Thank you for commiserating guys!

a.k.a. Vangelis, as he was known internationally, died a couple of days ago, aged 79.

I thought I'd pay scant tribute here on this forum to that Composer, that Artist, that Innovator!

It's not just Chariots of Fire, that masterpiece Blade Runner, and 1492 (where the main theme of Gladiator is virtually copied-pasted from - probably due to temp-tracking) but what came long before (Heaven and Hell, Mask etc.), and after (Direct, Bitter Moon etc.) that completes a catalogue of extraordinary breadth and invention in a field he pretty much invented and owned.

May he rest in peace.

Just a quick addendum that really belonged to that 'other' thread, but applicable here also. I was just watching the latest vlog by one of the two proprietors of a very well known and successful VSL competitor - a popular vlog almost exclusively dedicated to composing orchestral music with samples, where the vlogger was showcasing various string-pack products in his habitual engaging ways. At one point, he says something of this sort: These are scale performances and I know that many of you know nothing about scales, so I'll come back to this and explain etc.

This is the best, most concise - if inadvertent - description of the case of affairs in media composition for "orchestra" today.

Need anyone really say more?..

Originally Posted by: Macker

Why then don't I just shut up and forget about OI for DAWs? The answer is I can't stand hearing the ever-downward trend in the musical quality of works produced only on DAWs. Far too many who call themselves composers nowadays clearly are far from fluent in the language of orchestral music - their works speak in a kind of pidgin. 

This post was a little generalised. I take it you are talking about media music, in which case I agree wholeheartedly. 

I wish that the ever-downward trend in the musical quality of works produced only on DAWs was a matter of tuning. I've expounded my views on musical illiteracy in the locked thread.

In the 'real' orchestral world, the ever-downward trend of the musical quality of works produced on music manuscript (if digital) and why we have had no 'classics' for decades now is a matter of current composers' aesthetics, unfortunately.

The very existence of orchestras would be irrevocably threatened had they to depend on audiences wishing to hear contemporary works (99,999% ). Thank God for the countless and timeless masterpieces of the past that keep attracting people to the concert halls and opera houses! Where DAWs, "inspiration" patches, MIDI packs, layered orchestral families and (s)EP(t)IC tracks are, thankfully, still ridiculed and prohibited!

Dewdman42: I really don't know where to begin, so I'll just say this: I didn't miss your point at all. You missed all of mine... For just one example, orchestral composers alive today are very much aware of the possibilities that electronic music has to offer and still most stay away from it. By extension, I guess that Mozart might have done so also.

However, I didn't realise that your familiarity with electronic music more or less extended to what Hans did in Dune. In that case, and by comparison, the orchestra has -by very far- the larger acoustic palette.

Ahh, Gianna! You took me back... All those years ago, when we were young and hopeful, and "tore" at each other while Hans shed tears of laughter over this, counting his money...

I wasn't going to comment but it will also serve as a segue to my response to Dewdman42's points on Mozart and electronics. By the way, collegiality goes both ways. Just because I laugh at Hans as a composer - at least his school of film composition of the last, I don't know, 20 odd years (although I thought The Last Samurai was not bad), it doesn't mean that I am biased... I don't know the man personally. I just respond to his "philosophy" and musical choices for films he has scored and that I have seen.

I said it when it was pertinent, and I say it again now, that what Hans did with the cello for the Joker could only impress someone with only the most superficial understanding of synthesis.  As an idea for characterisation for the film, you can take it or leave it. But to call it a 'brilliant' example of synthesis is simply a joke. Which is apt if you think about it.

But how can you like Superman? It's one of his worst! The poster example of what not to do! I remember the scene where Superman first discovers his ability to fly. He bursts into the sky exhilarated and soars over creation. How does Hans 'serve this scene'? Dukudaka-dukudaka-dukudaka-dukudaka and in the minor!!! That's all he can muster, the one trick limping pony.

This brings me to Dewdman42: You seem pretty confident about what Mozart would do were he alive today. I am not so certain. Most of the orchestral Composers alive today are pretty happy composing solely for acoustic forces (including orchestra). Very-very few of them also compose electronic music. Even fewer compose for film. And while you and Anand agreed on the orchestra's potential as far as timbral possibilities are concerned, I am going to concede that electronic music has the greater range in that regard.

But not the electronic music that you are talking about (I am guessing). Certainly not the kind that people like Cliff Martinez, Aphex Twin, or Hans are offering, and not that they should or are bad at what they do - the first two.

