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The Definitive John Williams Plagiarism/Homage Thread


indy4

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I'd say it has a lot in common with LOST IN SPACE, though it's unique among Williams's film work.

In what way? I hear similarities here and there, but overall I'd say it's an entirely different appraoch to space music

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I'm sorry, but I still don't hear the supposed "rip-off". At best there's only a passing similarity between these two works.

With all due respect to those toting the "plagiarism" line, I don't hear anything more than a vague likeness between these two pieces--nowhere near enough to use extreme words like "stealing" and "plagiarism" (which are essentially criminal terms).

Interesting that new posters seem to always go for the plagiarism threads first....

Actually I believe this was the third or fourth thread I responded to.

The opening of JW's sinfonietta is also similar to the same part from Shostakovich's 5th.

Clearly words like "stealing" and "plagiarism" are inaccurate. Williams is of course influenced by his predecessors, same as any composer. Many musicians and composers in this forum are no doubt familiar with the experience of creating something "original," only to discover later that it was influenced by something now mostly forgotten by the conscious mind.

I'm not trying to attach any sort of judgement to these discoveries. it's just interesting to me to hear what pieces have influenced JW. it used to bother me but not anymore, now it's just fun to try and pick them out

FANS are often very touchy about the semantics but i think it's inevitable: young people, especially if they're not from overly musical households, often listen to music as STAR WARS and assume that Williams invented this music from the scratch, in a vaguely classical idiom. If you keep on discovering the world of music you come to a point where you realize that the amount of 'homaging' is probably much higher than you would have dared to guess. Then either comes the betrayed-lover routine or the lion-momma-protects-her-babies routine - as evidenced in these threads.

In the end, if you are an experienced composer you tackle this much differently, Williams probably never imagined to what extent people would put his music under close scrutiny but drew from the composer's and styles he personally loved without bothering too much about anyone connecting the dots. I think he would have been delighted at someone discovering Shostakovich by way of THE FURY (or whatever), and not at all mind that people found these connections. That you can phrase these findings in vastly different tones is another matter, of course.

I agree with you, publicist. No artist creates in a vacuum: we're all influenced by those who have preceded us.

The difficulty I have is when people use irresponsible words like "stealing" and "plagiarism," which are practically accusations of criminal behavior (to say nothing of how disrespectful they are).

Your terminology--"homage" and "tribute"--is both more accurate and more respectful.

You know, the "borrowings" don't bother me nearly as much as they did when I was, say, 12-15 years younger. It just how creative process works, anyone who has ever tried to apply their talents to creating something knows this. What I don't buy about all the plagiarism criticism is that composers somehow do it "on purpose". I don't think that's how this process goes at all. Especially with film music, where the luxury of endless pondering on the subject is virtually non-existent. The influences are more or less obvious, no one is trying to challenge that. But that doesn't mean they "ripped-off" another piece of work out of laziness or lack of ideas. Human brains just don't work like that, especially the creative ones - they just don't want to repeat things.

Besides, music is about the only art form where this kind of discussion takes place. Not so much with painting, sculpture - where repetition and, yes, plagiarism are part of natural development. I know, said it before.

Karol

Great points!

I agree. But that is also ironic, because Star Wars sounds also nothing like any other John Williams score. That makes it unique.

Karol

Really? I thought Star Wars and Superman sounded similar: both, after all, feature a main theme in which, in the opening fanfare, the tonic jumps to the dominant fifth (the main difference being that in Superman the tonic is repeated once before the jump).

This tonic-dominant relationship is also present, in another syntax, in Close Encounters; and it can also be heard in the main theme of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

Because of this, I have long considered this combination of notes a Williams trademark--though now that I think about it, maybe it only applies to his 1980s scores.....

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  • 1 month later...

