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Music Composition for Film and Television – Learn Film Scoring Techniques | Berklee Guide for Composers and Filmmakers | Insights from Award-Winning ... Schifrin
(Berklee Guide). Learn film-scoring techniques from one of the great film/television composers of our time. Lalo Schifrin shares his insights into the intimate relationship between music and drama. The book is illustrated with extended excerpts from his most iconic scores such as Impossible , Cool Hand Luke , Bullitt and many others and peppered with anecdotes from inside the Hollywood studios. Schifrin reveals the technical details of his own working approach, which has earned him six Oscar nominations, 21 Grammy nominations (with four awards), and credits on hundreds of major productions. Includes the full score of Schifrin's Fanfare for Screenplay and Orchestra , a treasure-trove of unfettered dramatic sound painting, commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and a great thesis on the emblematic language of film music.
288 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2011
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About the author
Lalo Schifrin
32 books2 followersLalo Schifrin was an Argentine-American pianist, composer, arranger and conductor. He was best known for his large body of film and TV scores since the 1950s, incorporating jazz and Latin American musical elements alongside traditional orchestrations. He was a five-time Grammy Award winner; he was nominated for six Academy Awards and four Emmy Awards.
Schifrin's best known compositions included the themes from Mission: Impossible and Mannix, as well as the scores to Cool Hand Luke (1967), Bullitt (1968), THX 1138 (1971), Enter the Dragon (1973), The Four Musketeers (1974), Voyage of the Damned (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), The Amityville Horror (1979), and the Rush Hour trilogy (1998–2007). Schifrin was also noted for collaborations with Clint Eastwood from the late 1960s to the 1980s, particularly the Dirty Harry series of films. He composed the Paramount Pictures fanfare used from 1976 to 2004.
In 2019, he received an Honorary Academy Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, "in recognition of his unique musical style, compositional integrity and influential contributions to the art of film scoring."
Schifrin's best known compositions included the themes from Mission: Impossible and Mannix, as well as the scores to Cool Hand Luke (1967), Bullitt (1968), THX 1138 (1971), Enter the Dragon (1973), The Four Musketeers (1974), Voyage of the Damned (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), The Amityville Horror (1979), and the Rush Hour trilogy (1998–2007). Schifrin was also noted for collaborations with Clint Eastwood from the late 1960s to the 1980s, particularly the Dirty Harry series of films. He composed the Paramount Pictures fanfare used from 1976 to 2004.
In 2019, he received an Honorary Academy Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, "in recognition of his unique musical style, compositional integrity and influential contributions to the art of film scoring."
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 11, 2019
Most of the book is filled with scores. That's ok. However there is no access to recordings. Not only that, but his Fantasy for Screenplay and Orchestra takes up 102 pages, and I cannot find a recording of it anywhere, for any price. Useless.
March 24, 2021
Some good tips on a few genres of music, but honestly I didn't learn very much from this book. It mostly just has some exercpts of Schifrin's scores with some boasting commentary. Oh and there are no complementary recordings, so I guess you either need to have some wicked imagination or you have to somehow find the music buried in the movies themselves. The first chapter was useful - it talks about intervals and how they apply to different moods. But otherwise the book didn't really help me understand film music that much, and I don't get much value from the scores without the recordings.
June 17, 2024
Mostly Schifrin just explains what he did for the music in various movie scenes, with little methodology. It's not that this isn't useful, it's a faster way to learn than watching all his movies and trying to pick through the music myself... but it's not much better. Much of the information about the process of scoring and working with filmmakers was outdated, too, at least in the edition I read.
February 28, 2015
I purchased the Kindle Edition of this book and am very pleased to say that it takes pride of place on my digital bookshelf. Therefore I wholeheartedly recommend it to musicians with a passion for notating and composing atmospheric themes.
Lalo Schifrin is a pioneering music maestro and very well known amongst film and jazz music circles. He has a highly impressive repertoire to his credit. I have grown up listening to and feeling inspired by his music. In fact, anyone who has enjoyed listening to and truly appreciates orchestral and digital hybrid movie scores will get value from this remarkable book which is amply illustrated with music score extracts and witty anecdotes from recording sessions. A thorough understanding of music theory whilst not essential is highly desirable and will help the reader to get the most out of this volume.
I particularly liked Maestro Schifrin's engaging writing style as it was also conducive to analysing, developing and formalising my own composing technique.
I also liked the tips and the way his hard-earned experience was shared at regular intervals in the text. As one reviewer expressed it is akin to a Masterclass - the scores presented a polished and illustrate valuable strategies in notation and give fascinating insights into the collaborative director-composer relationship in the film-making process.
One suggestion for improvement: The electronic version of the book would have been greatly enhanced by inclusion of links to an accompanying website with excerpts and examples of the music for readers that eg. may not be 100% comfortable with reading notation; but I appreciate that legal ramifications and Copyright Law may have prevented this at the time of publication.
Overall an excellent and insightful read and well-deserved five stars!
Lalo Schifrin is a pioneering music maestro and very well known amongst film and jazz music circles. He has a highly impressive repertoire to his credit. I have grown up listening to and feeling inspired by his music. In fact, anyone who has enjoyed listening to and truly appreciates orchestral and digital hybrid movie scores will get value from this remarkable book which is amply illustrated with music score extracts and witty anecdotes from recording sessions. A thorough understanding of music theory whilst not essential is highly desirable and will help the reader to get the most out of this volume.
I particularly liked Maestro Schifrin's engaging writing style as it was also conducive to analysing, developing and formalising my own composing technique.
I also liked the tips and the way his hard-earned experience was shared at regular intervals in the text. As one reviewer expressed it is akin to a Masterclass - the scores presented a polished and illustrate valuable strategies in notation and give fascinating insights into the collaborative director-composer relationship in the film-making process.
One suggestion for improvement: The electronic version of the book would have been greatly enhanced by inclusion of links to an accompanying website with excerpts and examples of the music for readers that eg. may not be 100% comfortable with reading notation; but I appreciate that legal ramifications and Copyright Law may have prevented this at the time of publication.
Overall an excellent and insightful read and well-deserved five stars!
October 10, 2012
Extremely disappointed.
No CD or audio examples is a major killer. There are pages and pages of score. I can read a score but music is meant to be heard, not seen!
Just one example of the lack of substance or coherence: under the heading "Music under Dialogue" (a massive topic that deserves it's own book) he writes less than half a page of text, and then proceeds to give two pages of a score for a cue that was written for a scene with "no dialogue". Huh?!?
No CD or audio examples is a major killer. There are pages and pages of score. I can read a score but music is meant to be heard, not seen!
Just one example of the lack of substance or coherence: under the heading "Music under Dialogue" (a massive topic that deserves it's own book) he writes less than half a page of text, and then proceeds to give two pages of a score for a cue that was written for a scene with "no dialogue". Huh?!?
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews