# SCORE MASTERS: Celebrating John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith



## dcoscina (Feb 11, 2021)

This thing is gold guys. Amazing recollections by industry giants like David Newman, Leonard Slatkin, Mike Lang, Bruce Botnick, and various other authorities on film music history.


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## Dave Connor (Feb 11, 2021)

dcoscina said:


> This thing is gold guys. Amazing recollections by industry giants like David Newman, Leonard Slatkin, Mike Lang, Bruce Botnick, and various other authorities on film music history.



Fantastic. Thanks for posting Dave.


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## South Thames (Feb 12, 2021)

This is great, thanks for sharing! The way they were talking though, I did have to remind myself several times that Williams is actually still alive .


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## I like music (Feb 12, 2021)

South Thames said:


> This is great, thanks for sharing! The way they were talking though, I did have to remind myself several times that Williams is actually still alive .


Yes! Imagine how spoiled we'd be if Goldsmith was still operating. I sometimes wonder how he'd work in today's world.


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## dcoscina (Feb 12, 2021)

I like music said:


> Yes! Imagine how spoiled we'd be if Goldsmith was still operating. I sometimes wonder how he'd work in today's world.


I don't think he would, to be honest. He was already dialing back in his complexity after Total Recall since he could see the writing on the wall as far as competing with sound FX. 

I wish I could have sat down with him and discussed his influences like Bartok and Berg and what he enjoyed about their music. The thing about this roundtable that really struck me was how schooled Goldsmith and Williams were. Their knowledge of repertoire was amazing. I think we have lost that a bit. I mean, Tim Roddier posted a great video on the augmented scale and showcased a piece of music by Franz Schreker. How many people on this forum would even know who he was or what period of time he wrong in (spoiler- he was a contemporary of Mahler, Zemlinsky, and Strauss). Some people might say "why is that important?". Well the more exposure to different composers' music, the more tools one has at their disposal.


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## I like music (Feb 12, 2021)

dcoscina said:


> I don't think he would, to be honest. He was already dialing back in his complexity after Total Recall since he could see the writing on the wall as far as competing with sound FX.
> 
> I wish I could have sat down with him and discussed his influences like Bartok and Berg and what he enjoyed about their music. The thing about this roundtable that really struck me was how schooled Goldsmith and Williams were. Their knowledge of repertoire was amazing. I think we have lost that a bit. I mean, Tim Roddier posted a great video on the augmented scale and showcased a piece of music by Franz Schreker. How many people on this forum would even know who he was or what period of time he wrong in (spoiler- he was a contemporary of Mahler, Zemlinsky, and Strauss). Some people might say "why is that important?". Well the more exposure to different composers' music, the more tools one has at their disposal.


Agreed! Biggest frustration of my life that I never had any musical schooling. Trying to write stuff like these guys when you're just picking it up in your 30s, and then realising that in addition to their talent, realistically you'd need that training from an early age. It is gutting and almost makes you want to give up. 

On the other hand, I'm happy that they DID go through all that schooling because it allowed them to just be better because of it. 

There's developing your voice, and then there's developing your voice after hearing everyone else's voice. The latter probably results in a better composer, as evident in the Js


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## South Thames (Feb 12, 2021)

> I wish I could have sat down with him and discussed his influences like Bartok and Berg and what he enjoyed about their music. The thing about this roundtable that really struck me was how schooled Goldsmith and Williams were. Their knowledge of repertoire was amazing. I think we have lost that a bit. I mean, Tim Roddier posted a great video on the augmented scale and showcased a piece of music by Franz Schreker. How many people on this forum would even know who he was or what period of time he wrong in (spoiler- he was a contemporary of Mahler, Zemlinsky, and Strauss). Some people might say "why is that important?". Well the more exposure to different composers' music, the more tools one has at their disposal



The career utility of that type of schooling is so much more limited now. How much opportunity is there to write Bergian, Bartokian or Stravinskian music in film, really? Or any music which has an obvious connection to the classical or even film music cannon? Much like films themselves, film music has been so homogenised and narrowed in its frame of reference and expression that accumulating such a deep knowledge of the repertoire wouldn't necessarily be a wise investment of time.

Composers now have to be much more technically skilled at many things that would previously have been considered tangential to being a composer and it's hard to argue, career-wise, that their time would be better spent studying Mahler scores etc.


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## dcoscina (Feb 12, 2021)

South Thames said:


> The career utility of that type of schooling is so much more limited now. How much opportunity is there to write Bergian, Bartokian or Stravinskian music in film, really? Or any music which has an obvious connection to the classical or even film music cannon? Much like films themselves, film music has been so homogenised and narrowed in its frame of reference and expression that accumulating such a deep knowledge of the repertoire wouldn't necessarily be a wise investment of time.
> 
> Composers now have to be much more technically skilled at many things that would previously have been considered tangential to being a composer and it's hard to argue, career-wise, that their time would be better spent studying Mahler scores etc.


Totally. No arguments here.


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