all over the spectrum in terms of how the world and characters are displayed. You can call Western art design "uninspired", but at least it is uniform and makes sense within the world of the game. There also elements of Japanese artistry that I have problems with - such as having a "cute" miniature race, or overly sexualized all-female race with some animal part placed on them to make them not "human". On top of that, the male lead that is so "cute" that you really can't say he is not a she anymore. You see this in every Final Fantasy, and especially 12. Why the heck was Vaan there? Balthier should have been the lead - he was the more interesting character anyways!

And what is up with guys dressing up like women? The main villain from Final Fantasy 9 had his coat open to reveal all of his manly...err, essence, as well as showing the sides of his legs. WTF? That's not art design, that's just...I don't know what to call that without insulting a sexual minority!

I also will disagree that Japanese games are more emotional than intellectual - they just don't make sense. Final Fantasy XIII was often criticized for having a narrative just weighed down with dozens of sub plots. I remember there was a blog that rated the narrative of each of the game's chapters. Someone made a response where they said he incorrectly stated the existence of one of the races with ridicules names, and spent a good three paragraphs correcting a "simple mistake". The response also didn't make any sense, and was a good description of the illogical nature of the story.

There is a difference between sexy protagonists and sexualized. Sexy implies men/women who are comfortable with their damn good looks. Sexualized means they were designed just to appeal to the lower parts of straight guys.

However, not saying all Japanese games are like this. The Shadows of the Colossus is fantastic in every respect. Music, art design, narrative, gameplay. It is just great in every respect. I have not played the others yet - mostly because I don't own the systems for them.

GRAVITY DAZE | (http://www.jp.playstation.com/scej/title/gravitydaze/index.php#)

Kohei Tanaka is scoring this one - there is a music sample for each page

Gravity Daze makes me very, very happy... It's the kind of bustling, major key Tanaka I was really hoping for in End Of Eternity... Here, we're pretty much back in vintage One Piece territory. Lovely stuff. Thanks, RyuFAN, for the info!

Kohei Tanaka in One Piece mode ! Now I'm excited enough to try out the demo if there is one. Thanks, RyuFAN.

@Doublehex: Switching between english and german grammar all the time must have hurt my syntax more than I realize. But thanks, I hope I won't repeat that stupid mistake again.

Maybe I was generalizing a bit too much but remember that Demon Souls and Dark Souls are also japanese games. Take the Persona Games, The World ends wih you, the first three Silent Hill games or the Metroid and Zelda games. Even Valkyria Chronicles (not the sequels) has something I can only describe with "positive creativity". Creativity in art and visuals not just for fan pandering or commercial interests. I hate the character archetypes in JRPGs too and I am constantly dissapointed with most male protagonists. But I don't care for any new Final Fantasy anymore besides the music.
It's just one game series that's going downhill afterall and should not stand for the japanese game industry as a whole.
But Villains can be as ridiculous or twisted as japanese developers can imagine (god help us) but the most important aspect is if they are still menacing despite their looks (Demon Lord Ghirahim comes to mind). I will be honest, I would take a twisted gay clown over some bald russian muscle dude anyday.
In the west things look equaly disturbing with the american macho culture dominating games and one more russian conspiracy or one more alien invasion after another. At least some developers still have some sort of creative spark (Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Amnesia, Limbo, Minecraft etc.).
Uniformity between art, visuals and narrative is still not restricted to regions (Thank God) and Retro Studios in Texas have crafted one of my favorite games, Metroid Prime as did the japanese Team Ico with Shadow of the Colossus.
If only more games like Legacy of Kain or Shadow of the Colossus would be made ... but the truth is they are exceptions.

Anyone knows who compose the bgm of this document film? it is good orchestral action music that seems to have been used to being heard in war movies

Secrets of World War II -- What Really Happened to Rommel - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC9bDPoiXao)

Anyone knows who compose the bgm of this document film? it is good orchestral action music that seems to have been used to being heard in war movies

Secrets of World War II -- What Really Happened to Rommel - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC9bDPoiXao)

It's DeWolfe library music, so unless there's someone in the business who recognises it then you're out of luck.

that new kirby wii game coming this christmas has an amazing orchestra loved the trailer music

GRAVITY DAZE | (http://www.jp.playstation.com/scej/title/gravitydaze/index.php#)

Kohei Tanaka is scoring this one - there is a music sample for each page

This sounds terrific. Thanks for the tip! I especially liked the samples in the "System" and "Introduction" tabs.

Re-uploading a dead "linked" soundtrack. one of my favorites of him :)


(http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/651/toct26750.jpg/)
Innocent Love - Original Soundtrack
(http://forums.ffshrine.org/f72/yugo-kanno-soundtracks-66505/#post1794647)
Release Date: 2008.12.03
Catalogue number: TOCT-26750
Music by: Yugo Kanno

Original soundtrack release from TV series "Innocent Love" produced by Yugo Kanno.

Tracklist:

01 Innocent Love-MAIN THEME-
02 Juujika~ookina tsumi~
03 Itsukushimi fukaki
04 Kuroi kage
05 Kiseki~minna ga issho datta koro~
06 Asa no hikari
07 Yuganda aijou
08 Lost in the Forest
09 Anniversary
10 Moesakaru honoo
11 Hitoribocchi
12 Smile Pianist
13 Kokoro torawarete
14 Hirakazu no ma
15 Fushin no me
16 Juujika~ano hito ga shiawase de a
17 Kiseki~ichiban chiisana hoshi~
18 Eternally -PIANO VERSION-

Anyone knows who compose the bgm of this document film? it is good orchestral action music that seems to have been used to being heard in war movies

Secrets of World War II -- What Really Happened to Rommel - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC9bDPoiXao)

Lol at 22:00 for the most blatent rip off of Holst's Mars I've ever heard. The composer just moved a few notes around and called it a day.

Dont know if you guys like this guy enough, but here you have it. :)


(http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/191/uzcl2011.jpg/)

Eiga [Ashita no JOE] ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK (http://forums.ffshrine.org/f92/eiga-ashita-no-joe-original-soundtrack-95785/#post1795387)

Release date: 2011.02.09
Catalogue number: UZCL-2011
Label: Anchor Records

Music by: Tetsuya Takahashi, Reiji Kitazato, Kunihiko Suzuki (02)
All Arranged by: Tetsuya Takahashi, Reiji Kitazato


Tracklist:

01 Hourou
02 Ashita no JOE (2011 INSTRUMENTAL ver.)
03 Kami HIKOOKI
04 DOYA Machi no Kenka
05 Ashita no Tame ni (JOE no THEME)
06 Mohan Shiai
07 Namida Hashi (Tange GYM ~ TRAINING)
08 PURO Daiissen!
09 Rikiishi no Ketsui
10 Akumo
11 WOLF!
12 Kaisou ~ JOE to Rikiishi
13 KISEKI no Shouri
14 Futari no Tokkun
15 Rikiishi he no Omoi
16 DOYA Machi no Hitobito
17 JOE to Youko
18 Nyuujou
19 JOE vs Rikiishi
20 Tamashii no Tatakai
21 Tatsunda! JOE!
22 JOE no Dokuhaku
23 Shiyuu Kessu
24 Tatakai no Hate ni
25 Yuujou
26 Wakare
27 JOE no nai DOYA Machi
28 Ashita

I hate rapidshare, it was so annoying!! And the other uploader hate me, too XDD, but don't worry, i was downloading the Fifth Symphonic Game Music Concert (Leipzig) from here:

Symphonic Game Music Concert (http://joshw.info/mirror/bonus/Fifth%20Symphonic%20Game%20Music%20Concert%20(Leip zig)/)Unfortunately, the link is broken by this time. :|

I will be forever in debt of the one who would re-upload this album. O_O

We've all said it, the producers/directors are the cause behind the recent direction film music has taken, the lack of recognizable theme. This video interview with Henry Jackman about working on X-men First Class shows exactly why we shouldn't blame the composers for this.
Video approximately 4 minutes long.
X-Men: First Class Behind The Scenes Creating Magneto Erik Lehnsherr theme - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a21inAO41XI&feature=player_embedded#)!

hey guys, not sure if this is the right place, but wanted to bring up a quick request in case anyone had it. Looking for:
"Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time" by Robert Folk.
Beastmaster II: Through The Portal Of Time- Soundtrack details - SoundtrackCollector.com (http://soundtrackcollector.com/catalog/soundtrackdetail.php?movieid=6601)

heard nice things about it, really love me some B-movie fantasy scores!

