This is not going to be a traditional book report. In that sense I will go over the book a little bit, and maybe why you should read it, but instead, and surprisingly, this book reaffirmed my belief that in the long run, human made music will still be around for thousands of years, and we will always have musicians who excel at their craft, along with amazing songwriters, performers, producers, and engineers.
This is assuming of course:
- That AI does not kill us in the next decade or so.
- The we further reduce music as only a commodity, and push it away from being art, and just something to be consumed.
That last one is a bit much, and I will dig in more, but first to the overwhelming sense of relief I have after reading this book: Guerrilla Film Scoring: Practical Advice from Hollywood Composers.
For the straight ahead book report, this was a much better introductory book into film scoring than any other I have read so far. It really touches on each area of the process at least a little bit, and puts it in the perspective of a small independent composer and producer. There are not technical discussions of each job, and I would hesitate to really call this a reference book. This is the book that will explain a lot of the language you see in many other places. This is the book that will start to help you put the puzzle together.
Another aspect of this book that was perfect, was the sense of perspective. Guerrilla Film Scoring really is about low budget composing and low budget films. It really makes sure you realize, you the reader, that you probably are not going to start on huge budget films right out of the gate, and that you should have a basic grasp of a lot of things. You need this basic grasp, because you will most likely be doing this and many other jobs at one point in the future, if you embark on this career.
Again, this is a book that has a lot of comments and suggestions from living working composers and game sound designers sprinkled through out this book. This one tends to dole them out in little snippets depending on the subject they are discussing in that particular chapter. I perfectly recommend this book as the one parents buy their kid who might be interested. This is a great start for anyone.
Now, how this book restored my belief in music. In particular it was during the ‘studio recording’ chapter of this book, and it was meant to show and illustrate the differences that you would/ will encounter in the studio. The differences in instruments, the differences in humans, in spaces, etc. It is this exact set of statements that did it for me. It is the thing that a machine can never truly reproduce.
Early synthesizers built sound from raw oscillators, producing tones that sounded flat, sterile, and undeniably synthetic. The very early one’s were monophonic (meaning 1 note at a time), harsh, and sounding very far from the resonance of a real instrument. Decades of refinement in analog circuitry, FM synthesis, wavetable, and physical-modeling slowly and gradually softened the edges on these sounds, but it was the arrival of sample-based synthesis that truly bridged the gap.
Sample synthesis is the capturing (recording) of live instruments and then replaying them as instruments themselves from a keyboard, computer, or other MIDI device. Hans Zimmer has been a huge proponent of this his whole career. Composers, and sound designers could finally reproduce the micro dynamics, variations, and other idiosyncrasies that no waveform from math could replicate.
Even the most realistic patch still demands far more from the producer than simply pressing or programming a note. A producer must put the sound through filters, envelopes, modulation, and other controllers, so much so that, making a synth sound as much like a live instrument takes as much dedication and practice as the act of mastering a live instrument itself. I am not making this as a slight against computer only producers. Truly good one’s are as much a master of an instrument as a cellist, flautist, drummer, etc.
Now, back to our point. Back to this ‘saving of music’ part of this piece. It was this book that once again got me thinking of how many things are involved in the making of music, that are not the note. How a cellist vibrates a note, how and what finger they use. There are so many things each individual player does that are different from every other player of the same instrument, that it is ultimately unique. It is these tiny differences all added together, that gives an orchestra its sound and power.
When I was in music school, I took guitar lessons on the bass from a gentleman named Frank Dawson. Frank Dawson worked with many musicians and bands over the years, including: Marshall Vente’s Project 9+, Sonny Stitt, Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett, and many others. To me though, he was always Mr. Dawson. Frank Dawson is the person who taught me how all of these idiosyncrasies turn into a signature sound that people know. Not directly at all though. And it took another 20+ years.
When I was in school, one of the groups I played in that Mr. Dawson taught was the Jazz Guitar Ensemble. The idea being 5 guitar players, plus a rhythm section. The guitar players would play like saxophone section in a big band using super-sax voicing. At least that is what Frank called it. I was playing bass guitar, but still reading the bottom rung of the sax section in treble clef. I was the baritone sax if you will.
Every once and awhile we would get Frank on a tangent, but those tangents were still always about music. We would get to talking about tunes, and players, and Frank had this uncanny ability to play anyone. I mean he could sound like anyone. (At least as far as we could tell at the time.) We would be playing through a set of changes, and he would just call out; “Now Sunny Rollins would play it like this”. Boom. Sonny Rollins. “Bird would have said it this way”. Boom. Charlie Parker. This could go on for hours. It wasn’t just jazz players though, he would throw in Steve Vai, Eric Johnson, I mean, you name it. “How Yngwie Malmsteen say it” was always one of my favorites. Not because I was a fan of Yngwie, but it was cool as hell to see this 70 year old guitar master just shred in ANY style.
At the time, I always thought that it was the phrasing, notes, etc. that would make it sound like that person. At the time I never thought it through that it was Sonny Rollins, but it was Sonny Rollins on guitar. Not Sonny Rollins on his native instrument. The one he played on Williamsburg Bridge bridge for a few years, before his comeback with Jim Hall.
It is the notes, and the sax sure, but also his embouchure. How he holds the sax. How he breaths through it. with it. How the notes move one type of quickness from one section to the next. And then the notes themselves. How loud did he play it? Did he blur it into the next one? Was the note hard attack at first, and filter off, or was it swelling into something? Did he play 1, 2 or 3 notes? Were they the same length? Did he take a break in between the notes? We could go on I’m sure, but hopefully the point has been made.
There are so many tiny little idiosyncratic things that a human can do and understand about an instrument, be they real or virtual, that a machine will never truly replicate. I mean, it can mathematically replicate the notes and volumes, but the touch, feel, and sensitivity will never be recreated. There is only one Yo Yo Ma. Literally in the physical sense and in the aural space as well. There will only ever be one as well. No one will ever sound like him again in this world.
This is why music will survive the AI slop-acolypse we are experiencing this decade currently. True appreciation of music will always be a human event with real human responses, to real human emotion expressed by a real human at a particular point in time. This is what makes music a human event, a human activity forever.
Stay Safe Everyone!