1. By: Annette Nielsen Music 1010 Semester Project
Hans Zimmer
I chose to do my paper on one of my favorite modern day composers, Hans Zimmer. I have loved many of his compositions over the years, even without knowing that they were composed by him. But the album that really caught my attention was Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. After that, I started looking up other albums that he had composed and found out that he had composed some of my other all time favorite movie compositions such as Pearl Harbor and The Lion King.
By: Annette Nielsen
Music 1010
Semester Project

2. Early Years Born on September 12, 1957 Hans Florian Zimmer
•Born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany
(otherwise known
as just Frankfurt)

3. Love and Hate of Music
Up until his father’s death as a child, Hans Zimmer did not have an interest in music, he didn’t like the discipline of formal lessons. But with his father’s death, he escaped through music.
“My father died when I was just a child, and I escaped somehow into the music and music has been my best friend.”
Completely self-taught, he learned everything he knows through collaboration and experimenting.
According to his online biography, Hans had taken piano lessons as a child, but had given up since he didn’t like the discipline of formal lessons. So what changed? He did an interview to a German tv station and he said: “my father died when I was just a child, and I escaped somehow into the music and music has been my best friend.”
Quote: ZDF Infokanal interview, June 2006 (in German with English subtitles)". Retrieved

4. Career
Hans Zimmer’s career first started with the Pop group The Buggle’s and their hit single Video Killed the Radio Star, in 1979.
His start began with the pop group The Buggles with their radio hit “Video Killed the Radio Star”. Shortly after, while in London and under the tutelage of Stanley Myers, is when Hans Zimmer made his way into the film score world for which he is known for today.
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5. Career
While in London, Hans Zimmer was under the tutelage of Stanley Meyers, and together they composed numerous film scores.
With films and shows such as Moonlighting, Insignificance, and My Beautiful Launderette.
With his mentor Stanley Meyers, they composed the scores for the films like Moonlighting, Insignificance, and My Beautiful Launderette. With Meyers, Zimmer co-founded the London—based Lillie Yard Recording Studio, which focused on mixing traditional orchestral sound with electronic instruments.

6. Music Style
Together with Stanley Meyers, Hans Zimmer helped co-found the London-Based Lillie Yard Recording Studios.
This focused on mixing traditional orchestral sound with electronic instruments.

7. Career
With the start of their recording studio, Zimmer went on to start his solo career.
One of his first movies was A World Apart, in which Zimmer combined the old and new musical technologies that he experimented with Meyers. Because of this, he is known as being “the father of integrating the electronic musical world with traditional orchestral arrangements.
This led to his solo career which included one of his first scores, for the critically acclaimed movie A World Apart. With this score, Zimmer combined the old and new musical technologies that he experimented with Meyers, and is known as being “the father of integrating the electronic musical world with traditional orchestral arrangements.”

8. Down to Business
When he moved to Santa Monica, Zimmer wanted to offer opportunities to other composers. He founded the Remote Control Productions or “Think Tank”. This helped launch the careers of:
Mark Mancina-August Rush
John Powell-The Bourne Series
Harry Gregson-Williams-Kingdom of Heaven
Nick Glennie-Smith-X-Men: First Class
Klaus Badelt-Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
After successfully co-founding the Lillie Yard Recording Studio with Meyers, Zimmer wanted to give that opportunity to other young composers here in the United States. This recording studio in Santa Monica has helped produce many of the young composers we know today.
Mark Mancina:
John Powell:
Harry Gregson-Williams:
Nick Glennie-Smith:
Klaus Badelt:

9. The film won four Academy Awards including Best Picture
1988
This movie won Hans Zimmer his first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score
Zimmer uses synthesizers mixed with steel drums. He said: "It was a road movie, and road movies usually have jangly guitars or a bunch of strings. I kept thinking don't be bigger than the characters. Try to keep it contained. The Raymond character doesn't actually know where he is. The world is so different to him. He might as well be on Mars. So, why don't we just invent our own world music for a world that doesn't really exist.”
The film won four Academy Awards including Best Picture

10. The Lion King was Hans Zimmer’s first big notice.
1994
The Lion King was Hans Zimmer’s first big notice.
There were 15 million copies sold
It earned him an Academy Award for Best Original Score, a Golden Globe, an American Music Award, a Tony, and 2 Grammy Awards.
The first musical score for which I know him from is Disney’s The Lion King, which sold over 15 million copies and earned him an Academy Award for the Best Original Score, a Golden Globe, an American Music Award, a Tony, and two Grammy Awards.

11. Became one of the best selling film score albums of all time
2000
Became one of the best selling film score albums of all time
Received an Oscar nomination in addition to a Golden Globe and Broadcast Film Critics Awards
Sold more than THREE MILLION copies worldwide
The album was so popular that it spawned a second album…Gladiator: More Music from the Motion Picture

12. Partial Discography Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
Mission: Impossible II (2000)
Days of Thunder (1990)
An Everlasting Piece (2000)
Thelma & Louise (1991)
Backdraft (1991)
True Romance (1993)
Crimson Tide (1995)
Smilia’s Sense of Snow (1997)
As Good as It Gets (1997)
The Thin Red Line (1998)
His early movie scores include Rain Man, Driving Miss Daisy, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, As Good As it Gets, The Preachers Wife, The Thin Red Line, The Prince of Egypt, The Last Samurai, The Da Vinci Code, and Angels and Demons. The first musical score for which I know him from is Disney’s The Lion King, which sold over 15 million copies and earned him an Academy Award for the Best Original Score, a Golden Globe, an American Music Award, a Tony, and two Grammy Awards.

