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Andy Blueman throws in the towel for trance (pg. 10)
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| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Rodri Santos
you didn't have time enough to listen to the track so this is just posting for posting, Hans Zimmer has really nice OST's but riding through the morning myst could make into a decent film for sure. |
No I did listen - It's the same piece that was posted earlier in this thread via a youtube video.
For a start, Zimmer doe snot use any fake strings or woodwind - the first thing that struck me (in literally the first 2 seconds) about the AB track was the fakeness of the instruments. Where are the layered ostinatos? which have become a signature of sorts in his recent work over the past few years?
Secondly, just because you use 2s+ reverb tails to long strings then add some dramatic taiko hits, does not make you zimmer.
Don't get me wrong, his music these days is in some ways more simplistic and less about complex motifs but AB is not even close in either sound, technicality or composition.
Fine, if you don't know much about score you could say thy sound the same but that's like saying we're all in to that "techno stuff".
All this aside. the most important point however is this:
| quote: | Originally posted by Rodri Santos
Not the point. Scoring a film is a little more difficult than a music director choosing a pre-existing work to track part of a film with.
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| Kysora |
| Jesus , everyone shut up about Zimmer already. He's been scoring films longer than Blueman's been born. Andy's a great musician, give the guy credit but don't be an idiot, he has nothing on Zimmer. |
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| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Kysora
Jesus , everyone shut up about Zimmer already. He's been scoring films longer than Blueman's been born. Andy's a great musician, give the guy credit but don't be an idiot, he has nothing on Zimmer. |
Don't blame me. I didn't start it :toothless |
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| Lunar Phase 7 |
Whoever mentioned precision has me thinking now.
What the hell does the guy do? |
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| ken_lee |
| he was a dj, a very good one, and hard working one, who found out that he missed seeing his kids grow up by touring all the time and therefore stopped (or something). he ran a label (somatic sense) too which i think andy bīs first track where released on, which is also the reason i think i might have it around here because i was on the promo for that label. he was also part of running 4djsonly, the vinyl store. precision was truly a big loss, more hard working enthusiast havent been seen in the scene of trance. he also did some producing i think. truly a soul of trance. his radioshows where amazing too, when he left the last breathe of trance faded out. |
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| Fledz |
| I remember Precision. He was one of those characters that everyone seemed to like because he was consistent and never too in your face. |
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| Mad for Brad |
Greetings from the land of Ire. Grandad decided to call it quits and then within 3 days Grandma thought it was also time. Sad but they were quite old and lived full lives and well what can you do. The whole family took a trip for the funeral and we all decided to do a little Europe vacation. So I hope not too many of you have suffered too much withdrawal. And um that bloody contest. lol Ya look I'm on it.
Anyways, I can understand why AB has lost interest in his style. For one, it was done about 6 years ago and it was done much better. His tracks are absolute abortions of textbook harmonic progressions combined with a rather bad mixing aesthetic and deplorable production. The only people that find his music appealing are the younger generation that sort of missed the boat regarding that driving melodic trance and don't' realize that there is this exact type of music, that sounds much better with less derivative boring melodies that was done from about 2000-2004. I almost feel sad for people like Kysora that just don't know about the actual stuff that pretty much is AB but not sucky done years early and happen to listen to because they just don't know about it. It would be like listening to Fall out Boy's version of Beat it and think thats the original.
Moving on. In terms of composing for film, from what i've heard of his music, he just doesn't have what it takes. There are different styles of scoring. Some do the live music folk like style, others do the more electronic , then there is the wagnerian romantic style and in later years the hybrids which I suppose Hans Zimmer is most known for. The problem with AB, is that as a purely orchestral composer which unlike other types of aesthetics that can be less technical and more quirky, he is awful.
