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Unique "Williams-isms"?


mrbellamy

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Ultimately, that's the whole point of music in general, but unfortunately, it can be very difficult to truly quantize and analyze and understand without resorting to these sort of music-theory-based discussions.

It is difficult and probably impossible but one could philosophize about it. What is it that Williams brings out in us? Are we attracted to his music because he's a musical teacher who learns us about music seen through the filter of John Williams?

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Yes, but the technique's you and data describe above are just that, techniques. They tell you something about the mans preferences and about the way he works, but they are mere tools. They don't really go into the essence of what defines John Williams' music.

One director can take a 35 mm film camera and make Look Who's Talking, Another can use it to make 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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I'd call John Williams an ascetic hippy, in the best sense. Reserved, religiously devout, and even tempered. Much easier to work with than Herrmann, yet with a less defined, strong, black/white outlook. That all expresses in his music.

Nice, though I'm not sure were the "religiously devout" comes from? In interviews Williams has never really stated that he holds too strong religious beliefs. Though I would definitely say a measure of spirituality is certainly ingrained in him.

"Religiously devout" is perhaps too strong a word. Go with phlegmatic instead.

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Yes Williams himself has stated that he is not religious per se but he certainly is a spiritual person who connects e.g. with the natural world and human spirit very strongly.

I do not think you can define what makes John Williams John Williams by just enumerating musical ideas and most often used techniques apparent in his music but as this thread is about Williams-isms they have a valid place in the discussion. They constitute the nuts and bolts of his musical sound but they are not him and all that goes to his craft and art.

Most of the technical or music theory aspects of this thread are lost to me but I can recognize some of them in the music. Music is one of the most difficult things to put into words as nothing can describe music as it is so that a person who has no idea what this music or piece of music sounds like, would get even the vaguest idea of it. And so those of us who can "speak music" often rely on the terms of that language to express the details we more or less musically illiterate have no idea about. Of course by pointing a piece of music and where in it you can find the thing they are talking about clarifies things a bit. :)

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But that's exactly what Datameister's posts and mine have been about. Disproving that he only steals from composers in the classical repertoire, and doesn't have a voice of his own. All of the octatonic, aleatoric, cluster, parallel series stuff - does exactly that. Piece by piece, one by one.

Isn't his personal outlook, his own way of interpreting, the unique way he filters music, people, trees, love, life and death what makes his unique voice?

Edit: O, sorry, I misread what you've said. I thought you said there's no voice, it's all technique. Crazy me!

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Yes, but the technique's you and data describe above are just that, techniques. They tell you something about the mans preferences and about the way he works, but they are mere tools. They don't really go into the essence of what defines John Williams' music.

One director can take a 35 mm film camera and make Look Who's Talking, Another can use it to make 2001: A Space Odyssey.

2001 was shot on Super Panavision 70. ;)

I know what you mean, but finding out what the 'essence of John Williams's music' is in nebulous terms - is not the point of this thread. 'William-isms' was chosen by the OP for a reason. It's those recurring patterns, that you acknowledge but can't always put into words.

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2001 was shot on Super Panavision 70. ;)

D'OH...and so was Look Who's Talking!

How do you guys factor in the fact that, for his film work, John Williams never has total control over how he writes his music? The fact that he is working under a schedule, on a budget and under the strict direction that both the pace and subject matter of a film enforce on him must be a huge influence. Not to mention the directors input. To what extent can any composer fully express himself when he's a hired gun?

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Yes, but the technique's you and data describe above are just that, techniques. They tell you something about the mans preferences and about the way he works, but they are mere tools. They don't really go into the essence of what defines John Williams' music.

Yes and no. They do go into the essence of what defines John Williams' music - they just don't go all the way in. They're a first step. If you think you've figured out the next step, please show us the way!

One director can take a 35 mm film camera and make Look Who's Talking, Another can use it to make 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I see what you were going for, but your analogy misses the mark somewhat. It would be more effective if you drew a comparison to specific cinematographic techniques, editing preferences, types of characters, overall plot structure, types of exposition, color schemes, use of visual effects, stuff like that - the nuts and bolts of how a film is made. Can you just use such a recipe to create an amazing film? Nope. (Can't use it to create 2001, either. ;)) But it's still a useful discussion to have.