We've all said it, the producers/directors are the cause behind the recent direction film music has taken, the lack of recognizable theme. This video interview with Henry Jackman about working on X-men First Class shows exactly why we shouldn't blame the composers for this.
Video approximately 4 minutes long.
X-Men: First Class Behind The Scenes Creating Magneto Erik Lehnsherr theme - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a21inAO41XI&feature=player_embedded#)!

I unfortunately already knew about this - in an interview with FSM, Jackman said he wanted to go with a more symphonic take but the director told him to go through with what we hear now. The sad thing is that little bit that we heard was actually good, and the score we have now actually has remnants of actual quality.

@Sirusjr

If you want to see the true face of evil of today, it's the modern business man. Emotional and artistically dead inside and not a spark of creativity or fantasy left, just one glorified and absurd ideology: money.
I could write essay after essay how much this glorification of materialism and greed as an accepted model for society has damaged every artform more than anything else ever before but in the end, if most people don't even care about art anymore and dismiss fantasy or imagination as "childish attributes" and think their business life is "normal" without ever questioning their view of the world or their way of life, I doubt it would achieve anything.

We've all said it, the producers/directors are the cause behind the recent direction film music has taken, the lack of recognizable theme. This video interview with Henry Jackman about working on X-men First Class shows exactly why we shouldn't blame the composers for this.
Video approximately 4 minutes long.
X-Men: First Class Behind The Scenes Creating Magneto Erik Lehnsherr theme - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a21inAO41XI&feature=player_embedded#)!

Well, the smidgen of respect I had cultivated for Matthew Vaughn just got flushed. How was "Barry pastiche" wrong for that anyway? I thought the movie was intentionally aping its 60s spy angle.

Well, the smidgen of respect I had cultivated for Matthew Vaughn just got flushed. How was "Barry pastiche" wrong for that anyway? I thought the movie was intentionally aping its 60s spy angle.

Vaughn still deserves your respect: he is a great director. Both First Class and Kick Ass were awesome films. He may have a terrible sense of music appreciation, but in all other respects he knows what he is talking about when it comes to film-making.

Birdy the Mighty: DECODE (Orchestral Collection) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/153/folderfpt.jpg/)

Music composed by Yuugo Kanno

Download (http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/DQRW238I/Birdy_the_Mighty_DECODE__Orchestral_Collection_.7z _links)

Seeing new and old works of Yuugo Kanno posted, I thought it would be time to share something as well ;)
I consider Tetsuwan Birdy or Birdy the Mighty DECODE to be his best work by far. "Another Stage" is one of my favorite action cues in all of anime and I really like the jazzy/techno version of the Main Theme.
I combined all the available soundtracks into one package and tried to present the score like a film score.
Hope you all enjoy it. It's excellent stuff.

(http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/233/01frontr.jpg/)
SIN THE MOVIE Original Soundtrack (http://forums.ffshrine.org/f91/sin-movie-original-soundtrack-95968/#post1799618)

Release date: 2001.04.25
Catalogue number: QLM-0019
Label: QUANTUM LEAP MUSIC
Music by: Masamichi Amano
Composition & Arrangement: Masamichi Amano

Performance: Masamichi Amano & Warsaw Philarmonic Orchstra

Tracklist:

01 Kidnapped! / The Chase
02 Lorenzo consoles Blade
03 SinTEK Industries / Sinclaire and Mancini
04 Hardcorps / JC Confronts Blade
05 A Sacrifice is made
06 In the Bedroom
07 Elyse's flashback
08 Mutant Sighted!
09 Mutant vs. Hardcorps
10 Tragedy in Hardcorps
11 Blade Fire!
12 Back Up Arrives
13 Elyse's Secret
14 Hacking into SinTEK
15 Mutants Awake!
16 Mancini Prepares
17 Blade vs. Mancini
18 Final Battle
19 Fly Away Home
20 End of SinTEK?

Klnerfan - Thanks for Bird the Mighty, I am still digesting this massive score.

Orie - Thanks for an amano I haven't heard before!

Hi guys, just passing by quickly to say a big THANKS, no, an even bigger THANKS for the recent contributions. This is a pretty busy this week, but this weekend I look forward to check the stuff here. I've planned to post a few interesting things, too.

We've all said it, the producers/directors are the cause behind the recent direction film music has taken, the lack of recognizable theme. This video interview with Henry Jackman about working on X-men First Class shows exactly why we shouldn't blame the composers for this.
Video approximately 4 minutes long.
X-Men: First Class Behind The Scenes Creating Magneto Erik Lehnsherr theme - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a21inAO41XI&feature=player_embedded#)!

So basically, the director asked the composer to get rid of his theme for that character (the "f**king tune"), in order to replace it with a simple motif (the "f**king bass line"), which initially served as BG for the theme itself.

At first glance, there's nothing really wrong with this. It's perfectly legitimate and sometimes quite appropriate to use a motif for a character. A motif can describe a character about as accurately as a theme can, without the increased complexity of the latter, which makes it easier for a composer to handle since there's much less need for some complicated thematic writing (just quote the motif and boom, the character is effortlessly identified). Such technique is classic scoring technique, and properly, competently used, can lead to good results.

But the thing is, while the orchestral scores of the past decades tended to have both a thematic and a motivic approach, harmoniously and judiciously relying on each other in order to create a well-balanced and musically palatable score, modern scores tend to overuse this technique to the detriment of melodic and thematic aspects, which leads to scores much less interesting to hear from a specifically musical perspective. Even scores such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, while being for a large part atonal and amelodic, nonetheless gloriously concluded with a sweeping, lush, romantic theme, for the sheer pleasure of film score fans (and in fact, all audiences).

The problem isn't really to use a motivic approach in film scores; it's to use *only* this, thus neglecting or getting rid of actual themes, which are what true film scores appreciators are eager for (remember the video posted by klnerfan with the horn player?). In fact, many modern scores (and X-men First Class is a very good example) rely heavily, not to say exclusively, on the use of simple motifs, along with some basic chord progressions, and of course, the inescapable use of a whole slew of banging percussions. Cheap techniques, cheap scores, cheap music.