Was lurking around the Facebook on Liz's account and noticed that forum favorite Jeremy Soule had commented (admirably) on a link to a relevant, if not wholly agreeable, article. Just don't like the resignation to the sentiment that there is nothing new to be done.

http://bnelsonmusic.wordpress.com/2012/01/30/who-will-cast-the-first-stone-against-john-williams/

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I don't know, sometimes i hear a new score or album from an electronic or song artist and it just seems a fresh new approach (that often features traceable references that of course are also necessary because i probably would turn it off if not). In film music, that could be i. e. Carter Burwell (just as an example). I never had the feeling that musical minds are unable to kick off new things.

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Exactly. The insidiously defeatist attitude that supposes there's nothing new to be done through true innovation and that creativity should be willfully altered from innovation to something more like... synthesis (which is fine, but we should encourage both), is as destructive as the attitude that shuns anything that bears even the remotest resemblance to something else as plagiaristic hackery. Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

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Since there are no new styles, there are all styles.

There is a temptation that runs rampant among contemporary composers to mistake novelty of technique for originality. Sure, he mentions "novel combination", but when he says

We come back to our point about originality. Should one still say John Williams is a thief undeserving of our respect? I don’t think so. He lives and works within a postmodern creative world, as all of us do.

he insinuates that novel combinations are somehow unoriginal. If these combinations are so unoriginal, how is it that Williams' style remains one of the most instantly recognizable among, well, all composers?

People really ought to stop thinking that original means you're going to hear techniques that have never been used before. Please, please, please just stop it.

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he insinuates that novel combinations are somehow unoriginal. If these combinations are so unoriginal, how is it that Williams' style remains one of the most instantly recognizable among, well, all composers?

Williams' style isn't, his tunes are. I hardly think that people listening to BOOK THIEF, GEISHA, MUNICH or MINORITY REPORT find them very distinctive.

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he insinuates that novel combinations are somehow unoriginal. If these combinations are so unoriginal, how is it that Williams' style remains one of the most instantly recognizable among, well, all composers?

Williams' style isn't, his tunes are. I hardly think that people listening to BOOK THIEF, GEISHA, MUNICH or MINORITY REPORT find them very distinctive.

Sure, there are less distinctive scores, but by and large his scores are very recognizable.

As for Williams' style being unoriginal, I think we're already disagreeing on the definition of originality.

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What are u talking about? I don't care squat about your or anyone else's 'definitions'. I merely pointed out that there's hardly a unique Williams sound that wasn't aped by dozens of others and your reasoning that exactly this broad Hollywood sound (see also: Horner, McNeely, Arnold etc.) is instantly recognizable Williams doesn't make sense. People know Williams tunes, they can't tell one score from the other apart from that.

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What are u talking about? I don't care squat about your or anyone else's 'definitions'. I merely pointed out that there's hardly a unique Williams sound that wasn't aped by dozens of others and your reasoning that exactly this broad Hollywood sound (see also: Horner, McNeely, Arnold etc.) is instantly recognizable Williams doesn't make sense. People know Williams tunes, they can't tell one score from the other apart from that.

Definitions are at the heart of the matter in any debate. For some, originality = innovation of musical techniques, whereas for others (myself included), originality = uniqueness of overall style. I'd rather see people use the term "innovative" or "novel" when they say "original" in the former sense. It gives others the misleading impression that there's nothing of value in a piece of music unless it does something new from a technical point of view. It's a mode of thought that plagues contemporary concert composers and contributes to the snobbery that film music (as epitomized by Williams) is worthless music.

That's what I'm talking about.

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Still, what is so distinctive about it? People remember the theme from E. T. or RAIDERS, but the kind of expansive orchestral underscore is found in hundreds of scores from IRON WILL to COCOON. I just don't see what's so distinctive about the Williams version of it APART from the melodies.

