James Horner once said, “There are only 12 tones. There’s only so much you can do.” Interesting theory, but is it true? Some of you will say that Horner is just lazy. Hmm. Others will say, “He has a point: Perhaps that’s why much of the film music we hear today seems a bit derivative.”
Whichever, his comment raises a pertinent question amongst Creatives: Is there a limit to what can be created from an original place?
Indeed, what constitutes “originality”? To take it a step further, what makes for a truly original film score? Is it the sound? The composer? The approach? The use of instruments? Or none of the above… or ALL of the above? Why do you feel the way you do about your take on it?
Have an answer? Tell us.
Not sure? Watch this… then tell us!
Walking on Eggshells: Borrowing Culture in the Remix Age from Brendan Schlagel on Vimeo.
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I’m glad, Richard, that someone else is using the word “Communism” to describe the attitudes surround media. People’s perspective on media, on their right to take it whenever they want it, is to me rather ugly and insidious. That said, if someone WANTS to release a work under CCC, they should have every right to do so. The reprehensible, disgusting, evil truth is that so many people feel an artist has NO RIGHT to choose whether their work should be free or paid for, and simply take it regardless.
People used to say they did it to stick it to the labels. Well, they’ve done that. When theater composer Jason Robert Brown started waging war against the illegal copies of his sheet music online, people called him arrogant and a man of poor character who “deserved” to have his music stolen.
As for the topic at hand – originality – I can’t tell you how many times directors come to me screaming “I want something different, something original!” when the resulting score is as traditional as traditional can be. The conventional wisdom is that new is always better. Unfortunately, new is often not new at all, which means the conventional wisdom itself is horrifically flawed. But no one will buy it if you say “I want something derivative! I want something that is evokes the same emotions as this other piece of music, but different enough that I won’t get sued for it!” That is the reality some times, but you will NEVER be told that.
Watching the video above one has to ask: Creative Commons or Creative Communism? DJ Whats his name says “All these things are in my head”….. “…how else am I supposed to make music?”
Study. Like the rest of us. Our work is not intended to be therapy for you.
The Creative Commons movement basically espouses… “Whatever you create I should have the right to take and change…..to make mine”.
Ahhhh…..No?
Well, a score still has to be functional. It has to provide organized sound that works well with the sound effects and the visual and emotional style of the movie or tv show or webisode. So–epic film gets an epic soundtrack, and cute indie film gets a cute indie soundtrack. Some underlying structure is required. That being said, there may be 12 notes, but there are also microtones, one zillion ways to effect sound, ethnic instruments, synthesizers, and rhythmic and time signature variations that can keep things interesting for a long, long time. You may have to be epic, but isn’t…gamelan, e.g., epic? How about Bear McCreary using half of Oingo Boingo and a bunch of taiko players to make epic music? There are many ways to achieve similar emotional effect and still have original sound and color.
Our job is most often to evoke….to elicit an emotional response from the audience.
How do you do that?
Who is the audience?
Must they recognize something about the music in order to emotionally respond as we want them to?
Are they preprogrammed to respond to certain music in a certain way?
When did they first experience an emotional event tied to music? What decade?
Do we need to reference that experience in order to elicit the necessary response?
In the 40’s, popular music was popular for longer periods of time. Songs stayed on the charts for many months…sometimes years. The common musical reference for an emotion was much more universal as it covered many more years and many more people.
Today’s audience may only react to an action sequence when they hear something reminiscent of Pirates of the Caribbean.
So…do we rip off that score?
How far away from that can we go and still do the job?
This is a great discussion because it promotes the kind of thinking that precludes emulation and subsequently leads to innovation.
Thanks Deane!
“How far away from that can we go and still do the job?”
That’s a great question! It is about finding that balance. I think we are charged with the responsibility of always asking ourselves that question. Consider your legacy, consider your contribution. It seems lofty, but it doesn’t have to be epic – only a microscopic proportion of us will ever be remembered, but if we all contribute to the bettering of something (our art, business, community), it will be well worth the effort.
This is just such a huge piece of topic that i don’t know where to begin. Beethoven used the same traditional theory and formal/structural fundament that was developed by haydn and mozart, but his music has his fingerprint all over it. We all are original to some extent, i mean, if all of us where to use the same notes to build a melody of, none of it would sound the same. We all have our inherited musical language equivalent to the speech we where inherited with when we were growing up. Originality to me can be two things so far:
1. When you achieve that special thing that makes everyone recognize its your music.
1. It can also be your ability to jump between unkown territories and produce good results while you’re at it.
3. And of course, when you managed to pull together that special blend of musical flavours that fits perfectly well and nobody saw coming.
I watched the video and YES it is very creative and even “original” and likable but in a way the remix age is also a “perversion” to me. An art form just as smashing eggs and colors on a canvas for the mere purpose of being original. (I”m not labeling it good or bad). I do agree with Jay Meghan that “true originality probably didn’t exist beyond the first generation of composers”. I often compare music with cooking. Once in awhile someone comes along and fries insects which might be cool for a while, but in the end we all long for grandma’s cheesecake again. … just my thoughts when I read this subject.
A good composer does not imitate; he steals. – Igor Stravinsky
Good quote… but do you agree?
Stravinsky was more of a collage-ist than a thief, and who has any recordings of the Jewish and Kazakh stuff he lifted, anyhow?
This seems like one of those ‘imponderables’ that could be argued ad infinitum. Isn’t originality, like all aspects of music, fairly subjective?
Perhaps the question might instead be, “what is the value of originality?”. In our business, is originality, uniqueness, valued? And is it actually originality which is valued, as opposed to a perceived value or cachet that someone who can sell themselves as ‘unique’ brings to the table? The right sound at the right time? Signature – which I would say is a result of recombinancy?
I’m not sure if it is all that big of a mystery. There’s nothing new under the sun, right? Isn’t much, if not all, of what is written “lifted” from somewhere? Are we not all just simply products of our influences? Horner was mentioned, interestingly. One could make a pretty strong case that he is the most lifted composer in film music. Even if *he* is the one doing the lifting…From himself!
I could sit here and draw comparisons between composers in just about every period of music its invention, and we could call each of them “original” in as much as how those composers combined what they were taught from the masters before them. But is that really being original?
This will be an interesting discussion, but I’m not sure true “originality” existed beyond the first generation of composers. I’m sure I’m wrong, and I’m counting on some of you to tell me why.
I like your change in specifics of the question. I think that with film scores in general, the audience tends to expect a certain style or feel associated with the type of film that they are seeing. Just my own thought but maybe this is where this question of originality stems from. Going back to James Horner, when I talked to some of my less musical friends about the score in Avatar, I gathered from most of them that it was exactly the style they expected for that caliber of movie. Maybe those expectations are holding back some of the uniqueness of film scores. What do you all think?
I agree – but we can’t throw expectations out the window. We can, however, make small, personal advances. I think it’s a matter of remaining active and aware, have a focus on improving/innovating, even if it is incremental.