>On Sun, 23 Jun 2002 11:27:43 -0400, you wrote: > >>Because of the way copyright laws are set up, the person who worked >>out those beautiful chords to all those Berlin tunes doesn't get a >>penny of royalties, as only lyrics and melodies are copyrightable. >>Yet, IMHO, those songs might not have been the successes that they >>were without the contribution of the assistant, so wouldn't they be >>due a bit of spare change? > > >Along the same lines, although not on the same level, I've always >wondered exactly what John Williams does. In the credits, it usuallly >says " music by John Williams, arranged and orchestrated by . . ." >with 2 or 3 names. >Ken
Ken, I'm replying to the List, even though you sent it only to me, as I assume you meant to reply to all. Hmm, I've only ever seen "Orchestrations" in his film music credits, with the exception of some pop tunes that probably needed an up-to-the minute young producer working on them, like "Somewhere Out There" from An American Tail. Concert versions of his film music might be another story, as his film orchestras are often too large to be reproduced live with usual pop concert budgets. My understanding is that John Williams supplies sketches to his orchestrators that are so detailed that the only thing left for the orchestrator to do is to decide section splits and which clarinet plays in which octave and the like. And this is only because of time restraints, as his concert music is entirely orchestrated by him (like his Tuba concerto). Plus his orchestrators are hand picked and closely supervised. I've worked under similar conditions - aside from the schedule, it's quite pleasant and can produce excellent work when the head guy knows his stuff. On the other hand, some guys like Danny Elfman don't ever touch a piece of staff paper, playing and singing things into cassettes and sequencers and passing it off to orchestrators that are more like arrangers. This seems to me to be more than a bit dishonest. I've done this kind of work, too (on the orchestrator side, not the composer side!) The money is the same, but for way more expertise and responsibility on my part. Apparently, the term "orchestrator" nowadays means anything from complete arrangement from the ground up (including harmony, accompaniment figures and counterlines); through rearranging, cleaning up, adding voices, and getting everything to sit well; to straight ahead instrument assignment from a complete sketch. The term "arranger' is hardly used any more, as his duties in the industry now seem to be covered by the title "producer", who used to be the guy who assembled the team and arranged financing and distribution, but now makes musical decisions. "Artistic Producer" and "Executive Producer" are a neat distinction, along with "Associate Producer", who only seems to supply money. _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
