An Adventure Not Yet Finished

by Israel Groveman

I have enjoyed reading the history of various soundtrack collectors in these daily articles. It is a very keen way to get a quick glimpse into what really makes soundtrack collecting what it is in peoples lives, and thus what makes its fans.

I am only 23, and I started really collecting only about eight years ago, but that doesn't rule me out, does it? I am a violinist. Not the only thing I do, but I have been playing regularly since I was 5 or 6. My playing developed enough through my younger years and in high school to enable me to become a double major in violin performance and computer science, with a scholarship in music (I'm finishing computer science now). I won competitions and progressed more on the violin than I ever thought I would. The reason this is relevant: by the time I began collecting soundtracks when I was 15 or 16, I was very well versed in musical idioms, very (unknowingly) experienced in my musical exposure.

I had played and come in contact with many different styles of music, in many different settings. I wasn't aware at the time, but music was about to become a much bigger part of my life than I realized. I often kind of downplayed my musical skills because I thought it wasn't hip or cool in high school (it wasn't rap, so forget it!). Through time, I began being more social and open with my music... I brought my instrument with me to hangouts, even pulled it out in restaurants just to play for friends. I eventually realized that music was simply something to enjoy, and this realization was sped on its journey with my discovery of film music. My parents bought me a portable CD player, and the Christmas after that, there was a long skinny package with my name on it.

It was the CD to "The Last of the Mohicans," before I had seen the movie. That was the beginning. I put it in the stereo, and literally sat frozen, transfixed. Never before had such raw emotion poured from the speakers. Never before had I heard music that so filled my blood with transcendent Majesty. As I listened to the opening notes of the score, I realized that encoded on the digital CD was all the pristine wilderness glory of early Native Americans, all the adventure of the early American frontier, all the passion and conflict of so many cultures awash in the bloody French and Indian War. All the wild beauty and rugged wilderness of the American continent which I loved so much (I have always been an avid outdoor adventurer) were embedded in the album. I went and got my violin and learned how to play the solo on the disc before a few hours had passed. I also quickly learned that this was a piece that a lot of females like to hear. =) Todd Smith mentioned this CD's female market ---true--- actually this CD has a very large male following as well. I can testify. It has all the romance of passionate love and all the romance of adventure in its themes and expression.

Then, I went to see the film, after learning every note of the score. Creative endeavors have always appealed to me... I was into film making and had a healthy interest in it. When I went to see Mohicans in the theater, this was when my film music passion was born. Not only was the music amazing standing on its own, but the perfect marriage of story, sound, and music was vibrantly illustrated to me in a way like never before (some of the Michael Mann music-video like sequences added to this).

In the "classical" music community, there can be a very haughty attitude towards film music. I remember being in my first year of undergraduate violin and hearing a French horn playing classmate trashing the Mohicans score. "It's the same theme over and over!" I was chagrined, to say the least. I had played and heard so much classical, I began to realize that film music was an art form in itself: its goal was to emote, to express. In certain circles of the classical community was almost seen as shameful to just let loose and let the emotion fly. I began to realize that I thought that as a goal, this often (if not always) produces the best music. Enough of that programmatical classical structure nonsense! I did not at all diminish in my appreciation of classical (if anything film music increased it), but earned a healthy, almost vengeance-seeking desire to see film music and other musical forms recognized. For me, it was better if one theme that was repeated over and over created emotion, than if a two hour symphony with a hundred themes had none. Last of the Mohicans only has three or four themes to be exact, but they are developed and handled with a sincere intensity that is lacking in countless "art music" pieces.

With Mohicans, a new awareness had been born. I had no idea how aware I was going to become, either. I began to dig through my parents CD collection, and surprise surprise, 4 of the 5 CDs I pulled out were film scores. Dances With Wolves, Glory, and Legends of the Fall. Not a bad start, a lot of you might say. That first month, I had the continuing thought in my head: THIS is the kind of music I would write, if I was to write music. I eventually began buying scores en masse. All the themes I loved showed up: adventure, chivalry, heroism, sacrifice. I was amazed at how much great music was actually out there. I began to have a desire to write film music along with my desire to be involved in film. I took composition lessons my last semester at Catholic University, and brought up film composition with my teacher every chance I got. I wrote a piece for violin and piano that was performed at a composers concert for the school. I decided to go with the same themes I saw in film music --> emotion. Others were writing pieces that required you to blow in your guitar and bang on the piano, and I was overjoyed and confirmed in my conviction about "emotive" music when I saw that the audience responded the most to mine (if I may humbly say so). It was like return to old times: music should, and can be pleasing!

After this initial phase, I began to be a sort of audiophile. I began to buy scores as collectors items, just so I would have a score in that category. I bought Danny Elfman's score to "Men In Black" just because the opening and end title was the most perfect "bug music" I had ever heard. My parents began to say "You bought another soundtrack... ??" I found a used CD store that had thousands of low priced CDs. Film composers names began to have a library in my head. I began to gain a contextual appreciation for scores. "This score is not amazing if you hear it by itself... it is all about what the composer did with it in relationship to the film." The filmscoremonthly website was/is a tremendous resource for a beginning collector (and advanced collectors!)... as well as other film music sites on the Internet. It gave me a community and a library of knowledge I otherwise had little access to.

I began to realize that my film music collection had a unique characteristic. It has representative elements from all of musical history and experience. I get rock music, selections from classical pieces, re-writes from classical pieces, 40's swing, rap, blues, country. I get every ethnic and international strain: Russian, American, Asian, African, European. I get music from every known historical musical period. I get incredibly tragic music, adrenaline pumping music, angry music, happy music, just chillin' music, scary music, middle-of-the-road music, mysterious music, martial music, combat music, love music. And yes, I DO have an appreciation for atonal music, which I can get as well. Initially I was attracted to film music for its healthy dose of romantic sincerity.. I still am. Along with that, I found Music from every spectrum of the rainbow. I began to realize that collecting film scores was one of the best ways to be a straight out "music collector." I like buying all types of scores. I will buy something like a Hans Zimmer action score, and then turn around and buy one of Gabriel Yared's reduced string ensembles.

These last two years have been very busy for me with my double major. I haven't been able to compose, or even really buy that many scores because of budgetary limits. All together, though, I look at my experiences with film music and music in general, and consider myself very blessed to have come upon it when I did and in the manner I did. This is only the beginning.

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