Why You Should Study Film Scores 

www.omnimusicpublishing.com: 6 Full Movie Scores $80 a pop

Ryan Cunningham I have CD music that I still burned on my desk stop.

Try scribd. There are hundreds of full movie scores, from classics like Hitchcock films to Pirates of the Caribbean. You can start with a free trial and once you download the pdfs, they are yours to keep, no strings attached (even once the trial ends).

One of the most important skills you can learn as a musician is auralizing. Learning to listen out for specific instrumentation overtime will allow you to chart out the score yourself. That's how FilmScoreAnalysis created most of his scores on Sibelius. It gets easier overtime as I've stated, but that could take years.

@@justelynnnjoelle r/Cinemascores thank me later!

Actually Hans Zimmer is a pretty good orchestrator...

Peter Fischer no he’s not. Sound design is his forte.

Blame placeholder music. Editors use existing OST’s as stand-ins to make the first cut and then directors ask composers to make something that fits the same mood & timings on a tight deadline. That’s why almost every epic movie sounds like Zimmer or Mansell or Williams. Few directors consider music to be important it seems, unlike geniuses like Kubric who can re-use classical pieces and make them sound like they were custom made for their movie, just by virtue of how appropriately they were chosen for the scene’s mood & setting. Film directors perhaps need to go listen to more classical music instead of popular film soundtracks from the last few decades if we’re ever going to get more original film scores. Steal more ideas from Beethoven instead of remaking the Dark Knight.

Zimmer's score for Interstellar is, well, stellar. Easily one of my favourites. It's not complicated, but I find it utterly captivating and it fits the mood of the film perfectly. Solo organ was an unconventional choice of instrument, but I'm glad that's what was chosen. I really cannot think of much else he's done that I truly love. Pirates of the Caribbean has some nice ideas (though other than the theme everyone knows I'm struggling to think of any melodies off the top of my head). The Lion King is better known for its songs rather than the score. There are interesting ideas in Inception, Dunkirk and other films that I really like, but they're things you notice and think, 'yeah, that's cool' rather than thinking of them as whole scores. Otherwise, I think so much of modern film music is the equivalent of Michael Bay explosions. Impressive the first time you hear them because they feel massive and energetic, but you just kind of become a bit desensitised to it and it no longer sounds like anything. I think blaming placeholder music is a bit simplistic. Films have used placeholder music ever since films existed. While it is quicker and easier to edit nowadays, it's also quicker and easier to write music. You can have something that 'sounds like' the placeholder music without it being a near clone of it. I think a big part of it is simply trends. It's what people like (even if it's lazy orchestration). I also think composers are under much stricter time pressures than they used to be. John Williams rarely did more than two films a year, even at his peak. Zimmer regularly does four or five in a year, sometimes more. The same is true for plenty other contemporary composers. Why that is I don't know, but nobody can keep up that pace of composition while writing music as texturally rich as, say, Hedwig's Theme.

@@semanticsamuel936 I think that Brian Tyler is a master at writing good music fast, but his best scores (Thor: The Dark World, The Greatest Game Ever Played, The Mummy, etc.) were all ones he had more time for.

To be honest, in a few years, your comment will more or less become more and more irrelevant. We're headed to an era of film that will be more creatively free like the 70s pretty damn soon.

Wourghk Independent film makers do.... And that is likely where you will start anyway.

I think that most producers just don't know the difference, and most composers aren't good enough to write really good music.

watch at 2x for Jesse Eisenberg speed

He talks on normal speed, so... what do you mean?

How do your speed him up?

Thx. Just figured it out. Saved 25%. So 1.25 minutes.

game changer

Ponk 80 Just takes time. I can’t do it yet (I’m only 15), but from what I’ve learned it takes a long time and a lot of studying to become able to pick out specific sounds from an orchestra.

Cort Baussmann I’m in the same boat as you, and I’d say take as many opportunities as you can. I’m dropping my study block next year to take music theory.

TavernsPull: That... is why you fail. One of the best scored scenes in one of the best scored films (personal opinion: OT being the best scored films of all time, especially because JW started out standing on the shoulders of giants for ANH - and continued having become a giant himself). And a great scene in general.

Bednar Herwig Empire Strikes Back has the best movie score ever prove me wrong

Ambush Anime why ?

Banok32 he steals the vast majority of his melodies from older composers, and his music rarely contrasts the scene. It adds nothing to the movie other than restating what is on the screen, and a deaf person with subtitles would get just as much out of the movie.

@@AmbushAnime for example what ?

Banok32 he stole most of the opening Star Wars theme from another movies opening credits. A better way to look at it is why other composers are better. John Powell, another melodic master, in how to train your dragon, uses themes the same way, but develops them more consistently, and they hint at information about the characters that you wouldn’t know just by watching. It adds depth instead of emphasizing what is shallow.

Ambush Anime what did he steal ?