Again, if you guys have answers to offer, rather than more questions, I'd love to hear it. The sort of stuff we've been talking about isn't the end-all, as has been acknowledged multiple times, even before you guys came in. Just...don't come in and whine about the discussion that's happening if you have no intent to provide something better. :P

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But that's exactly what Datameister's posts and mine have been about. Disproving that he only steals from composers in the classical repertoire, and doesn't have a voice of his own. All of the octatonic, aleatoric, cluster, parallel series stuff - does exactly that. Piece by piece, one by one.

Isn't his personal outlook, his own way of interpreting, the unique way he filters music, people, trees, love, life and death what makes his unique voice?

I guess so. Please tell me how John Williams filters music, people, trees, love, life and death?

john_williams2.gif

I'll light my regs and listen.

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I think Williams as a person is breathtakingly romantic and eternally optimistic. There seems to be very little room for cynicism in his music, heck even his music for 'the baddies' often has a warmth and underlining humanity about it. I think it's one of the things that separates him from Herrmann. There's always a powerful element of melodic reward in Williams' music, so much so that one can often 'predict' where a piece or cue is going next, how it might end. It's all engineered deliberately that way, because he's a sucker for emotional payoff, much like his film making buddy of many years.

So what happens in someone's life to give them any sort of musical direction? I have no idea. But is it possible that the death of John's first wife might have somehow instilled in him a deep sense of reflective hope and aspiration?

Purely speculation of course, but valid for discussion nonetheless.

The musicians contingent are welcome to be fascinated by Williams' technical mastery, but a great many of his fans continue to be dazzled by him for fundamentally different reasons.

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Well a director could take the same script, same actors and same technology as Kubrick, but still end up with a very different, and lesser film.

Gus Van Sant did his shot for shot remake of Psycho, which felt totally different as the REAL thing.

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Nicely put, Quint. There's definitely something very uncynical about all Williams' music, even when he's doing tongue-in-cheek references to other composers' work. Probably one of the reasons I enjoy his music so much, as I've always been something of an optimist, and a little naive.

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Please tell me how John Williams filters music, people, trees, love, life and death? I'll light my regs and listen.

I think Williams as a person is breathtakingly romantic and eternally optimistic. There seems to be very little room for cynicism in music, heck even his music for 'the baddies' often has a warmth and underlining humanity about it. I think it's one of the things that separates him from Herrmann. There's always a powerful element of melodic reward in Williams' music, so much so that one can often 'predict' where a piece or cue is going next, how it might end. It's all engineered deliberately that way, because he's a sucker for emotional payoff, much like his film making buddy of many years.

So what happens in someone's life to give them any sort of musical direction? I have no idea. But is it possible that the death of John's first wife might have somehow instilled in him a deep sense of reflective hope and aspiration?

Purely speculation of course, but valid for discussion nonetheless.

Alex

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I think Williams as a person is breathtakingly romantic and eternally optimistic. There seems to be very little room for cynicism in music, heck even his music for 'the baddies' often has a warmth and underlining humanity about it.

I'd agree with the first sentence, but not the lack of cynicism. That to me is more of a trait of Bernard Herrmann - who was incredibly earnest and direct to the point of overwhelming guests and audiences, both in personality and in musical expression.

Listen to FAMILY PLOT for an score laced with irony. There's also a snide, cruel, almost playful quality to the raptor and compy music in JP and TLW.

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I think the original idea of the thread was to discuss the common and most recognizable musical aspects that make John Williams' music sound like his music. It is not about distilling John Williams into a formula but to analyze and study his musical language and to an extent his musical persona and preferences. I have found the "recipies" mentioned in this thread enlightening and it has been interesting to see how some of the things he has done very early on have carried all the way to this day.

I would say that what makes John Williams John Williams is a bit difficult to grasp as everything he has ever done has affected him, how he makes and perceives music and is as unique as any musician or person for that matter.

Quint's eloquent comment above was extremely well put.

Williams is an extremely emotionally and dramatically aware composer which of course has served him well when writing for film. The innate sense of drama (funny how he originally had no aspirations to become a film composer) and that sense of rhythm that he himself points out so many times to be very important when speaking of film scoring, are truly exceptional, hitting all the right notes musically and emotionally in his composition. This also is reflected in his way of handling action in films in many cases almost like a ballet, for good or for ill, following the actors and events very precisely in his music, often drawing accusations of mickey mousing.

Williams early experiences as a studio pianist and learning the craft from the player point of view has given him an old fashioned and romantic compositional stance, perhaps it rubbed off his film music mentors and colleagues, perhaps already his preferred mode of expression. All that playing in the orchestras of these film music giants can't not have left mark on him.