If you are genuinely interested in the cutting edge of what pioneering electronic music sounds like, I suggest you dive into the realm of academic computer music. Imagine music that doesn't start with a sequencer or a sampler like, say, Omnisphere. Electronic music with no beat. No ostinato. Imagine hitherto unimagined sounds that you create from scratch(!) without sampling(!!), by way of computer programming. Algorithmic or other. No music keyboard during composition, no sampled acoustic instruments like the VSL (heavily frowned upon, you should make your own instrumental samples - if you must, and then only to render them completely unrecognisable). Then examine possible, very complex structures and sonic manipulations, determined or indeterminate, that can be implemented though algorithmic programming, synthesis, etc.

jsg: Your article really took me back... I got my DX7 in 1984. I was a kid then, my parents could afford the latest (OK, not the Synclavier), so I got it. I knew nothing about synthesis then - you could make a point that it was wasted on me but, through playing those sounds, my compositional thoughts grew deeper, more acute.

In that same article you suggest that if no live players are ever going to perform an orchestral work, why does it have to be confined to what's possible and written down professionally, or words to that effect. I can't think of a reason either. However, that takes us immediately away from the realm of orchestral composition, and into the realm of computer composition, exclusively. I perceive such works purely as computer music works, and not as orchestral works; not even in potentia! One composes for orchestra or one doesn't (even if it is a hybrid score). A free-composed quasi-simulation of the sonorities of instruments existing in the physical world, one that does not take on account all their physical properties, qualities, and limitations, is not a composition for said instruments. The staves on the score may just as well read 'Instrument 1', 'Instrument 2' etc., instead of 'Flute', 'Oboe' etc.

I never said that a composer must by definition be either/or in my post, but I can see how you could infer that from my strong positions. Of course, anyone can be an acoustic as well as computer music composer. He can be a gynaecologist! Like Borodin. My point was that it is one thing to claim professionalism (in all its facets!) for oneself - in multiple musical disciplines to boot - and another to be recognised as such by others. I proffered my own standards for professionalism, others may have their own. Borodin certainly was recognised by top professionals in both fields.

Macker: What was that Rosana thing about? As soon as I heard a few seconds of that awful rendition, the uploader - whoever he was - removed it...

Macker: Thanks for the very kind words, it makes me very happy when something I say is of some value to somebody. By the way, those 'classics' you sometimes recognise in film composers' cues are mostly due to the temp tracks chosen by the music editor and ratified by the director in order to edit the film and give the composer an indication of the scoring required in those scenes. Sometimes, the director will be so enamoured with those temp tracks (often due to repeated hearing), that he requires of the composer to mimic them very closely. Excerpts from The Planets, The Rite of Spring and Carmina Burana are some of the 'classics' that are very popular with directors and which you may often recognise. R. Addinsell composed the Warsaw Concerto bespoke in the style of Rachmaninov, after the great composer declined the offer to score the movie Dangerous Moonlight himself.

Dewdman - "This conversation is kind of pointless." I am not particularly happy to have participated in a conversation that was kind of pointless. What a waste of time! Although you may be right, here I am again, wasting even more time... And, yes, 'art' music is a much higher art form than film music, and Williams and Herrmann would be the first to admit so. Now their music is superior to a great number of so-called serious composers (there are just so many journeymen serious composers, but so few 'artists'...), and Herrmann's Vertigo could very well have been a tone poem, his North by Northwest a great scherzo, etc. However, there are always the Stravinskys, the Prokofievs, the Debussys, the Rachmaninovs, the Strausss, the Sibeliuss, the Ravels, the Scriabins, not to mention second rate names, or older composers such as the Mozarts, Beethovens and co. In addition, all those people that love film music and dabble in it in their spare time, that's great for them. Who said they should ever stop? A professional on the other hand, his daily bread, his rent, his electricity, they all depend on him finding and satisfying clients. A totally different cup of tea.

I have said all I had to say about deadlines. All my studies in 'art' music, the film music course I took at the Australian Film Television Radio School, masterclasses with Bruce Broughton and Christopher Gordon, all the interviews I have seen, countless colleagues' testaments, all the books (not Internet pamphlets) I have on film scoring, and my own humble experience more or less corroborate what I have written previously. A professional, by definition, has to have deadlines if only for the reason that he has got a string of contracts lined up. So, enough on that, from me at least.

(Un)Happily, the discussion has veered again on topic, i.e. professionals/non professionals, money, et al. I do not understand how this issue has not been flogged beyond death yet... I am also to blame, having once again contributed turgid diatribes, when I should have put forward the following:

To be a professional instrumental/orchestral composer in the western tradition (film or otherwise) you have to satisfy at least one of the following two requirements:

A) Your work has to be of professional standards, as those are recognised internationally,

and/or

B) You get paid regularly for your compositions.

