Last year I was asked to write a score for a romantic comedy short, set in L.A. The director had temped the film with music by Tangerine Dream, specifically their score to "Risky Business", and wanted something similar for the finished film. It was a chance to create the sort of soundtrack I grew up listening to, but which hardly anyone wants these days and whilst working on the score I realised two things:
1.) how hard it is to write a purely synthesized score
and 2.)How all the talented composers who used to create them have disappeared.
First of all, when I say "purely synthesized" score, I mean a score with synthesizers that sound like synthesizers, rather than trying to imitate other instruments. This is not to denegrate those type of scores or the composers who create them, especially as I myself am one of them. I simply want to make it clear that writing a score for a film using synths to imitate other instruments and writing a score actually for synths are two very different propositions.
So, why did I find harder to write this score than others where I've been asked to imitate acoustic instruments? several reasons.
1.) when you write a score for acoustic instruments,or their synthesized or sampled equivalents, you have certain frames of reference. In other words you know what a guitar, saxophone or an orchestra sounds like, and, like it or not, have amassed a lifetime's worth of opinions about what moods these respective instruments invoke in us. It equally true that unless you've spent your entire life so far in some sort of hermetically-sealed bunker with no contact with the outside world, many of your opinions will be the same as the vast majority of the population of the western hemisphere.
But that all disapears once you start composing for synthesizers. There are no frames of reference for how a synth should sound when the music is supposed to be sad or happy. In fact synths are often more adapt at conjouring up sounds that seem alien or disturbing to us.
2.) creating an arrangement of synth sounds, that doesn't dissolve into audio equivalent of that strange grey/brown colour that all kids paintings turn into eventually if you don't take the paintbrush away from them, is far tougher than with acoustic instruments because of the static nature of the original waveforms.
Add all this together and one begins to admire those composers that created all those great synthesizer soundtracks of the past even more.
So why are so few them still working today?...
Mostly it's because technology has changed (notice I used "changed" rather than "evolved") but also because tastes have changed with it.
Back in the day when synths didn't have presets and were largely incapable of producing a sound that genuinely resembled an existing instrument, synthesists had to be a lot more inventive as to how they chose to score something and the producers and directors who hired them chose a synth score because that was what they wanted, not just because they couldn't afford an orchestra. For the vast majority of those classic synth scores there were also no sequencers, which meant a level of variety and emotion in the performance of those scores that was almost on a par with one recorded with acoustic instruments.
However, once synths began to be seen as instruments that could imitate acoustic instruments then we began the slow descent into the hell we know have; where every producer of every film, no matter what the scale or budget, wants a score that sounds like it was recorded at Air lynhurst with the London Symphony Orchestra - and is severely non-plussed when you and your "box of tricks" are unable to provide that.
If you don't believe that the whole industry has changed, then consider this:
Do you really think that any of those films that feature those classic electronic scores we all know and love, would be allowed to be released with the same score today?
"Clockwork Orange" - would probably be scored with contemporary "industrial"or "new metal" music (because that's all Hollywood thinks disturbed teenagers listen to)
"Chariots Of Fire"/"Blade Runner" - would no doubt be scored by Hans Zimmer and feature a huge orchestra plus synths booming over every scene.
and remakes and sequels have already shown us how producers believe movies such as "Halloween", "Friday the 13th", "The Fog" and "the Terminator" should be scored nowadays...
However, truth be told, none of these so-called "improvements" have bettered the originals. The reality is that few films need the sort of score that "Star Wars", "Gladiator" or "the Dark Night" have and that the majority of films could be served by both composers and producers starting to think a little "outside of the box" again. Who knows maybe then you might see the names of some of those great electronic composers such as Vangelis, Wendy Carlos, Tangerine Dream etc gracing the screens of your local multiplex again. Who knows - but I fear that the day of the synth score is well and truely gone and such films will henceforth be viewed as quaint period pieces by future audiences.
In the meantime, do yourself a favor - watch one of the above mentioned films again, paying extra special attention to the score this time - It'll certainly be time well spent and, who knows, you might even learn something while you're at it.
0 comments:
Post a Comment