The Music Of JC Harris

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Film Scores 2011

Some people are just head and shoulders above the rest in terms of execution; the Michael Jordans. John Williams and Steven Spielberg are like that in movies. I’m not saying everything they do is ‘the best’ every year but, like His Airness what they do is of such a consistent quality that over time, they just dominate. They are the U of M ground game of movies.

Warhorse

And ‘War Horse’ is another example. It’s not the best work for either, but again, the execution is so damned good that you watch the implausibilities go by and feel your emotions being manipulated like a Swedish masseur and you give into it because, hey… it’s a fuckin’ Swedish Massage.

What makes Warhorse at the top this year is not that John can write in any style he wants and it’s gonna sound great. He may be the last guy who can really write a truly post-romantic score. (People forget that the guys who laid down the law in Hollywood’s Golden Age were largely exiles from Hitler’s Germany (Korngold, Newman) or concert music stars (Copland, Virgil Thompson) who wanted their shot at raising the bar (and raising a few bucks.) In short, there was a time where being a Hollywood Composer really meant some skills.

No, what makes Warhorse a great score is that, because John is a for-reals ‘composer’, he’s also one of the last of a dying breed of guys who can write an actual melody. I have a theory about this (don’t I always.) My theory is that producers actively discourage the composer from writing anything too memorable. Because the music is already competing with a sound and image universe that is too much for humans to comprehend, it’s usually in the movie’s best interest if the music ‘stays out of the way’. It’s my belief that movie makers have made a conscious decision against good movie music; for the sake of the movie. More on that in a moment. For now, suffice it to say, Warhorse is a soundtrack worth owning and listening to on it’s own.

I used the term ‘tapestry’ because these orchestrations always remind me of a really cool Persian Rug. People tend to forget that this is the well from which Stravinsky sprang before World War I took the wind out of everyone’s sails and made so much that was big and beautiful into what we now call ‘expressionism’, which is to say: artistic roadkill; everything smashed into pieces. (I like that metaphor because it dovetails neatly with a metaphor developed at the same time by nuclear physicists: analysing atoms in cyclotrons was like reverse engineering a watch by smashing it with a hammer then looking at the bits.) Sadly, this paradigm, which looks so great in the visual arts (Kandinsky, Miro, Picasso) when translated to music (Webern) makes most music lovers check their (functional) watches for the next chardonnay intermission. But I digress.

The Artist

The other film that had a great score this year was The Artist by Ludovic Bource. So much was made of it being a ‘silent movie’, but the fact is that it’s wall to wall music… just like in the good ol’ days.

Monsieur Bource is able to channel a type of concert music you rarely hear in movies. Whereas John Williams has mastered the classic post-romantic movie styles (Richard Strauss, Ralph Vaughan Williams and some Aaron Copland if it’s a Western), for this one Bource pulls out Ravel. And not Ravel the impressionist, but Ravel the orchestrator of other’s music (Pictures At An Exhibition, Bolero). Ravel the guy who created tapestries of sound; a direct line from the extravagance of Rimsky-Korsakov. This score is the first I think I’ve heard since Godard’s Beauty And The Beast which really has that flavour. Vive La France! Too much of our movie music tradition comes from the Germanic tradition, so any time you get a score that taps a different vein feels like a breath of fresh air. Most of those alternatives tend to be folk music. Using concert music from a different tradition was an inspired stroke (OK, maybe because the principles are all French it wasn’t too out of the box, but still. It feels a lot more fresh than if they had chosen more typical period music.

Those Were The Days

As Archie Bunker might say. Back in 1935, when men were men, movies were movies (and dames were somethin’ else, baby) you had dialogue and music… and maybe five percent foleys (sound effects.) This hierarchy was reflected in the screen credits. If you look at the credits of a classic movie the composer is third or fourth in the credits, right alongside the screenwriter producer and director.

