Ludwig

Sorry, BloodBoal. It's not your thread I'm against, it's the sidetracked conversation. No offence! I'm re-posting in the Soundalike thread where I intended in the first place.

My apologies, Jay! I typed in "soundalikes" and me as author into our search engine and came up with nothing but this thread because my thread is titled "Soundalike cues in Williams". Apparently the engine doesn't recognize adding an "s" to words. Strange. Anyway, has there been any discussion of this similarity before? Or are there others who have noticed?

Anyone ever noticed this one before? Universal studio theme, 1937-1946: Superman march - listen between 3:57 and 4:05: By the way, I see my "Soundalikes in Williams" thread got merged with this one, and I have to say that I strongly disagree with this decision. Posting in the current thread implies a negative connotation to two cues that simply sound alike, which is not what the point of the soundalikes thread was. And more importantly, posts should not be forced to have this connotation because, as I said before, the discussions get sidetracked as to what is plagiarism versus homage versus temp-track emulation, etc. I hereby petition to have this thread once again claim its independence and not be ruled by the corrupt republic of plagiarism!

Yes, please. Seconded! Now you have to! Forgot about this. Must have been drunk to propose such a thing. Nevertheless... here's a couple minutes of the juvenilia in question. http://picosong.com/Vh7q/ Originally created with Logic 6(!). I always intended to set up a mic in an ideal spot outdoors and layer the recording over this, but never did... Jeremy Soule stole that idea with his Skyrim Atmospheres stuff, naturally. Thank you! I thought you forgot about this. Now I understand why you like Interstellar so much - it's obviously closely aligned with your own style (if this at all representative of your work). Why don't you post something more recent? It would be interesting to hear what you do now by comparison...

This is a great book that has just come out on what it is to be a film composer in the Hollywood of today. This latest blog post is my book review and interview with its author: http://www.filmmusicnotes.com/book-review-guerrilla-film-scoring-by-jeremy-borum/

Below is something similar I've found very informative. It's from an academic study of 100 songs from Rolling Stone magazine's "Greatest 500 Songs of All Time" list. Basically, these authors took the 20 highest-ranked songs of each decade from the 1950s through the 1990s, then analyzed the harmony in all. The table shows the number of times chord X (on the left-hand side) goes to chord Y (along the top) in all the songs. What is most obvious is that the most important chord besides the tonic is not the dominant, but the subdominant. In other words, the most common chord successions are IV-I and I-IV. There's a ton more that can be said from these numbers too. I thought it was very interesting. EDIT: I should add that the chords listed include all chord qualities of the same root, and inversions as well as chordal extensions (7ths, 9ths, etc.) are excluded. These are simply the roots of the chords.

When I say genius, I don't use the term lightly. I mean someone with astonishingly rare gifts, and Mozart certainly qualifies. Consider his musical memory. Having only a single night to compose his Violin Sonata in G, K. 379, he wrote out only the violin part and played the piano part only from his head the next day. His skills of improvisation tell a similar story: Fugues are damn hard to write, so I cannot begin to fathom someone improvising one, let alone going on for an hour like this. If this ain't genius, I don't know what is.

On the subject of composing at the piano, you might find it surprising to know that Mozart always felt he needed one to compose. An excerpt from one of his letters to his father reads: Even the greatest of great geniuses wrote that way. But due to Amadeus, everyone thinks Mozart just thought his music up as if struck by the divine. Nothing could be further from the truth. He certainly could write away from the keyboard, but he seemed to feel a loss without it.

For using too many notes. (*Groan*, that was lame even by my standards.)

What's a rest?

Significant that he mentions that he writes at the piano more "than any composition teacher would tell you is a good idea." This is certainly true, that composition teachers have a bias against writing at the piano, that music should somehow come from "within". But the thing about Williams (which, with his typical modesty, he doesn't give himself any credit for here) is that, coming from a background as a jazz pianist, improvisation - that is, varying an established musical idea - is such a musician's modus operandi, and it is meant to lead to new ideas, not to stifle the creativity. All this is to say that I wish more composers would work this way nowadays. The ideas would be so much more varied and unpredictable.

Depends whether they really want to get a head.

Who's the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0GAwSZfHS4 I wonder if someone can help me transcribe the closed cluster chord @ 3:32. I'm fairly certain it has several interlocking (014)s mixed with octatonic scales, hints of Hungarian minor, Webern-esque pointillistic writing, some aleatoric elements, and a veiled quotation of the Imperial March, but what else?

