Alex Ross' latest article for the New Yorker is definitely worth reading. It critiques the film score to Paul Thomas Anderson’s recent movie There Will Be Blood, composed by Jonny Greenwood, lead guitarist of Radiohead. I can't wait to hear it!
Also, check out Alex Ross' blog The Rest Is Noise, which features consistently interesting posts mostly related to new music. Ross is a composer and the music critic for The New Yorker, among other things.
Showing posts with label film scoring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film scoring. Show all posts
Monday, January 28, 2008
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
No Mozart Am I
This thought has been with me for years, but it just tapped me on the shoulder a few days ago, so I thought I'd share it with you.
While there certainly are similarities, the majority of the composing I do is categorically different from the composing of tonal-era Classical composers - Mozart, for example. Nearly all of my creations are tailored to a specific genre of project, be it live theater, film, or music theater.
The nature of the current project deeply influences not only the mood but even the very method of constructing each piece of music. My works, therefore, seem quite varied and eclectic. A good number of tonal-era works, in contrast, seem to be playing the same game and following the same set of rules.
Of course, this is a simplistic observation - not least because I constantly struggle to come out of the shell that is my simplistic, triadic, tonal foundation - but it is an observation that rings true for me nonetheless. I certainly do not mean by this to disparage the work done by earlier composers. I simply feel that what I do in practice rooms in front of a piano is largely a different process from that of many established composers of old.
But perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps I give my uniqueness too much credit. What do you think? If you are a composer, do you feel like your work is essentially the same work as Bach or Beethoven?
While there certainly are similarities, the majority of the composing I do is categorically different from the composing of tonal-era Classical composers - Mozart, for example. Nearly all of my creations are tailored to a specific genre of project, be it live theater, film, or music theater.
The nature of the current project deeply influences not only the mood but even the very method of constructing each piece of music. My works, therefore, seem quite varied and eclectic. A good number of tonal-era works, in contrast, seem to be playing the same game and following the same set of rules.
Of course, this is a simplistic observation - not least because I constantly struggle to come out of the shell that is my simplistic, triadic, tonal foundation - but it is an observation that rings true for me nonetheless. I certainly do not mean by this to disparage the work done by earlier composers. I simply feel that what I do in practice rooms in front of a piano is largely a different process from that of many established composers of old.
But perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps I give my uniqueness too much credit. What do you think? If you are a composer, do you feel like your work is essentially the same work as Bach or Beethoven?
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