13. Partial Discography Hannibal (2001) Tears of the Sun (2003)
Riding in Cars with Boys (2001)
Something’s Gotta Give (2003)
The Ring (2002)
Shark Tale (2004)
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002)
Spanglish (2004)
The Weather Man (2005)
Matchstick Men (2003)
Batman Begins (2005)

14. My Favorite Scores My favorite film scores that he has done include:
Pirates of the Caribbean:
Dead Man’s Chest (2006)
At World’s End (2007)
On Stranger Tides (2011)
Pearl Harbor (2001)
Inception (2010)
Madagascar (2005)
The Road to El Dorado (2000)
A League of Their Own (1992)
Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Zimmer has composed MANY albums for films and television and has won many different awards and nominations for many of them. But These are a few of my favorite albums that he has composed…it may be because they’re also some of my favorite movies, and the music totally made the movies!

15. Pirates of the Caribbean:
Dead Man’s Chest
This CD consists of 12 tracks:
Jack Sparrow, The Kraken, Davy Jones, I’ve Got My Eye On You, Dinner is Served, Tia Dalma, Two Hornpipes (Tortuga), A Family Affair, Wheel of Fortune, You Look Good Jack, Hello Beastie, He’s A Pirate (Tiesto Remix)
My favorite on this track is Davy Jones.
Track playing is track # three…Davy Jones
Davy Jones plays the melody of the two music box lockets worn by Davy Jones and Tia Dalma/Calypso. It starts of as a very pretty theme, very romantic. Later it turns to a darker version of the same melody. This represents Davy Jones himself.

16. MY ALL TIME FAVORITE SCORE
This CD consists of 13 tracks:
Hoist the Colours, Singapore, At Wit’s End, Multiple Jacks, Up Is Down, I See Dead People in Boats, The Brethren Court, Parlay, Calypso, What Shall We Die For, I Don’t Think Now is the Best Time, One Day, and Drink Up Me Hearties
My Favorite track on this CD is At Wit’s End
At Wit’s End was written for this specific movie in It was recorded and published by Walt Disney Records. It is performed during the part of the movie when Will, Elizabeth, Barbosa, Gibbs, and the rest of the crew have set sail to the ends of the earth to find Davy Jones’s Locker to rescue Captain Jack Sparrow. It starts out softly since the journey started out softly. It then becomes a little more depressing, if that makes any sense, since it seems like they’re lost, and all hope seems abandoned. They’ve been out to sea for a while, their running out of food and water, and it’s freezing cold, so cold to the point that people are frostbitten. Then it picks up speed when they notice that they’re indeed coming to the end of the earth and are about to fall over and the crew starts to scramble, but to no avail. It ends with the ship falling over the ends of the earth.

17. MY ALL TIME FAVORITE SCORE Composition History
At Wit’s End…Track 3…(8:10)
0:00 (Introduction)-Percussion Drums in the background, and it sounds like strings come in and with tremolo, shortly after it sounds like either woodwinds or brass instruments come in with chimes
0:38-there is a shift in the music to make it more dramatic
1:09-You hear the chimes again as the main instrument on top of the background music, then at 1:12 you hear pizzicato with string instruments
1:22-It seems like the cello comes in as the main instrument for about 4 seconds then you hear the violins come in
1:34-The repeating theme comes back in and it sounds like a horn of some kind, with a background of string instruments and chimes
1:59-It sounds like a choir joins in, but after reading about Zimmer’s love of synthesizers, it sounds like it could be a synthesizer as well. Strings are in the background until 2:11, and then it’s the synthesizer with a deep percussion instrument
2:40-Horns come in
3:12-The strings come back with a crescendo, with the violins playing the main repeating theme
3:45-You hear a crash of the cymbals and then you hear percussion and brass instruments coming back in playing yet another crescendo
3:57-You hear a decrescendo and what almost sounds like chimes, yet I know it’s not, it could be triangles
Track playing is track # three…At Wit’s End

18. MY ALL TIME FAVORITE SCORE Composition History
At Wit’s End…Track 3…(8:10)
5:20-You hear a crescendo with percussion and brass instruments coming back in playing a foreboding theme
6:12-You hear the cello as the main background instrument with other background instruments consisting of brass, percussion, and other strings. The violins leads up to a faster rhythm
6:53-You hear what sounds like a choir saying something quick, then you have violins playing a tremolo and get up into 5th position playing “shrilly”. At 7:02 you hear what sounds like the choir again, but again, I’m not sure if it’s a choir, or simply a synthesizer
7:07-You hear a group of cello’s again with violin’s playing a variation of the main theme, then at 7:20 you hear the brass instruments, synthesizer, and percussion come in
7:31-You hear the string instruments doing a trilling and then you hear the main theme repeated with a couple of variations
8:00 (Finale)-You hear the percussion come in and the percussion and the synthesizer ends the song
Track playing is track # three…At Wit’s End

