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How many buyers of film music -- or even classical -- cannot even read or interpret the instrumentation they hear?
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I guess what you're asking is can I read music. Yes.
I have been a musician of one sort or the other most of my life. I started studying music at the age of seven, which would be more than fifty years ago now (don't remind me!). I hold a couple of music degrees in this and that, so I guess that probably qualifies me to answer you in the affirmative.
However, that is a mere pittance of knowledge when compared to most serious musicians.
I remember a story Elmer Bernstein related in the liner notes of one of his recordings. He was young and at 20th Century-Fox. He went to the Commissary for lunch and joined the composer's table. He says all the Fox composers were there. I would assume that probably meant Goldsmith, Herrmann, Newman (in fact he specifically mentions them), Friedhofer, maybe Waxman, and a couple of others. He sat down at the table and listened to a rather heated discussion. They were ripping one of the Beethoven Piano Concertos to shreds, complaining there were no new thoughts in it, that Beethoven was "selling out" when he wrote it, that it was third rate music at best, etc., etc., etc.. Beethoven! The young Bernstein thought "What the Hell have I gotten myself into?"
My point is, sometimes it's perfectly fine to just listen to the music and enjoy it. No degree required.
Composers, regardless of what medium they are writing for, are writing music they know will be heard by the general public.
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Me!
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