quote:

Originally posted by Storyteller Top this:

Wow. They could have at least changed the key to disguise their total lack of originality a bit.

that melody was used in a track circa 2000 I just can't remember the name. So forget the 2007 original.

And Kysora , the fact that you are so into one genre if anything makes you near sighted. It actually gives you less perspective on your own genre.

quote:

Originally posted by Storyteller Top this:

the last two are probably Jorn van Deynhoven aliases, i checked out his myspace videos and he's apparently even stealing dj poses.

Kysora, I think what my intentions pertain to your influences and that perhaps you might be better off looking at the era that really did the genre you are trying to do to perfection. It is very similar to alot of composers that ask me how to make film music. If you want to make
orchestral film music, you don't study Zimmer or Badelt, you study the masters of the 19th century like Wagner or Elgar which seems to be what most film composers try to emulate. Yes , it is important to keep in mind what the modern guys are doing as style is important but just like most hollywood music is hack writing, I feel the same regarding current melodic trance. I could explain in very much detail why the new stuff is inferior just like I could explain why Hans Zimmer is a hack compared to Steiner or similar film composers of the golden era of hollywood but it would take alot of time and I don't think you would really care.

quote:

Originally posted by Mad for Brad Kysora, I think what my intentions pertain to your influences and that perhaps you might be better off looking at the era that really did the genre you are trying to do to perfection. It is very similar to alot of composers that ask me how to make film music. If you want to make orchestral film music, you don't study Zimmer or Badelt, you study the masters of the 19th century like Wagner or Elgar which seems to be what most film composers try to emulate. Yes , it is important to keep in mind what the modern guys are doing as style is important but just like most hollywood music is hack writing, I feel the same regarding current melodic trance. I could explain in very much detail why the new stuff is inferior just like I could explain why Hans Zimmer is a hack compared to Steiner or similar film composers of the golden era of hollywood but it would take alot of time and I don't think you would really care.

Is this why so much American Classical music, particularly by the contemporary American composers, sounds so much like it was made for a film?

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my old stuff, not quite up to snuff - but I still dig it - UPDATED 9/23/2012

what do you mean by modern American ? like Copeland ?

most film composers where imported from Europe and most adopted Wagner's leitmotif technique. Copland was pretty influential with John Willliams which sprouted a while other number of composers trying to sound like Williams.

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Originally posted by Mad for Brad what do you mean by American ? like Copeland ?

I don't remember the names but my local NPR station seems to favor these American composers who sound like they're writing for old westerns. One I listened to did a complete genre hop from romantic to thriller to comedy to espionage thriller to sea adventure that seemed like it was twenty minutes.

Copeland - perhaps - but I'm more hesitant to lump him in there. I actually owned the soundtrack to Wall Street when I was a kid. I've heard some of his other work and didn't find it nearly as strident. TBH, and my memory might be faulting me on this, but he seemed to borrow from European composers.

With the ones I'm referring to, it sounds almost like they're making a mix tape for Hollywood producers to review. It shows capability and ingenuity but, to me, didn't really have a hook or avenue. It might have been decent with a context but provided a context, in the real world, would seem over-bearing.


I'll understand if that doesn't make it clearer and will make it a point to listen to the radio, tomorrow, to post with their playlist of songs which speak to what I'm trying to get at.

___________________

Now with extra singles!
my old stuff, not quite up to snuff - but I still dig it - UPDATED 9/23/2012

quote:

Originally posted by Mad for Brad Kysora, I think what my intentions pertain to your influences and that perhaps you might be better off looking at the era that really did the genre you are trying to do to perfection.

Well that's certainly a better way to put it. It's just stylistically I'm not going for that sound at all, trance from that era has a very simplistic synthetic sound to me that I don't want to try and emulate. As far as writing goes uplifting trance now seems to be doing the same thing they were doing back then, as you said, but just with the new sound that's developed in the last 5 or so years. Melodically I don't think there's a lot of influence I can personally get from old melodic trance because it just doesn't fit the sound I'm going for.

I could be wrong, you clearly listen to more music from that time period than I have, but generally the style I try to emulate is the sound of what's going on now. Instead of developing and expanding on the previous eras like modern trance is doing now, I'd rather take influences from modern trance and develop those into something that'll hopefully sound new. I think that's what some producers are already doing. I don't want to be doing exactly what everyone else is doing by drawing from the same influences as everyone else.

I hope that makes sense.

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I could explain in very much detail why the new stuff is inferior just like I could explain why Hans Zimmer is a hack compared to Steiner or similar film composers of the golden era of hollywood but it would take alot of time and I don't think you would really care.

It's not that I wouldn't care, explain it if you'd like to but I'm just not interested in the older stuff because my main goal is trying to do something different from what everyone else is doing. I might never succeed, and if I ever do it'll definitely take a long time, but I just don't think studying the classics as a foundation is necessary. Whether or not that's a crutch is up to interpretation.

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[b]Originally posted by Kysora [/ It's not that I wouldn't care, explain it if you'd like to but I'm just not interested in the older stuff because my main goal is trying to do something different from what everyone else is doing. I might never succeed, and if I ever do it'll definitely take a long time, but I just don't think studying the classics as a foundation is necessary. Whether or not that's a crutch is up to interpretation.

i think you would be foolish not to listen to some older trance mainly due to the fact of (drawing from expereance or from what you hear)
is a great way to think outside the box otherwise how will you have a wider point of refrance.
i do this all the time it can help avoid trends and emulating todays top sounds

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I can have points of reference outside of trance, uplifting or otherwise. In fact that's where most of them come from, I don't casually listen to trance nearly as much as I used to. Most of the time I'm listening to chill-out, indie/folk rock, alternative and space rock.. I'd find it incredibly boring if all of my musical influences were drawn from other trance tracks.

Literally all of my songs start out as chords or melodies on live improvised piano or guitar or some other medium that isn't some cliched trance patch, like organic pads or orchestral samples. I have a pretty large collection of stuff like that, and the best of that stuff I try and work into a full trance track. I don't write specifically to create anything that sounds "trancey". That's a surefire way to sound like the kinds of copies M4B talks about. Which is why I don't think classic trance would help me at all.

That's probably why almost all of my remixes sounds much more edgy and electronic than my original works -- everything I draw from a remix is already in a trance form, and that reflects into my interpretation of it. Like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxEJChxerB4 -- there's a pretty massive difference in the sound of this compared to any of my original stuff.

If I want to avoid trends and top sounds I'm going to just avoid the source of them instead of seeking them out. I'm not advocating this for anyone else, it's just personally how I approach my own work.

edit: Christ, 94 replies? Jeez, I destroyed this thread. My bad.

Last edited by Kysora on Aug-26-2010 at 23:24

ALso realize that sometimes , the point of listening to past music is not really for influence but also to realize what has been done. Having a firm idea of what has been done will help you stay away from cliches. Had most of the artists making melodic trance now realized that its been done, maybe they would of done something more interesting.