A Quote by Stewart Copeland

In a film score, the last thing you want to do is take people out of the movie. The music is secondary. In opera, the music is the main event. — © Stewart Copeland
In a film score, the last thing you want to do is take people out of the movie. The music is secondary. In opera, the music is the main event.
I was very young, maybe five. The opera was very... I was attracted to opera to the point that I think it's the reason I started to write music for films. I never studied. There are film and music school that teach you how to write music. I never studied that. But the influence of opera, which is a combination of storyline, visuals, staging, plus music... that was perhaps the best school I could have had. That's what gave me the idea of coming to Hollywood to write music for films.
I'm happy to say that I have not been fired off a film. The score is usually the last thing to be done. So a lot lands on the scores shoulders. A lot of problems that seem to have nothing to do with the music gets blamed on the music , because it's relatively cheap to change, where as a reshoot etc is not. Music is often expected to help or fix bad cuts, bad acting, bad filming, bad timing, you name it.
I always shoot my movies with score as certainly part of the dialogue. Music is dialogue. People don't think about it that way, but music is actually dialogue. And sometimes music is the final, finished, additional dialogue. Music can be one of the final characters in the film.
My parents were opera singers. I didn't want to play opera because I wasn't good enough. I didn't want to play their music; I wanted to play the music that I wanted to play, and I'm so lucky that today I get to play that music, even though I don't like every song I write.
I have always loved music and singing, and I am open to listen to any type of music. Regardless of my mood, my heart is always set racing when I listen to opera. When I decide which music I want to hear, my choice is almost invariably an opera recording.
When I get out of the studio, I want to disconnect from music. I would rather spend time with my family or watch a movie. I cannot take any more music.
The colors of 'The Nutcracker' ballet score have become a part of the vocabulary of film music. It's where so much of the 19th-century romantic music that I call upon as a film composer is rooted.
I started doing Bollywood and film music, and now, it has come to a point where I've started to say no. I want to do my own music. I have been there and done that, so I am not there to achieve that any more. I just want to put my music out there, and if people listen it, okay; if they don't, then fine.
The most important thing to remember is that the composer is a senior partner. You cannot force a subject on a composer if it doesn't inspire him. He has to take the lead, you are an enabler, and you are creating the enabling conditions under which he can write great music. Your words are secondary. Many librettists in opera collaborations in the past have forgotten this, or not known it, or refuse to accept it and tried to get out in front of the creative process and it just doesn't work that way.
Nowadays, there are seven music directors in one film. I had never heard of such a thing before. If one of our old music directors was told to share a score with others, he would have left the assignment.
It's music ultimately that matters in opera, and opera is a piece of music reaching out as a vision in sound reaching out to the world.
My main object is to write, to keep learning. I always try to perfect my composition. But I do like writing film and opera music. I believe that it fulfills the needs of particular situations.
Music, for me, in a film is never... I don't want to use music as a slave of the image. I want music to be art, or a body in itself to give something to the film.
One of the first things I created was music for the Paris opera's ballet troupe. That was the first time that electronic music was played at the opera. I really like the relationship between the music and the choreography.
It's quite rare for a group of people to come together for a live event that isn't loud music. A live event that enables thinking to take place, to take place collectively. It's unique to theatre. It's a quality I never want to see diminished.
I think 'Easy Rider' might have been the first time that someone made a film using found music instead of an orchestral score. No one had really used found music in a movie before, except to play on radios or when someone was singing in a scene.
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