Nowadays? As I said above, it’s clear to any moviegoer that music has lost it’s importance for movie makers. Thus the fact that the music credit is usually about twelfth… somewhere after costume designer and casting director. So it isn’t surprising that the music used in movies has become more and more like ‘green screen’ effects: only important as a wallpaper. (I used green screen intentionally. If you listen to the director commentaries of any CGI-heavy movie you’ll hear how the directors obsess over levels of detail in those planetary backgrounds and mythological mountainscapes, pointing out detail after detail that no human could ever pick out. Music is now like that: the details have to be as perfect as a CGI effect, but no one expects anyone beyond the makers to notice those details. They are, like those Persian rugs, so full of ‘stuff’ that all one notices is the overall effect. But sadly, unlike the rug, one doesn’t have the opportunity to meditate on that detail because there are NINE THOUSAND CYLONS ABOUT TO ATTACK! In 3-D, of course.

It’s A Wrap

So there you have it. Two scores for 2011 that are worth owning on their own. I think if you do pony up to get the CDs or MP3s you’ll find a whole trove of treasure you weren’t even aware of when watching the movies. I dare say they would be worth listening to over and over even without seeing their parent movies.

There may have been a few others, but if there were, I can’t recall them, and frankly that’s half the test for me in recommending any film score; if I can’t remember anything about it? Probably wasn’t that great. And while it’s true that a score must serve the needs of the movie in order to be considered a success, it’s always great to hear a score that serves the film by being work worthy of audition for it’s own sake.

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Do-Gooders

Just when I think there are no new ways left for me to injure myself, I’m currently recovering from my first ‘guitar shock’. I’ve had plenty o’ mic shocks before, but this is the first time I’ve gotten 110vac on the control plate of a Telecaster. I moved my pinky over to the knob to do a ‘pinky swell’ and POW! There goes a fingernail. Ruined the paint job on the guitar.

Worst of all, it didn’t even look cool. Just looked like a middle-aged man having some vague sort of mental breakdown—screaming for no apparent reason.

In case you were wondering… I lived. :D

I was going to carry on about the end of ‘tradition’ in music when this story fell out of the sky like the sixteen tone weight in a Monty Python episode: http://www.npr.org/2011/12/24/144193341/taking-classical-off-the-pedestal-into-black-communities

Upon hearing this wonderfully inspiring and uplifting story about a guy worthy of much praise, a guy who is making a real commitment to bring culture to the disadvantaged black youth of my inner city, a strong voice came into my head.

It was the timeless words of Foghorn Leghorn shouting:

What a moh-ron.

OK, he’s not a moron. He really is all those great things I just said. And I have no doubt he’s sincere as the day is long. But he’s doing exactly what drives conservatives apoplectic about all do-gooders; the same thing that drove the natives nuts when the missionaries arrived. His whole deal is based on the premise that the reason kids have lost touch with classical music is because we haven’t taken the time to somehow properly ‘package’ or ‘explain’ it. I say again: this is the fallacy of do-gooders and colonial powers since time immemorial.

Poor disadvantaged people! How absolutely dreadful that you don’t see the wonderfulness of Brahms! But it’s not your fault, of course. It’s society’s fault for not having taken the time to explain it all to you in a way that you can relate to. Well, don’t you fret. We have a government scheme ready to go to get you up to speed. You’ll be rockin’ The Three B’s before you can spell Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

Historically, this has worked equally well to sell everything from anti-drinking campaigns to ‘proper’ sexual positions. Which is to say: it doesn’t.

The only thing it ever does is get lots and lots of well-meaning people lots of grants to study social problems and fight whatever.

There are a zillion programs to bring ‘the arts’ to kids. Cool. (Perhaps there’s a grant in there for me on ‘increasing opera appreciation’.) But history is littered with attempts to get people to ‘like’ art by somehow making it more palatable. Never works. The same reason that programs which try to make teens see abstinence as cool never work.

