Schilkeman
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Her opinion (more a falsehood), her opening and funding an exclusionary women’s center, her donations to anti-trans causes, yes, it was abusive. It is not, however, present in Harry Potter, which was my point.
I think that point was kind of inherent to my argument, but I also think it’s a little sketchy to bring legality into the discussion, as if it’s not really a problem unless you can serve jail time for it. Abuse is doing something to another we wouldn’t want done to us. I know of plenty of laws in my country, now and in the past, that violate that bit of wisdom. Obviously, there’s a scale to abuse, and that should factor in to whether or not we keep a problematic person’s art around.
As a bit of an art appréciateur, in all its mediums, I have a kind of multi-step process for dealing with problematic artists. The first, being related to the second, is the issue of time. How long ago was the artist alive? While I believe morality does not have a temporal dimension (we were telling people to be kind to one another thousands of years ago), the cultural mores of a time period can at least explain the context of what we would now consider difficult behavior.
The sieve of time sifts all art, which is related to my second point: is the art worth keeping such that I can live with the artist’s problems? Will people still care about this in 100 years? A thousand years? Who knows, but when I look at something like Harry Potter, and see the way people still talk about Mallory, or Shelly, or Baum, I think, sure, Harry Potter will outlive its author. Will people still care about The Cosby Show then? I’m not sure. Comedy often ages like meat.
Which brings me to my final point. How much of the author’s problems are present in the work? For Potter, I read only the good things Rowling wishes to see in the world, and find its basic morality strong and defendable. When Cosby gets pedantic on The Cosby Show, I can no longer hand wave away its respectability politics by thinking “at least he practiced what he preached.” There’s not enough antisemitism in Wagner for me to write off his work only for that reason (I have other reasons lol). This is the most subjective part of the process. Pharos were inherently immoral, but the pyramids still stand. I can appreciate the immense skill that went into making them, even if they were built under duress. The lesser works disappear in the sand, and no one cares.
I’m always a little (not completely) wary of “interpretation” with music. Music has a limited ability to convey concrete meaning without imposition from words or pictures. Unless a composer has stated “this is what I meant,” thus proving my point, what it means to the listener (and what are liner notes writers but listeners?) is a little too subjective for epexegesis.
Film music is, essentially, commentary, and it’s worth exploring the commentary in the liner notes. For me, I would love a more learned musical analysis. As I’ve said elsewhere, the stuff John Williams does between his themes is often more impressive than the themes themselves, and good liner notes could help illustrate this, and make for more careful listeners, rather than calling out every statement of a theme, and what it represents.
Jaws. It’s always a good time for Jaws, but I was checking out the latest remaster to see if it was worth consideration from my limited budget, and the lp program comes across to me as harsh and loud. In an attempt to clean it up, MM seems to have made its flaws more apparent. The original lp on the 90s cd was no audiophile presentation, but it has a naturalness, and extremely 70s analog quality, to it that I appreciate. Since I don’t care about the full score, that’s $40 saved, I suppose.
Yes, I played trumpet for twenty years, and have a degree in music education. Advanced music theory sort of demands being fluent in score reading, and the trumpet, being a transposing instrument, requires aptitude in transposing at sight. None of which addresses the peculiarities of jazz improv, which requires fluency in all twenty-four keys, 7 modes, and every variation of scale imaginable, at all times. Let’s just say I did my best lol.
They also make everyone take piano in music school, so I had three years of that, little of which has stuck with me. I also studied composition while my school schedule allowed for it, and while I was in no danger of becoming a professional composer, I did get some working understanding of counterpoint and orchestration.
I now work as a lightweight film editor, which should give you some indication of my talent. My gift, such as it is, is in interpretation and analysis, not performance (and definitely not education), but I realized that too late, and couldn’t afford to pursue it anyway.
I’m firmly convinced Rare’s success was at least 65% the music for their games, and not the rather floopy, looks-better-on-the-box-than-in-motion gameplay. The soundtrack to Donky Kong Country still makes me feel some kind of way.
The usual suspects on JWfan are grumbling that the free website they sometimes use isn’t 100% overnight. I’ll be happy when FSM is up and running, as I plan on leaving the other site for good.
Not that there aren’t usual suspects on FSM, but the conversation does at least seem to revolve around music there.
I would love it, Thor, if you could bring some of your old thread starters here. I’m not very good at that sort of thing. I like these forums, even if the site does yell at me in Norwegian before I change it.
Medicine Man and Rudy. I’ve been trying to love, rather than only appreciate, Goldsmith. Familiarity breeds affection (or contempt), so they say. I’m aiming for the former.
Since my interest in film music is about 90% John Williams (I’m trying my damndest with Goldsmith), I spent most of my time on JWFan. There are a few cats on there I find mildly-to-completely insufferable, so I have scaled back considerably. Maybe I’m one of them. Probably.
I do feel like I came in a little late to the party (story of my life) and most of the JW centric discussions happened 10-15 years ago. To be fair, he doesn’t write as much these days.
I like FSM, but I just don’t find a ton of film music super engaging. I’m a classical guy at heart, and a lot just doesn’t measure up, or at least doesn’t stand well on its own. Still, film music was my first love in the world of art music. I have a soft spot for it, and I like hearing other people’s enthusiasm. It helps me try new stuff.
I wasn’t really thinking of expansion liner notes, of the type Intrada and LLL put out with their releases, since I don’t really buy those any more. They can indeed be very thorough and informative. OST notes are usually a paragraph or two from the director, if that, and a bunch of promotional photos. In the era before wikipedia, forced to read whatever books on music my local library had, I learned the basics of music history, form, tonal relationships, and interpretive specificity from liner notes on classical albums.
I’m a (wannabe) completionist for John Williams, Goldsmith, Beethoven, Haydn and Wynton Marsalis. I’m also aiming for a, if not complete, very large collection of Telarc records. All the audiophile hipsters overpaying for vinyl, and I’m over here getting some of the best recorded music ever for $4 a pop.