[Fmpro] catagories/vocabulary

[andrew feazelle]

My last go 'round, after turning in a few title alternatives, they said they wanted something "stark".  In fact they wanted the whole score "stark".  They also wanted an orchestral sound with piano (with strings gently in the background).  Some cues they wanted "builds" (and though i'm still not 100% clear on what a "stark" score is, i'm somewhat sure creating builds using an orchestra contradicts it).  Eventully, i found what they liked was small piano chords (3 or 4 voices at most, no motion, or as little motion as possible), one or two melodic voices (such as a clarinet and a flute), no orchestration for full string section (they only liked when vln 1, 2 and viola were playing; some cues with cellos and basses, no matter how dynamically light, were rejected).  Of course, there were times where i went a bit farther than the above, similar to how an enslaved animal will "test" and electric fence, with hope of escape in mind.  

Also, my 1st set of two or three title alts. were rejected for being too "perfect" sounding (i write well crafted melodic music influenced by 20th century english pastoral composers).  They wanted something "rough" sounding, but still "lyrical" and "pretty".  My theory is that there are so many textural composers out there that couldn't write a melody to save their lives, that they've created a low musical standard in which others must pull themselves down to, to sound contemporary.  

So "stark", "rough", "lyrical", "pretty", "builds"................pretty ambiguous (perhaps "lyrical" is not).  I propose an abbreviation of the set: "strkrflyrptyblds".  Not to be confused with "strdrlyrptydrms", which is of course string pad swells, as lyrical and pretty as you can get, with storm drums.   That should clear things up.  

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That's all kind of obvious stuff but anyway how much is there some  
kind of standardized or commonly used vocabulary, including common  
abbreviations? I was thinking there must be a collection of these  
terms somewhere (well not in a book that I know), can you give me a  
hint?

Thanks

Uli