UK’s The Guardian reports that British composers are concerned that “Synthesizers are killing film and TV music.”
That sounds pretty dire to us. Here’s what they have to say about the situation:
Two of Britain’s leading film composers warn that the quality of music for film and TV is suffering because synthesised sounds are increasingly replacing real instruments in an effort to cut costs.
Carl Davis, whose scores include that for the World at War documentary series, said a synthesised soundtrack lacked ‘the heart’ of symphonic or instrumental music.
Christopher Gunning, who wrote the Bafta-winning score for La Vie en Rose, about Edith Piaf, was even more critical: ‘A lot of television music has got to the stage where I have to turn it off. There’s an enormous amount of programmes where I find the programme content really quite interesting, but can’t watch because I find the music so blooming irritating. Part of that is, I am afraid, the poor quality of the musical composition. But part of it is also the sheer sound of it.”
There’s a long history of synths being used creatively in British TV and film – ranging from the Dr Who theme to Clockwork Orange to Chariots of Fire – so the anti-synth attitude is a little surprising.
Can you think of any synth soundtracks so craptacular that they’d single-handedly justify these composer’s concerns? Or is it time for this meme to join ‘Home Taping is Killing Music?” in the long history of things that just could not put music down?