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I see what you're saying. There are many common elements among a good deal of Hollywood composers, but I would argue Williams has a unique sound. For example, for scenes of action or mystery, he often uses parallel minor chords supported by a bass that frequently sounds dissonant notes (the "Star Wars" sound, if you will). That's a trademark Williams-ism. And there are plenty of others, just check out the thread where we get into the nitty-gritties of them:

http://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=20206&hl=%2Bunique+%2Bwilliams-isms

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I know Williams, certainly as long as you do... ;)

But to say that he has a unique and totally identifiable sound just seems a bit of an exaggeration. Morricone, yes. Williams no. And that's not a criticism, as a clearly identifiable sound mustn't be an advantage for a film composer. I just was pointing out that i think your reasoning in this case is wrong.

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to say that he has a unique and totally identifiable sound just seems a bit of an exaggeration. Morricone, yes. Williams no.

Interesting. I'd say they both do. Maybe Williams' uniqueness is subtler, less in-your-face like Morricone's off-the-wall orchestrations. Williams' orchestration tends to hide a lot of his originality (uniqueness!) because it is usually so traditional.

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And thus, the statement that "Williams' style remains one of the most instantly recognizable among, well, all composers" lets me ask the question 'For whom?'

Because i can tell from experience that none of my non-film music friends ever could differentiate between Williams, Horner and dozens of others. Elfman was much more successful in that regard, i may bet warily that they could have identified John Barry but certainly not the difference between STAR TREK II and SPACECAMP etc.

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Yes, I think we're getting down to it. Recognizability in music is a highly personal thing because we all listen for and to different aspects of the music. My compositional background gives me a bias towards harmony, but for others, orchestration is a bigger factor. Both Morricone and Elfman are distinct in that respect, even Barry in his earlier scores, so I think where we differ is in our emphases in listening.

And if stylistic recognizability is highly personal, no one can really be wrong, can they? "For whom" indeed!

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Yes, I think we're getting down to it. Recognizability in music is a highly personal thing because we all listen for and to different aspects of the music. My compositional background gives me a bias towards harmony, but for others, orchestration is a bigger factor. Both Morricone and Elfman are distinct in that respect, even Barry in his earlier scores, so I think where we differ is in our emphases in listening.

And if stylistic recognizability is highly personal, no one can really be wrong, can they? "For whom" indeed!

Yes, Sami seems to be focused on the orchestration. For me, in the Idol's Temple couldn't have been written by anything anyone than John Towner Williams. The broad brush fanfares are much easier to approximate than the more textural, atmospheric music.

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For me, in the Idol's Temple couldn't have been written by anything anyone than John Towner Williams.

For me as well. And I'd add cues like The Asteroid Field to the list.

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  • 10 months later...

I would disagree with both the "Williams's style is the most distinctive of all composers" and "The only thing in his music that is distinctive are the melodies" sentiments. As Ludwig pointed out, what makes Williams's music distinctively his, apart from the superficial things that are easy to imitate (flashy fanfares, boom-tz, and such), are a multitude of small idiosynchrasies that are very non-noticeable for the average listener and take a lot of listening to start to really notice them, like the special kind of jazz-infused harmony, the kind of intervals by which he contructs both his themes and much else that's going on, etc. I wouldn't feel qualified to specify them all, but I'm convinced that Williams's unique "style" is just a combination of so many things that is very hard to really duplicate on a deeper than reasonably superficial level, but its uniqueness pales compared to a lot of composers with more overt, easily noticeable stylistic trademarks (Morricone, Elfman, and the like).

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He's certainly one of the few film composers who have made significant innovations, beyond just the forging of a personal style, as far as raw musical language.

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  • 8 months later...

Anyone remember Ants! from KOTCS?

 

 

Well check out :20 onwards from Grażyna Bacewicz's Music for Strings, Trumpet and Percussion.

 

 

She's an interesting composer. A forgotten member of the Polish school (Penderecki, Górecki, Serocki, Baird etc.), her music lies at an intersection between sonorism and the neo-impressionism of early Dutilleux and Ohana, with a bit of Bartok and Lutoslawski thrown in.

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  • 2 months later...

Check out the various Scherzo for Motorcycle and Orchestra-/Scherzo for X-Wings-esque figures throughout the third movement of Shostakovich's Symphony No.9:

 

 

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  • 5 months later...

