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.

[Gordon Wimpress]

Phil, you seem to be making an argument that I'm not disagreeing with.

What I'm arguing against was the original thread, in that the poster lumped all film music together, and dismissed it out of hand, saying that none of it was "real" music, or "art".

[Nigel Watson]

And as George Best said when asked where all his money went....."mostly on women and drink...but the rest I just wasted"

Nigel

[Evan Evans]

Music For Drama is DRAMATIC MUSIC.
Music as Art is ARTISTIC MUSIC.

The purposes are entirely different. Dramatic Music can be artistic, and Artistic Music can be dramatic, but the purpose of inception is basically the only difference between the two. How they are admired depends on how much of either the music possesses and how much the listener prefers to hear one or the other.

There's no real need to argue the point (of this original topic). If you like apples AND oranges, eat them both. If you don't like oranges eat apples, and vice versa.

I think the confusion is when the listener/critique doesn't understand the difference between the choice of intent of inception.

It's important to note, that dramatic music can be 100% effective and NOT be music at all. It's going to take some time, but I think sometime in the 21st Century here most everyone will finally come to the realization that dramatic music is a seperate artform than music itself.

Dramatic music, or "descriptive" music as it's better called, only becomes interesting out of the ego of the initiating composer or the selflessness of the listener.

Evan Evans

[Chris Alpiar]

Very well put Evan, I would remind everyone that while "dramatic music can be 100% effective and NOT be music at all." it still *can* be art music and there will hopefully always be a place for dramatic music that is also art music! I really hope so for otherwise the world becomes a drab and dreary shade of gray. Personally, and while I understand the inherent difficulty in achieving this, I hope to someday have opportunity to do both combined and with the time and resources needed to accomplish it ;-)

[Evan Evans]

There was a time, before I moved out of town for 6 years to jumpstart a family, where I was so on top of my craft, that each time I wrote a cue, I considered how it would play from the previous cue on a CD, and actually wrote the cue to make the soundtrack listening experience work better, whilst solving all the dramatic needs of the film simultaneously. The music came out extraordinarily better, and decisions like starting a cue 1 minute earlier during a "quiet" scene became more about soundtrack producing than film scoring, and yet somehow, I tell you, the music for the movie worked better this way too. It's as if the listener was mixing a soundtrack listening experience with a movie watching experience, and almost like "persistence of vision", the listener could natively "feel" how each cue played from each other back to back.

When you are at that level of the craft, it becomes really frustrating to have to watch a film like "Pirates Of the Caribbean" where they have to cut out 3 out of every 4 cues for the CD since it's just too much action music back to back ... what we classically trained film composers like call the "MTV effect". The listener, with their "persistence of listening", knows darn well they are bored to death the 4th time the music pounds them with action. That's why you hear people intellectualizing the enjoyment of action films, because they can't feel anything due to being pounded to numbness. All they are left to comment about is style ... whether something is cool or apropos.

At the point in which the dramatic music, as selfless unheard music, becomes art, that's where the composer begins to consider themselves a provider of philosophical value to society. I think the composer knows when they are finally capable of providing that, but it can take society's acknowledgement to let the composer know what subjects are at the top of the people's hearts and minds.

[Patrik Ohlsson]

For the genres who are not mainstream, technology have brought publishing opportunities beyond radio and TV's capabilities. There aren't any free channels in Sweden airing classical/romantic/neoclassical music regularly. The only thing you get for free is the bs MTV produces. True quality is worth paying for and when people get to know of real quality music it will cause a rise in sales of cd's, concert etc.

And so it has. Downloading, illegal or not, is working like a compressor on the music industry. The mass-media music suffers the most, and the smaller artists/composers gets a lift in publicity and in sales because now, everyone is suddenly playing on the same field.

I buy most of my classical cd's from Boosey & Hawkes and even if it's expensive to buy from abroad, it is even harder to find anything exiting in local record stores. If you've passed the stage of "best of" classical cd's you won't find anything worth while in most cities here. The same time it's not illegal to copy a cd here and let your friend borrow it (maybe because there is no way in hell that authorities could trace such activity if it's not in a larger scale).

The point is that downloading is a natural reaction to the inability of sony, mtv and other mainstream media to deliver to the cultural demands of most people. If people were satisfied with prices, delivery times and quality they would not turn to other sources for information.

[Luigi]

to me music is music.....maybe it's a generalization,but to me 'art' or 'craft' is just a term,a category that was invented by music critics. Sure,a media composer has to be crafty.....he has to earn his rent,etc

But didn't composers in Bach's time, do the same thing,when they had to write music for this or that particular situation?
This 'art' or 'craft' dilemma seems to me a thing for music critics,not for musicians. I don't think a good opera is superior or inferior to a good tv soundtrack,or a good videogame soundtrack, or a good anime soundtrack.

Of course,if the opera was written with astonishing skill and the anime soundtrack is just a collection of rock songs,then yes ,the opera would be ,to me, more 'art form'. It depends on what is what ....we can't compare Beethoven with Spice Girls,of course. But a soundtrack by Basil Poledouris,to me,is not less deserving of my attention than a symphony written by Beethoven.

I consider other things as well,for example,listening to Beethoven or Bach requires a longer attention span than listening to a movie soundtrack. Both these types of music were written for very different purposes,so why worrying about which one is more deserving?
In general,I can say that I am no snob,lol.....

[phil Kelly]

Luigi:

All of what we've been discussing has been "demand music" * . . paid music written to order for a client to fit a situation ( from the clergy in Bachs time thru the Royal Courts in Mozarts and other time up thru the current state of producers and ad agencies in our time. )

Unfortunately , these days the aesthetic standards are often set by bean counters , lawyers, and producers with very little true understanding of music.

This is not to say that current film music is all dreck ..some of it *IS* music
as well as fulfilling it's intent. But, if one objectively faces facts, a lot of it is pure shit from an aesthetic POV.
IMO, a score built with a pile of sample loops slapped into protools and mixed and blended on the fly to picture by a "sound designer" doesn't qualify as music in my book. ( especially when some sort of "drone" is employed to imitate actual functional direction )

OTOH: montage, music concrete, and computer generated sounds ARE
legitimate tools when employed by an actual composer for dramatic effect.

but ..I digress ..as usual ..time for a xanax and a single malt :)

Phil Kelly
www.philkellymusic.com

[Evan Evans]

Nah, I really appreciate your response Luigi. No need for the Xanax. Let me know if you'd ever be interested in writing some columns for our blog. I like how direct you are. Strong opinions deserve a platform, especially when they sit well with most people.

You're good by me.

Evan

[John Banting]

Come on guys, some of the previous comments are just lazy thinking of the worst kind - just because you don't like it doesn't make a musical form rubbish. Music is music is music.

I seldom, if indeed ever, hear such narrow opinions from working professionals, but very often from “wannabes” and “never has beens” - Odd that…

To carry on the whiskey analogy, some like a single malt, I prefer a bourbon. (Sorry Phil, I appreciate that might just send you over the edge)! ; )

As has been said; music has been written to order since composers began composing - this doesn't necessarily cheapen it and make it less valid. But can we seriously believe that bean counters weren't involved in the Royal Courts, or Diaghilev didn't have an accountant?

[phil Kelly]

and your point is ?

[John Banting]

Concurring with you (mostly)....and having a rant! :) Alright?