media music - art or craft?

[pete whitfield]

This came out of a forum discussion a while back where Chris Alpiar talked about the artistic merit of media music (film music in particular) compared to (oh I'm going to struggle for a term here!) art or concert or classical music.

Many of the composers in this community write media music; do you consider your work to be art or craft? Or perhaps how do you see the balance between the 2, as the cliche '1% inspiration, 99% perspiration' may ring true for many!

Is the natural home of contemporary music with images (music to picture)? I suggest that no other arena allows a composer to draw together so many influences and cross so many musical borders than music to picture. There are parallels here with opera I feel, where historically composers have found the marriage of drama, visual imagery and music is the ultimate home for their work. (At least with film you don't have to listen to that dreadful warbling - sorry, just had to get that off my chest!)

Referring back to the original discussion, Chris felt that media music might not throw up the next great 'art' composer. But with movies providing some powerful emotional experiences, is film the best contemporary home for music, and part of the art form that is film?

Update - 25th October 2008. If you are coming to this discussion hoping to get involved in the original topic, I would try starting a new forum discussion, as somewhere along the line it evolved (disintegrated? was hijacked?) into something equally interesting - (the future of music as a commercial industry, and in particular the effect of new technologies.

[Chris Merritt]

Hey Pete!

Most of what I write is for promos or show themes. I think it is mostly craft. Not that that's bad. I mean Bach wrote something like 80 cantatas for his church - that was basically a new one every week. He probably thought of it as craft by then, too!

But there is a big difference nowadays. In modern media, you tend to have to write music that is simple enough to allow focus on the picture and dialogue. That is an artform of its own; being able to make the music support the rest. But the music that I write for that, tends not to be as 'timeless' as what I might write for an audience that will be focusing on the music.

In fact, that's a big point here. I always have to be aware how much focus there will be on the music and compose accordingly. Will there be a voice over? Is there a lot happening on screen or is it just a few edits?

And also there is the matter of time. Which would I consider more art? a promo that I have to compose in four hours or a piece that I can spend a few weeks on?

Just some thoughts. Great topic!

[Chris Alpiar]

haha dreadful warbling indeed!

I just want to toss in here that I never doubt that any medium is a possible platform for inspired greatness, and while I hold it doubtful that the next Stravinsky will come to be as a result of music for picture I would never place a cap or limitation to what a style of music business can be the catalyst to. The main problem, as Chris Merritt points to, is that the music is almost never, or only very briefly, the center of attention for a film or TV. Whereas a concert is absolutly the center. And since the idea of music for picture is most often to simply enhance the emotion of the moment and add that sonic impact to the visual statement, the music for it is almost always going to be forced to be less complex, less attention grabbing than "art" music. And on top of that there are most producers who want the music portion of their film to be exactly like this pretty standard concept of orchestral score music. They want to make money and don't want to take chances on art. They want "star wars" re-scored for their movie for less and less budgets that are forcing live musicians out of the scene.

This doesn't mean it cannot happen tho! I am sure that some very amazing talented people will make films that understand art and music and will want a truly masterful score. It just becomes less and less the norm these days. I hope to see this change in my lifetime and I dream of arriving at a place where my art, craft and career all collide in one intense joyous cacophony of rapture ;-)

[Chris Alpiar]

nice post Marius! I agree with your idea of seperating art from non art, and it is nice you have defined the lines for yourself so thoroughly. I wish it were that simple tho, and maybe it is for you, but the problems start when you realize what a huge grey area there is separating the art from the non-art music. And I am saying art vs non-art music since I believe music is not necessarily art. I think there is music that is art and other music that isnt and still other stuff that is more like sound design than music. Then there is also the profane loop-music which rarely can be art, sometimes its music but built from other peoples minds than the listed composer, and most of the time its neither art or music. But in the end all that remains is the question "What is art?" and the only true answer is that it is in the eye of the beholder (or ear as it may be). As much as I HATE it, that the world doesnt recognize the magnificent detail and intensity in what I call art, well maybe a very small portion of the world would align with me on my definition, nonetheless what someone perceives as art makes it so. Go to the Museum of Modern Art in NYC and you will understand. To me, every time I go there, literally half of the works there are utter shit. Not worthy of the underside of my toilet seat. Really useless works that scream of some persons' unbelievable gaul and ego to even think they deserve to place their drivel among masterpieces of indescibable depth, meaning and beauty. I feel that way about *some* of John Cages works and that he was abusing his position as a popularly conceived "artist" in placing some of his works. But these are my opinions, and one's opinion and self built ruleset are the only determining factors of what is art. You may say well true but there are the obvious states of non-art to point at. I still say that its *your* definition of art. We two might agree on a lot of what art is, but its not for us to say what anyone else perceives. As an argument for perception, consider that in Polynesia, it is customary for a father to have sex with his daughter, in front of the boy who is courting her. The custom is for the father to show the boy how to please his daughter before they are married. OK WHOA! To us (or at least to me) that is so so wrong on so many levels! And in our society that man would be locked in jail for a long time if he was found out. But in their society its just normal, its what fathers do. Its his *responsibility* and who are we to judge their sacred customs and traditions?

