Jonne

You´re right, I wouldn´t go near polytonality/Prokofiev either, just had an idea without listening. Boy you have good ears! I´m not really finding the Eb minor chord in there ?-) What I hear (from the bottom up) is C#1 D#1 E1 G1 A1 Bb1, C#2 (D#2) F#2 C3 D3 F3. How about two octatonic scales juxtaposed ?-) That would also cover the lower F#1 that I´m not getting. One starting from the C#1 (D#,E,F#,G,A,Bb C) and the other starting from D#2 (F, F#,G#,A,B,C,D,Eb,F) ? Oh, the lower G and A comes in a bit later ? This is really making it Eb7/G for me. Basically you would have Eb7(#9)/G and D7(#9)/F# on top of each other then ? How about this ? The octatonic scales would start from G and F#2 ? He has been using this device before (f.e. in JAWS). And can be found written by Stravinsky (his famous chord on the Rite of Springs). Something that was discussed earlier in this thread. So, Polymodality or polychords in play here ?-) (I´m not really getting a pitch class/webern vibe here as there are triads (minor/major) to be heard?, but this is propably just me)

Just thinking out loud the tonal aspect of it : Ebm C#-G-A = A7 D-F#-F = D (#9) So the tonal reference might be something like : VI (Ebm) - V/V (A7) - V (D (#9)), where everything is stacked on top of each other. How that would work ? Might even be as simple as A7-D (V-I) and Ebm-Dm (parallel movement) all played at once. Would LOVE to know how he thinks these.. (Oh, and you can more or less find these things from Prokofiev, etc)

Thank you very much for the link, very interesting! Yes! I´ve been also thinking where that actually comes from ?-) Could it just be as simple as having a clustered D harmonic major (first inversion)? Hmm, have to listen more where Williams actually goes after it. (-EDIT- it sure seems to be part of a hungarian minor scale as you originally wrote.) All kinds of cool possibilities handling it. Like being a F# minor and G minor or Dmaj7 and Eb7 combined, (polychordal), Being a symmetrical scale D-Eb-F#-G <-> A-Bb-C#-D, or just being a F#minor-major with added tones. You probably know this already, but this just struck me and hence venting!-). I do wonder if Williams thinks more in scales or in (poly)chords when he´s doing clusters.. Or something else . Really interesting! Thank you also for pointing out the track. So it is a lot to do with Stravinsky with this one? By doing so he might´ve thought to apply the same kind of primitive/nature feel to the whole soundtrack than what Stravinsky did with Sacre (in where Petrushka chord/octatonic can also be found quite a lot among other things). Hmm, analysis is really hard. You always tend to find the things you are looking for . Jonne

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