# Fantasy Music...



## jononotbono (Apr 3, 2016)

Hi,

So I am attempting to write some Fantasy Music. I am listening to Danny Elfman's Alice Theme (actually I am listening to much more than that but it's certainly a great Fantasy piece in my opinion), Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Potter etc

What's your Favourite Fantasy Music you find in Films/TV/Games? There's so much and I'm interested in hearing all of it. Fascinated in what makes Fantasy Music Fantasy. Also, if anyone here has ever written any I would love to hear it if it's online! 

Thanks

Jono


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## KEnK (Apr 3, 2016)

Maleficent by JNH struck me as quite special. Love the use of the Tuba for that main theme early on.
Wojciech Kilar's Dracula has been one of my fav's as well.
Pan's Labyrinth has some excellent sinister writing by Javier Navarrete.
Hellboy by Beltrami goes to a lot of different places.

And if you're interested in Film Music History-
Check out The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad by Miklos Rozsa,
and The Egyptian, curiously by both Alfred Newman and Bernard Herrmann,
Those guys practically invented film music.
Lots of their devices are still in use today

k


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## jononotbono (Apr 3, 2016)

Thanks man. I'm actually about to read 'A History of Film Music" by Mervyn Cooke which looks like a very interesting read. I shall check out your suggestions. Fantasy is definitely some of my favourite Music from Film. It's probably the hardest to write and utilises an entire Orchestra (and what ever else) which is why I am obviously finding it difficult to attempt it. It's the kind of Music that takes me to an imaginative place. It's nice trying to write with Woodwinds as well! And any excuse to get a Choir into the Music


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## mgpqa1 (Apr 3, 2016)

Basil Poledouris's score for Conan the Barbarian!

One of my favorite cues is _Recovery_:



For games, one of my all time favorites is the music during the tutorial in Final Fantasy Tactics (Hitoshi Sakimoto, Masaharu Iwata):


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## IoannisGutevas (Apr 3, 2016)

Besides all the classic game scores and the movie fantasy scores you can find you should check these composers too.

https://www.youtube.com/user/AdrianvonZiegler

https://www.youtube.com/user/BrunuhVille

https://www.youtube.com/user/PeterCrowley83

They all make amazing music and they are really good in "fantasy scores". Especially Peter Crowley is a fantastic composer.


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## Flux (Apr 3, 2016)

Perhaps one of my all time favorite soundtracks is Jeremy Soule's Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim score.









I would be embarrassed to say how much I listen to this soundtrack. Jeremy Soule is a huge influence on my work, and it's mostly due to the music in this game. He's also working on a symphony called The Northerner, scheduled to be released in 2017. Needless to say I'm pretty excited, and if you enjoy the music in Skyrim, it seems to be more of that, so definitely keep an eye out!

In terms of what makes fantasy music "fantasy", I would say the modal harmonies, the choirs, the atmospheric pads, and the sweeping cello and violin melodies create that distinguished "fantasy" sound that we seem to hear a lot in recent media.


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## Greg (Apr 3, 2016)

I recently tried composing a bit in this genre too! Here's what I came up with if you'd like to hear:


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## Smikes77 (Apr 3, 2016)

Flux said:


> Perhaps one of my all time favorite soundtracks is Jeremy Soule's Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim score.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




This. My all time favourite.


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## jononotbono (Apr 3, 2016)

Excellent! What a positive forum thread this is! Thanks for all the links. I am going to listen to them right now...


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## streetster (Apr 4, 2016)

Greg good job...what vi's did you use and how did you manage to do the string runs in wicked?



Greg said:


> I recently tried composing a bit in this genre too! Here's what I came up with if you'd like to hear:


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## jononotbono (Apr 4, 2016)

Greg, seriously bad ass! Love it!


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## jononotbono (Apr 4, 2016)

SilentBob said:


> If you have a fairy-tale, magical stuff in mind, you might find some suggestions in this thread:
> 
> http://vi-control.net/community/threads/fairy-tale-like-orchestral-film-scores-for-reference.33173/
> 
> ...



