Skip to main content

Six Scores & One Zimmer Ago

Greetings from The Music Bowl! I’m The Wonderfish.

This past summer, it was announced that Hans Zimmer would release Live In Prague, an album he recorded with a live orchestra, in November. I waited patiently. I restrained myself from posting about it each week even though I was counting down the days until its release. I am still waiting for the DVD to be delivered this week, but as of this posting it will be in my hands and while you’re reading this I will be watching that. If you want to get a visual for what I’m talking about, it’s here!


Is it incidental how artists connect and interact? Fortuitous? I think it’s magical. Upon examination, I learned that my favorite films (I pay close attention to this and keep a list in my Evernote for just such an occasion) are films in which the story, the editing, and the film score/soundtrack resonate strongly with me. It must be all three factors or the film doesn’t make the cut. As you can imagine, it may or may not be agonizing to watch movies with me. Either way, I also realized that many of my favorite movies happen to have the same people behind the scenes composing the film scores and/or in the music department.  

Obviously, this list includes Zimmer. It also includes Philip Glass, Danny Elfman, the Sherman Brothers (Robert and Richard), Thomas Newman, and T Bone Burnett among 24 others. If we examine my personal top 30 favorite films of all time, the most common score composers on this list are Howard Shore (3), Hans Zimmer (6), John Williams (2), Danny Elfman (3), and Thomas Newman (2). This means that over half of my favorite films are scored by the same five people! The directors of these 30 films only repeat twice at most. And now I’m having a creative crisis.

Do I love these films because of the music or do I love the music because of these films?

And what is it with Mr. Zimmer!? For the record, these are the six films that I speak of: Interstellar, The Last Samurai, The Dark Knight Rises, As Good As It Gets, Gladiator, and A League of Their Own.

This is Hans Zimmer - you can view his IMDB page, which is where this photo is from, here.

I am going to watch the Prague DVD this weekend and find out what’s going on here! I can tell by the minor 2nd interval of the bass line (hats off to you, Mr. Williams AND to you, Mr. Spielberg) that the shark's in the water! See you next week.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An Introduction From The Wonderfish

Greetings from The Music Bowl! I'm the Wonderfish. This is our first week posting, so some introductions are in order. Let's start at the beginning, shall we? Our story begins on a street called State. Heard set sail from Europe when he was just a wee lad. His family settled in the small village of Dolgeville, which is in upstate New York in the USA. As luck would have it, and unbeknownst to Heard, his family moved into a house on State Street, an infamously musical street in the town. Historically, quite a few residents from State Street used their musical abilities to make a living, but that is a post for another day. Heard's new neighbors happened to be one of those families. Enter the Wonderfish. That's me, I'm a Wonderfish! My younger sister and I were raised in a musical family. I knew from an early age that I would learn how to play musical instruments. I had my first drum set at age 4 (thanks, Dad). I also knew that someday I would be a writer because I ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Man of Many Hats

Ahoy! From the first day I started playing bass in high school I knew I wanted to be a musician. Not everyone around me was as excited about this life choice as I was. For the past 20 or so years I have been asked what it is I do for a living. I've shared on this blog the different ways I have labeled myself over the years, in particular, that I am a self-employed musician, not an unemployed musician. I have made my living wages from music endeavors for years now. There have certainly been times when I've had day jobs, but only as a short term fix while my music life was in flux. Today I want to share yet another way of expressing yourself to those pesky relatives when they complain that you “need to get a real job.” Today's advice is simple: You are a musician. That's it. You don't have to label yourself as a teacher, performer, youtuber, and anything else that comes with your daily life. Being a musician means you are all these things and probably man...
Post a Comment
Read more

Happy Birthday, Dave!

Ahoy! Time for another edition of Fin Mail, Heard style. One of my favorite musicians of all time is Dave Matthews. On Wednesday of this week, January 9th, he celebrated his 52nd. In honor of him and what his music has meant to me over the years you’ll find my letter of appreciation along with a few links to help get you familiar with his music if you’re not, and will give you an inside look into my favorite tracks of his if you are. Who are you inspired by? Leave us a comment or shoot us an email and let us know! Dear Dave, Happy Birthday! I hope you got to spend your day relaxing with family and not on the road travelling to another show. You music has been one of the largest inspirational forces in my life both as a musician, and as a human. I remember countless hours as a teenager lying on the floor of my room blasting Under the Table and Dreaming , Crash and Before These Crowded Streets. No matter what was happening in my life your music always fit as the perfect b...
Post a Comment
Read more