What happened to tunes in film music???
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- Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024
- Recent big film scores have continued the trend away from classic film tunes and towards interesting textures and signature sounds. Guy Michelmore looks at this phenomenon and explores a brand new library Ghostcello from Triumph Audio which provides lots of rich raw material for those in search or an interesting and evocative sound pallet.
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This is the library I was using: Ghost Cello from Triumph Audio: www.triumphaudio.com/. Really interesting sounds in there
Thanks for fueling my library addiction, HA!
Every time I watch one of Guy’s videos, I’m reminded of the most important element to making music….HAVE FUN! Thanks Guy!
Wow thanks Guy - that was so fun to watch. You used Ghost Cello just how we hoped composers would! The library was designed as a creative & inspirational starting point. Nice use of the delay with the Col Legno too! Best, Kevin Manthei & Triumph Audio
It sounds incredible!
Yeah...I definitely could've used that on a project I just finished up. LOL
@@dafingaz tha's how it works! :)
@@triumphaudio LOL. Facts!
Purchased. It's brilliant
Scrolling through 40 years of Oscar Nominations and John Williams keeps popping up over and over again. That's greatness.
Personally my style of composing is to use all this great modern technics but still writing great melodies and harmonies. That's why I'm a big fan of Alexandre Desplat.
AD is one of the best in the business and his work to picture is always a masterclass
Always tunes first. It must be a tune on the most crappy sounding casio keyboard. Then if you play it with fantastic sounds.....😮😮😮
Well that drum loop was unexpected - all sounds fantastic together!
I do miss those soaring melodies from the past era of film music, though.
Well they're still there and people are still writing melodies but I think the new direction adds some really interesting alternatives
Experimenting with mixing The Sound with The Tune has been my biggest win this year. Great video. Cello improves most everything, even when tortured.
I'm so pleased you made this video.
I did a big texas chainsaw score many years ago and designed a load of physical instruments and fx to do it.
Always been a double edged sword because while it was very successful, I got pigeonholed as the guy who does the weird avant-garde music.
Recently been very lucky to score a film using far more traditional harmony and instrumentation.
So many films are going for ambient, textural scores now it does bring mixed feelings.
There's some great plugins that can be manipulated to create this type of sound as you showcase here.
Do wish we could bring more of the tunes back though...Grainer in particular is someone I've worshipped since childhood. Theme music heaven!
Love your videos and really like the music you make too.
Apologies for the long comment, it's something that excuse the pun, struck a chord with me.
I very rarely start a piece of work with a set idea. I find myself 'Playing around' with my libraries till an idea presents itself. Whether its a sound or a melody, that is my starting point and I either build on that or, half an hour in I scrap the lot and look for something else instead.😄 Great video again Guy. Thank you :)
This! While there may be a very broad idea or general direction floating around in your head, being playful, exploring, having fun, etc. can lead to inspiration. Guy is constantly reminding us to have the courage to explore and try new things.
@@DonBonin All part of the fun and the process for me :)
Guy - you seemed genuinely inspired and enthused here, it was good to see. Cool library and great result too - thank you for this one!
Yup thats about right!
What's in the kitchen? I was hoping for a ham sandwich! Ok, now I'm hungry. Seriously though, huge thanks for continuing to inspire. There is joy in exploration and discovery, and serendipity often makes things work in the most unexpected of ways... Love watching your videos, Guy!
I'm afraid we're all out of ham, but there might be a poultry-geist in there somewhere!
@@Ithirahad Yes, maybe the ghosts of all those tortured animals will increasingly torment the abusers and supporters of that abuse ;) that would make a great film
Very nice, Guy. Another great illustration of an idea/approach. The library sounds excellent, too.
Thank you and yes its a really cool library
Season 3 - Episode 8 of The Mandalorian was amazing for use of motifs AND signature sounds. The end battle win where the main character regains the dominance used a single note of his signature bass recorder 'theme' to symbolise his resurgence which I thought was brilliant and the way it was mixed was superb as Göransson drops out most of the other instruments in the mix momentarily so you can't miss the sound which hasn't been used in the score during that scene until then. A masterstroke of combining strong motif-laden themes WITH a signature sound.
it's a good topic...I personally prefer melody over purely drones or fxs. I love Korzeniowski, Desplat, Giachino...The Batman is a good example of remarkable and recognizable tune even if is not pure sound design.
