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HI!
somehow ive heard that elfman didnt study, so he is an autodidact. is that true?
because the way he composes, the way he treats the orchestra, the way his ideas sound like, its just unbelievable! d’you know if and under whom he had studied?
and who does also think that the score he made for “sleepy hollow” is the best of all scores in the world(and he didnt get an oscar, even a nomination!!!)thanks!
bye
Damianit is true.
he was robbed march ’91, “grand finale” lost to john barry!
but how did he learn this all?! he must be a genius! probably thats why he got his very own style. what was he inspired by? which composers did he especially learn from? and how did he handle to be such a great and famous filmcomposer?! so many hyper-gifted and hyper-studied composers sit on the street….and he comes along and becomes that famous! et il le merite, absolument!!!
could somebody explain that to me, please?!?Thanks!
Damian
I’ve read that he states some of his major influences as Bernard Herrmann, Nino Rota, and Duke Ellington.
Elfman learned by doing. If you listen to his early scores like Pee Wee, the sound is very simplistic (yet cool). He used simple chords and put his own twist on what he’d heard older film composers do. A lot of experimentation over his career and reinventing himself over and over has brought his career to the success it is.
Damian, are you french ?
As a kid Elfman tried to take music lessons but failed at them. He pretty much gave up on the idea of being a musician, but kept experimenting with music throughout his childhood and up through high school. He left before his senior year to travel around Europe and Africa, taking a violin with him. He played with his brother Richard in an avant-garde musical-teatrical group called Le Grand Magic Circus in France before going to Africa on his own, where he picked up influences in African Highlife and tribal music and began developing a love for percussion instruments. He spent a year traveling around West Africa before coming back to America to join a group that Richard had formed called the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, working as the music director and as a performer.
He taught himself notation by transcribing Duke Ellington music arrangements while working with the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, which was a music/theatre/improv troupe that specialized in playing late 1920’s – early 1930’s style musical pieces and later evolved into the rock band Oingo Boingo. He also taught himself most of the instruments he can play while working with the Mystic Knights.
He landed his first scoring job for Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure after attending an interview with director Tim Burton and actor/producer Paul Reubens. It turned out that Burton was a big fan of Elfman’s band Oingo Boingo and Reubens was a fan of his work on his brother Richard’s directorial debut, a “no-budget” cult film called the Forbidden Zone, which was really more just “movie music” than a “film score”. They told Elfman that they wanted a non-conventional composer, and that they felt he might be right for the job. Elfman sent in a demo and two weeks later received a message that he was hired. At first he planned to turn down the offer, afraid that he would fail because of his lack of formal training, but finally changed his mind. He had to relearn some of what he’d taught himself with the Mystic Knights and needed some basic instructions on the film scoring process, but got the hang of it very quickly. The rest is, of course, history.
As for his success, he pretty much caught people’s attention from the get-go with Pee-Wee, but Batman was when people really started to take notice. There’s been some speculation that he would probably not have become successful so quickly if it weren’t for him already being in the public eye via Oingo Boingo, but regardless he is an immense talent, and until him it was basically unheard of for a self-taught musician from a rock band to have the ability to write classical style film scores, let alone be good at it.
He is influenced by Bernard Herrmann, Nino Rota and Duke Ellington (as BartNfink pointed out), Cab Calloway, Igor Stravinsky, Bela Bartok, Sergei Prokofiev, African tribal and Highlife music, Jimmi Hendrix, the Beatles, and other stuff that I’m just too lazy too type.
I hope that helped.
I think red raven covered it all, and for some reason Jack Torrance wants to know if Damian is french
Thanks, red raven!!!
theyre just the things I wanted to know!thank you very much!!
…….and Jack, no I’m not french, I’m german…..i wrote this sentence(et il le merite)in french because I didnt know how to say this in english. and french is more spoken in America then german, isn’t it?thanks red raven for these efforts!!
DamianActually, I didn’t cover it all. I forgot to mention that Elfman began developing his love for film scores around age 11 when he began to notice that many of his favorite films had scores by Bernard Herrmann, and he started to realize how much the score could affect the entire film. He became a great fan of film scores from the 1940’s and 50’s, and prided himself on being able to name the composer of a score without seeing the name attached.
