80s Film and TV composers filter: Let's hear it for Serbian-born action-flick composer Sylvester Levay. He scored a #1 Billboard 100 hit in 1975 with "Fly, Robin, Fly,", but moved from pop music to action movies. Maybe he's known best as the genius behind the alleged World's Most Expensive TV Soundtrack, the theme of which you don't have to pay $900 to hear.
Why did he move from action movies to historical musicals in the 90s? Maybe the genre was a little overloaded. [more inside]
posted by hpliferaft on Jun 3, 2009 - 8 comments

One Hundred Years, One Hundred Scores. The Hollywood Reporter and a jury of film music experts select the 100 greatest film scores of all time. One of the jury is Dan Goldwasser, editor of Soundtrack.net, which publishers interviews with composers, reviews of soundtracks and keeps a valuable list of trailer music - for when a new trailer uses old film music and you can't quite remember where it's from. [more inside]
posted by crossoverman on Apr 30, 2009 - 60 comments

The new age of ignorance. A panel of well known (UK) scientists and artists are asked some basic questions about science. Except the questions weren't that basic (since when is the Second Law of Thermodynamics considered basic knowledge?) so the results weren't surprising... although some of the answers were amusing ("The sky is blue because the sea reflects on it."). The worrying thing is that the questions could have been much simpler ("How many planets are there in the Solar System?") and I suspect the results would have been much the same. Meanwhile, ignorance marches on.
posted by bobbyelliott on Jul 1, 2007 - 127 comments

The International Music Score Library Project. PDF downloads of public domain classical music scores. From solo piano to full symphony orchestra. 2,762 works and counting.
posted by chrismear on Apr 18, 2007 - 12 comments

Partituras - Hundreds of perfectly scanned "classical" music scores (and parts) in PDF. Chose a composer from the pop-up menu in the middle of the page to browse the available works by that composer.
posted by persona non grata on Sep 21, 2006 - 19 comments

Are they music? Unusual ideas about musical notation.
posted by Wolfdog on Jun 27, 2006 - 18 comments

Howard Shore tops list of 30 greatest film scores for Lord of the Rings according to a poll from Classic FM. John Williams predictably enough takes a chunk of the top ten. The site also has audio interviews with Shore and Williams. More about the poll at The Telegraph.
posted by Summer on Aug 28, 2002 - 33 comments

California offers schools payola for improved test scores. Why not just pay the students directly? That would raise scores a lot faster!
posted by Mr. skullhead on Jul 14, 2000 - 1 comment