I bought two of your courses near the start of the first lock down and my beast PC took a header. Haven't thought about composition in almost 3 years (no idea what happened to those courses. ha ha).
This definitely put the tingle back in the fingers though.
Well the courses will still be there for you! Find your student number and we can reconnect you
The death of tunefulness is when I began losing interest in film scores as standalone works of music. They might work fine within the film to support the mood, but that’s pretty much the only context where I’d listen to them.
I disagree! If you listen to Hildur Guðnadóttir, Johnny Greenwood, Max Richter this is proper music
Yeah but cut me some slack here - 30 mins work - give me half a day and it could go somewhere
Some might hear horror. I hear international-espionage suspense! 😎 Such cool, cool sounds!
A newly found treasure for me is the score for ANDOR, by Nicholas Britell. Some amazing sounds in there. Such great stuff. (And an excellent series, to my mind. 🤗)
Sound design is arguably an even more important aspect of scoring than melody and harmony now. Leading composers like Hans Zimmer have written scores that are are identifiable due to the soundscape they build for each new world (eg Dune, Dunkirk, Interstellar), despite being very basic chord wise. One of my favourite examples is Johnny Greenwood’s score for There will be Blood, which despite using more typical orchestral instruments (and more), creates a haunting, visceral atmosphere, similar to the ghost cello in this video!
You're on the money -There will be blood was amazing but because it was largely based on his concert work I dont think it was eligible for the Oscars and yes HZ has done a great deal to move this whole thin g forward
no, they might be an even bigger aspect of scoring, but not more important , just because composers use less melody nowdays. melody is still far more important and adds personality and meaning to the score way more than sound design. there is not a lot of sound design score that wouldn’t be better if they dropped the sound design and used more complex melody.
Hi guy I love your content you are an amazing composer hopefully someday we can work down the road I love orchestra music but I take it and mix it with hiphop 😊everything from scratch ❤
I was thinking Ennio Morricone.
Can't get more "signature sound" than The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Or some of those other Westerns he did.
But killer tunes too.
One motif that stands out for me is Leighton Lucas's film augmentation for The Dam Busters film, where only Eric Coates's rising intro and main march was used which then shifts into Lucas's four note motif which carries on into Lucas's own work. His four note motif which sounds like "Leigh-ton Lu-cas" is then heard in various ways throughout the film.
As a string player and developer, I gotta say that’s an awesome library!
Yeah its deep - lots of stuff going on in there and some clever software
@@ThinkSpaceEducation not to toot my own horn (but I’m going too😂), you should check out bunker strings too. Would love to send you an nfr copy!
@@bunkersamples love your strings - thanks for the compliment!
@@triumphaudio Thanks and likewise. You've made an awesome library here, right up my street!
@@triumphaudio by the way, is your name inspired by a certain motorcycle brand by any chance?
Just a thought, as film music is always a function of the film (regardless of how well it stands on its own), this transition goes hand in hand with the transition of video to digital and the improvements in digital non-linear video editing. Today (compared to 30 years ago) there is a very fluid concept of a locked cut, even in features, and how late in the process it is affordable for that cut to be locked, compared to hard film edited on a movieola, or linear edited video. And to your one of your points - long tones, texture, Atmosphere, and isolated motivic sound bytes allow for the most flexibility.
Very nice indeed! Many thanks ! I’m pretty sure we’ve met back in the day! Smile. Wang chung.
Feels and sounds like a tune from one of Guy Ritchie’s movies! :) As usual, very inspiring. God bless you, Guy.
Absolutely brilliant! Right up my ghostly straße!
Awesome video and awesome library!
DJ Guy in action ! Soon mixing in you nearest club ! 😅
I don't think the Sound works for all types of movies. Imagine "Harry Porter" or "The Mask" without the tune and just some moody atmospheric score.
I notice that these sound scapes tend to work for more introspective, dark, Sci-fi movies and maybe not so much for adventure or fantasy movies. An earlier sound that overshadowed its counterpart tune in the same movie was the heavy-hitting 5-beat percussive motif in "Terminator 2: Judgment Day". That defines the movie and series.