A superlative sounding mock-up, one where nobody can tell whether those are real strings/brass/woodwinds playing, is NOT - I repeat, is NOT an orchestral work of 'professional standards'. It is a work consisting of treated synthesised sounds. I want to see a score! Everybody will judge a score! That is where people will determine whether you are a professional instrumental/orchestral composer or not. That is where they will determine your orthography, they will read your trombone lines and trills(!) (which a sampler will perform perfectly at any speed), and whether those are possible. That is where they will read your harp scoring and how possible that is in real life. That is where they will see how sensitive you are to the Eb Clarinet intonation issues, whether you know the trumpets' useful notes (which don't begin at the bottom of their range), horn scoring, approaches to different ranges, dynamics considerations, true balance among the sections (your mock-up probably consists of about 200 strings, 16 horns, etc.), the list is virtually endless...

If you create a mock-up and then you need an orchestrator to "iron out" the crap in order for it to be sensibly recorded, then you are NOT a professional instrumental/orchestral composer, unless you satisfy the second aforementioned requirement (Hans, for example). That is because you have to collaborate with someone that knows what you don't; meaning, you are unable to do it on your own. If you get paid to give directors mock-ups as the final soundtrack that will support the film, then you are a professional synthesiser/samplers composer. Very-very different.

Now, jsg has said a couple of times how he cannot go to a scientists or engineers forum and blend in. I agree. I said something similar in the beginning. I added something very important though. This here is not a composers forum. It is a vendor's forum, where anyone interested can register and say whatever pops into their head. The engineers forum on the other hand is populated exclusively with professionals, certified with some official stamp that everybody acknowledges. They didn't just buy a computer, threw a pirated copy of AutoCAD in there, took a 6-week intensive Internet course in engineering and, voici, engineer... Same with the scientists in the other forum. 

This here forum does not expect you to know the history of instrumental/orchestral music from the Middle Ages onwards and its evolution (how about the theory of affectations during the Baroque period, opera reforms of Monteverdi, Lully, and Gluck), neither does it expect you to even know notation(!), let alone theory, harmony, counterpoint (including the differences between 16th and 18th century counterpoints) and types thereof (all the kinds of fugues, inventions, canons, etc.), instrumentation, orchestration, forms and characteristics thereof, schools and techniques of composition (from the organum, to the evolution of sonata form, to spectralism and neo-complexity, and all in between and around those), etc., etc., etc.

As an example, I was a freshman when one of my professors told us we all should know how to play the last three Mozart symphonies on the piano by heart (he proceeded to play part of the 1st movement of the middle one). I can't do this now any more than I could do it then. I do know the symphonies of course. But how deeply do I know them? This is a microscopic, subatomic example (one of many) of what is required, and of the intergalactic distances in mastery that exist even among people who are actually qualified!

It sounds a little more complex to composing a trailer or a couple of cues of background music, doesn't it?

And how about film music history, theory (including semasiology - musicology these days is very much dependent on linguistics), and (d)evolution? Not just Hollywood. Europe and Asia as well. Spiccato alone just doesn't cut the mustard!..

That is however the modicum of knowledge that would be required in a Composers forum (capital C, as you see, rhyme not intended), similar to the engineers' one, if any discussion were to have professional meaning. The VSL forum on the other hand is a free-for-all domain, as it should be. As a result, discussions here that are outside the scope of the company's products, can be anything, about anything, without any requirements of expertise; justifiably!

I, for one, am very happy that there are so many non-professionals around who love music so much that they part with their hard-earned money to buy expensive apparati in order to delve into the magical world of music, as hobbyists. If you care so very much that others consider you a professional, you have two choices: a) Play the professional to those who don't know any different, b) Become a professional who real professionals will regard as such.

But know this: Even though I know where the head, belly, and limbs are on a human, and even know where some of the internal organs are and what they do, broadly speaking (ex.: brain, heart, liver, appendix), I can't turn up in an operating room full of doctors and say, "Hi guys, I know these things and have watched a few surgery videos on YouTube. Can I participate?" 

Concordantly, many of you have no idea, seriously you cannot even imagine how few seconds, how few measures it takes one that knows music to discern from an actual orchestrally recorded cue (not a mock-up) whether the composer of the cue knows music or not, even if the composer has made more money from that cue than most will ever see.

Bottom line of argument? If you want to be taken seriously, be serious.