Another aspect of Williams' craft I have always admired is the skill of allusion. He can conjure up either by reference to a musical tradition or Hollywood music trope the exactly right mood or ethnic feel in his music. E.g. by his own admission he has not done extensive study of either Jewish music or Arabic music yet could write something like Schindler's List and Munich and get kudos for approriately tinged musical depiction of people and locales for both. Same goes for Memoirs of a Geisha and Seven Years in Tibet, Rosewood etc. I do not know how he can distill the musical vernacular of these subjects into such direct musical form but he does it often so well. He can hint at the actual music of an area without actually writing e.g. 100% authentic Arabic or Japanese music. Same goes for the different styles of Hollywood's yesteryear like film noir or swashbucklers in the style of Max Steiner or Korngold or Herrmann. He can take the essence of these styles and filter them through his own voice, making them new again while retaining the near nostalgic connection to the tradition.

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I'm with Data and Prometheus. I don't have a too strong musical education, but I always find that if you dig your head deep inside at how Williams thinks and writes music, then you're on the right way to understand the man's inner soul. Of course we can also try to put things into a pure philosophical/metaphysical plan, but those kind of thoughts are much more aleatoric and vain (not to say also much more influenced by our own set of beliefs and way of thinking).

A true composer dedicated to his own art will always see things through the filter of his own musicianship. It's the same for Leonard Bernstein or Aaron Copland after you read their writings. So, when you try to analyze and deconstruct the fabric and the architecture of JW' music, it's such a joy to discover how the man thinks. Because learning how he thinks in musical terms is very revelatory about hw he thinks in general, much more than reading interviews or an autobiography.

And if you're put off about the intricate technical nature of music-making, then you probably have to do yourself a favour, like I did to myself some time ago: if you truly love music and love to listen to it, dedicate some of your spare time to study music theory and also try to learn to play a bit of piano or even just guitar. It will open up your mind and will show you that music isn't just plain emotion nor simple black dots on a piece of paper. Music is one of the highest form of language and communication ever conceived by the human brain.

John Williams is a true music man, a composer who dedicated his whole life to the refinement of his craft. He simply lives and breathes music. It's not about his own religious beliefs or his temperament, it's all about the music.

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I think Williams as a person is breathtakingly romantic and eternally optimistic. There seems to be very little room for cynicism in music, heck even his music for 'the baddies' often has a warmth and underlining humanity about it.

I'd agree with the first sentence, but not the lack of cynicism. That to me is more of a trait of Bernard Herrmann - who was incredibly earnest and direct to the point of overwhelming guests and audiences, both in personality and in musical expression.

Listen to FAMILY PLOT for an score laced with irony. There's also a snide, cruel, almost playful quality to the raptor and compy music in JP and TLW.

Absolutely. I'm not saying his music never has a cynical edge, but that in general the trait of cynicism is very rarely apparent in a great deal of his music for film. I think he'll instill it on request, and whilst he's certainly capable; it doesn't necessarily come naturally to him.

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music isn't just plain emotion. Music is one of the highest form of language and communication ever conceived by the human brain.

Interesting. If not emotion, what does music communicates?

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I said music isn't just plain emotion. I never said that music does not communicate emotion.

Okay, besides plain emotion (are emotions plain?), what else does music communicate?

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What do you think of the elaborations of Williams? Beyond the technical side of music, the code used by him and stylistic influences from music by other famous symphonists ... What do you think of development, the musical arrangements, the ability to generate a design and turn it all the time with genius? What's behind the genius? What do you think of the great creative suffering by John Williams? ;)

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I said music isn't just plain emotion. I never said that music does not communicate emotion.

Okay, besides plain emotion (are emotions plain?), what else does music communicate?

I don't want to get into mere semantics, but I don't think emotions are plain. Of course music communicates lots of emotions, or ideas tied to emotional state of mind (fear, joy, anger, etc.). But it also communicates a lot of other things. I see music much like poetry. To convey and communicate an idea/emotion, you have to dig also into the "technical" side of grammar and language.

I know some people thinks that music theory and musical studies are useless things, because first and foremost what matters is the "soul" or the "heart" of music. I think many are put off simply because is something that scare them. But if we're analyzing music that is constructed around solid music principles, then you can't totally scrap it out. Because it's essential to understand the composer's way of thinking.

I heartly suggest to anyone to watch Leonard Bernstein's six Harvard lectures ("The Unanswered Question"), because they delve exactly into this kind of discussion. And Lenny does it a lot better than me, of course! :)

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I said music isn't just plain emotion. I never said that music does not communicate emotion.

