[FalkirkBairn01]

Here’s my edited history:

First off, my experience with music for film and television is a very personal – perhaps some would say solitary – experience. I had no influences growing up from family or friends with me getting into listening to scores. And, even today, I very much keep my score-listening experience pretty much to myself: always on headphones, or when I have the house to myself. I’ve had too much ridicule over the years to want to share it with anyone (other than like-minded people online).

Probably, my earliest experience of scores was as part of my television watching. TV theme tunes were what first attracted me. And sometimes, when music teachers at high school had a lesson to fill, there would be TV theme tune competitions where the class had to identify the themes played. Those were great lessons! These quizzes tended to be from compilation tapes of Geoff Love and his Orchestra albums. And, these LPs were a great introduction to TV themes and later film scores.

TV was really my first exposure to film scores as well. Morricone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is one film score that sticks in my mind as one of the examples where I would tape the score off the television (we’ve all done that!). I didn’t do that too often as most films had too much dialogue. Taping things off the TV tended to be themes.

The original Star Trek and old Laurel and Hardy short films are other early examples of music that I grew very familiar with (because of the endless repeats on TV).

Probably my earliest film score purchase was John Williams’ STAR WARS, and it was that that got me into film music soundtracks. I can’t remember which came first the film or the soundtrack (bought because of the hype surrounding the film, and the clips that would be shown to promote the film – the TIE fighter scene was always being shown on TV and it had a great piece of music associated with it). Probably between the late 1970s and mid-80s I would buy soundtrack albums from films whose music I liked when I was watching the film. And this period probably represents film music that I am most familiar with: a combination of a limited number of albums in my collection, and constantly watching the films (on video) to see how the music fitted meant that I got to know the music on these albums really well.

Unlike a lot of people who enjoy film music, I have no real interest in the craft of film-making. My listening experience of film (and TV) music has never been tied to any great extent with the films (except for the early part I mentioned before). So, my experience with film and television music became more and more about whether or not I enjoyed the music as I heard it on the albums. Were there themes that I liked? Was there lovely romantic music? Was the action music exciting? The genre of film and television music gave composers a way of writing lots of music across a wide range of styles and genres. And I was interested in hearing all there was to see if I liked any of it. I wasn’t really bothered about how it fitted to the film. Except in a few, rare examples. Hearing Elliot Goldenthal’s music for TITUS is a good example of where I heard the music and just had to see the film to understand (at least partly) what on earth inspired him to write the music I had heard.

My favourite composers are also down to their styles of music writing rather than being anything about how they approach writing music to picture. Composers such as Bernard Herrmann, Howard Shore, Jerry Goldsmith write music that tends to speak to me. But I will always be grateful to John Williams and his score for STAR WARS that gave me a way into this rewarding music experience I’ve had. And continue to have.