Obviously, as this video clearly shows, those who are to blame for this obnoxious trend aren't the composers, but rather the new generation of directors and producers who seem to know about grand music as much as 5 year old know about differential equations. There was a time when directors used to be real melomans, with some actual culture and appreciation for classical works and orchestral scores. Not all of them were, of course, but a substantial number of them were fine gentlemen who really cared about music as an artform. This reminds me of something Williams said about Spielberg:


John Williams: I�ve been working with Steven Spielberg for now, I think 35, going on 36 years, which is amazing. It�s [like] any kind of collaboration, artistic or otherwise, that would be probably record-setting for people to be so patient with each other and collaborate so comfortably on such a variety of subjects. It speaks, I think, a lot about Steven Spielberg and his character, first of all. He�s a very loyal man in every aspect of his life. Devoted to family, devoted to fellow artists and fellow workers�I met Steven Spielberg in the early �70s at Universal Studios. We were introduced by the late Jennings Lang, who was an executive at Universal, who asked me if I would have lunch with this young 23-year-old man who had done a picture with Goldie Hawn called, Sugarland Express. I met Spielberg for lunch. We went to a very fancy restaurant in Beverly Hills, where we had lunch, and I could tell that it was the first time he�d ever poured a bottle of wine in his life. He didn�t seem to quite know what to do (laughs)�But the remarkable thing about that lunch was, aside from the order of the bottle of wine which neither of us drank anyway, was the fact that he�d already memorized scores that I had written. The Cowboys and The Reivers, you know, the William Faulkner piece and other things, TV themes that I had forgotten myself that he could hum. �This is so-and-so�s theme from such-and-such a film.�

So, part of the answer about the permanence of our relationship has to be the fact that he loves music and is interested in it. I have to say that one of the greatest good pieces of good fortune in my life has been meeting Steven Spielberg and having a relationship with him that�s been so harmonious and so productive for such a long time.
Interview: John Williams, on Great Performances, Spielberg, and more | Inside THIRTEEN (http://www.thirteen.org/insidethirteen/2009/03/25/interview-john-williams-on-great-performances-spielberg-and-more/)

In contrast, here's a part of a famously vitriolic interview of James Horner about The New World and his director Terrence Malick:


JAMES HORNER: I would sum up Terry as a brilliant photographer - and that�s where it stops. [...] I played him scenes, I played him everything on the piano and I had the feeling he does not really know what movie music was. He didn�t have any experience with real film music being presented to him. Even in Thin Red Line it was all cut up. Here I was writing music for him which he would say was beautiful and great and sounded great on the piano, whatever. But I knew - and I warned everybody - this man does not have a clue what to do with movie music or how it works, not a clue. He is gonna to hear his first cue and not know what to do with it and I warned everybody. I begged him to watch several of movies that have music in them very effectively. Be it One Flew Over the Cuckoo�s Nest, I mean I showed him all kinds of films or asked him to see all kinds of films that were head scores in them. He said he would, but he never did.
JAMES HORNER (http://www.cinemascope.gr/forum/index.php?topic=851.240)

To come back to this video, it's indeed a pity that (the good natured and quite cussing) Henry Jackman wasn't allowed to use his theme (which, by the way, isn't very impressive nor original), since at least this would have offered the score / movie some kind of melodic substance. But it seems the director has contracted the "RCP virus", and therefore asked for the TDK approach of the joker's "theme": a simple, barely musical motif, used to identify a character. Effective? Maybe. Musically enjoyable? Only if your musical taste is as functional as Charlie Sheen's private life.

This is disturbing - because directors are pushing composers away from melodic ideas, but mostly because the rejected "theme" wasn't a theme at all. It was a cliched chord progression. THAT is too much of a melody, these days. It had to be stripped back even further than that. Ten years ago, that "theme" would have been unsuitable even as as a "f**king bassline" - five years ago, it would have been an acceptable as the "f**king tune" and today, it's too tuneful to be used anywhere. How sad is that?

On another topic, Jackman makes me ashamed to be English. He appears completely unable to express himself without swearing every two seconds and whilst I do understand that he was trying to convey his frustration, I'm sure somebody with cursory language skills could have done so without resorting to offensive language.

Generally, I find his musical abilities as finely honed as his speaking abilities... and sadly that level of sophistication is now the norm.

A crushing disappointment all round.

hey arthierr,
any chance for a re-upload on:
Frederic Talgorn - "Asterix Aux Jeux Olympiques"

really wanna hear this, but link is dead from a few years ago. Thanks!

Yeah, when I first heard the "tune" in the video, I wasn't quite sure to identify it, since it sounded much like some kind of motif rather than a real theme. If the guy didn't point out this was his actual theme, I would have needed a few tries to spot it.



hey guys, not sure if this is the right place, but wanted to bring up a quick request in case anyone had it. Looking for:
"Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time" by Robert Folk.
Beastmaster II: Through The Portal Of Time- Soundtrack details - SoundtrackCollector.com (http://soundtrackcollector.com/catalog/soundtrackdetail.php?movieid=6601)

heard nice things about it, really love me some B-movie fantasy scores!

Had it, lost it, would love to have it back. I'll try asking Zoran. He should have it.



hey arthierr,
any chance for a re-upload on:
Frederic Talgorn - "Asterix Aux Jeux Olympiques"

really wanna hear this, but link is dead from a few years ago. Thanks!

Check your PMs.

Astarotte no Omocha! Original Soundtrack
Relaxing|Calm|Strings|Piano|Regal|Majestic
MP3 320kbps|Originally uploaded by Nipponsei

Download (http://www.multiupload.com/4UO28FGT7T)

This is a magnificent new score, mostly small ensemble but so magical. Do not skip this.

Sample on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJzsNgLE2pw)

Warning, all of the songs on here are really bad except the final track.

[QUOTE=Check your PMs.[/QUOTE]

Thanks arthierr. It didn't let me send you a PM back, but I really appreciate it!

Thanks for Astarotte no Omocha! I'm delighted to hear about new japanese scores in this place. These people haven't forgotten what melody and lyricism mean!

Speaking of which, since we recently talked about lack of melody in modern film music, and, on an unrelated topic, about Frederic Talgorn, let's astutely combine both topics with this extract of an interview of the composer where he tackles the subject a bit (translated from french):


People are very critical of the working methods of Hans Zimmer and his colleagues, who are accused sometimes (rightly or wrongly) to compose "music by the meter." What is your opinion on this?

For a time, it made me cringe, because I found it surprising that some composers use such a methodology. Personally, I write and orchestrate myself, these are two inseparable things that are part of the music. But it's my method! The approach to music in movies has changed completely, we are in another world. Some contemporary composers could not have worked in Hollywood in the 40s, because they cannot write. But can we judge that? I'm not sure, because I realized that the expectations are different, and film music is now more "sound design" than music, which criterions aren't the same. I would even say that there are no more criterions in film music, apart from "I like" or "I don't like." If that's the criterion, it cannot be discussed. Even when I talk about music "written" or "poorly written" nowadays it does not mean anything. It can even look arrogant or "old fashioned". But fortunately some people still know how to write!

And the United States, did you find composers who bring something new?

I feel I belong, musically and in terms of the heart, closer to the old dinosaurs of Hollywood such as Williams, Goldsmith, Bernstein or Rosenthal ... In approach. The style is obviously different. I'm from that school! I like well written pieces that have a meaning in themselves as well. Because it's possible, I believe so. I strive to do that: I think you can write music that fits perfectly the image and "hold" as of itself. In the U.S. I think we live a tough time, where all musics are similar. I feel that the orchestral music of today, in the United States, is made in "kit" form. I call it the "Ikea music": it is bought prefabricated! It is essentially an orchestrators' work, and it clearly sounds like it. Even people who are not musicians can hear it: the melodies are gone.

