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Techno is not the root of all musical evil.
To be honest, I've never believed that techno was the worst thing to happen to film music; I personally am not a fan of early 30's to late 50's film music which subscribes to "the Danube School of Music," to quote from Henry Mancini. "Sappy 1000 Violins Syndrome" for sentimental moments (i.e. non-location, non-suspense and non-action) is still a big issue today. But there are limitations on to how well electronica can replicate live instrumental music. I remember reading somewhere that even with an electronic synthesizer piano which plays each note perfectly without all of the tiny little wavelengths of notes that are close in frequency to the main note, listeners still prefered the original instrument because it sounded more interesting. The same applied to string instruments, if I remember correctly. There is a unique emotional quality to these tiny fluctuations in frequency that electronica simply can't replicate. The Danube School, for better or for worse, has ingrained upon society the standard of strings and occasionally woodwinds to carry the melody lines for the more emotionally complex scenes.
My favorite modern scores, and even some of my favorite retro scores, manage to combine "traditional" instrumental writing for the majority of scoring with live instrumentals and electronica for suspense and action cues. For example, take John Barry's the Living Daylights, the last James Bond score he wrote as of this point in time *fingers crossed for Casino Royale* As the All Music Guide review for TLD remarked, this score is one of the most contemporary sounding action/adventure scores of the 80's in its sparing use of synthesizers for key action cues. The drum loops in "Ice Chase," "Necros Attacks" "Hercules Takes Off" work beautifully as the rhythmic core; the emphasis is still on the brass and strings. For the suspense cues like "the Sniper Was A Woman," "Koskov Escapes," "Airbase Jailbreak" and "Afghanistan Plan," the strings dominate with brass and percussion accompaniment; these 18-year-old cues could just as easily fit into a 21st century thriller. As much as I love Bill Conti's For Your Eyes Only, the heavy emphasis on synthesizers and disco for the cues in the first half of the film make the soundtrack a retrospective of 80's disco masked as action music. I won't even get started on David Arnold's the World is Not Enough and Die Another Day because I'll burst a few blood vessels in the process.
Phillip Glass has also done some interesting work with electronica which of what I've heard I've liked tremendously, but his focus is more on expanding the limits of melody and thematic development rather than on tone color.
But with Arnold and other action film composers, the orchestra has been virtually tossed out, often at the behest of producers seeking a quick profit, for the cheaper electronic instruments. What happens is that it becomes nearly impossible and not worthwhile to distinguish the music from one action film to another. An experimentalist musical trend has become the new cost-effective standard, reducing aural art into a pre-programmed set of rhythms and melodies jumbled into different orders to present the illusion of originality. Thankfully there are composers like Michael Giacchino, David Holmes, and John Powell who rework occasional techno elements for a contemporary feel into seamless transitions with live instrumentals carrying the main melodies.
Semi-related links:
Cool Unused Composer's Choice Scoring for the Bond movies
OK, I'm advertising the above site because it's been my friend's pet project for the past few months. Essentially the edited scenes include the composer's intended cues that appear on the remastered soundtracks of the film instead of the in-film versions, but the research into the musical selection choices is pretty good.
Extremely cool remixes of From Russia With Love and On Her Majesty's Secret Service with great fan trailers
Some of the remixed techno elements sound a little obviously worked in, but the overall effect is rather pleasing and pretty professional sounding for a fan remix.
Yeah, I've gotten a lot of work done today...
To be honest, I've never believed that techno was the worst thing to happen to film music; I personally am not a fan of early 30's to late 50's film music which subscribes to "the Danube School of Music," to quote from Henry Mancini. "Sappy 1000 Violins Syndrome" for sentimental moments (i.e. non-location, non-suspense and non-action) is still a big issue today. But there are limitations on to how well electronica can replicate live instrumental music. I remember reading somewhere that even with an electronic synthesizer piano which plays each note perfectly without all of the tiny little wavelengths of notes that are close in frequency to the main note, listeners still prefered the original instrument because it sounded more interesting. The same applied to string instruments, if I remember correctly. There is a unique emotional quality to these tiny fluctuations in frequency that electronica simply can't replicate. The Danube School, for better or for worse, has ingrained upon society the standard of strings and occasionally woodwinds to carry the melody lines for the more emotionally complex scenes.
My favorite modern scores, and even some of my favorite retro scores, manage to combine "traditional" instrumental writing for the majority of scoring with live instrumentals and electronica for suspense and action cues. For example, take John Barry's the Living Daylights, the last James Bond score he wrote as of this point in time *fingers crossed for Casino Royale* As the All Music Guide review for TLD remarked, this score is one of the most contemporary sounding action/adventure scores of the 80's in its sparing use of synthesizers for key action cues. The drum loops in "Ice Chase," "Necros Attacks" "Hercules Takes Off" work beautifully as the rhythmic core; the emphasis is still on the brass and strings. For the suspense cues like "the Sniper Was A Woman," "Koskov Escapes," "Airbase Jailbreak" and "Afghanistan Plan," the strings dominate with brass and percussion accompaniment; these 18-year-old cues could just as easily fit into a 21st century thriller. As much as I love Bill Conti's For Your Eyes Only, the heavy emphasis on synthesizers and disco for the cues in the first half of the film make the soundtrack a retrospective of 80's disco masked as action music. I won't even get started on David Arnold's the World is Not Enough and Die Another Day because I'll burst a few blood vessels in the process.
Phillip Glass has also done some interesting work with electronica which of what I've heard I've liked tremendously, but his focus is more on expanding the limits of melody and thematic development rather than on tone color.
But with Arnold and other action film composers, the orchestra has been virtually tossed out, often at the behest of producers seeking a quick profit, for the cheaper electronic instruments. What happens is that it becomes nearly impossible and not worthwhile to distinguish the music from one action film to another. An experimentalist musical trend has become the new cost-effective standard, reducing aural art into a pre-programmed set of rhythms and melodies jumbled into different orders to present the illusion of originality. Thankfully there are composers like Michael Giacchino, David Holmes, and John Powell who rework occasional techno elements for a contemporary feel into seamless transitions with live instrumentals carrying the main melodies.
Semi-related links:
Cool Unused Composer's Choice Scoring for the Bond movies
OK, I'm advertising the above site because it's been my friend's pet project for the past few months. Essentially the edited scenes include the composer's intended cues that appear on the remastered soundtracks of the film instead of the in-film versions, but the research into the musical selection choices is pretty good.
Extremely cool remixes of From Russia With Love and On Her Majesty's Secret Service with great fan trailers
Some of the remixed techno elements sound a little obviously worked in, but the overall effect is rather pleasing and pretty professional sounding for a fan remix.
Yeah, I've gotten a lot of work done today...