Here’s the deal: PEOPLE ARE NOT STUPID. They like what they like. They don’t dislike classical music because it isn’t presented in a ‘lounge’ or with a light show. They dislike it because they dislike the sound. You can’t convince kids that Schubert should relate to them any more than you can convince kids that abstinence is innately ‘cool’. Abstinence, tee-totalling and not having a car may all be great ideas for a number of practical reasons, but more fun? Please.

The problem is that if you’re a musician, or a vegan, or a Scrabble enthusiast, or a believer in The True Cross, or whatever…? You can’t help but think that the problem is: ‘people just don’t get it’. You can’t help but believe that all it takes is to explain things in a better way. If you could only get some really sincere guy like Morgan Freeman to lay down ‘the truth’, everyone would get on board.

But sadly, not everyone is like you. They don’t like what you like; not because they’re uninformed or unwashed but because it doesn’t do anything for them. Maybe if you’d caught them, say before the age of three, a great love for chess and Grieg would be inculcated in them as it is in you (OK, maybe you’re more a checkers and Buck Owens type, but I think you take my meaning.) But that didn’t happen. And here we are. And you ain’t gonna change ‘em by dressing up your fave music with a new light show or Lady Gaga Dancers. All you’ll end up doing is diluting the innate goodness of the music.

I know Mr. Robinson believes in what he’s doing and I wish him well. Really. It’s a noble goal. But the best we can do is make sure that kids get lots of chances to hear the great music (preferably, like reading, as early as possible.) And if he gives more kids the opportunity to hear this great music, that’s a wonderful thing and I will happily support such efforts with my dollars. But the idea that teenage kids will suddenly get into classical music if we give it a ‘hipper’ presentation? Not gonna happen. And I sure don’t want my taxes trying to do so.

If Mr. Robinson wants to help turn kids on to classical music? He should figure out a way to fund music programs in schools. Or go around lecturing parents on the value of making their kids take a couple of years of piano; whether they like it or not. The truth is that the vast majority of people who dig classical music, took music lessons. And even if they hated ‘em that appreciation for Chopin gets down in there and stays with kids as long as those lessons with ol’ Mrs. Hofnagel seemed to last (ie. For…ehhVER.)

Bah Humbug! :D (Am I turning into William F. or what?)

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One Hit Wonder

I recently read an article in Rolling Stone (amazing they’re still in business) about the currently popular group ‘Foster The People’. And the leader, Marc Foster, said something like this:

I don’t want to be one of those one-hit wonders like James Taylor… you know… doing ‘Fire And Rain’ for the next 30 years. I want to do thirty more great songs like [insert number one song title I should know here]

In this Great Age of Narcissism (The Big G), I guess I shouldn’t be, but when I read this, I was quite gobsmacked. I think my amazement and umbrage is because for all the RS pretensions of ‘journalism’, the interviewer just let the guy get away with it; not challenging any of his deep pronouncements. But in the GAN, hyperbole like this goes as unnoticed as smog in the city. You don’t really see it until you get outta town.

I mean, this guy should be so lucky as to have a fraction of the career James Taylor has had. He’s clueless. And the fact that he doesn’t just reject his forebears, but is willfully ignorant of the past is what blew my mind. Every generation rebels, but not being aware? Even the rappers I hold greatly responsible for the GAN, have a healthy respect for their forebears. Even the punks who rejected so many things out of sheer spite were aware. But if you avoid history just because. Pretty soon, as Winston Smith found out, you’re eating something that ‘Looks like meat. Tastes like meat. I bet there isn’t any real meat in it.’