19. My favorite track on this CD is Mermaids
This CD consists of 18 tracks. The first 11 are the regular tracks, and tracks are the remixes of tracks 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9:
Guilty of Being Innocent of Being Jack Sparrow, Angelica, Mutiny, The Pirate That Should Not Be, Mermaids, South of Heaven's Chanting Mermaids, Palm Tree Escape, Blackbeard, Angry and Dead Again, On Stranger Tides, End Credits
My favorite track on this CD is Mermaids
Track playing is track # five…Mermaids
This track begins with an eerie, yet inviting at the same time. At about 5:24 it becomes intense, it changes it’s tune. You’ll find that it corresponds to the mermaids attacking the pirates in the movie. At about 7:12 it starts to change it’s tune again, this corresponds to the pirates turning the tide on the mermaids and driving them back.

20. This CD consists of 9 tracks:
There You’ll Be (the only song with lyrics), Tennessee, Brothers, And Then I Kissed Him, I Will Come Back, Attack, December 7th, War, and Heart of a Volunteer.
My favorite track is the one sung by Faith Hill: There You’ll Be. But my favorite instrumental track is a tie between Tennessee, Brothers, And Then I Kissed Him.
Tennessee was written for Touchstone’s Pearl Harbor in It was recorded and published by Warner Brothers Records. It is performed during the beginning of the movie when it introduces two of the main characters, Danny and Rafe, as young boys. It shows how they grew up best friends, and why they had such a love for the army, and introduced their personalities.

21. Composition History
Tennessee…Track 2…(3:39) (Which other than Faith Hill’s song, There You’ll Be, is my favorite from this soundtrack)
0:00 (Introduction)-You have what sounds to be a piano and string instruments starting off the main theme that plays throughout the movie
0:34-There’s a crescendo starting and ends at 0:40
1:00-This starts a new melody which has high piano notes, which earlier, it was just the lower piano notes used, harmonizing with the strings
1:30-You hear a crash of the cymbals and the music becomes louder, and played with more feeling, and again at 1:44
1:51-You hear a deep drum
2:02-Begins a new theme which is the piano as the primary instrument with strings in the background going back and forth from trilling to a simple vibrato
2:22-Begins the first theme again
2:58-Beginning of a crescendo
3:07-Vocals begin harmonizing in the background until a quiet fade out
Track playing is track # two…Tennessee

22. This CD consists of 12 tracks:
Half Remembered Dream, We Built Our Own World, Dream is Collapsing, Radical Notion, Old Souls, , Mombasa, One Simple Idea, Dream Within a Dream, Waiting for a Train, Paradox, and Time.
My favorite track is the last one, Time
Track playing is track # twelve…Time
For those of you who don’t know what this movie is about, a VERY BASIC interpretation is that it’s about being able to manipulate someone’s dreams or subconscious minds, to be able to get what you want.
Because the movie deals primarily with dreams, Zimmer wanted to make the compositions “dreamy” and/or distant.

23. This CD consists of 14 tracks:
El Dorado, Someday Out of the Blue (Theme From El Dorado), Without Question, Friends Never Say Goodbye, The Trail We Blaze, 16th Century Man, The Panic in Me, It’s Tough To Be a God, Trust, Me, My Heart Dances, Queen of Cities, Cheldorado, The Brig, and Wonders of the New World
My favorite track is The Trail We Blaze. It Reminds me of childhood and my own adventures.
Hans Zimmer co-composed this with John Powell
Many of the Songs are song by Elton John
The Road To El Dorado is about two best friends from 16th Century Spain who goes out on a quest to find their treasure. They find a lost city with a lot of wealth, and they are mistaken for gods. So when Zimmer composed the music, he wanted to compose the music to match that particular time period, and I think he succeeded.
Track playing is track # five…The Trail We Blaze

24. This CD consists of 12 tracks:
Discombobulate, Is It Poison, Nanny?, I Never Woke Up In Handcuffs Before, My Mind Rebels at Stagnation, Data, Data, Data, He’s Killed the Dog Again, Marital Sabotage, Not in Blood, But in Bond, Ah, Putrefaction, Panic, Shear Bloody Panic, Psychological Recovery, and Catatonic.
My favorite track is Catatonic
For those of you who don’t know what Sherlock Holmes is about, or who he is, he is a private investigator from London who solves difficult crimes. In this movie he is very self-assured, yet highly dependent on his side kick Dr. Watson. With the music that Zimmer composed, I think he wanted to compose music that mostly had an upbeat tempo, with a few songs that were a little more serious for the troubled part of the movies.
Track playing is track # 12…Catatonic

25. Bibliography
ZDF Infokanal interview, June 2006 (in German with English subtitles)". Retrieved (Quote on slide three).