I always remember something Mike Verta said: In order to be a Hollywood composer these days, one needs a laptop and a pulse...

Well, some of us can always tell who's who.

But why should you mind?..

I would like to add - since it was mentioned - that everybody has his own modus operandi regarding deadlines.

In my experience however, that of colleagues with whom I have discussed the matter, and through my academic enquiries into the greats of the art, the majority of composers benefit from an externally imposed deadline. Apparently, and somehow, a deadline precipitates inspiration and generates ideas. I can personally attest to that as has pertained to numerous occasions. Otherwise, a lot of us would keep trying to improve any given work indefinitely. Of course, this highly depends on what it takes to satisfy each and every one of us, the difference in everyone's standards for what constitutes a completed work. 

In addition, deadlines are also one of the parameters that separate the men from the boys (as I have mentioned before). And I am not referring to the capability of completing a commissioned work within a specific time frame. That's a given! I am referring to the capability of completing a commissioned work within a specific time frame that is actually any good, and with which the commissioning party is satisfied enough so that you can expect repeat business from them, as well as great references to other, similarly interested parties. That is what a professional cares about. Especially the journeymen!

If you are just writing for yourself, the self-imposed kind of deadline is almost meaningless to me, unless it has to do with extraneous factors (ex.: Mahler having to write as much as possible during the summer before his conducting duties prevented him from serious composition sessions throughout the rest of the year). 

Back again.

I just glanced at my previous post. What a jumble... I don't know why the formatting turned out like that. I apologise to everybody that read it.

Anyway, I asked for definitions and I got them from William and Macker. Since you guys went into the trouble I will add to my already long diatribe. But first, I just want to say that I mentioned my writing a book because I feel it chimes very well with this discussion. When it is finished, I will investigate whether there is any interest to be generated in publishing it, but that is more than a long shot. I realise this. If it doesn't happen (which it most probably won't - the book market is much more saturated than the music one), I won't wail at the world for being too stupid and heathenish not to be paying attention to my "brilliant" short fiction, and I know that the publishers who will reject me will vie ferociously for the rights to a Kardashyan autobiography. I don't care (too much). I am writing these stories because it gives me pleasure. I get pure enjoyment out of writing, as a hobby, as others get out of writing music, as a hobby. Id est, without the pressures that are automatically applied to a professional. 

I perused a lot of the posts here, and the prevailing idea is that a professional composer is one who makes money from their music. Well, yes and no. The money is actually the last factor in the equation. One has to satisfy every other requirement of the "job" in order to ever get to see any money. It is very akin to being an accountant or a plumber when it comes to that. People that pay money have certain expectations from the benefiting party. The whole transaction is expected to be equitable. People will rarely use an accountant or a plumber that is not referred to them by someone they trust. The times that they do go outside their comfort zone -during an emergency- they do so with fingers crossed. For the accountant they will expect that he is certified by some authority they recognise (jsg made a similar point), and this will also apply to music professionals. It is not enough that you even get access to somebody, you will play them a couple of your tracks, they'll like them and then they'll bring out their check book. Not if they know what's good for them (see point above regarding references).

Ability to write music that people like is not nearly enough in itself to make you a professional. No-no! Actually, it is not even necessary. What people that are prepared to give you money want to know is whether you can compose music to their requirements, not your own. They want to know that you can compose to at least an average professional standard for the kind of ensemble they have in mind. This is not a simple criterion: Is the ensemble professional or amateur? Do you know how to compose for professionals and amateurs for all instruments? Do you know what the differences are in range, instrumental technique, compositional technique - are you going to give multi phonics to a high-school woodwind ensemble? Etc. They want to know that you can complete the music on agreed schedule(!) and idiom, and that you will present them with score and parts of professional standards (this goes 2x for amateurs - i.e. not what the Score Editor of your favourite D.A.W. will hurl out). I am omitting a score of other important details.

What is it that will reassure these people commissioning you that you will deliver a professional product? The fact that your mother and Facebook/Youtube friends like your music? A joke, surely. First of all, a university degree is that aforementioned authority people will accept as an initial guarantee that at the very least you know the rudiments and that you have already been proven responsible enough to deliver adequate work to deadlines. They cannot wait until inspiration hits. This is another difference between professionals and everybody else. Professionals have to compose, no matter what! They have contracts and a reputation to uphold/build, negotiating an unfriendly environment of vicious and back-breaking competition... If you think all the aforementioned skills can be acquired overnight, I know which category you don't belong to. Professional composers are not "merely" musicians (good or bad). They are excellent time managers, entrepreneurs (look up the origin of this word - you won't believe it...), promoters, and -most of all- reliable.