Not A Speck Of Cereal

I blame looping for this meat-like substance. I think it’s been long enough now since sampling began that listeners no longer can appreciate real music because they no longer have first-hand experience with live playing and decent sound quality. It’s been too long. After people started living in cities, they forgot what clean air was really like. Nowadays, most of us don’t know what a decent tomato tastes like because we’ve been eating these red fibrous objects they sell at the Safeway so long. Frank Zappa used that the expression of ‘meat-like substances’ to refer to such artificial concoctions. I think that’s why he was always trying so hard to inject the doo-wop stuff he liked as a kid. It came off as a joke to the audience, but it was a fabulous Woody Allen-style ‘joke that’s not a joke, but it is a joke.’

Santayana Says

As part of doing Detroit, I’ve been doing a lot of history. I mean a lot. I’ve learned more in the last 6 months than since college. It’s been insane. I’d gotten out of the habit of reading. (I had to practice reading—you know, sitting still for a couple of hours.)

I pounded my way through Marx, for no other reason than because everyone talks about ‘Marx’ and ‘Freud’ and so on but my guess is without having read even one word first-hand. Then I went through all of de Tocqueville. The trips to America and England and Ireland. And it’s sort of like all these guys from that age—Marx and Freud and so on, in that as much as one may like to mock, there’s this nagging feeling that, down deep, they got a lot more right than wrong.

There’s this theme that keeps coming back to me over and over about that old saw:

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Darned right.

Before 09/11 changed everything, supposedly were were at ‘the end of history’. Well, what ended was the history of music. When CDs ended, any pretense of music as a craft that is passed from generation to generation went with it.

The fallacy that Marc Foster will be remembered thirty years from now is not simply because he doesn’t have the talent that James Taylor had/has (not to mention the self-awareness to know his limits and then hone his craft to razor-like sharpness within that range.) The reason he won’t be remembered like James Taylor is that nobody is going to be remembered like James Taylor thirty years from now. Or at least, not for their craft. Some, like Lady Gaga perhaps, will be remembered, but not because their songs were so cool, but rather because of the impression they made on YouTube or Rolling Stone.

In 2040 people will use ‘Lady Gaga’ the way they use ‘Freud’ or ‘Marx’; like factoids (which aren’t ‘little facts’ by the way, but ‘fact-seeming’, ie. not real facts at all. Perhaps a ‘Marc Foster’ will be a reference that any average person will use to get an immediate reaction and everyone will know what they’re trying to say—in the same way that everyone uses ‘Freudian slip’ or ‘Marxist’ to express an idea that audiences understand, but which has almost nothing to do with what Freud or Marx were actually talking about. It’s become a shorthand. We don’t go around correcting people for calling Native Americans ‘Indians’. Columbus fucked up, it became a common expression and now? I wish Queen Victoria had just renamed India something else when she had the chance. It would cut down on the confusion.

Marc Foster may well become the ‘Freudian slip’ of his generation. But any lasting fame he accrues will not come from any song he wrote. The age of being remembered for something of value one actually does over a career is soooooo 1970.

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There’s An App For That

Time and again, I’m told to write something periodically to you, Dear Reader, in order that I may keep me at the forefront of your digital consciousness.

But lately? I……………….got nuthin’. Or rather, I got the beginnings of two dozen amazing bits of music-oriented prosody; but nothing complete.

Ironically, when there’s a ton of stuff going on, that’s when I have the least amount of time to write. And the corollary, of course, is when I’m most loquacious, is when musical activity is moving along a steep incline of torpor. At the risk of conjuring the spirit of Andy Rooney: I don’t know what bugs me more? All these famous people Tweeting a bunch of blather; or the 7,123,453 ‘Followers’ who ‘consume’ their 140 characters of bullshit many times each day. (Which begs the question: is bullshit best consumed in many bite-sized morsels every day, or as Sunday Dinner with all the trimmings one tends to get here.

But Even The Interweb Couldn’t Swallow It

I had one such heapin’ helpin’ of steamin’ truth 99% ready to go a few days ago and when I hit ‘Save’ the Interweb took a dump and all was lost, as we say back home: Ar nos na gaoithe. Gone with the wind.

