Film Music Recursion

If anything becomes clear as you look at the unfolding story of our world is that we live in a never ending feedback loop. Each piece of anything is then responded to, which is then amplified and given a reaction and...as they say the great river runs on. 

This is found to be true in many areas of the planet, in all areas of culture. But tonight, I want to focus on something that is likely uninteresting to everyone but myself...and maybe one other person who gave me the idea for the topic.

As some of you who might follow me know, I am active as a songwriter and composer. It's something I've done since early childhood and I've spent many years developing and honing my craft. I study relentlessly, learning the newest techniques and methodologies being used by the best in the world. I only mention this to give context into what I am going to call: Recursion: Music For Film. 

Music is, at it's core, about using technology to touch the spirit. Back in the beginning, film music was likely a Wurlitzer organ either playing a prepared score or improvising over the scene's progression. The reason for the organ? It was a relatively cheap way to cover up the sound of the projector. 

Eventually, some of the larger film houses would occasionally feature orchestras, which gave lucky audiences cause for remarking just how much more vivid a film with a live orchestra was than one played by a strange smelly man behind and organ. 

Once sound finally came to pictures, music suddenly became a roaring necessity. Wonderful composers created the first true "film music", crafting the industry as we know it today. Eventually, synthesizers and other electronic instruments began to not only replace the orchestra in many film's scores, but eventually began to help overtake orchestral soundtracks in general. 

All looked lost. In all honesty, the strange, smelly man just got a cooler organ with flashing lights. 

But then enter a strange, German man named Hans Zimmer. Hans is, as of this podcast, arguably the most sought after composer for large films. (Yes, yes...I know about John Williams. Thank you, very much.) 

What Hans brought the picture is a melding of the two warring factions. With an abiding love of the orchestra but a deep background in electronic music, he did what any sensible German engineer might: he mixed them together. He seamlessly blends both into a very new, exciting, and evocative mix. 

Zimmer's other great cocktail mixture is that of the four chord progression style of popular rock music mixed with the orchestra. This has a very hypnotic effect, churning over and over again, each conveying more and more emotion. 

The point is that, just as in all things, music creates a sound, which causes an echo, which causes another echo, which...you get the idea. One form of technology begets another, and another, and another. What once was a composer furiously scribbling on staff paper for the orchestra is now a composer sitting at a midi keyboard, which is connected to a five thousand dollar computer, if you include the amount of samples of instruments on it. 

The point is, in the end, that music or no, the tech is always changing, But the goal has never changed. It's like that with love, with sex, with food, with music. The methods vary, but goal is ultimately the same.