If one satisfies all requirements of being a professional composer, then -at last- money will find its way into the conversation. How much of it will depend on the client. The client will of course get the best professional he can afford. This is where it gets a little fuzzy, in that the most expensive composer is not necessarily the best. That is another point that I feel has not been addressed: The vast-vast-vast majority of professionals, in any field, by statistical definition, are journeymen! And these are the ones that know their stuff! Not the dilettantes, the hobbyists, etc. They are as journeymen as your accountant (who is not Warren Buffet's accountant I presume).

It is not by chance I mentioned Sorabji in my first post, asking rhetorically whether he was less or more professional a composer than Hans or J. Williams. You learn about Sorabji at university if you study composition, and maybe more than in passing (you learn nothing about Williams, let alone Hans). An incredible iconoclast, contemptuous of both atonality and neo-classicism, with a profound, complex thought that translates into hours of music for each work (his Piano Symphony n.5 "Symphonia Brevis" lasts over two hours), Sorabji was so eccentric that he reached a point where he summarily forbade any performances of his works without his explicit permission. The combination of the over-protracted, complex nature of his music, his introversion and misanthropy resulted in an absolute scarcity of existing recordings of his music. His extensive symphonic works have never been recorded insofar as I know. Apparently, there are also some orchestration mistakes that have been noted in his interminable manuscripts, but these, surely, would have been corrected if he ever intended to publish. Be that as it may, there they are.

Conclusion: Sorabji was not a professional composer, certainly not in the league of Hans and J. Williams. Music history however has immortalised him as an 'artist'.

'Artist' is yet another term, which I posited in my second post, the one that matters to me, and the one with which I will close this post. 

All the other designations are more or less claimable for oneself. You can call yourself an amateur, a dilettante (which didn't have such negative connotations in the past; what happened?), or a hobbyist, most will just take you on your word as the range is just so abysmally vast. If you call yourself a professional to anyone 'in the know' at least, you'd better be able to back it up [do you get commissioned a lot? For money? By whom, etc. This will determine whether you are a journeyman professional (99.999%), further details (fee, prestige of commissioning party, etc.) will determine whether you belong to the high or low end of the journeyman spectrum, or in the infinitesimal margin above or below it].

(Musical) 'Artist' is the only designation that you don't get to claim for yourself. It is a really rare distinction and must be bestowed upon you by somebody else, either by other artists or professionals, or by people with real, vast musical culture. Not by friends and family. Not by fellow amateurs.

I'm going to bed. I bid you all goodnight, and sweet dreams...

Macker: What a brilliant example! So apt in this case! I could write pages upon pages arguing points and you did it with a simple link!.. [But please guys. Stay off politics if we wish to keep this forum as free of censorship as possible.]

Since chemistry and biology mean nothing these days, I will share the finest one-liner I received this past year: “I identify myself as vaccinated and expect to be treated as such!” Just change ‘vaccinated’ to ‘the greatest composer in the world’ and you’ve got it. Since people on this forum are so sensitive when it comes to their music and others’ perception thereof (I personally don’t consider the vast majority here even amateurs, let alone professionals - for an example of the musical standard of a universally recognised as amateur/dilettante composer, back when words had meaning, have a listen to the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDhbV_LeGWY), let’s shift the paradigm to another discipline.

You mentioned Philosophy. How many people habitually say “My philosophy on this subject is …”? Are they professional philosophers? Are they even amateur or hobbyist philosophers? Do they belong to a specific school of philosophy? Have they created their own? Do they hold a degree in philosophy? How many philosophers have they actually read (not Alain de Botton; actual philosophical texts)? Are they up to date with current academic scholarship on the subject? The list of questions can easily continue. Don't they really mean "What I think is..."? I was in the ‘science stream’ in high school, I have read many lay books on science and mathematics, I was always interested. Can I join a scientists/mathematicians forum (not a manufacturers’ forum like the VSL - that is a very important point!) because my computer has a scientific calculator (which I can use) and a Grapher, and introduce myself there as one of the boys? I will rightly be laughed out of the virtual room.

Whenever I find myself around a table when people begin a discussion on Christian dogma, I refuse to participate. When I'm asked why I won't contribute, I say that I would be interested in exchanging ideas solelywith people who have read at least the New Testament, at least once, from first line to last. Otherwise, what exactly would I be discussing?