I am not exaggerating in any stretch. There are literally thousands of kids doing this on their computers. His lack of knowledge regarding the entire genre is quite apparent from his awful sentimental chord progressions that you learn in an intro harmony class and the associated lack of harmonic vocabulary and dexterity that leaves you absolutely stranded on an island because you are basically painting a picture with 3 shades of red , his obvious lack of any sort of orchestration knowledge , knowledge regarding form , knowledge about how motives work, how key changes work. I mean he has absolutely nothing that would remotely impress anyone in LA. Not only is his style bad on a technical level, but just aesthetically, he is living in the Hans Zimmer crimson tide block buster era which I suppose matched the rather sentimental movies being made and somehow did work but he is doing that style but for a straight to DVD release on a shoestring movie budget of 1 million , Now lets say for some strange reason, he was around at that time, and he knew a little more and was technically skilled enough to do a hack job, well the problem here is that the only types of film that use this music are blockbusters. Now you see the problem. BLockbusters use big composers. So , he has a extremely rudimentary grasp of a style of music he will never ever be asked to do and well you can see how it isn't that easy. Now lets say he was a little better, maybe had about 10 more years experience and a little more maturity in his writing and has an awesome CD made with some ok tracks. Well guess how many producers accept these unsolicited CDs ? 0. So forget thinking that its just about being good then sending your . Even if someone actually listened to a cd which they don't for legal reasons and he had the chance to have someone listen and cringe at another lame attempt at being Zimmer from the 90s, well it means absolutely nothing because A : anyone can do that , and B: that shows absolutely no indication whether this person can score. Make ty sounding pseudo classical ? yes . But soundtracks are not a genre. It is a process and a skill unto itself.
Now , we've only talked about music creation without a program or picture. Which in terms of scoring is really just a prerequisite because the real actual talent is not in those melodies you think are cool. Anyone can do those. They aren't hard and it is actually hard not to do them. Composers probably spend more time trying to avoid the lame sentimental garbage AB makes because it is too easy and it sounds dated, it sounds cheap and it is just overall embarrassing. They only impress people like many of you that have the musical maturity of a gnat. THat isn't to say you suck completely, you might be great producers but lets be honest. Most of you have a vocabulary of about 3 chords. OF course you change the order , maybe the key but you all pretty much use such basic stuff that of course, it sounds neat when you hear AB doing his 4 chord thing.
And , I suppose the final part that makes it sort of not look too bright is that he lives in some country where you buy Uranium on the black market. You have to live where the action is because you aren't going to be able to email your bosses latte. Scoring isn't done by proxy and because nobody will ever of heard his music, or if they did be impressed enough to ask him to came to LA. And that is the pickle And the sad part is that i'm even talking about scoring. You don't start scoring movies. You first start bringing lattes unless you have some particular skill and training that can be used ie orchestration and you slowly wiggle in enough that you get some co credit somewhere and after enough co credits, someone will give you a shot and it won't be a blockbuster and it will probably require the kind of music you don't know how to do and well you are ed. Only big composers that have a style can do their style and get hired for their style.
He doesn't have the skill, he lives in the wrong area and when you look at most people in the industry and see how they made it, well you notice a trend and given the hand AB has at the moment, I think a career in film scoring is noble and cute but until he changes all those things I mentioned , basically less likely to happen than lets say Robbie not spiking his dates drink with GHB.
So that is my take on it and I really did not exaggerate anything in any way. I'm sure he is a nice guy but I do not foresee a career in film scoring. Due to his style, he has pretty much forced his working area to LA style movies. People might think, but he can work in Europe where they make movies too which they do but trust me, the music in European films is just so far removed from the bastardized LA stamp AB attempts to mimic.
Aight, Hopefully that made sense. I woke up real early today |
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| Mad for Brad |
And if his motives are financially motivated. He should do TV as the money is quite good. Most TV guys make more than movie guys. Not as fun and intense and you work around people that have hygiene issues and things are less organized and you tend to have to do many things. But there it is again , AB would have the whole style issue because for TV, you have to be diverse. You have to be able to do every style convincingly or one style that happens to click with a show and you luck out. Can you think of any show that uses epic music ? They all big fox shows like 24 (awful composer btw but still makes AB look like a kid trying to play the glockenspiel) and star-trek. So he is stuck in this one genre that he won't get booked for and the actual genre he does well he just isn't very good at it. . So there again , another road block.
And the trend with TV now is lots of pop tunes and to compose around that is well , you just can't do the stuff AB does. You have to be diverse which he clearly isn't and like before , you have to be in one of the major cities. |
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| Mad for Brad |
one more for the road
http://www.myspace.com/andyblueman/photos
He almost looks like me. Well like I have glasses like those except mine fit properly and look like perhaps I have more money than I actually do because they have this slick silver decoration thingy on the side and , my lips are not so thin with a bit more colour. I know how to shave and the moustache, ya i don't do moustachees. And my hair is less Jewfro and more like Christophen Walken from batman returns meets Beethoven which tends to make people think I'm talented. And his nostrils look a little bigger but maybe it is the camera shot.
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| DJ Robby Rox |
M4B is back in the hizouse!