Okay, besides plain emotion (are emotions plain?), what else does music communicate?

My own view is that music communicates nothing but emotion - but it does so with syntax. It meets and defies expectations...it's grounded in music that others have created but hopefully explores some new territory as well...and much of it is built partially or wholly on an elaborate system of conventions that have proven effective and versatile. It's not meaningless to talk about these things - in fact, it's the most concrete and objective way to analyze why music works the way it does. Learning how a given composer uses such devices cannot enable the listener to perfectly mimic his or her style, but it does give the listener a deeper understanding of how the music works - and broadens the listener's horizons in terms of composing music in his/her own voice. Every composer has his or her own compositional voice (though these vary in quality and uniqueness), and it's not really possible to just totally switch to someone else's voice. But you can analyze the techniques that they tend to use and integrate them into your own compositional process and reimagine them and reinterpret them and develop them into a part of your own sound.

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If we really knew that we could bottle it and sell it. The great thing about talent is that it is so elusive, and hard to explain.

thank you for your response, I'm new here! yes, but I read something about using the twelve-tone technique in the music of Williams (strange references to Harry Potter .... :blink: :blink: ) then application of a precise technique of the twentieth century, the technique of the twelve sounds (harry potter ?????? :blink: ?)

Now, through the technique of the themes Williams creates, develops beautiful melodic ideas.

The musical themes of Williams and then come to a definite development, not magical glow in the sky! What do you think? how Williams raises a theme and how it develops?

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My own view is that music communicates nothing but emotion - but it does so with syntax.

Exactly. In this sense, it's like poetry.

But .... poetry is a way to create a greater sense of emotion (instead of literal meaning) by using 'words' in a more abstract way. In a sense, poetry is a litrary answer to the art of music. In the end, it still is all about emotions.

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Right. And what do you do with poetry? First you read it or listen to it. If it moves you, you might read it or listen to it again, maybe many times. Then you might ask yourself why it moves you. And one important way of answering that question is to look at the metaphors, structures, shifts, sound devices, allusions, diction, rhythms, meters...you get the picture. (Those last two are also musical terms, of course.) This is, of course, not the only way to answer the question, but it is a very important one, and one that can often yield more concrete results than other avenues, which tend to be more speculative and loose and open-ended.

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Right. And what do you do with poetry? First you read it or listen to it. If it moves you, you might read it or listen to it again, maybe many times. Then you might ask yourself why it moves you. And one important way of answering that question is to look at the metaphors, structures, shifts, sound devices, allusions, diction, rhythms, meters...you get the picture. (Those last two are also musical terms, of course.) This is, of course, not the only way to answer the question, but it is a very important one, and one that can often yield more concrete results than other avenues, which tend to be more speculative and loose and open-ended.

And this explains why you love Star Trek while I love Blade Runner. I love the speculative and loose and open-ended! ;)

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Right. And what do you do with poetry? First you read it or listen to it. If it moves you, you might read it or listen to it again, maybe many times. Then you might ask yourself why it moves you. And one important way of answering that question is to look at the metaphors, structures, shifts, sound devices, allusions, diction, rhythms, meters...you get the picture. (Those last two are also musical terms, of course.) This is, of course, not the only way to answer the question, but it is a very important one, and one that can often yield more concrete results than other avenues, which tend to be more speculative and loose and open-ended.

maybe it's how you get a clearer relationship with the poetry of Williams, the relationship between metaphor (image) aspect of music and can also give hints for better analysis of developments in the musical themes.

Difficult to discern the various things, all carefully linked by a common factor, which is the general character of the film. The poetry of Williams, the film he generated music that mysterious, irrational amount of emotion that grips the listener's memory .... but this certainly does not apply to property design and logic of the musical themes by John Williams .... I think he takes the internal relationships in the music of late romantic composers (relations melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, logical, formal) and gripped in his very personal constructions, without sentimentality Lush melodies and the late nineteenth century, especially typical of schools of symphonic Russia and England.

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To be honest, we might've learned something about Williams-isms in this thread but I still don't know what's so 'special' about John Williams. What do these technical analyses tell us about his mind, soul and heart? Is his voice determended by a few seconds of Stravinsky here and there, octatonic or Hungarian scales for melody, tone clusters for horror and a tendency towards quartal and extended jazz harmonies? To be honest, it sounds like a recipe. We can all copy the recipe or the formula but that doesn't mean we can be John Williams. I somehow miss a more spiritual and philisophical explanation.

