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Joan, in case it might offer yet another perspective on the vagaries of this forum and the varied interests of its diverse membership, I might just mention, for what it may or may not be worth:
Terence Blanchard, still very much with us and active in film and TV, also known for his considerable achievements in jazz and classical music, is currently making history as the first black composer ever to have a work presented on the Metropolitan Opera stage. Earlier today, I posted a PBS interview with Mr. Blanchard. There may have been other threads related to this occasion, but if so I have not found them. So far, my Blanchard thread has attracted 42 views, and no comments.
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Preston, I will look for your Blanchard thread. I am a fan of Blanchard's jazz albums and saw his group live a few years ago. His first opera, Champion, was commissioned by the Opera Theater of St. Louis and received its world premiere here in 2013.
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I am 68 years of age. Gulp. I try to discover new things each week using the aptly described “shitload” of media at my beck and call. Just this week I’ve acquired a bunch of SACD’s of symphonic works by Witold Lutoslawski, someone whose name I knew but whose music has been pretty much unknown to me (I think I heard his Concerto for Orchestra in my 20’s on an old LP that my roommate at the time owned). Some of the “new” things are old, of course, but I also try to keep up to date on current music, movies, and books. I am starting to amass the Marvel Universe films – holy Batman, to mix the references, but there are a lot! Am checking out some new series on Netflix, Prime, Hulu, etc., that seem promising. As you might glean from this information, I am single, childless, and petless…but still working full time.
I grew up in a grievously small town in Nebraska. My parents were extremely intelligent, even if neither one was able to attend university. My Dad, however, had no patience with movies, books, and music. His favorite TV show was along the lines of “The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show” or “Hee Haw”. My Mom encouraged me to read, listen to anything I fancied, and to see any film that popped up on TV or at our smalltown art deco movie theater. When I started to read voraciously and to attend movies on my own, she spoke to the Librarians and the Movie Theater Manager (the awesome Mr. Schmidt) to let them know I was allowed to read anything and to see anything without parental approval. When film ratings became a thing, and before I turned 18, she would take me to see anything. So I forced poor Mom to see “The Wild Bunch” “Easy Rider” “Carnal Knowledge” “The Damned” “Women in Love” “The Sergeant” “If…” “Death in Venice” and “The Boys in the Band” (the experience of which is a novel in and of itself).
So I read and saw a lot that was probably both outside my knowledge base and outside my comfort zone if I’d known what that meant as a kid. I’m not sure what I made of “Vertigo” when I was 6 years old, but I do remember feeling like I was pinned to my seat at the conclusion, unable to move. Around the same time, “Room at the Top” just bored me as a kid.
I started a life-long love of film music when I was 8 or so. The gateway drug, for some bizarre reason, was the soundtrack lp of Les Baxter’s “Master of the World.” That lp was so awesome with its gaudy, yellow, cover and grand symphonic score. I started paying attention to the names of film composers, and started buying lps with my allowance and money made from mowing lawns. My film music loves were cemented back then: Herrmann, Bernstein, Barry, Steiner, and many more. Ava’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” was among my earliest purchases.
I also loved the pop music of the era and was glued to the radio at night for hours and hours for all the latest hits and misses (in my hometown you had to wait until the evening hours to tune in the only rock radio station powerful enough to penetrate into the Nebraska panhandle; that station was in Oklahoma City – KOMA). The British Invasion was simply thrilling.
Our local station, KCOW, relied on a “middle of the road” format – lots of Dean Martin, Vicki Carr, Peggy Lee, Mantovani, plus some country/western every now and then. I started working for KCOW when I was 15 (1968) – and it slowly accepted the zeitgeist by featuring Kasey Kasim’s “American Top 40” on the weekends, while still MOR for most of the week. They also hired a very young programming manager who was in agreement with bringing more current music into the fold. They finally became a top 40 MOR station in the late 60’s. I used to open my morning stint at the Station during the summer months by spinning Arlo Guthrie’s version of “City of New Orleans” every morning at 5 AM. When given DJ-ing responsibilies during actual daylight hours, I would often bring in my own LPs to play. That meant folks in the town got a healthy dose of early David Bowie, Elton John, James Taylor, and main titles from many film scores, including “To Kill a Mockingbird”, which I’d sneak in every now and then to break up the MOR vocal stuff.