A little game for the musically-literate folk out there; which classical work does the below excerpt come from?

 

SsDytlJ.png

 

(and/or what "plagiarism" may I have in mind?)

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7 minutes ago, loert said:

A little game for the musically-literate folk out there; which classical work does the below excerpt come from?

 

SsDytlJ.png

 

(and/or what "plagiarism" may I have in mind?)

 

Clearly not musically literate because I have no idea where that's from or where JW plagiarised it. :lol:

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11 minutes ago, Sharkus Malarkus said:

Clearly not musically literate because I have no idea where that's from or where JW plagiarised it. :lol:

 

Well Sharkus, I would have thought that the rhythm and contour of the passage in the first 3 bars (and elsewhere), as well as the jump of a fifth present in the 6th bar (but more importantly at the beginning of this whole solo passage, which I didn't include in my snapshot) may have been a potential seed of inspiration for something very famous written by Williams.

 

I'll let somebody have another go, else I'll reveal the source. :)  Though this is far from an obscure work.

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10 minutes ago, loert said:

Well Sharkus, I would have thought that the rhythm and contour of the passage in the first 3 bars (and elsewhere), as well as the jump of a fifth present in the 6th bar...

 

Ah Ok, Luke's Theme? :) I saw the similarity but thought it was too slight.

 

It looks like it's from the romantic era, which isn't a period I listen to that frequently.

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38 minutes ago, Sharkus Malarkus said:

Ah Ok, Luke's Theme? :) I saw the similarity but thought it was too slight.

 

Yup! In terms of musical context and "setting", the two passages are very different - completely opposite kind of orchestration, and the excerpt is somewhat solemn and mournful whereas Luke's Theme is triumphant and confident (at least in its most famous appearance within the SW opening credits). But purely from the perspective of rhythm and contour, the individual bars are almost identical. The repetition is noteworthy as well. So it is plagiarism...from a certain point of view.

 

Actually, I've listened to the excerpt many times in the past, but it wasn't until I was playing a piano arrangement yesterday that I noticed the similarity. That's how different the context is.

 

38 minutes ago, Sharkus Malarkus said:

It looks like it's from the romantic era

 

Yes, it is.

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Why not offer a salient refutation, rather than this passive aggressive malarkey?

Anyway, is that the Heldenleben violin solo? Only thing that comes to mind, but I haven't heard that piece in years.

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8 hours ago, Prerecorded Briefing said:

Why not offer a salient refutation, rather than this passive aggressive malarkey?

Anyway, is that the Heldenleben violin solo? Only thing that comes to mind, but I haven't heard that piece in years.

 

I also thought the same (also because of the key), but I didn't find a passage like this in the score... anyway, it looks like something that Richard Strauss could have composed (maybe from an opera?), or maybe Wagner...

 

(but then, in most editions one would expect to find German markings...)

 

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The key is actually a bit misleading, because the instrument playing the excerpt is a transposing one!

 

This excerpt comes from the English horn solo at the beginning of Act 3 of Wagner's 'Tristan und Isolde'. You can listen to it in the video below, and the excerpt above starts at precisely 2:51:14:

 

 

This melody is played by a shepherd "on stage", and is sometimes referred to as 'Melodie des Hirten' (Melody of the Shepherd). Now, I know that Luke is not a shepherd, but he was a farmer...so maybe this note-borrowing was a conscious decision on Williams' part? :D Or perhaps I'm just reaching here.

 

This is also reaching a bit, but the hunting horns starting at 1:27:10 may have inspired the very introduction of the Star Wars main titles. Perhaps not that part in particular, but the hunting horn passages found throughout Wagner, Mahler and Strauss certainly had their influence on the SW intro, in one way or another.

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12 hours ago, Prerecorded Briefing said:

Fucking Wagner. Doesn't look like it's written for anything but a violinist. Where's the player supposed to breathe?