And all of this stuff was off the top of my head. God, I’m a nerd. LOL
And you’re very welcome, Damian.
If you love Danny Elfman (especially the early scores) and are really curious about his influence, *please* sample Nino Rota’s “Il Casanova,” which Elfman has, in the past, declaired as his all-time favorite score. It will strike the Elfman fan as brilliant, I believe. Check it out:
http://www.camoriginalsoundtracks.com/default.asp?idmenu=1&path=cd&idcd=171
“Il Casanova,” is also likely the most beautifully otherworldly score I’ve heard in my life. I’m actually surprised it’s not at all popular among Elfman’s fans. Take care.
thanks, red raven, again!! thats nice!
DS, i wanted to listen to Nino Rota and Berhard Herrmann though….thanks for the advice to take “Il Casanova”……I will probably do if my budget allows…you know…..
….Nino Rota, Berhard Herrmann…..ive never heard of them………
….and does anybody know(red raven perhaps?)what method of composing Elfman uses the most?
…….everybody here is so nice…..thats pretty cool……!bye
DamianI’m afraid I don’t know anything about composing methods, Elfman’s or otherwise. However, I found an excerpt from an interview he did in 2001 for MixOnline where he is posed the same question, so I’ll post it below, and hopefully you will get the answer you need:
_______________Mix:You do a great job of blending rich-sounding symphonic and choral elements with more interesting percussive and synthesized components. Give me an idea of how your process evolves.
Danny Elfman: Oh, boy. Organized chaos. I’m not a naturally methodical person, but I have to force myself to create a bit of a methodical way of thinking at the beginning of the process, and then it becomes chaos. It’s really both. There is a methodical approach that I take at first. I can’t start writing the score until I have all of my themes completely laid out. I have to know what they are and how they are going work and how they interrelate. I always think about it like doing a painting, and I can’t start the painting until all of my colors are completely worked out.
A painter friend of mine in New York once brought me to his studio, and he was setting up all of these jars of pigments and colors. I asked him what he was doing, and he said, “I’ve been doing this for about a month, and I’m about to start some paintings, and I don’t start until I’ve settled on exactly what tones and pigment and colors are compared and laid out in a certain fashion. When it is completely done, I’ll start my first picture.” I thought to myself, “That is exactly what I’m doing when I start a film.” I’m laying out all the melodic pieces, knowing in my head how it is all going to work together.
Once I have all of those elements together, there is no method anymore. I just dive into the first cue. I go as close to chronologically as I possibly can. I don’t plan or think about where the music is going to go. It really is extremely unmethodical. I tend to let the music carry itself, and I become very often surprised by it. I never question it. The beauty of working with Tim (Burton) is neither does he.
For example, on Sleepy Hollow, I wrote this dark theme for the Horseman and I wrote a kind of a child’s theme for Ichabod Crane, which in fact would play when he was a child, on flashbacks. For reasons that I don’t understand and never questioned, that theme kept coming in the middle of the Horseman’s theme. This bit of innocence would just happen, and I remember thinking, “What is this doing here?” What I’ve learned over the years is to never ask that question. You just enjoy it, use it and move on. Everything musically…if it appears in a cue in a certain way, it is there for a reason. The less I try to analyze it, the better I am. So, that innocent theme juxtaposed against that monster just worked for me.
See, a lot of directors wouldn’t let you do that. They would think very methodically and intellectually about music and say, “Oh my God! How can you play this theme over that character?” Well, what Bernard Hermann taught me is that basically it was all bullshit. You can do any goddamn thing you want. [Laughs.] The only rule is that there are no rules. Whatever works! Period!
MO: So you basically trust the mystical process of the art.
DE: Absolutely. My trick is really simple. I prepare as much as possible in the beginning, and then I let it take over. If I don’t do the preparation in the beginning, it is likely to not be cohesive in the end, and that isn’t acceptable. Ultimately, it has to fit together like a puzzle. It is like, “Do the homework in the beginning and then don’t ever think about it again.”
I love the fact that Tim never questions that stuff and goes, “What in the hell are you doing playing Ichabod’s theme over the Horseman?” He reacts to it the same way I do. He’ll chuckle. He thinks only about the music on a totally visceral level. He doesn’t intellectualize it, and that is how I write it.