I tried to touch upon that earlier, but it got drowned in all the technical analyses (which are cool, but which sadly fly right over my head).

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What would you say in terms of rhythm?

this is always the most overlooked part when someone describes a composer's style..

For example, regarding Williams i would say these 3 things:

- he favours syncopations (obviously coming from his jazz background)

- I would say that his favourite rhythmic value is the triplet that we find in most of his themes in the melody, and after that, the dotted rhythmic values either in the melody or accompaniment..

-long value in notes that constitute a big leap, and smaller note values in notes that are used to fill in between (e.g. E.T. theme, Star Wars theme)

What else can anyone say about rhythm? :conf:

i wanted to ask this once more..

Anyone about rhythm??

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To be honest, we might've learned something about Williams-isms in this thread but I still don't know what's so 'special' about John Williams. What do these technical analyses tell us about his mind, soul and heart? Is his voice determended by a few seconds of Stravinsky here and there, octatonic or Hungarian scales for melody, tone clusters for horror and a tendency towards quartal and extended jazz harmonies? To be honest, it sounds like a recipe. We can all copy the recipe or the formula but that doesn't mean we can be John Williams. I somehow miss a more spiritual and philisophical explanation.

I tried to touch upon that earlier, but it got drowned in all the technical analyses (which are cool, but which sadly fly right over my head).

I don't think......... :eek: others effects...... "I tried to touch upon...." what??? :lol:

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DSM-V: Diagnostic criteria for 'Williams-ism':

- Likes chromatically shifting thirds and triads (i.e. Attacking a Star Destroyer from ESTB) - a signature he in turn developed from Shostakovitch and Herrmann.

- Use of the octatonic, Hungarian, and harmonic minor scales for melodic content, and/or generating clusters from them.

- Strong reliance on aleatoric writing, extended orchestral techniques and tone clusters for suspense and horror.

- Tendency towards quartal and extended jazz harmonies, as in the tradition of Roy Harris, Howard Hanson, Sir William Walton, Henry Mancini, Leonard Rosenman and Alex North.

If patient fulfills all of the above, he is John Williams. :john:

;)

I don't think I understood of word of what you wrote. Or Datameister or anyone else.

All I know is them songs on Star Wars is pretty good. :lol:

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Yes, but the technique's you and data describe above are just that, techniques. They tell you something about the mans preferences and about the way he works, but they are mere tools. They don't really go into the essence of what defines John Williams' music.

One director can take a 35 mm film camera and make Look Who's Talking, Another can use it to make 2001: A Space Odyssey.

This was sort of the point I was about to make, although a little less artistic. I could show up with all the same tools that a plumber uses, but without the knowledge of how to use them, you're going to be swimming into your living room pretty soon. And that doesn't even begin to cover the concepts of creativity and inspiration (divine or otherwise) in the artistic world.

Composers have been using their own tools and tricks for centuries; Bach and Mozart used diminution, augmentation, and dozens of other devices frequently, and of course Bach's tricks eventually became standard practice for everyone to ignore. (ha) Where I think the genius of John Williams lies - from an analytical standpoint - is his restraint and ability to pull out just the right tool/trick at the right time to give his music the unique quality it possesses. Not that the rest of the music isn't unique as well, but in my last post I mentioned the top note of the main theme from the Raiders March. In the score, it's an F. Now, the rest of that tune has just been in major, with no real alterations or anything harmonically out-of-the-ordinary. When it gets to that top note at the end, Williams uses a Neapolitan chord as the harmony. A less experienced composer (or one who possesses very few tricks in their bag) may have just used a boring old F major chord there, or gotten crazy and used a G7. Of course, there's nothing landmark about using a Neapolitan chord, but many composers would have thought "gee, that Neapolitan sounded great there" and then gone back and thrown them in everywhere. Now, the one isn't special any more. It's this combination of harmonic mastery and restraint that is interesting to me, from an analytical standpoint.

If you want to really see how far the analytical process can go, check out a guy named Heinrich Schenker. He was an early 20th Century composer/theorist who developed his own method of analyzing the works of Bach, Mozart, and the other "Great Masters." He developed his own system of graphical notation that he used to attach a hierarchical "label" to every single note in a composition, or section of one. If you want to see an example, here's one (look to the very bottom of the page for the example of Schenker's graphical analysis style):

https://webspace.utexas.edu/dn235076/www/NT2/NT2.htm

The system is lauded by some and panned by others, since it literally looks to slap a label on every single note. "Why did the music jump an octave here?" is never answered with "because it sounds good!" How it sounds doesn't really matter in Schenkerian analysis...well, that's debatable, but "sort of" true...it's all part of a giant logic puzzle (so to speak). I went through an entire year studying that, and hated it at first, but in the end I was glad I had done it. It was just like anything else in the theory world - a tool for analysis - and even though it doesn't really apply to all music, it was good to learn about looking as in-depth as possible to see what makes a piece of music unique. That can be applied to anybody from Bach to John Williams to Schnittke and Persichetti.

