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All last week we had clarinetfest here at the University of Utah, and I got to see a lot of great players…
Two of which were James Kanter and Gary Grey, studio musicians in L.A. They’ve played for many years with most of the big-name film composers. So after they played, they had a lecture/Q&A about what they do as studio musicians. One of the things that Kanter said that rather pissed me off: (paraphrased) “We’re called upon to play many musical styles… There are composers like Danny Elfman who are primarily rock musicians…He hires orchestrators to make it sound symphonic, but they’re really rock scores.” That statement rather disturbed me. I wondered if that was the reputation Elfman had with most studio musicians or if his was an isolated opinion. Then I wondered which scores of Elfman’s he had actually played on. I can see how people could interpret Men in Black, Forbidden Zone, and Midnight Run as “rock” scores. Personally, I was first hooked on Elfman through his symphonic scores before I had any idea he was a rock musician. And I remembered a quote I read from Danny that said he was approached to do more rock scores after Forbidden Zone, but he turned them all down because he favored classical orchestral scores. So I think Mr. Kanter just didn’t know what he was talking about. What do you all think? BTW, James Kanter’s name is in the Signs and Nemesis scores under orchestra personell. He also played all those great clarinet solos in Benny and Joon.I think Mr. Kanter is a typical Union employee: totally aware of his security and therefore loose with the gums.
Ryan
I think the guy has no idea what the hell he’s saying. If Danny wrote “rock” scores then it would only make sense for them to be played on “rock” instruments, which for the most part, he has avoided like the plague. Danny came from a rock band into composing, but that doesn’t automatically make him a “rock” style film composer.
Can we say Sommersby? I mean come on. Danny is awesome with purely orchestral stuff, and has written some of the most beautiful orchestral pieces I have ever heard. A composer has to be able to write whatever the director wants in the film, for example, if the director wants a “techno/rock/orchestral” score, than the composer has to be able to deliver. They have to be able to write in ANY genre, so there is no such thing as a “Rock film composer”.
Knight (And away we go!)
How would the player know how the score was originally written, if he only gets the sheet music after an orchestrator has worked on it. Then again he is closer than I am to the process.
Nat
I would like to know what kind of musician Danny was considered before he was doing rock music in Oingo Boingo? Let’s not forget those 7 or 8 years he spent as musical director of the Mystic Knights. Which was much more orchestral than rock. So, if he’s a “rock” musician, writing “rock” scores, then it only follows that he was an “orchestral” musician writing “”orchestral” symphonies, played by rock musicians to sound more rock when he was writing songs for Oingo Boingo. How do you like that logic? Mr Kanter was just speaking out of his ass.
Mr.EThe part that really got me goin was “He hires orchestrators to make it sound symphonic, but they’re really rock scores.”
Sound symphonic? Wuh?
Are studio musicians union employees? He said they were freelance, and did jobs as they got calls for them.
Rock scores? come on, when was the alst time you heard a real Danny Elfman rock Score? And was I mistaken, or did he say that Men in Black was a rock score? That was instrumental if I ever heard it! I got into Danny Elfman because of his orchestral scores. He is a true orchestral composer!
Would Costume montage count?
L.A. musicians are all part of the AFM – American Federation of Musicians, which is the union Mr. Kanter apparently belongs to.
Ryan
I think that the clarinettist was probably referring to the compositional processes rather than the end product in saying that Elfman writes “rock scores”. Obviously, Sommersby doesn’t ‘sound’ like a rock score but if you consider the way that people think (in terms of melody, phrase, harmony and so on) you will find that a lot of Elfman’s stuff could be summed up in the terms of rock “song” composition.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. But it probably was/is for the clarinettist.
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