Lend me your ears: What do you think of this composer ?

hahahaha pretty nice plot twist.

Obviously the composer needs no introduction, but this is certainly not the first track he would put in his reel.

 

The discussion here makes me think again about context, intent and audience. There's a very long continuum between twelve-tone music and the Raiders theme in its most basic form, and plenty of it would be considered inaccessible, but that doesn't make it irrelevant or uninteresting. Some music doesn't tell a full, obviously resolving story, just as some stories don't. Entire concepts, moods and settings can be expressed in a single word, and if done in the proper context, will allow a more open-minded listener to fill in the blanks for themselves (i.e. "loneliness", "dismal", "sunrise", "elated"). Heck, there are complete, arguably popular genres based on not really resolving or being "complete", or that are much more challenging structurally. I'm not saying you'll reach the same audiences this way, and surely the more obscure one gets, the less accessible and widely-appealing one's music will be (there does seem to be a tipping point where basic principles get lost entirely, but that's harder to pin down sometimes), but that's not the point. The very nature of experimentation is that it breaks away from commonly encountered norm, and varies in efficacy and appeal; intent matters. This is the nature of art, generally (and no, I'm not a relativist when it comes to quality within art). Accessibility is not synonymous with validity (but the relationship isn't inversely related, either).

But point number two: not all audiences are simple minds. The kind of people that buy "The Drift" by Scott Walker, or SunO)))'s "Black One", or a live performance of "The Aristocrats", or Schoenberg's "Op.42" are not the same audience as those buying tickets to a One Direction concert, or those who vote for top 40 favourites, or those going to see "Star Wars: The Obligatory Continuation of an Expensive Franchise" (I had a bunch of ideas for that one). The influence of more "out-there" genres really shouldn't be discounted, either, because it's often more common than one thinks (at least out of the context of orchestral music).

In the end, Mike summed it more more succinctly than I can: control. Schoenberg's a favourite example because he could certainly write some incredible tonal music, but also wrote experimental music that's out-there enough for me to not care too much about it. I happen to love tonal music, as just about anyone breathing does, as well as weirder/more experimental music, and as such I want the toolbox to be able to write both. The latter tends to be more interesting if one understands the former and can "sneak in" the concepts inherent within it in order to give it more coherence, and the former takes a lifetime to master. And again, intent -- I don't write music, primarily, because I want other people to like it. I write it because I want to like it, first. That too becomes a continuum.

(Edit: This doesn't have to do concretely with the piece by Williams, but is more aimed at a larger conceptual discussion I see weaving through a number of threads lately).

 

Funny that that's what the perception used to be (and I suppose still is in some circles), especially given how revered Williams' music is now and especially compared to your average film score in 2018...

 

I may have missed it but I was looking for some ABOUT or MISSION STATEMENT when I came to Redbanned - could you at some point write something like this somewhere on the front page ?

 

Ah ok. To me there is a difference between that, "Sign up, Be Cool, Learn Stuff" and "what I primarily try to focus on and what the point of Redbanned and improved craft is: control. Control is we can choose to write avant-garde cat-piano crap, or we can choose to write the Raiders March. That's craft. Choices can be debated but at least we should have them."

No bad thoughts about the Raiders March but you actually cover more - I don't think John is skilled in using a DAW, you are
I would also add to that - modern cinematic music do embrace a lot of complexity that requires insane sound design and mixing/audio-engineering skills. If the idea of Redbanned is control than I guess that knowledge and skill in these areas are also in focus ?
So the difference to me is the elaboration of the definitions of the words "craft" and "learn stuff". Should be self-evident but often it is not. If it is control (and knowledge) then I'm 100% with you. And I'm grateful for Redbanned. Thanks.

 

Sounds good!

No - what I replied to Mike is what I meant. Keyword to me is 'control' and I would add 'knowledge' and 'choice'.
'Craft' is a very loose term that can be misinterpreted and debated. So is 'skill'. Young people might say that Hans Zimmer is a more skilled composer than John Williams, many here would disagree (including myself).
In short, if 'craft' and 'skill' = 'control' then it is something that I can relate to. Seriously. And then we would have to admit that Hans Zimmer probably knows the in and out of a synthesizer better than John Williams.
It is sad that things that ought to be self-evident are not, at least they weren't in my case. Let's hope I'm the exception
I think the distinction is between breaking the rule (or expectation) unconsciously or consciously. Knowing exactly what you are doing and how your audience perceives it.

 

Ah yes thank you, that is part of the idea that I got when skimming through the forums but couldn't relate to Mike's masterclasses. Mike has just said that he doesn't want to teach stuff that he doesn't master (respect for that!). So again - the keyword 'control' means that you consciously know that the violin doesn't sound louder than the trombone and that people will get a different experience from you doing something with samples that can't occur in real life. Modern filmmusic and sounddesign are very broad topics - what i get from Mike are his arguments about the red thread that is often non-existing in modern Hollywood movies for no apparent reason. I agree.
Knowing that there is an option to actually develop your themes could be useful knowledge for a lot of modern composers.

 

I may be pedantic here but I would rather frame it as a positive: Redbanned was created with the intent to teach compositional craft, not modern techniques of production and sound design. There are handy discussions about the latter, but the underlying intent was to get at the basic skills of craft after all the frills have been stripped away.

Then again I didn't create Redbanned, but this is the reason I'm here.