Pirates of the Caribbean (Soundtrack Highlights)

Is there such a thing as total originality?  Or is every creation built on the work of others?  The movie  Pirates of the Caribbean seems to owe a great debt of inspiration to the work of others.  It is also an example of the collaborative nature of pop culture product.  This is certainly true of the creation of the soundtrack.

Our copy of the piece credits the composition to Klaus Badelt.  But composition of the soundtrack appears to have been a hasty collaborative effort among Badelt, his employer Hans Zimmer, and several other colleagues, according to Wikipedia, with much of the credit for the main themes claimed later by Zimmer.  One critic suggested that the soundtrack's themes were recycled from earlier Zimmer projects, and bemoaned the departure from traditional pirate movie music of the swashbuckling variety.

Despite its cloudy origins, medleys of the soundtrack appear to be very popular for bands and symphonies.  The version we're playing this year is arranged by Ted Ricketts, who for 24 years was Music Director and Producer at Walt Disney World, and has composed or arranged over 80 pieces for music publisher Hal Leonard.

Here are a couple of performances of the Rickett's arrangement.  This one is by a middle school band.



This version is by high school band from Osaka, Japan (I think they have a gong - check me on this).