Indeed we are in an anti-melodic period but I think it will come back, because it is an effect of the time due to the fact that the current directors and producers come from a generation where pop music has invaded the movies at the expense of symphonic writing. Today, more people react emotionally to a groove than a melody. For some people in the film business (not all, but some), melody is outdated. That's where we are: I find most of today's scores bland, and I hear very little personal voice. It's a sentiment shared by many composers, including (I have heard echoes of this) those who write these scores! We should not kid ourselves: I personally have had the chance to do what I wanted within the limits imposed by the needs of course the movie, but it is not always what you want. It is very difficult to criticize a film's music because often what is heard was not even chosen by the composer! It is very difficult today to know exactly who did what.
http://www.cinezik.org/compositeurs/index.php?compo=talgorn-ent20071229

I wanted to bring up here that Tadlow and Prometheus Records have just released their re-recording of The Fall of the Roman Empire by Dimitri Tiomkin for preorder, will be released on October 16, 2011. You can listen to a new sample on the site below. Please don't ask me to post this, it will make its way out eventually and I suggest if you like Tiomkin buy a copy of this score.
The Fall Of The Roman Empire | Tadlow Music (http://www.tadlowmusic.com/2011/09/the-fall-of-the-roman-empire/)

The composer of Astarotte must certainly be a fan of Legend of the fall! (Based on the sample)

A smidgen of news...

Actually confirmed: Yoshihisa Hirano is scoring a new 50 episode action/adventure series, beginning in Japan this Sunday. Hunterxhunter is the series - a reboot of the original and allegedly a faithful adaptation of the manga. I think it's safe to say we can expect great things from this.

Pure speculation: I think this score may be 2011's big Warsaw-or-equivalent score. Hirano has hinted on his website about recent overseas recording sessions and call it a hunch, but I suspect this may turn out to be it. Hirano's website is in Japanese, but occasionally he posts in English - so my interpretation here may be coloured by poor translation or misunderstanding... so don't quote me on this - I may be adding 2+2 and coming up with 6,892... It would make sense given the known facts: 1) Hirano talks about recording big project overseas. 2) Hirano announced as composer for very big, high-budgeted anime series.

The thought of a new Hirano anime score for a full-year, expensive anime makes me very, very excited.

The possibility of it being his first full score with a full-sized symphony orchestra - combining the jaw-dropping orchestral virtuosity of Final Fantasy XIII with his own melodic and compositional skill... makes me shudder with anticipation.

Edit: Posted by Hirano late last year: "I am going to visit probably Germany to make a recording sometime in spring!"

Of course, it may turn out to be another Bantorra. Or it may turn out to be Hirano's standard studio orchestra - which would still be outstanding... but hopefully this one will be a bit special even by Hirano's lofty standards.

He is also talking about a concert on November 11th... anybody know what this is about? He talks about working on it a little bit but never mentions what it's actually about!

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - Romance Trailer - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcs0b2KBudA&list=FLEPIpp1fVJgZcGjGMlUnBmw&index=1)

New preview of the score for Skyward Sword: A romantic theme for a Zelda game, and a damn good one.

@Tango: A big budget Hirano score is always something to get excited about, thanks for the info.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - Romance Trailer - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcs0b2KBudA&list=FLEPIpp1fVJgZcGjGMlUnBmw&index=1)

New preview of the score for Skyward Sword: A romantic theme for a Zelda game, and a damn good one.

Here is that and the main trailer theme in FLAC: Multiupload.com - upload your files to multiple file hosting sites! (http://www.multiupload.com/W5YVLX5ZFZ)

Wow, that new zelda trailer is fantastic. I love that romantic theme.

Oh man, if I was a Zelda fan, I would be excited as hell.

But I'm not. So, I'll just settle with excitement for the music! Man, I love how the theme didn't go into soapy romance theme - it was as much a theme of the relationship between everyone's favorite mute swordsman and everyone's favorite damsel in distress as much as it was about the world. Please, oh god, let there be some manner of a release!

STAR DRIVER Kagayaki no Takuto

(http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/171/foldertiz.jpg/)

Orchestral / Jazzy / Rock / Ballad / Adventure

Music composed by Satoru Kousaki, Kakeru Ishihama, Ryuuichi Takada and Keigo Hoashi

Vocals by Haruka Tomatsu, Rina Hidaka, Ami Koshimizu and Saori Hayami

Download Link (http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/D94EZALL/STAR_DRIVER_Complete_Score.7z_links)
MP3 / 320kbps / 70 Tracks

I combined all available soundtracks into one package, so this should be the complete score. So far no OST has been announced so this should compensate until an offical release.
Star Driver has everything I expect from a great anime score. From orchestral bombast and emotional melodies to jazzy tunes or vocal ballads, this score has it all. Great stuff and certainly one of the better recent orchestral scores, animation or otherwise.

A smidgen of news...

Actually confirmed: Yoshihisa Hirano is scoring a new 50 episode action/adventure series, beginning in Japan this Sunday. Hunterxhunter is the series - a reboot of the original and allegedly a faithful adaptation of the manga. I think it's safe to say we can expect great things from this.

Pure speculation: I think this score may be 2011's big Warsaw-or-equivalent score. Hirano has hinted on his website about recent overseas recording sessions and call it a hunch, but I suspect this may turn out to be it. Hirano's website is in Japanese, but occasionally he posts in English - so my interpretation here may be coloured by poor translation or misunderstanding... so don't quote me on this - I may be adding 2+2 and coming up with 6,892... It would make sense given the known facts: 1) Hirano talks about recording big project overseas. 2) Hirano announced as composer for very big, high-budgeted anime series.

The thought of a new Hirano anime score for a full-year, expensive anime makes me very, very excited.

The possibility of it being his first full score with a full-sized symphony orchestra - combining the jaw-dropping orchestral virtuosity of Final Fantasy XIII with his own melodic and compositional skill... makes me shudder with anticipation.

Edit: Posted by Hirano late last year: "I am going to visit probably Germany to make a recording sometime in spring!"

Of course, it may turn out to be another Bantorra. Or it may turn out to be Hirano's standard studio orchestra - which would still be outstanding... but hopefully this one will be a bit special even by Hirano's lofty standards.

He is also talking about a concert on November 11th... anybody know what this is about? He talks about working on it a little bit but never mentions what it's actually about!

I just watched the first episode of HunterXHunter and can basically confirm that's a big orchestra behind the score. It's very sweeping and majestic. I don't know if it's Warsaw but I definitely think it's European.

Errrrr, what a massive departure from expectation this is! 99.9% of what we know of Hirano's style - clashing dissonance, chaotic action, Schoenberg / Mozart / Handel hybrid... is absolutely absent! This sounds rather conventional so far, which coming from Hirano is unconventional in the extreme. There is rather a lot of electronics in here for my liking too, not to mention some pitiful impressions of MV. Not to say it's all bad, FAR FROM IT (with Hirano, even the bad stuff is excellent) but this is not at all what I was expecting. The orchestra does indeed appear to be larger than average; and it does not sound like a Japanese ensemble. The first episode hasn't really featured any setpiece cues, so it's hard to get a proper feel for it... I really hope that Hirano has been given the opportunity to use this big ensemble to his fullest capability...

It's as if somebody said to him, "Hey, Yosh - you're a genius... but you do realise kids don't like this avant-garde stuff, right? They just want a f**king tune, with a f**king bassline."

This is very audience-friendly so far. I do not have enough music to form an opinion one way or another; so far I'm cautiously optimistic.

It's as if somebody said to him, "Hey, Yosh - you're a genius... but you do realise kids don't like this avant-garde stuff, right? They just want a f**king tune, with a f**king bassline."

