FSM # 3: The $1000.000 Question: What is good [film] music?
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But that’s only relevant for the creative process. For the receptive process, as audience, it’s irrelevant. A piece of music is not going to become better because the composer had all the freedom he wanted while composing, and it’s not going to be worse because it’s composed with the constraints of the film.
Not better or worse, but the experience of it may differ a bit.
Not quite sure I follow you.. I thought you are the one who tries to disassociate the film from the music as much as possible when listening, so how does it even influence your experience listening to the music if it’s been composed for a movie or not? I, on the other hand, don’t try to disassociate the film from the music when listening to it at all, it just sometimes happens (if I like the music but not the movie or I haven’t even seen the movie, the disassociation aspect comes naturally), sometimes not (STAR WARS or THE LORD OF THE RINGS scores are tied to their source material just as Strauss ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA).
But often, when I hear a film score, the fact that it is a film score does not influence my perception of the music at all.Then it’s serviceable only. Not great. Not even good.
How so? Where do you get this reduction to ‘serviceable’ from?
Serviceable for me is if a film score that “hits the marks” mechanically, hopefully doesn’t get in the way, but doesn’t have anything to offer beyond its mere function. Music can be serviceable but uninteresting.
But to be great, film music has to be more than serviceable. I think a litmus test for a “great” film score is that it carries its own weight, that it stands on its own two legs, so to speak.
A serviceable “film score” is a film score that is carried entirely by the film. So the film is basically “done”, and the music is plastered on top here and there to kit a few scenes together, a sort of sonic adhesive. It’s the images and sound who do the heavy lifting, and the music itself is only there because the filmmakers fear its absence, so to speak. The music itself isn’t really good, it’s just preventing silence. It gets its meaning from the images.
A great film score, on the other hand, doesn’t need the film to carry it. It has its own musical spine, ideas, colors, gestures, a point of view, that adds to the movie. A great film score doesn’t just fill silence, it creates meaning. A great film score doesn’t work as adhesive, but it adds structure. A great film score works with the images, transforms the images, it’s not music that is serviceably just pasted on top of them.
A great film score can always survive without the picture because it wasn’t written merely to patch holes. It has musical intent, dramatic intelligence, it has some spark of originality that is not dependent on the edit or the images. A great film score is always great music, and great music can always stand on its own.
Not quite sure I follow you.. I thought you are the one who tries to disassociate the film from the music as much as possible when listening, so how does it even influence your experience listening to the music if it’s been composed for a movie or not?
I want to push it all towards independence. That’s easier with free-form concert music than music that is composed to fit certain external mechanisms. But over the years, I’ve become pretty good at listening to it as its own thing, regardless of what the music is composed for. It’s tricky with things like STAR WARS, but even here, I’ve reached a point of ‘independent listening’ by now.
A great film score can always survive without the picture because it wasn’t written merely to patch holes. It has musical intent, dramatic intelligence, it has some spark of originality that is not dependent on the edit or the images. A great film score is always great music, and great music can always stand on its own.
Again, that’s where we disagree — and we keep going in circles on this. A great film score isn’t always great listening music. UNDER THE SKIN is a great film score; a use of the tool that is film music. THE TERMINATOR is a great film score – often merging with the industrial sound design of the film. But industrial bangs and clangs do not constitute great listening music for me, or do low-register drones. I’m simplifying a little bit in my descriptions of these scores, but the point remains the same. I don’t like to listen to them, but I enjoy them immensely in the films.
We can agree or disagree about the merits of these scores as standalone listens, but there is no rule that says “a great film score is always great music”.
there is no rule that says “a great film score is always great music”.
Sure there is. It is certainly my rule. Not a rule I have “established”, a rule I have “discovered”. There is no “great film music” that is not also “great music” first.
It’s okay if such a thing exists for you. It does not for me.Yes, my bad for misreading that. The confidence and objectivity by which you phrased yourself brought to mind the ghost of Dan Hobgood and his «objective» contention that only mono-thematic scores are worth a damn. 😉
we are disagreeing about whether a music that is merely serviceable in a movie can be considered “great”.
No, not really. I’m not really interested in serviceable film music. I’m interested in music that lifts things beyond that, into great and often original film art, but that simply doesn’t have that value as soon as it “loses” the film.
It’s just semantics. You say you disagree with me but then basically say the same thing just choosing different words and emphasis. You are obviously inclined to call at least some music “great” that has no inherent value as pure music and holds no interest to you as music per se. I am not. I call such music “serviceable”, you call it “great”. So that’s the core difference.
I am much more inclined to notice “bad” film music than good. And the bad music may not necessarily be bad on its own terms, but simply not serving the film.
Not sure I notice bad film music more than good. I notice them both equally. But since a bad score often leads to irritation, and irritation is in most cases a stronger feeling than enjoyment, it tends to make a greater impact.
Yeah, it otherwise sounds a bit like the non film score fan saying “The best film music is which you don’t notice” 😉
Yeah, it otherwise sounds a bit like the non film score fan saying “The best film music is which you don’t notice” 😉
Well, I have thousands of film scores, and I largely feel that the best film music should not call attention to itself, so I don’t know where that places me.
I guess it boils down to the fact that when I’m listening to an album, I don’t care how it functions in the film. I love the 20-minute suite of L. Bernstein’s On the Waterfront and Ellington’s Anatomy of a Murder album, but I didn’t think either of them worked at all as film scores in the respective films. I don’t know if the instincts of the composers were off, or if someone in the music department placed the music in the wrong locations.
Conversely, I like Carter Burwell’s music for Coen brothers films, and Michael Nyman’s music for Peter Greenaway films, but I would not enjoy these as standalone albums.
When I am watching THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK or E.T. I cannot not hear the music. It is in many ways like watching a ballet with images and sounds perfectly choreographed to the music. And that kind of experience got me into film music.
Of course you rarely have such a perfect marriage of movie and soundtrack. And I got to appreciate different ways of scoring movies. But even though almost all movies have a movie score there are just a few of them where the directors really made the music an integral part of the movie experience. Of course musicals do. But as in general people seem to become less and less interested in original music, original recognizable film music is less and less a thing.
But as in general people seem to become less and less interested in original music, original recognizable film music is less and less a thing.
Yes, film music used as an “extra character” as we know and got to love is hardly done anymore. Still I am not sure if the current generation will see it the same way in some years or decades as the current state is within their formative years.
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