I consider myself a voracious reader so I am familiar with quite a bit of the classical canon as well as with more recent, popular offerings. I speakthe language to an adequate degree. If I start writing storIes and regularly share them on a forum similar to this one (say the Scrivener forum), am I a professional writer? An amateur writer? A dilettante, or a hobbyist? Iam actually writing a short stories book.Ifthis book ever gets published (not self-published) and if it achieves good reviews and half-decent sales (I'm not really anticipating any of this to happen), then I will consider myself to be an amateur writer, at best. Otherwise, I will remain a hobbyist.

I think most people buried inside the diurnal grind of completing works with actual deadlines care about whether they are considered to be professional or not. I think most of the rest wish to be recognised as 'artists'.

Best of luck with that!..

As I am actually rather tired, I am going to pick this up again later.

I would like to participate in this discussion, but I find it impossible if the words professional, amateur, hobbyist, dilettante are not defined and related to musical composition.

For example, Varèse was mentioned. He may not have made a lot of money from his works, but he didn’t write too many of them either. A huge amounts of them were, admittedly, experiments (not even experimental). Also, he lived around the same time as Stravinsky, Rachmaninov, Sibelius, Strauss, and Ravel, to name a few. If you had any money, who would you throw it at? However, not only was he an innovator, but he had somebody like Stokowski eagerly awaiting for his next scribblings. He studied with d’Indy. For his whole life he was rubbing shoulders with the elite of the music world. So, what was he?

See my third post, paragraph 8.

But don’t forget!… He knew everything about music backwards! He didn’t just buy a laptop and watched a few videos. Stokowski would not have used his music to scrape muck off his tyres had that been the case.

Contrarily: Hans doesn’t know his German 6th chord from his bootstrap (not to mention the French and Italian 6ths). Be that as it may, the door is coming off its hinges as everybody who can afford him is begging/banging to commission him. He is already reeking rich, marketing himself as a composer - film composer if we must. What is he?

What was Sorabji? More or less professional than Hans? Or John Williams for that matter?

These are questions the answers to which do not easily find consensus. However, be careful. I know for a fact that there are huge nannies on this forum. Do you really wish to open this particular can of worms? Find out whether your fellow forumites consider you a ‘Professional’? If you want to have this discussion, have it out properly. Don’t run sobbing to Dietz later…

What's the equivalent for 'iconic' for music? That's what the Goldfinger theme is. Anyway, the way the Bond series is going (...) is all deserving the scoring -and box office- it gets.

Remember when movies had title songs worth the producers' money? And singers to boot!?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqg6eUr-VoQ

For those that remember Bond films having proper scores once upon a time, here is a recent book on John Barry:

https://www.prestomusic.com/books/products/9265656--music-by-john-barry-a-chronology-of-selected-works

The following is not an urging stemming from this movement alone, but rather from most of Jerry's fast movements that I've heard over the years:

I urge all the wishfuls, the untalented by birth hordes that still want to pursue music / film scoring - and being such they have to completely contrive orchestral tracks from well-known automated stuttered Mac-sequences, to listen to Jerry's naturally occurring and flowing rhythms. Not in order to copy them, but to give up already!

P.S.: I am not writing this to provoke further discussion, as welcome as it would be, I wasn't planning this, but I just happened upon the following:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4xuCY2k0lE

Basically, all the Oscars for music 2000-2020 in one short video. Some good ones, many repulsively politically #motivated, but in any case so great that there was no chance for any of the soundtracks of the first three Harry Potter films or the three Star Wars prequels... And on a couple of those occasions, I would personally have presented the award to Hans, compared to...

Thank you to everyone who participated in this discussion and offered their considered viewpoints, one always benefits from learning something new - I, for example, was unaware of VapidComposer...

Observing the international cultural milieu and the denizens' "musical" preferences in the 21st century, I am so genuinely and happily surprised that the entertainment industry still elects to employ symphonic forces for its films and games, albeit in the puerile manner explored in this thread. So long as the industry keeps sustaining all those musicians and recording studios, we -others- will continue to enjoy the great benefits of the development of great sample libraries and sophisticated notation/recording software, that allows us to compose and record our own work. 

And who knows? Even against great odds, we can still harbour statistical hope for the future.

Macker: I appreciate the cheer!

fatis12_24918: I see. Be that as it may, I am not wrong in what I said in the context I established, I believe. As far as the anthropological/neuroscientific studies are concerned, I agree that the more basic the musical element, the more common it will be cross-culturally (much like the ring vs. the brutal noise). The same could be said of phonemes. Vowel cries on their own are probably shared amongst people on all continents. And then, as language/musical language develops into more sophisticated expression, we notice significant differentiation across cultures - for example, you mentioned melodic culture. It is because we were talking about orchestral music, I thought you meant instrumental timbres/colours as your second element and that's probably where the misunderstanding occurred, as this aspect of orchestral writing is one of the more recent developments, i.e. a more recent rung in music's evolutionary ladder.

