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Genius_Gone_Insane

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Posts posted by Genius_Gone_Insane

    Q&A: John Williams on accompanying Steven Spielberg

    in JOHN WILLIAMS

    Posted

    Wow, a refreshingly different interview which actually covered stuff I didn't already know - like how Williams writes a lot of his themes "backwards". Seems unusual, but it also makes perfect sense and thinking about a cue like the Superman March one can really grasp the construction of it in that way. And as always, John was a beautifully articulate gent throughout.

    Cheers for linking.

    Agreed. The "backwards" part was nice to hear officially. Granted, he has hinted at this style of composition for a long time. This is interesting on a personal level as well. I am a hobbyist composer and I have found that working backwards creates much better results, at least in my case. Essentially, when you get a great riff or motif, you make it as grand as possible. And then you ask yourself, "well, what should come before this?" And then after you get that part settled, "what should come before that?"

    Now I'll get a little philosophical here. If remakes, cover songs, and sequels were the hallmarks of the 1990's through the 2000's then "What should come before this?" is the major theme of this next era. George Lucas started it with the Phantom Menace, one of the great underappreciated films in history. OK, that's why I am self-titled Genius Gone Insane, because I think of crazy shit like that. (Though I don't think it will sound so crazy in 50 years).

    Point being, I think CEOT3K is Williams' favorite score because it so clearly grows from beginning to end. Anyway.

    John Williams in San Francisco!!! September 16, 2013

    in JOHN WILLIAMS

    Posted

    I am, of course, wondering what they were talking about during the quiet exchanges. Next time take a lip reader with you.

    There is a chance Steven and the Maestro may have been talking about George Lucas. The reason I say this is that they whispered something between them and I remember Steven shrugging as is to say "I don't know". Then a short pause and then they both kind of looked out over the crowd, squinting their eyes. The first thing that occurred to me was that they were looking for George Lucas. Of course it is possible they were looking for someone else. I looked around a bit during the performance and did not see the Maker anywhere. Perhaps he was backstage. Good thing too. I might have passed out had George hopped on stage.

    John Williams in San Francisco!!! September 16, 2013

    in JOHN WILLIAMS

    Posted

    There were two moments from last night that I will certainly never forget:

    1. Watching John Williams quietly, privately, and casually chat with Steven Spielberg as the audience watched the scoreless version of Indy's First Adventure.
    2. Watching John Williams conduct ET with Steven Spielberg sitting down next to him.

    Both instances were absolutely surreal. You would have to have been there to understand. Watching these two great artists together...I just do not have words that can describe it. The whole thing felt like a dream. We were about 20 feet away from them and I think that was the most starstruck I have ever been.

    What do musicians think of JW?

    in JOHN WILLIAMS

    Posted

    I thought that the consensus was a little different. I thought the musical community generally respected JW for what he does. He is not a Mahler or a Tchaikovsky but he is great at creating fantastic film scores with musical viability. Something more than simple ear candy.

    I also thought the music community felt that if he has a weakness, it is definitely his conducting. I do not subscribe to that but I have heard that many times.

    John Williams in San Francisco!!! September 16, 2013

    in JOHN WILLIAMS

    Posted

    Dammit to hell. Well the server came up but I lost my perfect seats. I am fucking pissed. But I have pretty good seats so I can't complain too much. Still it is bittersweet.



    Yes I think I should have logged in first. Maybe that would have helped. I guess it is good to know this is common experience. But who are the lucky folks who got my tickets??

    How to Murder John Williams

    in JOHN WILLIAMS

    Posted

    It disappoints me when John Williams is criticized for ripping off Mahler. Mahler's pieces are amazing but they are spastic and very loosely tied together. Mahler's music was made to get ripped off. For that reason, I love it. JW is taking some of Mahler's motifs and writing entire scores from them, but with his own touch (the beauty of which cannot be undestated). That is the way of all good music -- imitation. You all should know that by now.

    "Goodbye Old Friend"—A Mystery of the Sith

    in JOHN WILLIAMS

    Posted

    Can anyone help me figure this out? I just came into possession of an unofficial copy of the "complete" Revenge of the Sith soundtrack, and one of the biggest selling points for me was the first minute or so of this Youtube video, apparently titled "Goodbye, Old Friend." It begins with some energetic, jumpy strings, followed by some Episode I-ish Romanesque brass and a nifty suggestion of "Across the Stars" in the horns, and segues into some truly righteous Force theme statements—some of the best in the prequels, as far as I'm concerned. Here's the clip, apparently assembled from video game audio tracks. I'm referring to the first 1:10 or so:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIHI5aouffE

    Sounds great, no? Imagine my surprise, then, when my MP3 titled "Goodbye, Old Friend" (which is, paradoxically, exactly 1:10 in length) sounds like this instead:

    There seems to be some similarity in the nervous opening strings, but my limited powers of musical perception can't divine whether it's identical. Either way, neither the love theme nor the Roman fanfare ever shows up, and the Force theme does reach the fist-pumpingly awesome climax, but it seems to get there by another route. Are these alternate takes of the same scene?

    In case the NSA, or the RCA (Victor), are listening, THIS IS WHY WE NEED OFFICIAL COMPLETE PREQUEL RELEASES!!

    Any thoughts? (To top it off, by the way, the running times of the "Goodbye, Old Friend" and "Landing on Utapau" MP3s don't add up to the running time of the video, which supposedly combines the two.)