Not only "kids" don't like it. ;)

You have to be really good and know exactly what you do in order to properly use dissonance, otherwise you can easily turn your music into some indigestible and nonmusical mixture of notes. Happily, Hirano knows his stuff and uses it with much competence, yet I sometimes find it not quite pleasant or necessary: "Come on, dude. Here you could have used a nice, harmonious major chord which would have been perfect in this context. But once again you had to throw a fancy dissonant note in the mix to show off your big compositional skills, uh?"


Also thanks for STAR DRIVER. Except the two tracks posted here before, I didn't have the time to try any of these, so they're very welcome!

I'd never accuse Hirano of showing off... his use of dissonance (certainly the most forthright and complex out of any composer writing for visual media today) has never been anything but tasteful. The conception that dissonance equals non-music I find most disturbing; just as silence can be as effective as music (if not more so, properly wielded), a fluid use of dissonance can be revelatory. What's going on between the lines (quite literally, from a perspective of polytonal notation!) is just as important (and a whole lot more predictable) as the lines themselves. Extreme dissonance is something of an acquired taste, certainly - but that doesn't make it unnecessary. It just means you have to perhaps get a little more involved in order to enjoy it. If you can get your brain to let go of some of its pre-programmed indoctrination, the rewards can be well worth the effort.

I find Hirano's usual style to be really beguilling. Let's leave aside the compositional quality for now and just focus on the pure sound world it occupies. Somehow, he has managed to forge a style which is inspired by pretty much ever single era and development of classical music; centuries of opposing influences, fit together like the most complicated jigsaw puzzle you ever saw. His music exists outside of convention and without regard to the status quo. Bach and Berg, Mozart and Schoenberg, get into a dialogue together and find a surprising number of topics on which they can relate.

I realise this will all be sounding snobby. I apologise. I certainly don't have the skills necessary to convert how I feel about Hirano's music into words; perhaps it's impossible. I certainly don't expect everybody to feel the same. There is so much happening at once, a clash of ideas, styles, genres, keys, instruments... and yet, it all sounds in control, and effortless. He seems to be able to juggle twenty thousand notes at once, and not even break sweat - he never drops them, he never stumbles, he just throws them around in gleeful abandon and they land upon a sheet of manuscript paper in perfect - almost inevitable - order.

He got thrown off Haijime no Ippo in 2009. It was a massive, massive shame. People actually complained about the score. The music wasn't inappropriate; it was just a little more difficult to digest than people were used to. There was some really, really crazy stuff in there - seriously crazy, even by Hirano's standards - and, God, it was so original and so compelling - but it wasn't exactly like the score for the first series, and it was a bit difficult to whistle... so out it went.

The discussion of dissonance seemed like a good time to post something I acquired recently:


JERRY GOLDSMITH
Christus Apollo
Text by Ray Bradbury
Narrated by Anthony Hopkins
Eirian James, mezzo-soprano
London Symphony Orchestra, London Voices
Conducted by the composer

MP3 -v0 | 6 Tracks | 51:21 | 83 MB



1. Music for Orchestra

Christus Apollo - Cantata Celebrating the Eighth Day of Creation and the Promise of the Ninth
2. Part I
3. Part II
4. Part III
5. Part IV

6. Fireworks

Fair warning, this CD is... odd. It is a collection of three of Goldsmith's concert works, the first two of which were composed in the late sixties and are dodecaphonic. I'll go into more detail below:

Music for Orchestra - This is the most imposing piece on the disc. It is very brash, written while Goldsmith was dealing with his mother's cancer and going through a divorce, and he decided to pour it all out in twelve-tone brashness. It's rather like "Planet of the Apes." A very interesting listen, but requires a lot of attention from start to finish.

Christus Apollo - Not that much less imposing, partly for length and also for oddity. As a fan of both Goldsmith and Bradbury, I thought I'd love this. Like the previous work, this is also dodecaphonic, BUT Goldsmith uses it more to imply the existential vastness of space... almost like something Takemitsu would write. Bradbury's text is, of course, quite flowery in its language, using Christian metaphor to express a humanist message about mankind leaving this planet and all its troubles behind as we explore the new frontiers of the Universe. Some great moments to be sure, but perhaps a bit unwieldy, and there's a bit too much of unaccompanied narration for my taste. Again, very interesting. Here's a link (http://forums.ffshrine.org/f92/jerry-goldsmith-christus-apollo-mp3-v0-96406/#post1810704) to Bradbury's text.

Fireworks - The most recent piece, written in 1998 for a concert at the Hollywood Bowl. According to Goldsmith, it's a celebration of Los Angeles written in his late 90's style. Very enjoyable.

As far as I'm aware, this is the only album with "concert works" by Goldsmith. I was wondering what others might think, comparing these more dissonant works with Goldsmith's more typical output. I personally prefer the majesty of "Star Trek: TMP" which essentially imparts the same message as the cantata... that to me is much more inspiring, although Christus Apollo definitely feels more "spacey," like you're floating in the void watching thousands of worlds.

These pieces are all definitely worth a listen if you've never heard them before, and hopefully ripe for discussion.


DOWNLOAD (http://www.multiupload.com/MNI5BJ2MJ5)

Thanks for the Star Driver Work klnderfan ;)

"Showing off" was a dysphemism, of course. It was an exagerated, overcritical way of saying what I meant. But my basic idea is that Hirano tends to use this tool perhaps more often than really necessary, or so it seems to me.

About the fact that dissonance equals non-music, it's a vast debate I don't have the time to tackle right now (but will certainly later). But briefly, it's well-known nowadays that music is hard-wired into human brain. We have some "built-in" complicated cerebral devices (anatomic and functional) that allow us to internally process music in a predetermined way. As odd as it seems to be, music is biologically programmed into our brain, a bit like a software in a computer which allows to process some particular kind of information: text, sound, video, etc. One consequence (or corollary) of this fact is that composers should try as frequently as possible to create music that is brain-friendly, and avoid music that is brain-averse - and dissonance has been proven by various studies to be generally brain averse, IE nonmusical.

I tend to believe that dissonance should be only used occasionally, in order to create some particular musical effects (such as arousing negative emotions or create a sense of disturbance). But using it too often can, in fact, be rather annoying for most listeners.

Now, as you pointed out, dissonance can be something of an acquired taste for some people, perhaps, but certainly not for the vast majority of music listeners. Can you "train" someone to eat wood (which is humanly unedible)? Can you, even with much practice, escape the law of gravity? Of course not. So perhaps it's the same with music: perhaps you can't change something which is naturally, biologically engraved into our brain.


Thanks also for this album I knew nothing about. Given the description, it sounds like some tough, challenging material (except the last part), and comes absolutely right on time with the current debate!

"Dissonance equals non-music" is not a fact. It is an opinion. It makes about as much sense as saying "Chinese equals non-language" on the grounds that you only speak Welsh. ;)

I do not for one moment deny that a lot of non-music is dissonant, but that is the fault of the music, not the dissonance! Dissonance is used everywhere, all the time - even in the music that you love.

As regards your bizarre wood analogy, wood has no nutritious content and the human gut is not designed to process such material.

Dissonance is herbs and spices, ready to be sprinkled on a bland meal. I'm a big curry eater. When I started eating curry years and years ago, I made a silly mistake and ordered something very hot and very spicy. It blew my head off; I thought it tasted like hell and I couldn't eat it. Years later, after tempering my palate by trying lots of different things and gradually introducing myself to spicier foods, I tried the same dish again; and it tasted magnificent. Sensations that I once perceived as nothing more than heat and pain, now manifested themselves as intense flavour. I had exactly the same experience with music; when I listened to nothing but Bach, I thought John Williams' Superman March was too dissonant. Now they're interesting sounding chords; without which the music would be considerably blander. (And on that subject, Bach used dissonance far more than most people would believe, anyway!)

