Piano-heavy movie scores to inspire a budding composer/pianist?
September 2, 2010 2:53 PM   Subscribe

Piano-heavy movie scores to inspire a budding composer/pianist?

My son, now 11 years old, has taken piano lessons for several years. In the last couple of years, he's shown a real interest in and talent for (I may be biased) composing. He spends hours noodling, and he's quite adept at picking out common musical conventions, reproducing things he hears, and composing new pieces. His piano teacher has begun to incorporate composition into his lessons.

He says he wants to be a score composer. Who knows where his interest will lead, but that's not a bad goal for now.

Yesterday I downloaded and started listening to Sufjan Stevens' score for The BQE, and it dawned on me that I could give my son recordings of piano-heavy movie scores for inspiration and education.

Suggested recordings?
posted by tippiedog to Media & Arts (31 answers total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
Here is the theme from The Conversation, by David Shire. One of the most awesome movies and movie scores ever, in my opinion:
posted by DMelanogaster at 2:57 PM on September 2, 2010


I'm not sure the movie itself would be appropriate for (or even interesting to) an 11 year old, but I like Philip Glass's piano-heavy score for The Hours.
posted by Zephyrial at 3:05 PM on September 2, 2010


Here is a piano-based part of the soundtrack of Once Upon a Time in America, another awesome movie with superb soundtrack (by Morricone).
posted by DMelanogaster at 3:07 PM on September 2, 2010


A little different style (blues), but he might find Dave Gruisin's soundtrack for The Firm interesting. Listen to a couple of tracks on Gruisin's MySpace page (!). Songbook is available as well. Interesting info on Gruisin's site about how the soundrack came to be.
posted by nuffsaid at 3:20 PM on September 2, 2010


I really like Yann Tiersen's score for Amélie, and the main piano theme is easy enough that I once learned to play it (and that's saying a lot).
posted by threeants at 3:20 PM on September 2, 2010 [3 favorites]


The Sting has a fair amount of piano (including the Entertainer, which is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on how over exposed you were to it).
posted by doctor_negative at 3:20 PM on September 2, 2010 [1 favorite]


Yann Tiersen's Amelie Soundtrack
posted by carsonb at 3:22 PM on September 2, 2010


At the risk of being obvious - the score to The Piano feature a lot of, err, piano
posted by Fiery Jack at 3:24 PM on September 2, 2010 [2 favorites]


Oh, and he might like the recent New Yorker profile and work of Michael Giacchino. ("Lost", "Up", "Alias", and video games like "Medal of Honor".) Not piano-specific, but more insight into the process/profession.

unfortunately it's behind the paywall, maybe try the library?
posted by nuffsaid at 3:29 PM on September 2, 2010


Remains Of The Day soundtrack by Richard Robbins.
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:35 PM on September 2, 2010


Ghost World (only the last track) (Try this at home!)
posted by John Cohen at 3:57 PM on September 2, 2010


Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence by Ryuichi Sakamoto is a beautiful tune.

As an aside, if he likes noodling I'd suggest that you could see whether he might be interested in learning some jazz - for me that's the most fun you can have on a keyboard!
posted by d11 at 4:02 PM on September 2, 2010


Any of Angelo Badalamenti's scores for David Lynch films are going to be full of piano. They're lovely.
posted by punchdrunkhistory at 4:19 PM on September 2, 2010


Seconding Yann Tiersen, though his work is not generally indicative of your average film score.

Something to think about: why stick to film scores? Before you focus on just film scoring, you've got to get your general composition chops up - and film scoring is a separate beast really only in its production and technical aspects, i.e. there just such a huge variety. Listening to piano music he really enjoys is just as important. Also, many wonderful piano works not composed for piano are used in film scores all the time, like Satie's Gymnopedia, for example, or Clair De Lune.

You also might think about some scores to old silent films. Traditionally they would have had a live pianist playing along with the picture. Now the films obviously have a score built in, but its often just piano.

Also, don't limit the listening to just piano; just look for good scores. If he's serious about going into film scoring, it's never too early to turn his ear toward orchestration. So give him really well composed film scores like the Red Pony, the Red Violin, On the Waterfront, etc.
posted by Lutoslawski at 4:23 PM on September 2, 2010


Also, many wonderful piano works not composed for piano are used in film scores all the time,

*not composed for film

its almost quittin' time....
posted by Lutoslawski at 4:25 PM on September 2, 2010


Search for piano by Ennio Morricone.
posted by Majorita at 5:03 PM on September 2, 2010


Shine was great, and centered on a Pianist.
posted by bessel functions seem unnecessarily complicated at 5:46 PM on September 2, 2010


Phillip Glass' score for The Hours

Michael Nyman's score for The Piano (obviously!)

There are some great non-pianist score composers whose work would translate well to piano, e.g., Bear McCreary, who scared all four seasons of Battlestar Galactica.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:14 PM on September 2, 2010


Doh! Scared = scored.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:14 PM on September 2, 2010


The soundtrack for Pride and Prejudice -- the one with Keira Knightley -- is gorgeous. Period piano pieces intermixed with simple romantic music. Lovely.
posted by woot at 7:05 PM on September 2, 2010 [1 favorite]




I came in to recommend Moon as well. Very piano-based, very catchy, and very beautiful.
posted by vorfeed at 8:15 PM on September 2, 2010


The score to The Pianist is all or mostly Chopin and is fantastic.
posted by proj at 9:18 PM on September 2, 2010


Dave Grusin's score for On Golden Pond, like many of his other scores, features some great piano sequences.
posted by OneMonkeysUncle at 9:45 PM on September 2, 2010


The Competition.
posted by Oriole Adams at 11:30 PM on September 2, 2010


Stuff by Thomas Newman, so look up American Beauty, Shawshank Redemption, and Meet Joe Black, and etc.
posted by Busoni at 1:02 AM on September 3, 2010


Seconding the score for the newest version of Pride and Prejudice. So beautiful. I ran out to buy the sheet music immediately, and it kept me playing for a long time. Highly recommended!
posted by I_love_the_rain at 1:15 AM on September 3, 2010


Also, several tracks from the Marie Antoinette feature piano:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yug7AJMBsWk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onaN9-jIeO0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5axRwAMos4&NR=1

And because I'm a little obsessive about Inception, this track, which only features a little piano at the beginning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xeHiTmx5AU
posted by Busoni at 1:21 AM on September 3, 2010


I like a lot of the piano music featured in The Legend of 1900. I'm sure the sheet music is available somewhere.
posted by empyrean at 4:58 AM on September 3, 2010


Response by poster: Thanks for all the great suggestions! This will keep me busy for a while.
posted by tippiedog at 12:07 PM on September 3, 2010


Response by poster: Lutoslawski: Something to think about: why stick to film scores? Before you focus on just film scoring, you've got to get your general composition chops up - and film scoring is a separate beast really only in its production and technical aspects, i.e. there just such a huge variety. Listening to piano music he really enjoys is just as important.

I agree completely. That's what I tried to convey with my note in the question: He says he wants to be a score composer. Who knows where his interest will lead, but that's not a bad goal for now.

My general goal is to offer him a wide variety of piano music to listen to. I just figured that since film scoring is his current focus, I might as well use it as a springboard for this task.
posted by tippiedog at 12:12 PM on September 3, 2010


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