That was a good read I'm glad to see you posting again. I still can't tell how its so easy for you to see that his knowledge is "rudimentary" or that his productions are "deplorable".
I must be deaf because I'm just not sure what you mean by that. I also remember AB saying something about his tracks sounding better before they went in for mastering. And it seems like you can also blame the DJs as they ed up some of his music taking out mids to mix in their sets then leaked the . But even hearing his music postmastering it still sounds far from deplorable.
If you'd care to elaborate I'm really just trying to tune my ears into what it is that I'm not focusing on.
Also DJ Rann about his instruments sounding "fake", Blueman uses EastWest Symphonic Orchestra which I thought was a fairly realistic sounding pack. And I always thought an ostinato was just a repeating riff that plays under other sounds or variations in the original. I definitely hear that in his music so maybe I don't understand what an ostinato is exactly.
Anyways I still think AB might be missing years of experience, application, and versatility, but I definitely don't see thousands of producers making the same quality music he is. Maybe 10 or 20, but I think he has an ear and no offense, I hear a lot of these scores in tv shows/movies and *most of it doesn't sound like magic at all. In fact, some of it sounds like pretty basic as far as I can hear. Give me a scene with no sound and I'll do a better job than the original, with no experience in scoring whatsover. zimmer and 3 or 4 chords or 10, I'll use 100chords with 5 thousand ostinatos/staccatos/tatos playing at once, all a while blind folded using nothing but my virus and my to tweak the knobs with.
But seriously, sorry to hear about your grandparents M4B hopefully they lived fullfilling lives. All of mine were gone by the time I turned 12, as my parents had me when they were like 48. Good to see you back though I've been wondering where the you were. |
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| Aesthetic |
M4B I'm not gonna comment about film music because thats out of my realm. But saying that people who like Blueman must be kids because they missed the 2000-2004 boat is a crock of . I've been involved in trance music since around 1997 to today, and I still like some of Blueman's stuff.
I ing hate when people rile off words like "Generic", when they refer to trance. A song to me doesn't need to re-invent the wheel everytime just to be good. A good trance melody is a good trance melody.
Every bloody genre is generic if you listen to enough of it anyway. |
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| Kysora |
| quote: | Originally posted by Mad for Brad
The only people that find his music appealing are the younger generation that sort of missed the boat regarding that driving melodic trance and don't' realize that there is this exact type of music, that sounds much better with less derivative boring melodies that was done from about 2000-2004. I almost feel sad for people like Kysora that just don't know about the actual stuff that pretty much is AB but not sucky done years early and happen to listen to because they just don't know about it. It would be like listening to Fall out Boy's version of Beat it and think thats the original. |
You've shown me tracks from 2000-2004 compared to Blueman's songs and quite frankly I don't know how you can think they're exactly the same. They sound completely different to me. And I haven't heard anything that melodically sounds as good as what Blueman does from that era.
And quite honestly I can just turn around your entire argument to say "I feel bad for people like M4B who's so stuck in the early 00's for melodic trance that he refuses to acknowledge the good tracks still being released". It's like someone growing up listening to Bob Dylan thinking guitarists like Marzi Nyman or Tom Morello are out of their mind for doing what they do with their guitars
That being said that's probably not the best analogy since Andy Blueman doesn't do anything unbelievably groundbreaking musically. He just knows exactly what he's doing and exactly what will appease his audience. His music is harmonically simple, but he still spends more attention than most on his breakdowns and really knows how to create a mood and atmosphere in his tracks that most producers just don't do. What I find most surprising is of all of the uplifting artists out there, Blueman's music is probably the easiest to recognize if you didn't know who made it. I know M4B's complained that so many songs sound interchangable between artists without anyone ever having a trademark sound, but the one artist I know of that really has an identifiable sound in all of his songs is suddenly generic and 8 years too late? I don't get it.
I also think Andy might be confusing the term "film score" as a genericized term for orchestral music. His English is pretty mediocre. Maybe he's just going to start making music that's similar to Riding Through the Morning Mix or his orchestral remix of Serenity, instead of actually scoring films.
I think we're jumping to conclusions and really saying some insulting things about the guy. Let him do what he wants to do, seriously. I've seen M4B bastardize Oakenfold and some of the other top DJs have horrible reputations for ghost-writing and other weird business practices, it's just amazing that we have some kid who clearly loves writing music and has a talent for writing emotional (if not simple) melodies and everyone ing rips on him as if he's single handedly destroying trance. |
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