All that stuff about octatonic scales and diminished chords is understood not to answer the questions about inspiration and genius, anymore than Schenker's technique gave us the ability to understand the underlying genius of Bach and Mozart. It doesn't answer anything in the "why" world, it only offers a few clues as to "how."

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i wanted to ask this once more..

Anyone about rhythm??

I've been a percussionist at times, so rhythm is kinda my thing...but I've had a hard time coming up with generalizations about how Williams uses it, sadly. Broad generalizations, that is. I mean, there are certain contexts in which he's likely to use certain rhythms, but these aren't typically very idiosyncratic to Williams' work.

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What would you say in terms of rhythm?

this is always the most overlooked part when someone describes a composer's style..

For example, regarding Williams i would say these 3 things:

- he favours syncopations (obviously coming from his jazz background)

- I would say that his favourite rhythmic value is the triplet that we find in most of his themes in the melody, and after that, the dotted rhythmic values either in the melody or accompaniment..

-long value in notes that constitute a big leap, and smaller note values in notes that are used to fill in between (e.g. E.T. theme, Star Wars theme)

What else can anyone say about rhythm? :conf:

i wanted to ask this once more..

Anyone about rhythm??

As Datameister said, his use of rhythm is very broad, and hard to pin down. In fact, it's specific from film to film.

What do you think of the great creative suffering by John Williams? ;)

I think it's fueled (like Quint first brought up earlier) by personal tragedy, perfectionism, and a sense of lack of recognition in the concert field. Even antagonism and snobbery towards the man. Mostly due to a very superficial and 'herd-like' understanding of the man's work. Just read Datameister's quote of the cleaner who looked down on John Williams.

This is becoming increasingly common, I've noticed. Western pop culture's becoming more and more cynical, and even nihilistic, to the extent where Spielberg and Williams are seen as infantile men. Especially among so called 'cinephiles.' Because they're humanist, steadfastly optimistic, and unafraid of sentiment. Today, that's out of fashion.

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I think it's fueled (like Quint first brought up earlier) by personal tragedy, perfectionism, and a sense of lack of recognition in the concert field. Even antagonism and snobbery towards the man. Mostly due to a very superficial and 'herd-like' understanding of the man's work. Just read Datameister's quote of the cleaner who looked down on John Williams.

This is becoming increasingly common, I've noticed. Western pop culture's becoming more and more cynical, and even nihilistic, to the extent where Spielberg and Williams are seen as infantile men. Especially among so called 'cinephiles.' Because they're humanist, steadfastly optimistic, and unafraid of sentiment. Today, that's out of fashion.

Sniveling little collegiate music composition majors who can't bring themselves to write a reprehensible major chord, or get to the double bar at the end of their own composition, but will spend hours telling you why John Williams isn't a "real" composer. It all boils down to one thing: jealousy.

There, I said it. :eek:

:lol:

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xyxthumbs.gif

Ooh, I had a rhythmic thought! A lot of Williams' ostinati have a tendency to start with a repeated phrase (often relatively simple) and end with a different, more complex rhythm. Examples can be found in the Raiders March, the Imperial March, KOTC's jungle chase, Superman, Parade of the Slave Children, Olympic Fanfare and Theme...all over the place. Lends a nice momentum to the end of each measure...keeps things going.

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xyxthumbs.gif

Ooh, I had a rhythmic thought! A lot of Williams' ostinati have a tendency to start with a repeated phrase (often relatively simple) and end with a different, more complex rhythm. Examples can be found in the Raiders March, the Imperial March, KOTC's jungle chase, Superman, Parade of the Slave Children, Olympic Fanfare and Theme...all over the place. Lends a nice momentum to the end of each measure...keeps things going.

Hmmmmm..I'm not exactly sure that I understood what you meant.

You mean in the accompaniment?

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Yeah, for these sorts of things, he'll often establish an ostinato, which is a repeated rhythm, typically beneath other melodic material. A lot of these ostinati are a measure long, with the two or three beats being relatively simple and similar (or even identical), and then things get more complicated (or at least different) in the last beat or two.