 

Never. He wrote it to select a new race of wind players with unlimited lung capacity. Those who cannot play it will die in the attempt.

 

I was starting to suspect that it could be for English Horn because of the rather typical triplet figurations in the 4th, 5th and 6th staff (it reminds of a similar passage from Rossini's William Tell Ouverture, with slightly different intervals), but I had no clue at all that it was from Tristan. I only remember the prelude and Isolde's death song from that opera!  

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here's an interesting case of "plagiarism" where Williams borrows two quite different musical ideas from the same classical work, and uses them in the same film...

 

Listen to Debussy's Images at 12:17 and 15:15

 

 

Both of those excerpts remind me of Harry Potter. The first one sounds like the beginning of Hedwig's theme (first 6 notes, to be exact), and the second excerpt reminds me of this scene from the first film:

 

 

So this seems to indicate that, when Williams was coming up with the sound-world of HP, he may have consciously, semi-consciously, or unconsciously been inspired by Images.

 

Also, it's interesting that the part of Images from which the second excerpt comes from is titled "Les parfums de la nuit" (The scents of the night), so the nocturnal theme is present in both pieces of music.

 

Anyway...just thought I'd write this down and share, before I forget. :)

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The first passage seems like a bit of a stretch to me, though the pitches match. Besides, I thought it's well known that Williams lifted from himself for Hedwig's theme:

 

The second passage you pointed out seems a lot more like possible inspiration though!

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 7/17/2014 at 6:39 PM, publicist said:

It's totally where he got it from but plagiarism is using the exact notes, this is taking the idea and rewriting it for the film in his own way. We all do it. Williams once called himself and other film composers "pastichers". There's a finite time in writing a score and you go to your resources and get ideas but you don't copy the notes themselves. The one that I always heard was Hanson and last cue form ET and you could totally hear that the temp score to a lot of Home Alone was The Nutcracker, but again, he took the idea and wrote his own thing. Thats homage definitely, while in Hanson's case it is closer.

On 10/28/2016 at 5:12 PM, loert said:

 

Yup! In terms of musical context and "setting", the two passages are very different - completely opposite kind of orchestration, and the excerpt is somewhat solemn and mournful whereas Luke's Theme is triumphant and confident (at least in its most famous appearance within the SW opening credits). But purely from the perspective of rhythm and contour, the individual bars are almost identical. The repetition is noteworthy as well. So it is plagiarism...from a certain point of view.

 

Actually, I've listened to the excerpt many times in the past, but it wasn't until I was playing a piano arrangement yesterday that I noticed the similarity. That's how different the context is.

 

 

Yes, it is.

I know that Cor Anglais solo well. Using the same rhythms and jumps does not mean plagiarism or we are all screwed, lol. Plagiarism is using the notes verbatim in succession. Not rewriting it yourself in a completely different melody and tonality. That constitutes homage or influence at best. Now go listen to Korngold's King's Row and compare it to the Star Wars theme and Superman, now THAT is uuummm... well go listen :)

On 11/11/2016 at 2:39 AM, loert said:

Here's an interesting case of "plagiarism" where Williams borrows two quite different musical ideas from the same classical work, and uses them in the same film...

 

Listen to Debussy's Images at 12:17 and 15:15

 

 

Both of those excerpts remind me of Harry Potter. The first one sounds like the beginning of Hedwig's theme (first 6 notes, to be exact), and the second excerpt reminds me of this scene from the first film:

 

 

So this seems to indicate that, when Williams was coming up with the sound-world of HP, he may have consciously, semi-consciously, or unconsciously been inspired by Images.

 

Also, it's interesting that the part of Images from which the second excerpt comes from is titled "Les parfums de la nuit" (The scents of the night), so the nocturnal theme is present in both pieces of music.

 

Anyway...just thought I'd write this down and share, before I forget. :)

LOVE Images!!!!!! Gorgeous piece of work. The second clip is definitely where he got the idea from and built on it but it's all there.

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  • 4 months later...

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