That is definitely true
We've gone from the score taking the place of the movie for a bit in the 80s and 90s (looking at you Empirical March), to the music being more supportive and less memorable today. Kinda okay with it tbh. Atmospheric stuff is awesome
Thank you for this. Quite interesting and very inspiring with different sounds and techniques.
Hey, I would love to see you review Orchestral Essentials 1, which recently got redesigned. It's probably my favorite beginner library to recommend for the price
Love the content! Any plans to do a video on best plug-ins? I find myself with alot of great VSTs but no clue where to start with reverbs compresers and so on
Good idea
Your use of the word Texture is something I am CONSTANTLY searching for. Would love to know your go to libs for sounds that have texture and interest!
I wish music in film would go back to the 7s, 80s, and 90s. It appears we have shifted from writing tunes to making works of sound design. Even the majority of orchestral scores today just lack strong melodies. I would be interested as to why you think we have made this shift in particular.
Composers are like sharks - if they stop moving forward they die. Those great tunes of the 70s and 80s are still great but its time for something new. Tunes are still there but everything evolves
Don't worry, sooner or later great tunes will be popular again because the space of possibilities is not endless... or if you want, sharks have to move forward but the earth is round :)
I think it’s been wonderful watching season 3 of Star Trek Picard where they have gone back to those amazing scores and oh Lordy it’s wonderful. Even though I’m a sound designer of drones and tones for theatre, nothing beats a strong melody for me, and they make films memorable!
This might seem like a strange pull but Brian Tyler’s score for the new Mario movie is very melodically focused. No idea if the film itself is any good but the soundtrack is excellent
@@hstanekovic Totally agree with you, and love your expansion on the metaphor lol
Wow, so cool
I could afford Ghost Cello, but as so often: Kontakt Player not supported. A pity.
super cool episode. thanks, Guy.
Interestingly enough, one of the earliest well-known movies (at least known to me) that may have started or hinted at this trend of diminished tunes was the 2001: Space Odyssey with its extended choir patterns (the moon monolith) and various synth sounds (towards the end of the movie)... And lo and behold, the trend actually does seem to have started from around 2001 :)
It was a very appropriate, creative and dare I say progressive! move to use monotonous sounds with dissonant harmonies in a movie about monolihts made by non-human cultures (their cultures seeming dissonant to ours at first glance, right).
Never considered that before... Go watch it.
signature sounds,good in movies,but i wouldnt buy the soundtrack,as it is just a melting pot of sounds,not a memorable melody theme tune,to me,signature sounds are mood sounds,depending how dark or bright the dronish feel is,not really my thing to listen to
Hi Guy, I don’t know if I’ve missed a video, but have you done a video where you make (for lack of a better way to describe) a suspenseful low key bass driven heist film type score tune like the one in the beginning of The Italian Job (2003)?
As I wrote elsewhere about he "All Is Quiet on the Western Front" soundtrack, it is somehow "Hans Asmr" (yes, a new concept made with slow braaams and some tiny scratchy noises near your ears).
But, lets be clear, no problem for me, It's simple, the textures are nice and if it's efficient with the story all is good and well, just enjoy the final result and don't be picky.
BTW I'm happy to know I'm not the only one to have an irritating flicking Kontakt window when you move it from a screen to another... 😁 (Kontakt, Native Worst GUI Academy Award of Fame)
Hey Guy! I was wondering if you'd be able to review SonusScore's Orchestra Essentials? What it looks to be is a 100$ orchestra that sounds just as good as the more expensive ones, but I'm hesitant to purchase it. Maybe some of that Guy's review magic will be of great help? What am I saying, of course it would ;)
I think the started of the largely disappearance of tunes in film music roughly started with Terminator (1984). To be fair, everything was bleak in the mid 80's, so I get it, but erm...
I find that this sort of track is interesting for 1-2 minutes then I desperately want it to go somewhere.
Yeah but cut me some slack here - 30 mins work - give me half a day and it could go somewhere
@@ThinkSpaceEducation I wasn't talking about your track Guy. I was commenting on the style as a whole - I find that it doesn't hold my interest like a more traditional piece would.