Well now that has all been said, and also that I do agree with your sentiment on what is art and what isnt personally, and that it hurts me dearly to have to point out that one cannot judge what is and what isnt art for anyone than himself, I must also point out that yes it is the responsibility today of the composer to be a sound engineer, orchestrator, arranger, copyist and all the things you mentioned in your post. The business has changed dramatically in the last few years and its only getting uglier. But I have hope that art and truth will hold out and persevere when the business fails and either new ways of composers earning money to live while they spend the countless hours on their art and craft will come to rise or this art form will fail and we will become like those people who make frescos today in the original way using the same techniques. THere are probably a handful of them on the earth and they make money as a "freak show" instead of there being tens of thousands who grow their craft in a booming economy for fresco artists

[Chris Alpiar]

well the problem with that is money. nobody will work for free and the amount of money being paid by production companies does not leave room for a second person. I love the idea of some hippy workshop where everyone shares and one person collects and shares equally... as long as that person truly is sharing equally. I wonder how the Hans Zimmer studio thing works. I know that is the idea behind his studio actually and he obviously cranks out stuff on a pretty high level, at least production-wise and occasionally art-wise. But I bet Hans gets 99% of the dough and his group gets the experience. Maybe I am wrong and Hans is really an awesome guy that works hard for his people to have their own success. I would like to know more about that scene

also keep in mind that the production factories ended in the 50s with the anti trust suits against the film companies. It used to be that each film company housed internally 10s of thousands of musicians, thousands of composers orchestrators copyists. It was an amazing time if you had some musical chops and a little talent. They didnt get ownership of the music but they were paid pretty well

When the anti trust suits came out, it was decided (generally from the nature of how the teams were set up in house) that the composer would be the go-to person to supply all the music production. So the composers became employers and the big money contracts went to the composer, and he was to supply all the production and performance of their music including the orchestras, copyists etc.

Now the advance of technology that makes is pretty easy to be a "decent" engineer and orchestrator coupled with the massive loss of revenue the whole biz got hit with from illegal downloading coupled with programs like fruity loops and acid where anyone who can click a mouse can make some kind of music based on loops from a real composer - this has all led to the terrible and evil time we are members of.

So changes now must be made to understand fully what has happened here and to come up with a plan to put us back on the map and leave room for composers to flourish and to grow into those big money productions

[pete whitfield]

I'm on my jollies (vacation) but will get my teeth into this when I'm back at my workstation! I've not had a chance to read the replies properly (sun, sea, sand - it's a busy day) but to take the music for media out of context is, I believe, a mis-judgement.
Film is the collaborative art-form of our time and I contend that history will judge Pixar and Disney animations (for example) to be the art of the early 21st century! OK, back to the beach..... Best wishes from Portugal!

[Stephen Barry]

It's been a while since I've been on this site, but I'm going to start frequenting here more because I miss the good discussions like these. I can't lie, a lot of film music does seem to be filler music, especially when you listen to it on it's own apart from the film. On the other hand, certain scores I like specifically because of the marvelous soundscapes portrayed (The Dark Knight Soundtrack for example...Hans Zimmer is a beast...) Classical music and film music to me, have a lot of similarities, and not just because an orchestra is used in both. I think the main difference is that media music is used for a film, and that governs the cues and the emotional nature of the different score sections. Where as classical music is birthed out of inspiration. A lot of the popular composers like John Williams, Hans Zimmer, James Horner, etc. bring some unique and signature sounds to what they do, and I think some other composers tend to try and re-create that, and the movie studios take it cause it will work with the movie. I think if more composers followed what inspires them most, rather than only biting off of their influences, there would be some better sounding media music, that's for sure. I think film is a contemporary home for music, but not THE home. I really would like to see a lot of composers and instrumentalists do some of their own work, that isn't necessarily associated with a film. In response to what Anne Goodwin said about most people not having interest in classical music, I really have to disagree with that. I have met tons (indeed tons) of people who love classical music...especially people my age. Sheesh, I turn up some Vivaldi or Mozart just as readily as I do some Coldplay or whatever else I listen to that is current. I just don't think classical music is represented well genre-wise. The new stuff is kind of thrown behind movies as filler music, and that's one of the reasons we even refer to it as media music. But yeah, those are some of my thoughts...

[pete whitfield]

There's plenty of money in music Ray!

[pete whitfield]

Good point Ray! I'm going to have a go at starting a couple of discussions for sharing info when I get back from jollies - one about income streams and another about advice for young composers!

[Stephen Barry]

That's dead on, Job. My sentiments exactly.

[pete whitfield]

I like that one Marius - music workshops. When I'm doing score prep or orchestrations for a composer I really think he/she should not be dealing with the details of sessions, but concentrate on the composer's own job! It's not that I'm after the work, I just don't want him to lose sight of his priorities.

[pete whitfield]

It's inevitable this question would provoke some heated debate and that we would never agree, as personal preference lies at the heart of our response to music. I find it strange that within music for media we still separate out the music and expect it to be judged entirely on it's own. Film, for example, is an entirely collaborative art form - I can respect, enjoy and be moved by many individual components but it is the sum of these that will ultimately light my fire.
Rather like the typical response to 'how to save the music industry' (sue illegal downloaders) we are shackled by the old models. I can't avoid this cliche - 'think outside the box'! There has never been a collaborative art form as diverse as film, so to judge its components should we re-think our approach?

[Chris Alpiar]

I hate to say it Pete because I like you and your music and your thoughts, but summarizing the old model thoughts as sueing the illegal downloaders shows to me that you have not even spent a nominal amount of time on that subject and hence you really shouldnt use it as reference