Dissonance without music is just dissonance. But music with dissonance can be better music, more musical music because of it. :)

There is certainly a great fan base for Goldsmith on this thread, and I just don't see it myself. Not that he didn't do some awesome work over his career. Who can forget the unforgettable seafaring score of Star Trek the Motion Picture, the 13th Warrior, First Knight, The Mummy, The Secret of NIMH just to name a few.

He also had, what I considered a lot of duds too. Especially later in his career. Most of his later Star Trek movie scores were mediocre at best.



Thank you 10Arrows.

Mulan, however, is one of my all time favorites, and to make up for my blasphemous attitude, here is a quite rare Complete Mulan score, no sfx, 1:18:59, quality in the 250 kbps range.

<a rel="nofollow" href="http://s629.photobucket.com/albums/uu16/10Arrows/?action=view�t=Mulancompletescore.jpg" target="_blank">

http://rapidshare.com/files/251944163/JG-MCS.rar

Mulan Complete Score Track Listing.

01 Overture.mp3
02 Main Title.mp3
03 Attack At The Wall _ The Emperor.mp3
04 Prayers _ Grandma's Cricket.mp3
05 The Matchmaker.mp3
06 Homecoming.mp3
07 Proclamation From The Emperor.mp3
08 The Transformation _ Mulan Leaves (Short Hair).mp3
09 Awakening The Great Stone Dragon.mp3
10 Master Plan.mp3
11 Shan-Yu.mp3
12 A Man's World.mp3
13 Ping Introduces.mp3
14 A New Day.mp3
15 The Arrow.mp3
16 The Doll.mp3
17 Bogus Letter.mp3
18 The Delivery.mp3
19 Burnt Village _ The General Is Dead.mp3
20 Arrow Attack.mp3
21 The Huns Ride.mp3
22 Avalanche.mp3
23 The Masquerade Is Over.mp3
24 Confessions _ Surviving Huns.mp3
25 Victory Celebration, The Imperial Palace (Alternate).mp3
26 Fireworks.mp3
27 The Huns Intrude.mp3
28 Concubines _ Saving The Emperor.mp3
29 Mushu To The Rescue.mp3
30 Honoring Mulan.mp3
31 The Sword, Reunion.mp3
32 End Credits.mp3
33 Reprise.mp3
34 The Emperor _ Prayers (Alternate).mp3
35 Mulan's Transformation (Alternate).mp3
36 Confessions _ To The Imperial City (Alternate).mp3



Thank you 10Arrows.

You have to be really good and know exactly what you do in order to properly use dissonance, otherwise you can easily turn your music into some indigestible and nonmusical mixture of notes. Happily, Hirano knows his stuff and uses it with much competence, yet I sometimes find it not quite pleasant or necessary: "Come on, dude. Here you could have used a nice, harmonious major chord which would have been perfect in this context. But once again you had to throw a fancy dissonant note in the mix to show off your big compositional skills, uh?"

I'm not sure I understand this point. Would not Hirano understand his intention best of all? Dissonance, by its very nature, implies a tension or disconnect; perhaps this moment of triumph that you feel could be punctuated by a major chord also has a subtext of regret or corruption or some other source of drama that Hirano is exploring through the music? It is impossible to to really discuss without a more specific reference, of course, but I tend to give the artist the benefit of the doubt as to their intentions, as surely they must know these better than we. I think this is a trap critics tend to fall into at times...

I do tend to agree that dissonance is best used as an embellishment in a larger texture rather than being the dominant sound, and I think Tango's spice metaphor is a good one -- too much and it's overbearing, but too little and things are too bland. My favorite style seems to be neo-Romantic, which, while predominantly tonal, is also filled with dissonance. It makes for a rich experience while still having a grounding from where the listener can sit back and appreciate the music. But as I've listened to more modern works, my tolerance for dissonance has increased, and I find myself more entranced by the unexpected twists and turns and less and less needing to find that foothold.

That said, it needs to be done intelligently. I've listened to some of Frank Zappa's orchestral music (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XfhUCqSvcw&feature=related), and it sounds like someone futzing around... a schizophrenic, wandering mish-mash. But someone like Stravinsky, Messiaen, Takemitsu, Williams, Goldsmith, or Hirano -- you can hear an intelligence behind it; it may be unexpected, but it's not random.

Personally, I think listening to works that use dissonance impressionistically rather than brutally provide a much easier path to acceptance. Takemitsu's "From me flows what you call Time" or "Hell's Picture Scroll" are great examples of this. "Verklarte Nacht" (http://forums.ffshrine.org/f92/schoenberg-verkl-rte-nacht-pelleas-und-melisande-85448/#post1621581) uses dissonance to express the tension between the two lovers as well as to paint the scene, the woods at midnight. The dissonance creates such wonderfully deep and resonant textures that are just gorgeous and heartbreaking to listen to; I can't imagine how it would be expressed otherwise. Much easier to digest than the relentless pounding of "Rite of Spring."

^^ This chap, he talks sense.

Though it's funny you should mention The Rite Of Spring... one of my all time favourite pieces of classical music. I remember hearing it for the first time on an old LP and thinking it was a great big stinking turd... and then ten years later wildly extolling its virtues and playing that very same record to a classroom full of terrified people at a music appreciation class, who all thought it was a great big stinking turd.

These days, as I have previously mused, I am finding it harder and harder to notice dissonance because they now sound quite natural.

So, have I trained myself to eat wood or escape the pull of gravity?

Or, as a wise man once said...

"There's more to life than C Major, old friend." ;)

I find it surprising that people consider A Rite of Spring a "big stinking turd". The first time I heard it was when somebody used it in a mod of Warcrfat III - I believe it was The Sacrifice - Introduction if we want to be specific - and I thought it sounded great! I've wanted to know where it came from, and then one of you guys posted it in here and I had the biggest "O Shit!" moment while I listened.

But can you guys explain something here? Why is dissonance such a virtue in music? I had never heard of the term until now, so I looked it up on wikipedia. Why would a combination of notes that are generally "unpleasant to the ear" be a good thing, as I see you are all advocating.

My introduction to the Rite of Spring was through Fantasia and later on an album proper. I remember liking moments here and there, but mostly I found it boring... Whoosh. Way over my head. Nowadays I just listen in awe.

That's the thing... it starts off as unpleasant, but has the capacity to turn into interesting, and from there it can even become pleasant.

I don't believe that people realise they're listening to dissonance almost all the time in just about any film score ever written. It doesn't have to be pure unmusical noise - dissonance can be something as simple as inserting a "wrong" note into a chord to add colour, or something as extreme as seemingly random clusters of notes with no discernible harmony whatsoever.

If you had to throw away every piece of music that featured it, you'd be left with nothing. Every theme you ever knew, every famous film score you ever loved... listen to it, really listen to it. Dissonance.

I do believe that music by its nature depends on consonance as a basis, just as a dinner depends on basic staples like meat, potatoes, as a basis. The real magic happens when the spice is added, of course. As to what constitutes "too much spice", well, ask that question of my eighty-three year old grandfather and then of a Mexican chilli farmer, and you'll get very, very different answers!

Pure dissonance isn't music; it can be effective, certainly, and it can evoke emotions... and it is useful in the genre of film music for pure abstract evocations of horror, etc... but a plate of chilli powder and a glass of tabasco sauce does not a meal make... ;)

I first encountered Rite of Spring, categorically before I was ready for it - and the classroom I spoke of was filled with extreme musical conservatives for whom Beethoven represented nothing less than Satan himself.