CHUNE 🔥🔥🔥
118 thumbs up 1hr after uploading the video. People like this stuff.......I miss a good tune 😢
Its a topic we've all thought about and its nice to be able to have a conversation about it while playing with some of the alternative approaches
Mr. michelmore, How bright do you think the future of these libraries can be?
Good!
how fun!!!
Do you record and write anything for use in Atmos?
I do 5.1 but I have yet to fully immerse myself in atmos
what you call a phenomenal piece of work, Dunkirk destroyed the entire movie for me. It irritated me to the extent I could no longer concentrate on the film's storyline. The 'death' of tunes in film music stopped me from collecting soundtracks. While the music may work for the movie (sometimes it doesn't, like Dunkirk), the absence of tunes takes the joy of listening to the score away. A John Williams score is full of melody (even the subdued ones like Lincoln or Amistad), while most Zimmer scores sound like you're listening to a washing machine run for an hour. Sorry, not for me.
ok a washing machine is a incredible metaphor for hans zimmer music, you nailed it
Writing good music for a film is difficult, needs talent. That’s why.
Hans Zimmer “fault”, now they all,think they have as much talent and use HZ as an excuse, he did it I can do it too. Result is the soundtrack I constantly need to hold remote to reduce volume of “that dramatic” …. noise.
All excellent but the noise in the second patch is quite nasty I must say.
The library has TMP (Time Machine Pro) and DFD (standard sampling direct from disk) of all the patches. Sometimes when you play a TMP patch too high up on the keyboard/register you can hear the time crunching properties. We prefer to load the DFD patches first and then if you want notes to all sound in synch with one another try the TMP. Hope that makes sense! Guy was working quickly so the nuances of it aren't always immediately apparent.
that worked
if I wanted to hear whale sounds, I would have become a marine biologist. This is not a video about what happened to tunes in film music, it's just you showing a library with sounds instead of notes.
😊
The Arrival soundtrack
Trent Reznor is what happened! In a couple years we’ll be saying “what happened to all the drones?!”
Yup -how often have people like him flown in from the world of pop/rap/dance/rock and disrupted the rathder smug world of film scoring!
@@ThinkSpaceEducation Keep film music smug!! Say no to to texture and yes to classical rip-offs!
... Is it man? Is it beast? Is it ghost? It is cheese cake!
Film music?
I hate this new trend. Please make it go away.
Sounds like a chair being dragged against the floor 😅
Love your channel, but honestly I was disappointed by this video. From the title I hoped we’d get something about tunes in film music. Instead we got yet more “there’s a zombie behind you” sounds. Far too many of these in your videos these days, in my opinion, and they’re pretty boring to listen to. It strikes me that tunes are far more difficult to write and much harder to match to the feeling of a film or game than screechy sounds. How about a set of videos that take apart some classic film score examples from across the decades and show us how to write and arrange in their different styles? Not wanting to copy these styles, but an understanding of them would surely be helpful.
I'm sorry - the problem I bumped into was the copyright strike one. I had intended to run through some Spotify stuff but that wasnt going to fly. I hear your request and I will do my best to answer it asap. The next 2 or 3 weeks are already sorted but hang in there and I will respond to you directly!
@@ThinkSpaceEducation that would be great, thanks!
It's a bacon-buttie.
Well the mixing in films is aweful, they make the music way too loud compared to the correct overall volume of the movie, constantly. Its earsplitting, and infuriating every time I hear it!
I think if the score to a movie ever gets louder than the fanfare intro to the company that made it (i.e. 20th century fox logo, Universal's spinning world Logo) then the mixer failed.
Reminds me of that movie Annihilation with Natalie Portman
Especially the Lighthouse scene
Or Jason Bourne with them drums...
I hadn’t heard the drums yet when I wrote the comment…you’re right though. Cool stuff!
It became a generic soup of generic riffs and patterns. No tunes. Nothing whistlable. If that's a word.
Rap has killed melody. It's as simple as that. It's dead. 🙁
While movie music can be well arranged, it often only has one main theme and lacks the variety found in GOOD game music. There are exceptions, usually animation. But this is what tips the scale, textures, chords and percussion played for hours. Not much to scavenge from movie music compared to game and sung popular music. John Williams, Howard Shore, Hanz Zimmer, overrated.