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In terms of the technicalities of music, I am profoundly not knowledgeable. However, I would always, even at age 5 or 6, state that Williams' ability to be so PRESENT in the works/movies he scores is all-consuming: Think of the first 5 minutes of STAR WARS...to this day, the music coupled w/ the imagery is TOTALLY ICONIC...think of the ending of the trench scene w/ Vader losing to The Millennium Falcon...think of the effect the first 5 minutes of JAWS had w/ that music; I was only 5 when I saw that movie, but compare that shark attack/death scene to Hermann's PSYCHO and they're both on the same visceral level...think of the eeriness and Romantic Gothicism of DRACULA...CLOSE ENCOUNTERS' Mothership...E.T.'s innocence...RAIDERS' March...The TEMPLE OF DOOM piece...The Duel of the Fates...AMERICAN JOURNEY's kaleidoscopic aural historicity.

To me, it is his intense EMOTIONALISM that always impacts me. He also really seems to ENTIRELY complement the works he scores to the point that you can't think of the imagery, plots, stories, conceits w/out the accompanying music...it becomes the life-blood of the scenes or stories that are being told.

Proof? Two things: When we hear of a Spielberg or Lucas film, we think, "...and John Williams"...the three have become a triumvirate. When we hear John Williams is scoring ANYTHING, we immediately get sonic impressions of where we think he'll go...many of us enthusiasts are kind of mentally already there waiting for him to takes us on the ride...

Another proof of how ubiquitous the distinctness of John Williams? From the second the AMBLIN logo appeared on the screen - to the last shot of the makeshift alien spacecraft taking off in to the outer reaches of space - I ALMOST unconsciously forgot that John Williams hadn't written the score for SUPER 8. I know that J.J. Abrams never told Michael Giacchino to compose a "Wiliiams-esque" score for his "Spielbergian" film; but, I'm absolutely certain that Giacchino was working on his own half-pastiche/tribute to The Master. I wonder what John Williams thought when he saw/heard the score for the movie? It must have been an uncanny experience...

"Hey, I used to score movies like this in the 1970s, too."

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Hello All,

A new user registering in.. What a wonderful thread and interesting read!

I´ve been also analyzing John Williams works and really love the presence of both brain and heart in his compositions. And how he still gets his style across even when doing stylistically very different things. Yes, there´s a lot of influence from classical repertoire, but call it stealing is a bit off imho. All composers "steal" or borrow in a sense because that is how you make your style. Little Prokofjiev there and some Ligeti here and some Lachenmann there, mesh it up and there are you! But to actually make it something worthwhile is a different thing. You can steal as much as you can, even straight from the "source", but that doesn´t quarantee that your music is anywhere near "magical" or close to the original you stole from. Or that you could put it to of use that would be wonderful and touching. AND making it so that it would not sound boring,kitsch or banal!! Freakishly hard! It takes both systematic calculation and intuition in how things flow (timing) and what the drama of the piece is imho. In the end it comes to your taste really. To somebody call Williams a bad composer is off, since he does have mad skills. Maybe they could agree on that his taste is different than theirs. It´s so freaking easy to be negative and hate everything to elevate or get accepted yourself in a group of people. Ok, wondering off a bit here.. Also the fact that Williams is a musician as well as composer/conductor is a big thing defining him imo.

Just recently analyzed Rite of Springs, because I´ve been trying to do it for the last 10 years without finding the time.. The harmony in it is surprisingly simple (octatonic, polytonal, etc) and it sounds a lot more complex than how it looks on paper (which is a good thing imo), but the funny thing is that in Jaws this low motive grows gradually to this famous chord from Rite of Springs (you know the Fb/Eb7 chord, (enharmonically) e-g#-b-g-bb-db-eb) and then it´s just moving similar motion with the bass(motive). I thought it was hilarious!! Talking about "stealing" and putting it to something totally different. I don´t have the JAWS score anymore with me, just the full chord I wrote down ages ago, so if somebody has some pages of the original music, it would be nice to double check this..

Oh, and about this C-Ab-H chord that datameister pointed out. How about thinking it as Ab minor / C (omitting the 5th). It´s somewhat the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elektra_chord . Would that work ? Polychords again. Fits to octatonic and also has dominant function as well as it sits spectrally nicely (Ab that is = ma3 and mi3 gives me strong dominant association). Dominants are nice since you can practically move them anywhere. Polytonal or not. In Rite of Springs f.e. there´s almost always the dom. 7th present and Stravinsky does move them around quite a bit..