These days I’m still finding music from films that I like, but I am more and more aware that emotive, internal, scores that I loved growing up that heightened the psychology of scenes, or took over scenes totally, are almost a thing of the past. I don’t know if that is good or bad. I try to judge film music these days only in the context of the film in which it appears. Back in the day I would almost always hear the score before I saw the film which did skew my responses. These days I simply don’t acquire music until I’ve seen the movie.
I do have a huge collection of digital music on many drives (my phone for example has 2 terabytes of storage and hundreds of albums), but, yes, I am most fond of film music from, say, 1958 to 1975. For me “the music died” on Christmas Eve 1975 when Mr. Herrmann passed away after completing his sublime “Taxi Driver.” I was working the late Christmas shifts at the radio station that year, and I believe that when I saw the UPI wire story on Mr. Herrmann’s passing it was late at night and I wept a bit. I really loved his music.
But there has been much of extraordinary value after 1975 of course. Lots of crap, too.
I hope to never stop exploring. My listening nights are apt to go from Josquin to AWOLnation, or from some classic Joan Baez folk music to YouTube vids of Twenty One Pilots. Or Troye Sivan to classic Glenn Miller. As my best friend is always commenting, I seem to have no taste when it comes to art. I try to think of it as being eclectic.
And of that, I am very proud! So hopefully not too moth ridden for this Board.
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Posted: |
Oct 14, 2021 - 4:22 PM
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By: |
Howard L
(Member)
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It is. And I think representative in sentiment of those of us on the longer end. Bravo.
I'm only 31 and let me tell you, there is no lack of appreciation for the Golden and Silver Age scores. You are also not too old to be on this board. You bring a lot of life wisdom and vast knowledge of scores as I hope to be able to do 30-40 years from now. Who likes what film scores and what genres is all subjective. Each person will like things a little bit different.
Things are not going to be how they were in the 1970s. Just as in 2050 things will not be how they are today. For example. I love 80s and 90s action movie film scores. Speed, Bad Boys, The Rock, Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, Black Rain, Drop Zone, etc. Each time a movie comes out there is a part of me that hopes a movie uses the sound from The Rock. It doesn't happen all that often. But does that make me dislike what is there instead of it? No because times change.
The new generations always get ragged on for being out of touch with what's actually good music, movies, politics, etc. I am doing my best to curtail that because everything is subjective. Everything is about personal tastes. There's a reason why Zimmer is making all the money he is right now despite how polarizing he is for some in our community.
Now, as a representative of those of the shorter end, chronologically speaking: Do you come to this forum as one who is primarily drawn to film music as the result of film or from the music on the basis of standalone listening experience? The key word is "primarily." If applicable, that is. 
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Funny thing- even though I grew up with Jaws, Star Wars, Superman, Star Trek: TMP and through into the 1980s and the rise of James Horner etc I still feel like those are recent... And now this thread reminds me those are 30- 40+ years old and I'm from some other generation, really, and older than I think (prefer mature).
Funny thing is, for the generation now, Horner's STAR TREK scores of the 1980s are about as old as Max Steiner's scores for CASSABLANCA and ARSENIC AND OLD LACE were back when Horner's scores came out.
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Posted: |
Nov 12, 2021 - 5:55 AM
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By: |
Ron Pulliam
(Member)
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Looks like some of us are just TOO OLD for this FSM Board. Statistics don’t lie, and here is the proof.
In the last three days, we have had two topics about one of the most ICONIC, gorgeous, heart-rendering scores ever composed. That score is TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Elmer Bernstein. I think any member who thinks he or she is knowledgeable about film scores should “eventually” be cognizant of this score. (I say “eventually” for those who are really young and may actually someday journey back in time to hear renowned, celebrated scores.)
One TKM thread had 2, 027 views and one had 2,942 views. Sigh.
Now compare those numbers with two Zimmer threads in the last few days.
Dune topic had 21, 638 views.
No Time To Die had 266,110 views. I can’t believe it had that many views. (Maybe people just enjoyed the blood-letting on that topic.)
So, is it time for we old codgers (and you know who you are), to saddle up our walkers and wheelchairs and ride off into the sunset?
(Not me. I’m going to stick around to discover undiscovered past, present and future scores and to try to stamp out film score illiteracy, or I could keep hitting “view” on a topic 100,000 times.)
Thanks, Joan, for starting this thread. It renewed my interest in sharing my thoughts with others about film music and its history.
I expect some will wonder why the hell this old coot is posting some of the stuff he does, but there are other old coots out there who might enjoy it. It certainly beats the heck out of reading more nonsense about Zimmer and the hates/loves of his "sound designs".
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