In John Williams' case it's particularly funny, since he got his start as an orchestrator! The notable exceptions to this rule on broadway are Kurt Weil and Leonard Bernstein.
As far as I recall Bernstein composed Candide on the piano and let someone else orchestrate it.
bernstein "touched up" the orchestrations, and of course orchestrated the overture, but you're right. Hershey Kay and Maurice Peress did the orchestrations. West Side Story was also not orchestrated by bernstein (except for the orchestral suite)
So there’s an interesting prehistory to all this. The us music industry began in the late 19th century… and this is before the record! music publishing and songwriting was literally publishing… of the sheet music. The standard form of this was as a piano score, and that’s the form that songwriters generally had copywrite on. Now if you were to perform this you would obviously need an orchestration, and this was subje…
Many Hollywood composers outsource orchestration as well, often due to time constraints. John Williams is perfectly capable of orchestrating his work, but often doesn't. I understand he leaves very detailed notes for those who do, however.
Orchestration also means something different these days for most film, TV and game composers compared to the traditional definition. Traditionally, orchestration would be taking a piano or short score and expanding it to be played by an orchestra. Nowadays, almost all media composers create full digital mock-ups of the music first with the entire orchestra and then some. Orchestration then is mostly a process of transcription, typesetting and adjustments for live ensemble so the recording and performance accurately conveys the intent. John Williams and Howard Shore are two of the old guard who write short scores with notes for the orchestrator about what to do. Nearly everyone else is writing for the full ensemble and orchestrating as they go. Then the orchestrators translate that to traditional music notation so it can be played.
When was pop music not commercial? Isn’t this basically the definition of pop music?
Yes, you are right. Though, I think the idea is that pop music has become more of an industry now than it was before, in the sense that every aspect of it is optimized and all those optimizations are pushed to the extreme over any artistic merit, far more than 30 years ago.
Pop music was produced on an assembly-line at least since the 1940’s eg the Brill building style.
Of couse some of the music produced like this was great art.
When was pop music not commercial? Isn’t this basically the definition of pop music?
You'd like to think that the music (that became popular) didn't start out that way though. You'd like to think that the Beatles were emulating their Black American heroes, writing songs that got the kids along the Reeperbahn to kick up their heels and belt a few more lagers. That it found a larger audience and caught on is what made it "pop"ular. It's art when it moves the needle of what we think "commercial" means.
Yeah they were unknown until they became popular. But if you suggest the werent commercial this is clearly wrong. They were styled and marketed.
> For example, an "artistic" indie group catering to just a tiny minority is not just "as commercial" as a pop production, unless we stretch the term beyond recognition). But that indie band is not necessarily more artistic.
Authentic is the correct word here. Authentic bands offer a realism that is opposite of the collective market driven mass media song writing.
The indie group is not necessarily more authentic either.
Modern pop music is a more refined commercial industry than it was in the past. It's been sliding further and further away from art and toward the commercial. It is what it is.
Same reason movie credits are now 20 minutes long
I think a lot of those credits are for input from Visual effects companies and their input has grown massively.
> Looking through history art has always been commercial - it's just the audience that changes. Well, not exactly in the same way. Commercial is not about "catering to an audience", it's about catering to mass audiences, and the compromises that entails. For example, an "artistic" indie group catering to just a tiny minority is not just "as commercial" as a pop production, unless we stretch the term beyond recognitio…
> For example, an "artistic" indie group catering to just a tiny minority is not just "as commercial" as a pop production, unless we stretch the term beyond recognition). But that indie band is not necessarily more artistic.
"Artistic" in the sense "more concerned about art" not "having more art in their results" (which can't be measured anyway).
So, like "arthouse movies". An arthouse movie could be much worse done than a mainstream good movie (like, say, the Godfather). The art in the term is not about the level of artistry, but about the approach.
There's a cynical saying among traditional songwriters: Change a word, get a third. In other words, they give a song to some established star, who makes trivial changes and then claims partial songwriting credit. Is that fair? I don't know. Publishing royalties are so massive that you have to expect people to try to get in on them. Robbie Robertson is notorious for claiming all the songwriting credits for The Band's…
Well, they should be free to use the earlier version without these changes, if they are trivial and not worth it.
There's a cynical saying among traditional songwriters: Change a word, get a third. In other words, they give a song to some established star, who makes trivial changes and then claims partial songwriting credit. Is that fair? I don't know. Publishing royalties are so massive that you have to expect people to try to get in on them. Robbie Robertson is notorious for claiming all the songwriting credits for The Band's…
"You made this?" "..." "I made this."
At this point I think chatGPT should be making those charlatans claiming credits for a comma obsolete.