And again, its not about the chord, but the way you use it. :)

Jonne

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Great post Jonne. :)

The thing about Le Sacre that is so revolutionary and startling to this day, is the juxtaposition of various scales (octatonic, harmonic minor, diatonic, chromatic, whole tone) together. And I think the fact that doesn't rely only one of these (as several musicologists have suggested in the past - i.e. van der Toon). Because of that, it gives the work and unpredictability and freshness. You never know which card Stravinsky's going to play, or which set of them.

See this paper:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/4438644/Stravinsky-and-the-Octatonic-A-Reconsideration

Another chord (or sound) that Williams likes to use is that octatonic or Hungarian minor cluster (i.e. F#-G-A-Bb-C#-D or something similar). The second you hear that, you just KNOW it's John Williams, or at least somebody doing a smart parody.

As for the JAWS, you're right. There's also the A - Eb polychord heard a good deal throughout the score. Those two chords being a tritone apart (the furthest from the octave), bare a sort of debt to Stravinsky's famed Petrushka chord (C - F#). Williams mostly uses it represent the romance of the sea, the placid yet exotic, foreign nature of what lies in the depths below. You can hear it in the harp and celesta triplet figures at the beginning of Chrissie's Death/The First Victim, and in the muted strings.

Also the fact that Williams is a musician as well as composer/conductor is a big thing defining him imo.

Yeah, that helps. Even if one isn't necessarily a fine pianist (as Williams is), being an active conductor also helps. It all gives the music that feeling forward motion and sense of being 'in the moment.' It's the Adrenalin, pressure and excitement one gets from being in the pianist, trumpeter or conductor's chair, and not just a backseat driver (like so many film composers today) - that comes out in what you write.

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This is becoming increasingly common, I've noticed. Western pop culture's becoming more and more cynical, and even nihilistic, to the extent where Spielberg and Williams are seen as infantile men. Especially among so called 'cinephiles.' Because they're humanist, steadfastly optimistic, and unafraid of sentiment. Today, that's out of fashion.

It was common in the early 80's to call Spielberg/Williams 'sentimental' and 'manipulative', it happened to Chaplin with THE KID and MODERN TIMES in the early 20's, mid-30's, so it's hardly a new trend

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This is becoming increasingly common, I've noticed. Western pop culture's becoming more and more cynical, and even nihilistic, to the extent where Spielberg and Williams are seen as infantile men. Especially among so called 'cinephiles.' Because they're humanist, steadfastly optimistic, and unafraid of sentiment. Today, that's out of fashion.

It was common in the early 80's to call Spielberg/Williams 'sentimental' and 'manipulative', it happened to Chaplin with THE KID and MODERN TIMES in the early 20's, mid-30's, so it's hardly a new trend

You're right. I simply think internet culture has sort of magnified it.

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That’s cool discussion, most of you guys have written some great insight on Williams’ writing.

I think after you get to a certain point as a musician and have accumulated a wealth of knowledge like Williams has done, it gets to a point where you do ‘whatever you like’.

Very rarely does he stay in one key, most of his chords are diatonal, uses all modes seamlessly and his melodies 99% of the time transcend keys which is something I love about Williams. His chord structure mostly extents to the 7th and 9th and due to his massive wealth of knowledge he is free to use any scale at any key he wishes on any given passage.

The greatest thing for me is that he has managed to carry on the baton from the greats and with great respect and care evolve their legacy into a style that he can call his own.

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The greatest thing for me is that he has managed to carry on the baton from the greats and with great respect and care evolve their legacy into a style that he can call his own.

Well said. I agree totally. I often think of John Williams as a 20th/21st Century American Patriot reincarnation w/ the soul of a nameless 19th Century Romantic Russian/German composer. His Romantic musical soul is always what makes me love him so much. I have to imagine that his tendency for Romance has to play a role in his personal life, as well. I just can't imagine him being an emotionally-unintelligent man at nearly 80. I remember when I saw John at Lincoln Center 3 Summers ago, I lamented that he was "up there" in years, yet still seemed vital and significant. I said out loud,

"John has to live forever. He can't die for another 50 years."

and a very old lady, in passing, said, "He's a composer. They have very long lifespans. They're happy. They're doing what they were put here to do. Don't worry."

I've always thought that that was such a great, reassuring thing for her to say.

From her lips to The Man Upstairs' ears...

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