Whether coincidence or synchronicity, at that moment, an advert came on the radio telling me about some insurance company’s new ‘app’, which makes it a one-button affair to file an accident claim using your smartphone. And at that moment the whole insanity of blogs, friends, tweets, followers, apps hit me with the force of a rear-ender on I-5.

Look, are you the kind of person who will download and install such an app? Are you the kind of person who plans on being in enough car accidents where having said button on your phone’s ‘desktop’ will make you sleep easier at night? Are you the kind of person who, when in the immediate aftermath of a car accident will breathe a heavy sigh of relief knowing you have one-button access to an ‘e-claim’? And finally, after all that, if you did reach for your iPhone after the shit hits the fan, are your fingers going to be steady enough to thumb in all what happened?

What Is Necessary?

I am periodically asked why a guy with my mad web skills hasn’t already written a JCHMusic App? It’s because I feel that what I do is like that insurance: A product worth having. And it’s good to know it’s available when and where I need it. And I do want to know if anything is new with their products and services. But I really don’t expect anyone to be interested in having ‘one-button needs’ for anything either of us do. In short, there are very few ‘Apps’ that anyone really needs; and many useful things that require no ‘Followers’ (think about all the word ‘followers’ entails from a medium which is supposed to enhance personal freedom. And so I predict that at some point Apps and Followers will become the CB Radios of the 21st Century. Or at least? I sure hope so.

Oh, by the way. I hope to have some new music samples posted Christmas week.

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Dying Is Easy

Comedy really is hard.

I recently saw Le triplettes de Belleville again and was reminded of this fact. It’s one of the great achievements in animation—hell in all moviedom. It’s funny, sad, warm and uplifting and it made me realise that very little recent art popular outside of animation has those qualities.

But let’s face it: There has never been much truly great art that is a whole lotta fun.

Do I have to feel like crap in order to have a transcendent experience? (No sex, drugs and rock and roll jokes, please.)

But how many life-changing moments come out of funny business? As much as I go on about Shakespeare this and Shakespeare that, how many of the comedies would I feel bad about missing before shaking off this mortal coil? Zero. From the whiny Hamlets to the homicidal Richards Henrys to complete nutjobs like Lear and Titus, let’s face it: it’s the death that really sticks with a person. All the rest? They feel mostly like what they were meant to be: entertainments. Granted with the most glorious language ever imagined; but you know what I mean. It ain’t the stuff dreams are made of.

And that’s how the vast majority of great art works. It’s beautiful and thought provoking and depressing as all get out.

Literature? Besides Huck Finn, how many happy endings does one get? But no matter how much every Twain (and today Vonnegut) try to paper it over with the jokes, they can’t hide an essentially negative (and deeply depressing) world view. Let’s face it, even Jesus is a downer. I think it was another philosopher Linus (Lucy’s kid brother, not the 3rd century Pope) who said it best: I love mankind. It’s people I can’t stand.

And in music it’s no better. Beethoven? Not exactly easy listening. Miles? Loads of laughs. I guess that’s why I forced myself to get inside the music of Louis Armstrong—even though it didn’t speak to me for years. I just had to learn to appreciate something so great that’s also a real toe-tapper. It don’t come naturally to me.

I recognised this lack in myself years ago. I have always really wanted to do something -really- good that left one feeling uplifted and happy to be alive. But even though Hamlet says, “What a piece of work is man”, we know how that one’s gonna end.

But I gave up. I don’t have the ‘muscles’ or the ‘spirit’ or the whatever to do something truly ‘happy’ that goes beyond being entertaining.

It’s absolutely tragic that Detroit had to be such a tragedy. :D But no matter how well it turns out, I’ll feel like I’m coming up short. The world needs music like Louis Armstrong’s far more than any ‘deep’ insights into the human soul—no matter how fabulous. My only excuse? Making any kind of decent opera is hard enough. Giving Pagliacci a happy ending? Now that would take some real genius.

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