Insofar as Orkestral music is concerned, since it has chronologically "developed" after the most sophisticated orchestral possibilities (let alone form, harmony, polyphony, etc.) had been invented, its primitivistic features are not merely a step back, but leaps back. Hence, logic dictates that if it is true that people prefer Ork music to Debussy or Stravinsky, it is because their musical cognition and appreciation stems (pun intended) from a chronologically much earlier stage of mental/chromosomal development. We -as a symphonic culture- have planted our flags on the highest peaks. Are we to compromise and sit on mole hills, simply because this kind of orchestral writing is more "inclusive", as everyone and a trained monkey are capable of such tripe?

Back again.

I would like to discuss a few points, cued by some things that were said here.

First of all, does somebody's expression in literature, music, painting, architecture, etc. qualify as high art, merely from the effect it has on the eye or ear of the beholder? Not really... It can qualify as a preference of the beholder (intimating his tastes), but not as a consensus. Now, what if a devastating number of people subjected to that somebody's expression, world wide, agreed that it indeed qualified as a product of high art? Again, not enough. One would have to review what other works these people also consider as high art. If Bieber is mentioned...

Can we make an, as objective as possible, pronouncement regarding this 'so-called' Epic school, as an artistically valid type of orchestral composition? We certainly can:

This type of orchestral composition is exclusively utilised as background scoring for film and video games. There is no way that any orchestra of any note will perform such a work, unless it already exists as a score to something... No one will ever commission orchestral music of this type for its own sake (for a symphony, concerto, opera, ballet, you name it), and I don't know of any 'serious' composer that belongs to this "school" of orchestral writing. Conversely, I know of 'Minimalists', 'Spectralists', 'Neo-romantics', 'Free-atonalists', etc. Enough said. This kind of "music" is dim, and its composeurs are a joke outside of Hollywood, BBC, and Playstation.

Let's now eliminate all other types of orchestral composition and concentrate exclusively on media music and why, Hollywood for example, propagates this kind of symphonic refuse. Is it,

a) Because people like it? Not necessarily. People did not have any problems with the likes of Williams, Shore, Barry, Goldsmith, etc. before this kind of orchestral bile rose inside Hollywood's oesophagus. People are mostly there for the movie. They'll like pretty much anything although, other than Hans, I haven't seen much veneration for any other such composter, comparable to that which say Morricone enjoyed,

b) Because this kind of score suits a particular kind of movie (or game)? Again, no. This monotonous, lobotomous, layered crap has been employed in most genres: Action, Thriller, Suspense, Adventure, etc. I refer everybody to the aforementioned names. They scored such films a lot better, a lot deeper - with real layers,

c) Is it because this kind of music costs less to produce, so in effect it is the product of financial considerations? I am not an expert, but I don't see how this kind of orchestral claptrap is cheaper to record with an orchestra than any other score; and if it is, I have never read it from anyone in recently published books, or relevant YouTube interviews.

So what's the reason for this music's use then, if it's absolute crap and no cheaper than a proper score?

I won't go into that, but I'll just say that music is not the only aspect of film making that has gone down the public toilet. Compare the Star Wars of the '70s to today's as an example. Compare re-makes, etc.

Anand mentioned Jim Morrison. Who is the last 30 years' Jim Morrison, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, Roger Waters, Benny Andersson, Freddie Mercury, Elton John, Phil Collins, Jeff Lynne, Barry Gibb, Roger Hodgson, Mark Knopfler, Eric Woolfson, name your own... Anybody comes even near?

Back to the software. fatis12_24918 said the pyramid is based on rhythm, then timbral colours, then melody, then harmony and finally counterpoint. This only applies of course to this Trailer park "music" this software facilitates. Music, in the western world at least (and orchestral music was born there), began with melody/rhythm (we'll never know which came first), then counterpoint, then harmony, and finally timbre. And it was always sophisticated; as sophisticated as it could be at any time. 

Finally, the orchestra is an instrument in itself. It has developed from the chamber ensembles of the past, to the Classical orchestra, then the Romantics added size and instruments, and so did the Modernists in the 20th century. Its constituent instruments have developed and changed over time from their original forms, much like the development of the piano. 

How one composes for this 'instrument' does not depend on the 'instrument'. It is capable of Mozart's 40th, as it is of Lutoslawski's 3rd. Capable of Captain Blood, as it is of Superman (1978). Sadly, it is also capable of Man of Steel (2013).