I do believe one elderly gentleman proclaimed "What in blazes is this noise?" and stormed off.

It takes all sorts... ;)

It takes allsorts... ;)

That reminds me of Bertie Bassett Al'Magrahi...

I'm a little surprised at this conversation on dissonance, to be honest. As tango said, dissonance happens almost all the time in about any film score ever written, but you could expand that to just about every other type of music as well. Jazz especially is an entire genre built around unresolved dissonance with sevenths and ninths and all sorts of things flying all around the place with never a thought taken to resolve them. Dissonance isn't just the "oh my god this modern music sounds terrible" dissonance that people complain about. Dissonance is all over the place in Bach, Mozart, Haydn, The Beetles (not that I'm saying they are equals with the aforementioned three), and anyone else you can think of, but often it's a subtler variety. There is a wide spectrum of dissonance, although the human ear has come to accept more things as consonant throughout the centuries. Whether the listeners are aware, they are all swallowing dissonance and loving it to some degree.

If you want to get right down to it, anyone is welcome to take a theory class to learn what is consonant and what is dissonant and then sit down with a score and circle everything that is dissonant in red, but when finished all you would have is a goddamned ugly score and very little learned. What is consonant and what is dissonant is important, but the skilled hand of the artist at work is so much more important. I'll continue with the popular food (spice) analogy: two chefs with the same exact ingredients can create entirely different dishes of vastly differing quality, just as two composers with similar use of dissonance can produce very, very distinct things. I could sit and listen to prokofiev's fifth symphony, or vaughan williams' 4th, or ET, or anything else that I love and attempt to understand it as a long-form musical equation, but I eventually just sit back and think "Good God, they've created something supremely beautiful here" and just melt in ecstasy.

In total: The artistry of the composer far overrides any single element of technique they may employ, but it can be useful to discuss that technique (such as use of dissonance) at times.

I hope you guys don't SERIOUSLY believe that I'm not already fully aware that dissonance is present in various forms and degrees in the music I've been listening to for about 25 years (which is mostly neo-Romantic indeed).

It seems to me obvious that the issue I addressed in my previous posts wasn't the "normal", "natural", common use of dissonance in music (which can indeed produce some compelling music when competently handled and subtlely used, and which can even be necessary in order to achieve certain musical effects), but rather was the excessive, immoderate, pervasive use of it, which leads to some kind of music which is at times very tough, harsh to listen to, when it's not downright unlistenable (if you personally can enjoy on the long run the dissonant parts of Close Encounters more than the highly musical last parts, good for you, but I'm sure it's the opposite for 99% of human beings).

Again, human brain is hard-wired to process music in a certain way, this is a scientific FACT (if you don't believe me, just read books or articles about it). So you can't do anything with music, you can't excessively and misguidedly experiment with it and expect it to be listenable and enjoyable for most people; you have to follow rules, to conform to the way the brain processes music, that is, you have to produce brain-friendly music. The more you use dissonance, the more you stray from the normal, natural way the brain deals with music; and after a certain point, you just end up producing complete rubbish that almost has nothing really musical left in it (Frank Zappa's orchestral music is indeed a notable example). Many avant-garde stuff fall into this trap, by ignoring or denying the natural functioning of musical perception. About that, it's funny to note that even neanderthals, 500 000 years before post-modern cranks tried to "revolutionize" music, seemed to understand more about real music than the latter, since they had flutes featuring the diatonic scale! (C D E F G A B C / Do R� Mi Fa Sol La Si Do) And they weren't even from our SPECIES! (the Homo Sapiens)

But at the end, I believe that the appreciation of (properly, competently made) dissonance is fundamentally a matter of personal taste. Some people like it more than others. My personal tolerance for dissonance is rather limited; I can only really like the one I hear in the music I usually listen to: scores, Romantic symphonies, etc. But I do acknowledge that other people can have a higher tolerance and therefore be able to enjoy more dissonant music (like Hirano's). However, I sincerely don't believe it's humanly possible to enjoy most of the crazy, far-fetched works of the post-modern movement, which, like in other fields (litterature, painting, sculpture, philosophy, and even science), mostly just generated nonsensical garbage. Perhaps some people can enjoy those works intellectually (*if* there is in fact some real intellectual content in those, which is far from being sure according to some articles I read about the fallacies of this movement: see Alain Sokal), but it's VERY improbable that there are people who can (sincerely) enjoy them emotionally, and being transported by their "sheer beauty and grace".

Incidentally, I intended to answer to this very good article posted by Aoiichi, but didn't have the opportunity before. So now is quite the right moment to repost it, since it pretty much (brilliantly) covers the current discussion:


Good evening folks, it's been a while. Thanks for all the posts and insightful debates since the last time I was around. I don't have any music to post, but I have an article that you (especially those interested in modern classical and avant-garde music) might find interesting.


Philip Ball
Schoenberg, Serialism and Cognition:
Whose Fault if No One Listens?

http://www.philipball.co.uk/images/stories/docs/pdf/Ball_atonalism2.pdf Basically, it's about how we perceive and cognitively process music, and how atonal/avant-garde music undermine the basic principles our brains rely on when listening to music. Unless of course, you are extremely familiar with the type of music... by which time you'll have trained your brain to work within these abstract and 'non-natural' systems.


"Dissonance equals non-music" is not a fact. It is an opinion. It makes about as much sense as saying "Chinese equals non-language" on the grounds that you only speak Welsh.
"About the fact..." was a poorly chosen expression, since I quickly typed this post without mostly revising it. To me it's a monobloc expression equivalent to "about..." But since you seem to grant so much importance to this, let's just say that what I really meant was: "About the position..." / "About the idea..." / "About the opinion...", etc.


As regards your bizarre wood analogy, wood has no nutritious content and the human gut is not designed to process such material.
So you actually understood my analogy!? Perhaps it wasn't so "bizarre", after all! It was precisely my point: too much dissonance can lead to material which becomes devoid of actual musical quality, that is, metaphorically "unedible". You can try to train someone to appreciate it, but you will most certainly fail, since our brain can't process such material anymore, even with much practice, because it has become way too much brain-averse.


I'm not sure I understand this point. Would not Hirano understand his intention best of all? Dissonance, by its very nature, implies a tension or disconnect; perhaps this moment of triumph that you feel could be punctuated by a major chord also has a subtext of regret or corruption or some other source of drama that Hirano is exploring through the music? It is impossible to to really discuss without a more specific reference, of course, but I tend to give the artist the benefit of the doubt as to their intentions, as surely they must know these better than we. I think this is a trap critics tend to fall into at times...

All composers use dissonance from time to time to express some particular nuances, of course. There's nothing wrong with this, and it can even be quite pertinent and meaningful at times. But my problem with Hirano (again, it's MY problem, feel free to think otherwise) is that he statistically uses it too often and too boldly for it to be really necessary or meaningful, IMO. At some point it just seems to be a little forced, a little over-stylitic. Perhaps this is just his style, in which case let's just say I don't like his style, or this particular aspect of it. Imagine Hirano had composed the Raider's theme, which is one of the greatest and most memorable theme created; would this theme be as universally memorable and pleasant if he had thrown in a few notable dissonant notes in the chord progressions, according to his usual style? Probably not. It would be very good theme indeed, but with a little something that slightly bothers most listeners and prevents it to fully become a classic.

Dissonance is awesome, without it we wouldnt have "Flight from Peru"!

Without it we wouldn't have 90% of film music.

