# James Horner Masterclass



## themeworks (Apr 15, 2022)

The balance of his innocence and cynicism or maybe 'experience' in his discussion is ironically reminiscent of those same elements in his music. Would you agree with James' self assessment that he is a non-traditional film composer?


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## Sirocco (Apr 15, 2022)

I never seen this; all, all everything he tolds is so actual, even for the future, sad but realistic part of the bussiness at HW, sad what they considered music...o.k. is music, yes, but 2 hours of scoring (that maybe were 20 or more) is not the same as a "forced" song...irocanilly Titanic ridiculous version song wins the oscar as song and the other oscar for best scoring too.

I think all he says here is so much interesting, and i´m not agree with all, but he makes a description of something that happens today and unfortunatey will go worse in the future with film musical scores.

I thinks he was not a non-traditional nor pure traditional, is just a musical taste, i don´t mind if he was it or not, and mainly in the mainstream always... is talking about Hollywood, but there are other films were music is not tied, by any means, to the photograph, director, etc..., but hey!! these films are not trying to win an Oscar or efven nominated, fortunately there are other "worlds" without moneytalks that are not treated in his speech.

Even there are films (mostly underground, idies, unipersonal, you name it) that are made for the music, wich is something fabulous, put image to the music and not the reverse.

But a bussines as an art so abstract as he says, is not gonna married never each other, obvious and proven so much times, but is good hear what Horner´s says, wich was not so obvious *then *for the non pro people, that deserves think about it again, and again, and...again.


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## jeremyr (Apr 19, 2022)

Horner is my favourite film composer, but I actually disagree with some stuff here, particularly the claim that if he wrote Beethoven 1 for one film and Beethoven 2 for another he would be in trouble because they share a similar aesthetic. When critics complain about similarities it's not necessarily the aesthetic or "feel", it's similar melodies that draw criticism, and in some cases, lawsuits.

The two lawsuits Horner was involved in were for the same film: Honey I Shrunk the Kids where he was likely instructed to incorporate melodies from Raymond Scott's Powerhouse and Nino Rota's Amarcord without obtaining the rights to those scores. I think if he changed the melodies enough there would have been no lawsuits. And we see that all the time in parody music.

You don't have to look far to find parodies of popular themes from Star Wars, Inidiana Jones, etc. where composers just changed the melody enough to avoid a lawsuit. The aesthetic is the same, the melody is different. I'm not saying this is okay, it's just that the reality is a lot less complex than what Horner is describing here.


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## Double Helix (Jul 12, 2022)

Thank you for this thread--I was glad that he mentioned _The Mission_ (Ennio Morricone) as a beautiful marriage of music & image (commentary starts ~46:25--but wait! He has more to say!)


jeremyr said:


> Horner is my favourite film composer, but I actually disagree with some stuff here


I agree with your disagreements 8-) . . . and Horner is certainly in my top 5

*EDIT* to add Morricone's theme from _The Mission_


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