    Yes I have thoughts. First, thanks for posting that first video. Musically that was one of the best parts of Episode III. JW really nailed it. The music told the audience this:

    "Buckle your seatbelts. You've been waiting nearly 30 years for this. Shit is about to get crazy." And then there is that short fade to black. JW really did a great job. All hell breaks loose shortly after this. Love it.

    London or Los Angeles for Star Wars VII score? [UPDATE: It's Los Angeles]

    in JOHN WILLIAMS

    Posted

    I just returned from playing with the Baltimore Symphony and was very excited to meet David Cripps - the principal horn of the London Symphony Orchestra from 1970 to 1983. He is THE Princess Leia horn soloist and played on all the original trilogy and Superman plus countless other great recordings from this period. A very charming fellow and we spent much time and wine talking about the original scoring sessions. Some interesting tidbits he mentioned:

    * the original plan was not to use the LSO at all. It was to use London contracted players but since they are not paid a salary but rather service fees, they had a hole in their schedule for two weeks and they complained to then conductor/music director Andre Previn. Andre is friends with JW and suggested the use of LSO to remedy the schedule gap resulting in lost wages to the players when JW spoke to Andre about London contracted musicians. JW liked the ideas and ran it past the Star Wars producers and the rest is history.

    * The first cue they recorded was the End Credits and they all considered it very well written but also exhausting. This served as a good introduction to the various themes. The general consensus was this was just a gig rather than history. They considered history as their recordings with Stravinsky, Claudio Aboddo, Stowkoski, Adrian Boult, William Walton conducting his Viola Concerto (he was drunk at the time and nearly incapacitated), etc. This gentleman had so many interesting stories to tell and each were shocking to me what this man had played such a major part in all of this. I'm trying to get him to write a memoir of his experiences. One funny story was with Leopold Stokowski (then in his late 90's) doing a studio session of a symphony where the entire time he was off by a bar. The end result is, he said the orchestra wasn't following him so they had to re-record the entire symphony due to his mistake.

    * Since the version of Princess Leia's theme is not in the film, after a long day of recording, they were exhausted and JW asked the orchestra if they could just go 30 minutes overtime to do a reading of a version not in the film. JW wrote it specifically for David to play the horn solo. They accepted because the music was slower than a lot of what they had done that day with the end credits, etc. So they just read it once and then recorded it straight through in a single take.

    * He remains personal friends with JW and had nothing to but good things to say about the whole experience with him.

    It was absolutely fascinating to talk to him and he was very kind!

    Awesome!! He needs to write a book!!!

    London or Los Angeles for Star Wars VII score? [UPDATE: It's Los Angeles]

    in JOHN WILLIAMS

    Posted

    I am so happy JW is writing that I will not be too disappointed if it's recorded in hollywood. I wish they would use old school analog gear to get that Empire/Superman/ET/Raiders sound. And just crank it over the special effects.

    Anyone remember how great the horns were at the beginning of Battle of Yavin on the original Star Wars release? That was so awesome. No lasers or engines, just horns. Blasting. Movie magic lost forever.

    That being said I love the Special Editions.

    Those of you who saw Empire Strikes Back in theaters after you saw Stars Wars in theaters...

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Describe the moment between the theater lights dimming and the fanfare blast for you.

    What was going through your head?

    I can't imagine what it must have been like.

    I try to think about what I would be thinking in that moment. Honestly I would probably wonder if the music for the titles would be different. If there would be a title crawl. If the text color would be different for that crawl. If the text might crawl right to left?

    I mean...at that point, it could have gone in any direction.

    I understand why you are asking these questions. However, if you had asked an audience-goer these questions he/she would have probably been confused. Very few people would have seen Star Wars more than a few times. And of those few viewings most people would have remembered the plot details and the heroics of Luke, that sort of thing. Maybe they would remember the scroll or the "A long time ago..." but those would have been minor details.

    During your ESB viewing, when you saw the Lucasfilm logo, the Fox Fanfare, and the scroll, and the opening music, you were not thinking "what woul the titles look like?" etc. Maybe a handful of nerds would have been concerned with that sort of thing. Most people were excited about snow and Luke Skywalker flying this weird looking space ship. Or whatever they remembered from the trailer.

    The point is -- and this is actually very important from a historical perspective -- when the titles, fanfare, and scroll came, you were thinking "OH, WOW, I REMEMBER THAT!! COOL, THEY ARE STARTING IT THE SAME WAY AS STAR WARS!"

    You have to remember that few people had VCRs at the time. And there were only a few TV channels. Each of your few viewings of Star Wars were a novelty. There was nothing like it. So when ESB came out, you really had no idea what to expect. There was no prescribed formula for how to make a sequel.

    This is George Lucas' genius. With ESB, he set a new standard for what a sequel should be (I am not sure there even was a standard at that point).

    And since then, George Lucas has gone on to set a standard for what a prequel should be. I wish this accomplishment was recognized more often. The magic you felt when the Lars homestead was visited in AOTC and when Hayden put on the Vader mask has become a new standard for prequels. You saw it in the recent Batman movie where Robin enters the Batcave and again with the Hobbit.

    At any rate, my point is that your questions are more pertinent now than they were back then. No one cared. They were too busy excited to see the new Star Wars movie.

    Lincoln FILM Discussion Thread

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I just got this via mail on Friday. Generally, I am more of a fan of the adventure Williams stuff. For instance, I prefer Williams' Tintin queues over the War Horse queues.

    However, Lincoln was a great surprise. It's the slower Williams stuff, but I am really digging it. Wonderful music.

    I really hope JW can stay healthy so he can keep churning these puppies out. There is not much in the way of fine art these days. JW may be one of the few real artists out there. IMO at least.

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