Yes, it certainly does. It's been a while since I have seen WIllow. I shall have to have a listen again! Hook is a JW classic!


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## Baron Greuner (Apr 6, 2016)

There are two guys on this forum that are brilliant at writing Fantasy music. Steve Rees and Carles Piles. As good as anything in the fantasy line you will ever hear.


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## Pasticcio (Apr 6, 2016)

I think William's score for Witches of Eastwick is fantastic. The score is just packed with so much 'fun' and flawless writing. Love it, it kinda just dances along with the film:


Others that spring to mind is Goldsmith's Legend mentioned above, Alex North's Dragonslayer 

and of course, for the 80's!!:


For game music, nothing beats good old Ocarina of Time.


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## jononotbono (Apr 7, 2016)

Baron Greuner said:


> There are two guys on this forum that are brilliant at writing Fantasy music. Steve Rees and Carles Piles. As good as anything in the fantasy line you will ever hear.



I shall have to look them up and check out their Music. Love the Fantasy Genre. Thanks for putting me onto them!


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## jononotbono (Apr 7, 2016)

Pasticcio said:


> I think William's score for Witches of Eastwick is fantastic. The score is just packed with so much 'fun' and flawless writing. Love it, it kinda just dances along with the film:
> 
> 
> Others that spring to mind is Goldsmith's Legend mentioned above, Alex North's Dragonslayer
> ...




Indeed. All brilliant pieces of work. Man, Ocarina of Time was a certainly a fantastic game. Wish I had the time to play them now. Not enough time in the day when there's so much Musical knowledge to learn!


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## Mundano (Jun 30, 2016)

*The Music of Fantasy Cinema (Genre, Music and Sound)Paperback – January 24, 2014*
by Janet K. Halfyard (Author, Editor)

Fantasy has had a modern resurgence in cinema due largely to the success of superhero narratives and the two major fantasy series, the _Lord of the Rings_ and _Harry Potter_. Often regarded as mere escapism, works of both literature and cinema wishing to be taken seriously by the public, by critics and by academics have tended to shelter under the euphemistic umbrella of Magic Realism and, until very recently, there has been a general lack of serious academic work concerned with fantasy as a genre. This volume explores the way in which music and sound articulate the fantastic in cinema and contribute to the creation of fantasy narratives.

Apart from the accusation of frivolous escapism that attaches itself to the fantasy genre, another issue is the lack of a single and simple definition of what fantasy is: the consensus of academic opinion appears to be that fantasy invokes the magical within its narratives as the means by which to achieve what would be impossible in our own reality, as compared to sci-fi's as-yet unknown technologies and horror's dark and deadly supernatural forces. Fantasy remains problematic, however, because it defies many of the conventional mechanisms by which genre is defined such as setting, mood and audience. In a way quite unlike its co-genres, fantasy moves with infinite flexibility between locations the world (almost) as we know it, historical, futuristic or mythic locations; between moods heroic, epic, magical; and between audiences children, teens, adults. In English-language cinema, it encompasses the grand mythic narratives of _Lord of the Rings, Legend and The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, the heroic narratives of Superman, Flash Gordon_ and _Indiana Jones_ and the magical narratives of _Labyrinth, Edward Scissorhands_ and the _Harry Potter_ series, to name just some of films that typify the variety that the genre offers. What these films all have in common is a requirement that the audience accepts the a fundamental break with reality within the diegesis of the filmic narrative, and embraces magic in its many and various forms, sometimes benign, sometimes not.

This volume examines music in fantasy cinema across a broad historical perspective, from Bernard Herrmann's scores for Ray Harryhausen, through the popular music scores of the 1980s to contemporary scores for films such as _The Mummy_ and the _Harry Potter_ series, allowing the reader to see not only the way that the musical strategies of fantasy scoring have changed over time but also to appreciate the inventiveness of composers such as Bernard Herrmann, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Danny Elfman and Elliot Goldenthal, and popular musicians such as Queen and David Bowie in evoking the mythic, the magical and the monstrous in their music for fantasy film.

from:


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