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Posted: |
Dec 18, 2014 - 1:08 PM
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By: |
cinemel1
(Member)
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When I first started collecting as a teen my mother thought I was spending almost my whole allowance on film scores. My grandmother, very wise lady, told her, he could be spending on something negative, it's music, what's bad!
The truth is friends are generally uninterested but I found that preparing playlists of well known themes for car trips is the best approach. We play the game, what movie do you think it's from? If I want to listen to complete scores I usually listen alone at home, in the car or on my audio system. I guess that I could never listen to all my score CDs even if I did nothing else for the rest of my life. In the years before I retired I would take out 2 CDs & listen to one each on the way to & from work.
Once in a while a friend will ask if I have a particular album of a film they've seen on tv and the music impressed them.then I'll put that on. It's usually an older film with recognizable themes. My uncle who's 86 actually recognizes something by Rozsa and likes it.
Luckily I did meet one of the contributors to this board about 10 years ago and we would spend hours discussing our passion, film music.
BTW, this.was quite an interesting thread. Good question, thoughtful responses. Film music enthusiasts are a pretty articulate & opinionated group.
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reactions from those who asked me what I want for X-mas [this was a VERY WEAK year for me purchase wise so I decided to ask for scores I was interested it]
- You want a CD? Like an ACTUAL CD?
- Who the f*ck pays for music?
- You can't get these on iTunes? I can't just give you an iTunes gift card?
- Why are they so expensive? And why can't I find them on Amazon?
- I have a couple songs from Gladiator...didn't know you liked this music.
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In the history of civilization, only a fortunate handful of human beings will ever be endowed by the karma of the Universe with the filmusic appreciation gene. We have been given the ears of gods, calibrated to recognize the superiority of the genre. We. We are music's chosen ones. We are the harmonic Jedi. To know "The Battle in the Snow" and "Manderley in Flames" and "Nicaragua" and "Wheel of Pain"---and thousands of other cuts composed by geniuses---by heart is to have a penthouse view of humanity from atop Mount Awesome. Filmusic lovers are humankind's saints, heroes, role models and benevolent overlords.
Who cares what other people think? They are gnats.
-
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Posted: |
Dec 18, 2014 - 6:14 PM
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By: |
OnyaBirri
(Member)
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A hobby can be an interest as well as an activity. Listening to music and collecting are both hobbies, and every so often they collide into a single monolithic super-hobby, collecting music.
AND
Cultivating a collection of a very particular subset of music, reading (and re-reading) the information written in liner notes, arranging jewel cases on shelves using your own organizational convention, creating custom cover artwork for playback on computers, discussing a mutually shared passion with others on the internet, listening to the music itself, and taking pleasure in all of it? That's a hobby.
AND
The creating and editing of playlists seems to be a separate hobby altogether. We all listen to film music but not everyone tinkers with it.
Thank you for your thoughtful replies. Upon reflection, I'm willing to meet you about 3/4 of the way in your direction. I guess from my perspective, in addition to listening to music, I am involved in other activities that are more "active" or "creative" than simply listening, and I do not mean that in any way as a slight, so please don't take it that way. I suppose that listening to music has become more of a "passive" activity for me, more out of circumstances than choice. That said, I can see how actively collecting music, spending time organizing a collection, cataloguing, making custom art, making custom edits, alternate universe album lineups, etc. would definitely enter into the realm of a hobby.
So I was wrong. Lo siento.
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Posted: |
Dec 19, 2014 - 2:35 AM
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By: |
Thor
(Member)
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Taking a step back to observe for a moment....
This is a type of thread we've had MANY times on this board, and it never fails to engage -- probably because everyone has a relationship to it somehow.
But what strikes me every time is how many of you encounter bewildered and even hostile reactions to this. I find that rather odd. Don't get me wrong, there have been a couple of times in my life where I've encountered a sentence a la "film music can't really stand on its own", to which I've just smiled and shrugged and moved on.
But most times when people are made aware of my interest in film music, they are either a) totally indifferent (this is 90% of people) or b) mentions soundtracks with pop songs. Or c) have a slight awareness of it themselves, since several of my friends are into films.
There is a strange dilemma in this. One one hand, we want acceptance for our interest among friends and in the public at large, because we think it's a damn important and underrated artform and we like to be part of a society. On the other hand, I think we gravitate towards it because of its niche appeal. We feel like we're part of a secret community that not everyone gets access to or knows how to appreciate. We're pulled between these two poles, which many of the replies in this thread attest to.
My own activity is an example of this. On one hand, I want to practice "missionary activity" for the artform in Norway, where the interest is among the lowest in the western world (my radio program celluloidtunes.no is an example of this). On the other hand, I try to lead a normal life and listen to "normal" music as well to be part of a society. My closest friends have zero interest in film music, and so you interact with them in other ways.
I've always found this balancing one of the most fascinating aspects of film music fandom.
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Well said, Thor.
And by way of counterpoint to the general trend in this thread, whilst most of my friends are indifferent to my interest in film music and don't engage when I share with people what albums I'm excited are coming out, sometimes what happens is that one of my "non-soundtracking friends" says, "Awesome! I love that music!"
(This happened when I posted about Intrada's then-upcoming release of Conan The Barbarian.)
Cheers
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An on the other hand again, you also go onto things like "James Bond" fan pages on Facebook and someone asks, "Who should score the next Bond film?" and people start saying, "Adele!"
Cheers
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Actually (and, when seeing these type of threads perhaps curiously), I encountered mostly positive responses (if there is a response to it at all. As I said, I don't shove it down people's throats that I listen to film music).
When people look at my CD collection, they first notice that it's heavy on classical music before they see there are quite a few soundtracks in there, too.
Lots of my family listens to classical music, and therefore also to film music; my father (and his brother, my late uncle) both greatly enjoyed the music of Dimitri Tiomkin.
In any case, I would not play Goldsdmith's PLANET OF THE APES at a social gathering anymore than I would a Mahler's 5th symphony.
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