[]

[]

AHAHAHA!

Anyway, I got it by mail.

Very interesting discussion about dissonance. This is why I love this thread so much !
Regarding Hirano, his use of dissonance never bothered me. I'm actually happy that dissonance is one of his trademarks. There are still some composers alive today who can compose music like the old hollywood masters but composers like Hirano are a special minority and very rare to find. I already have Sahashi, Oshima, Yamashita and Hisaishi if I want "conventional" orchestral scores with beautiful memorable melodies and harmonies, but a new Break Blade or Death Note once in a while is also very welcome in my musical collection.
As a musician it's his choice afterall if he wants to compose a new Raider's Ark or another Break Blade. As long as he does not condemn the listener for prefering Raider over Blade, I don't have a problem with his unusual chaotic style.

On another note, I just found Shiru Hamaguchi's score for Hanasaku Iroha. Beautiful stuff, very relaxing. October is going to be a great month for score lovers.


Hanasaku Iroha



Strings / Piano / Mandolin / Relaxing


Download (http://www.filesonic.com/file/2284344494)


Preview: CD2 Track24 Ray of Light (http://s.animuz.net/preview/3868/%5BNipponsei%5D%20Hanasaku%20Iroha%20Original%20So undtrack/CD2/24%20-%20Ray%20of%20Light.mp3)

Ahhh you beat me to it klnerfan, haven't finished listening to it yet but it seems promising.

Thanks KInerfan for that new share, the preview song is gorgeous. Not really Orchestral Action, haha, but I guess lots of these shares really aren't action. Which is actually just fine by me, So grateful for the opportunity to discover so much great material, thanks to all of you guys!

King of the Wind

Music Composed and Conducted by John Scott

All Tracks @ 320 Kbps
MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JEWZTPX2)


Here is another soundtrack by John Scott. This is a beautiful score with the usual level of elegance in the music from this composer. The main King of the Wind theme is tuneful and instantly recognizable once you hear it.

Here John Scott applied some Arabic melodic influence in the first tracks, but as the score progresses it becomes more and more traditionally European, like the use of Mozart's Horn Concerto, in the track 'Monsieur Richard: Chef Royale', as explained in the liner notes.
The score also has a few dramatic themes, and others adventure tracks, culminating in the exciting 'Winning The King's Plate', with a victorious rendition of the main theme.



The main theme of King of the Wind by John Scott (http://kiwi6.com/file/n2o42r5dc1)


This is a brief description of the plot and the music, quoted from John Scott website.


The title refers to a wonderful Arab steed named Sham. Sham was born with certain markings, considered to be unlucky, which meant that he should be put to death. The stable master could not bring himself to carry out the sentence. Sham was smuggled out of the stable in the care of Agba, a mute Arab boy. They traveled from North Africa through France, and eventually to England. After many adventures Sham is recognized as a possible racehorse. Lath, son of Sham is destined to become the real champion. And so the English racing thoroughbred came into being.

The music tells of the love and devotion between Agba and Sham. It sings out for the boy who could not speak. It tells of their difficult, nigh impossible journey to England. It cries out for their pain when they are separated from each other. Agba goes to prison and Sham becomes a carthorse. It rejoices at their reunion and celebrates their victories. This is a vividly colorful and emotional score.


Enjoy and hope you like it as much as i do :o

Thanks Sanico! I Love John Scott's work, practically every single one is an absolute orchestral/thematic stunner!

Sorry, I'm coming in late...
After having the pleasure of reading over the conversation recently published I feel generally humbled. I do not pretend to be operating on the level of music appreciation that most of the posters have obtained.
That being said, I do feel as I have something to contribute on in a discussion on theory. Not so much music theory as film theory.
The observation about the use of dissonance in film scores is interesting, but is incomplete. As I have stated elsewhere, it is dangerous to evaluate film scores outside of their natural habitat, that is, in the context of a film viewing experience. (In fact, due to the specialized creative pipeline of film score production - and that's what it is, production, with artificially tight constraints on both time and content, it is difficult to compare with any other form of music.) Basically, it is difficult to evaluate because they are working with one hand behind their back. Or more typically, with both hands tied behind their back, a baton between their teeth, all while suspended above a vat of acid.
More specifically as it relates to dissonance, music cannot be considered in isolation. It must be considered in terms of sfx, ambient sound, dialogue, image, and overall content. I'm a big believer that the line between music and diagetic sound is largely an artificial one. I have used music as sfx, and sfx as music. This context, where the location can switch from a small town barbershop to a mountaintop cave in a distant galaxy in the space of a single edit can prepare the mind to accept sound combinations that would be less acceptable in a concert setting. (Keeping in mind that the average modern concert audience is more musically sophisticated than the average movie audience.)
This is not an attempt to take a stand one way or another on the use of dissonance in general, only the limitations of using film scores as an example. This is also not related to the relative quality of film scores in isolation compared with seeing them in situ. I love listening to film scores. It is only to indicate, that when discussing theoretical models, the limits of comparing film scores to other modes of composition.
Respectfully,
JonC

JonC: first off, welcome, since I believe it's your first post here. Then I've got some comments about what you said. I rather disagree, but I'll politely explain why, probably later tonight.


And thumbs up for the new Scott and the new Hamaguchi! Two very fine composers indeed!

My two cents:

I think that dissonance can be extremely effective when used in-film, in-game, in-anime, etc. It often gives a sense of "off-balance" or suspense that can draw the viewer in, because something isn't quite right. However, this doesn't work that well outside of the media it's used in, because, after all, it's dissonant, not consonant like the great melodies and themes of past works (or even modern ones like "Birdy the Mighty DECODE's downright fantastic theme). Chaos is not a good separate listen and is an acquired taste I find, though some people do like it (after all Dillinger Escape Plan, a VERY dissonant hard rock band, has a nice-sized cult audience).

Remote Control Productions is the big pusher of dissonant scores and that's what American filmmakers want right now. Dissonance adds "grit". It adds "suspense". It adds "modernity". Whatever. Dissonant, highly electronic, distorted scores are what people want. Even gifted people like Christopher Nolan want the distorted, chaotic score with simple motifs instead of full-blown themes.

I don't think that Remote Control Productions is necessarily a bad sound when it's stripped (or at least trimmed) of the overwhelming dissonance. For example, Norihiko Hibino's main theme for the anime Blassreiter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZZD5lUoeMo) does a really great job of combining a melody with light dissonance. The synth-y dissonance backs up the sax melody, adding a sense of tragedy/loneliness but also adds supernatural and eerie elements, which perfectly suits the sci-fi/horror genre the material is in. That's how you do Remote Control right, not the way Remote Control is in stuff like "Dark Knight".

Has anyone good quality recordings from the Hollywood in Vienna concert 2011 , its special guest was alan Silvestri ... thanks!!!!

heres the concert .... could anyone rip it ? Thanks!!!!!

http://oe1.orf.at/konsole?show=ondemand&track_id=285135&load_day=/programm/konsole/tag/20111002

Online the first samples of Tintin:

Cinema Musica - Das Magazin f�r Filmmusik: Die ersten Sekunden des neuen Williams sind da! (http://www.cinemamusica.de/1675/John-Williams-Tintin-Tim-Struppi-Einhorn-Unicorn-Score-Music-Filmmusikhttp://www.cinemamusica.de/1675/John-Williams-Tintin-Tim-Struppi-Einhorn-Unicorn-Score-Music-Filmmusik)

Or you could download the samples here: Multiupload.com - upload your files to multiple file hosting sites! (http://www.multiupload.com/IO7A1L41VS)