May I say that I have not thoroughly enjoyed serving with JWfans? I find their illogic and foolish emotions a constant irritant.

Gorgeous. Thank goodness Pärt is Eastern European/Russian. Composers in Western Europe and North America have in recent decades been hiding behind a facade of intellectualism that cranks out reams of really awful music, or what you yourself have called "tonal wankery". The vast majority of classical composers I've met believe that major and minor chords should not be part of a composer's vocabulary. And these same composers rant and rave that the public has no interest in the state of contemporary classical music. Hmm... This is not to slam atonal music, but only the elitism that has become part of it. Williams is one composer who knows how to combine both tonal and atonal in a perfect marriage, and I wish more composers would try to do the same, but alas. Again, thank goodness for Pärt.

Yes, please.

I wish I knew many more scores from the year, but truly I don't. These five I know well now, and from that set, I would say Grand Budapest was the finest. It was a sheer delight, and had a range of emotions that the others did not (largely because of the films they accompanied). And that final battle cue showed Desplat's virtuosity in thematic transformation, complex harmony, and colorful orchestration. What more could one want?

I actually thought The Imitation Game was the dullest. The themes seemed rather banal and lacking in character. ToE, on the other hand, didn't aspire to be theme-driven, and I found it's use of timbre and texture more interesting than Desplat's lacklustre themes. ToE made better use of music in the film, but as a pure listening experience, they may be somewhat equal. Then again, as I've said before, it's somewhat unjust to tear music away from the film and assess it on its own. But since we're all film music enthusiasts here (and we're spoiled rotten by the effectiveness of Williams' music on its own!), I can well understand why many do so.

Well, this is it, my prediction for the Best Original Score winner Sunday night: http://www.filmmusicnotes.com/oscar-nominees-2015-part-6-of-6-prediction-best-original-score/ Enjoy!

Indeed. Zimmer's themes are so broad that they invite multiple interpretations, so in many cases there is no "one and only one" answer.

A score that communicates well the emotional crux of the film: http://www.filmmusicnotes.com/oscar-nominees-2015-best-original-score-part-5-of-6-hans-zimmers-interstellar/ Enjoy! Special thanks to TheGreyPilgrim for providing me with useful insights into the score and its meaning.

Isn't it obvious? We're talking about John Williams, not John Williams. Only threads about John Williams go in the John Williams forum. And just to be clear, I'm talking about John T. Williams, not John T. Williams.

A different kind of score for a different kind of film: http://www.filmmusicnotes.com/oscar-nominees-2015-best-original-score-part-4-of-6-gary-yershons-mr-turner/ Enjoy!

Unfortunately, there's a big "boom" right on the downbeat that pretty much covers the bass note, but as the boom dissipates, there's a hint of something. It helps to hear how it moves into the next chord, which I think you agree is Am (with A in the bass). I'm actually wondering if that mystery bass note isn't F since it sounds like the resolution to the bass A is coming from a lower note. That's why I initially put Ab, but now I'm almost convinced it's F. Would you agree? I know it's really hard to discern, but try listening intently with headphones. I hear the V-I motion of E-A clearly. It's one of those unique polytonal sounds - a minor chord with a pedal on the major 7th - it sticks out. Yes, I think you're right about that. Ok, E it is. I don't hear any Db here, which I think would be more audible as a pungent dissonance. It's nice theoretically, but I hear a crystal clear major triad with F as the bass and a neighbor tone C-Bb-C motion overtop. I agree, but at least keep the Ab. There's definitely a minor/Major going on, as with the next chord - not a pure triad. I'd say F1-F2-C3-F3-G#-A-C to Bb1-Bb2-Db3-F3-A-Bb. The previous tonic-dominant bass motion transposed. There's a bit of a warble to the sound in these chords, but I don't think that's due to the way the chord is written. I'm listening with headphones, and when I turn the volume up louder than normal, the brass shines through with a pure triad. Also note the virtual sequence of these bars in mm. 13-14, which both begin with pure triads. It's not an airtight case, but fairly strong, I would say. Well said, although I'd disagree that planing first inversion chords are particularly unusual for Williams. He tends to throw them in for a darker, more sombre mood. Ok, I believe you on that. It's at least less common than the old planed root-position triads though, isn't it? What about this: M+n, where M is a major triad and n is the number of semitones above the root that the bristling note lies (regardless of octave displacement) m+n, same but for minor triads e.g., the chord ending m. 13 would be M+1.