The instrument does not make you a composer - any instrument. It will however reflect the composer you are, according to how you write for it. And remember: Technique is not a matter of taste, or opinion.

Originally Posted by: fatis12_24918

 Well... in case one is customer of both the companies (as I am) and one want to make some nice comparison, the Ork-estrator is a lot of fun: it drives MIDI channels to VEP and you may play a full VSL Orchestra with it!

I'm also a customer of both companies (Symphonic Choirs - since nobody else will release a fully "phoneticizable" choir). Do I understand you correctly? Are you saying the Orkestrator engine will play VSL instruments through VEP? That is, the Orkestrator will apply its patterns and settings onto other libraries' sounds? I don't get the 'as-it-is' in your post.

Originally Posted by: Macker

Lolol, I'm willing to bet that our chum the dronemeister narcissist doesn't waste a second of his valuable time listening to stuff by unknown hopefuls.

I agree, but I'm sure he hears a lot of current film scores and those are pretty much Hollywood Orkestrated. Just last night I saw the 2016 remake of The Magnificent Seven. They saved Bernstein's theme for the end credits. So, the credits were rolling as a new recording of the original theme was played, at the end of which the new, step-sequenced score took over. The juxtaposition/comparison was so jarring that I'd hate to have been this recent film's composer, despite what must have been a financially lucrative contract.

I mention this as an initial comment to your story about Sony's London offices and their garbage bins for CDs. I remember an interview with a studio executive in charge of music in Hollywood (I do not remember which studios). His desk was stockpiled with demo CDs, end-to-end, about 30 to a pile. He pointed at them saying they represented merely that particular day's deliveries (he had received just as many previously and was expecting the same the following day). How was he expected to examine them all? Answer he gave: He couldn't and he wouldn't. The vast majority would be thrown away. There was no return policy and no allocated space for the CDs in the studios' premises.

As far as grabbing producers' and directors' attention within the first few seconds, I must say that I have no idea what is expected these days. My favourite weighty, powerful, arresting opening of all times is that of Brahms' Symphony N.1. I would say Beethoven's 5th and Sibelius' 4th are not far behind, followed by Petrushka, Carmina Burana, Keqrops, Ein Heldenleben, and many others in no particular order of course and, if amplitude is not a factor, who can ignore the haunting openings of Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto, Music for Strings Percussion and Celeste, Ligeti's Requiem, etc., etc. Would these openings impress the average filmmaker these days? I wish...

And if I have my take on film scores for those arresting first few seconds, would Citizen Kane, North by Northwest, or Vertigo cut it today? I very much doubt it. Maybe Star Wars - A New Hope or Star Trek - The Motion Picture. Maybe... I think they are by now conditioned to only tune in to Trailer (park) / Epic patches and layers.

I know! The next big thing for sample library companies will be 'Openings' (pity 'Big Bang' is already taken...): "In these times of the Clone Wars, you have to impress the filmmakers instantly if you're going to have any chance of securing a contract. 'Openings' is a brand new library, and a fast and sure way of grabbing a director's elusive ear. We have created tons of inspiration patches, lasting anywhere between 4-10 seconds, that will suit all kinds and styles of contemporary cinema. Just select from the Menu - Action, Adventure, Horror, Suspense, Thriller, etc., and the appropriate directory of our headphone-tearing, mind-numbing WAVs will allow you (and countless others) to select the perfect musical introduction that will compel any filmmaker to hear the complete track. Stay tuned, in the next few months we'll be releasing 'Middles' and 'Endings', to complement this release and the complete sham that is commercial film-music composition today.

Taikos are an important omission which, overwhelmed as I was with the demonstration, did not register in my mind at the time - surprisingly, as I just adore Taikos and their habitual, tasteful use in original film scores.

And another thing. How many more sets of microphones and controllers thereof are we still expecting in the future? This competition among sound library companies regarding microphonal opulence... How much farther can it go? And how much farther can this obsession with orchestral verisimilitude go before even one person bothers to be as judgemental about the quality of the actual music that is channeled through all these plug-ins and filters and sends and returns and dithers and whatnot?

I bet even Hans is vomiting by this time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzlQ65mzKkI&t=3s

Strictly for highly skilled connoisseurs of the art of orchestral writing and rare talents out there who simply refuse to compromise on original thinking (examples as to the latter at 7:13 onwards).

P.S.: As a brand new product, it's not perfected yet. You still have to come up with the chords (sigh). I'm certain version 2.zero is in the works.