_______________note: I put the names and coresponding intials as well as the (Burton) in the transcript myself to make it easier to read when removed from the rest of the article. Everything else is as I found it.
wow,wow,wow!!!!
Thanks very very very much!!! thats very cool….thankya, red raven!!!
youve done so much for me, could i anyway help you at anything?
why do you know so much about elfman?thanks a lot, red raven!!
greeeeez
damianShe knows because she READS.
Damian, there really are a TON of Oingo Boingo and Danny Elfman sites out there. Some of them are pretty basic, just a single page of “Danny’s so great” and no realy meat, but some of them are actually pretty good. They may not be as slick as Ryan’s, but if you do enough clicking, they’ve got some good content.
I haven’t gone searching for it in a long time (and if I did I’d just look in the box where I keep the actual magazine) but I think that article can be found online. And so can many many others.
Boingo.org is a good place to start. It has lots of articles and also a pretty extensive links page. Use those links and the links on every page you visit. You’ll find a few gold mines among the 404 errors (sadly, many of the pages, including mine have gone away).
Also, there are a number of Elfman and Boingo yahoo clubs that sometimes house articles, soundclips, photos and of course the message boards. And don’t forget the newsgroups. Deja used to let you search the archives. I know they’ve gone through some changes, so not sure if you still can, but probably worth a try to go back in time there. Google might let you do it now. Deja might BE google now. Who can keep up with these things?
Anyway, search around and don’t be afraid to search the Oingo Boingo sites because a lot of them include sections devoted just to Danny and considering there’s been no band for the last… almsot 8 years, any of the newer ones with articles will be mostly Danny articles.
Have fun!
Pammy
READS? How do you do that? And where can I go about learning how to do that?
Not on internet message boards. :p
I wasn’t implying that people couldn’t read. Sheeeeeeesh!
I was just saying that if you know where to start looking, you really can find a lot out there. Some people just don’t know where to start.
I know I’m usually being a wise ass, but I really was just trying to be helpful that time.
Pammy
Pammy’s right, I did learn what I know about Elfman by reading (and from recorded interviews and such). I’ve been reading and collecting interviews and articles on him since I was about 12 years old, and have read some of them a number of times. I’ve been utterly fascinated and inspired by Elfman both as a musician and a person since I first became aware of him, and I’ve always loved reading and learning about things, so I guess it only made sense for me to seek out what I could find and absorb it. I wish I could say I acquired my knowledge personally or from close sources, but alas, I am just an admiring fan.
I hope no one thinks I was trying to come off as some sort of “expert” or anything, but since I knew some of what Damian wanted to know, I figured I’d save him the trouble of hunting down the info himself, which could have taken him quite a while to do, as it has for me. Besides, I like rattling off information about Elfman just for the heck of it, so I figured I’d enjoy myself and be thorough. Usually when I start going on about Elfman to my friends, they just get bored and annoyed, so it was a nice change to share it with somebody who is interested.
Anyway, you’re welcome again Damian, I’m glad that I could help you. I’ve been wondering; are you looking for information about Elfman for a project of some sort or are you just curious?
Thanks, Pammy for that advice!
red raven, thanks again! I’m looking for information about Elfman for a project and I’m curious.The project is a kind of competition for young composers(I’m 15).And I thought of trying to compose like Elfman does( i learn very much about composing by copying styles…)…and ive been admiring him since a few years….he’s great…the best….besides,does Elfman compose works which are not for films?
Red raven, you say you’re a musician…what do you do?Damian
PS:yesterday, i took Pammys advice and read some articles.i read that Elfman needs only 6 weeks to compose such a score like “Sleepy Hollow”?wow…that makes me down….6 weeks?!he’s a genius.
Beside his rock past, he only compose for movies.
But, i don’t know why, i always wanted to see him compose classical works (like some other film composers do). One day maybe…I read that Elfman has composed (perhaps only roughly) an Edward Scissorhands ballet (did anybody else read that?). If this is true, I know that it hasn’t received any kind of public performance. A ballet based on music from Edward Scissorhands has immense potential and I do hope that this will come to fruition one day.
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