Loert

You're so lucky! Remember to keep practising those scales though...you'll need them for the March of the Resistance!

Must've been exciting to see 5 pianists perform on one piano!

My favourite bit begins at 6:10 of part 4...

I think I will need an antidote after listening to that...

Shameless plug?

I don't own it but this thread has reminded me that I really should go and listen to it...

Didn't Zimmer say that one of the reasons he got into film composition was because he wanted to write music like John Williams? You can certainly hear some of that influence in scores like Lion King and Prince of Egypt. But Zimmer also has his own voice that the audience seems to love and that has got him far in the industry. And John Williams is a fan of everything.

John Williams was already full of awesome in the 60s. Since then he's just been avoiding spillage.

Totally agree! The Star Wars titles arrangement for example is fantastic, it stays true to the original but doesn't fall into the trap of containing too many of those un-pianistic woodwind runs. This really is a great collection and I only wish I can find out who the arranger was.

Love the polyphony in this one!

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) (1st time) For some reason this film has always escaped me. It is never shown on TV around here, I never see it talked about anywhere. So I really went into this not knowing at all what to expect. But overall, I really enjoyed it. There were a few things which particularly caught my attention in this film, which I'd like to mention: I found it interesting how the audience (or atleast myself) isn't really told what's going on all the time. There were many times in the film where I didn't feel like I had a grasp on what the story is about. But the way in which it was done was fine, because the protagonists themselves don't have a grasp on...well, almost anything. It is quite remarkable how Spielberg managed to make the audience feel a bit lost and mystified, but in an intentional, good way. That was the main "experience" I took away from it. [Spoilers till the end] I also felt something tragic about Roy's departure. The last time his family saw him was in a "deranged" state, making mountains out of mashed potatoes, lying in the shower, throwing plants into the house. They felt they had to escape from him, just as one would escape from an abusive husband. And it is quite possible that they will never see Roy again. And yet, him peacefully boarding an alien spaceship is an extraordinary moment for humanity. There's something beautifully sublime about it which I cannot quite describe, and in a way it "pays off" the entire film. Now for Williams' score. I was quite surprised by how subdued the score was for the majority of the film. Mostly it only seemed to appear in a march form, or when it accompanied major shots. However, the music in the final mothership scene was truly magnificent. My favourite sound is the "white-key" cluster which plays when we see the ship rotating above the arena. I never heard an orchestra play a cluster like that before, it's unforgettable. I also loved the short musical moment which plays when we see somebody in the control tower gazing at the spinning mothership - it sounds like a bold statement of the 'choir theme' with lots of tinkling piano at the top. It stands out very well in the film, in fact it almost reminded me of what 'alien' music might sound like. But undoubtedly the highlight is the music which plays during the mothership's departure. It just fits the tone of the scene perfectly. One thing however that irked me was the very short march fragment which came in the middle. As I was watching that scene I treated the music as an accompaniment to the picture, not as an end credits track, which that march fragment seemed to suggest (though technically of course it is an end credits track). I would've just skipped that excerpt and kept the tone the same, since I felt that the march themes were more like underscores and didn't really hold their own. But this is more of a music editting quip - I have nothing bad to say about the score itself.

That's about as much as I can make out as well. It's definitely some sort of Hungarian-based scale. When the violins get going I struggle to make out B, but after the bass descends from C# to C, I can definitely make out what you're saying the G and B in the piano (and harp?). If I were to make an educated guess (since I can't really hear) I think that piano is playing D#/E/G/B arpeggios, or C#/E/G/B...something like that. After listening to that fragment many times I think G in the bass is correct. What put me off was that I thought I was hearing a perfect cadence, with D - C# - F# in the bass, but Williams seems to cheekily 'raise' the final chord by a semitone. I also think the choir is intentionally singing in a blurry way (it is quite reminiscent of the music playing at the start of the Blood of Kali scene from Temple of Doom) I can only make out B/E/F (not that there isn't a G# in there). I would go out on a limb here and say it's the same chord as the one played previously by the muted trombones. @skyy38: Yeah, I think I'll go with synthy pad. I recall that Williams often used synth clusters in the prequels so it seems like a logical thing to identify at the start of TFA as well.

Terrific piece! I especially enjoyed the tinkly, free piano near the beginning, and the interplay of the marimba and timpani. I've also never visually seen a timpani concerto before, and sometimes the timpanist reminded me of someone working at a desk who's been told that he has to meet 100 deadlines for the next day and has no idea where to begin. Really great performance though! Congratulations!

I'm not an expert but I'll have a go at this (because I like this sort of thing): 1. The only bit that sounds clear to me is the top of the scale, where I can distinctly hear A-B-C#-B-A...I think it's just a simple D minor melodic scale (or whatever you call it, the one that's like harmonic but with B instead of Bb). But since you have the raised 4th in the bass it could be a Hungarian scale, although I'm really not hearing that G#. In any case I played in a few string runs to try and see what comes closest: "Melodic" scale: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18637418/JWFan%20analysis%201/scale1melodic.mp3 Harmonic scale (Bb not B): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18637418/JWFan%20analysis%201/scale1harmon.mp3 Now in the same order but with raised 4th degrees: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18637418/JWFan%20analysis%201/scale1hungmelodic.mp3 https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18637418/JWFan%20analysis%201/scale1hung.mp3 As for the planing chords, I think when it comes to the bassoons (that's the only instrument I'm confident I can make out) I'm hearing mainly major thirds. From 0:40, I'm getting D/F - E/G# - F/A - D/F - F/A - E/G# - Eb/G - F/A...but at around 0:52 I can definitely hear C/E - B/D# - Bb/D. I think the bass note is then F# but you've got G minor overall. I think I'm hearing F# against G in the choir, or it could just be the basses moving between the two notes. This is what F#/G/Bb/D sounds like with a choir: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18637418/JWFan%20analysis%201/choirf%23gmin.mp3 2. I think the gnarly chord is E/F/Ab/B? This is what it sounds like with muted trombones: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18637418/JWFan%20analysis%201/brass143.mp3 3. I think you're right with F major with flat sixth. So I think I'm hearing C/Db/F/A then E/F/A/B in the trombones: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18637418/JWFan%20analysis%201/brass213.mp3 Take this with a pinch of salt though. That track is muddy as hell!

I think the most amazing thing about this interview is when he's asked "How does 83-year-old John Williams approach a Star Wars film as opposed to 45-year-old John Williams?", and he says that at 45 he worked 10-12 hours a day, and now only around 6 hours a day. Just goes to show where lots of hard work can take you!

Me too. It's impossible not too (unless you mistake it with God's voice).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-35241250 R.I.P. Boulez

March from '1941'...it will not leave me alone. Help!

Sorry, where is the 'War' theme?

Love that sequence of unrelated ideas between 0:43 - 1:01.

The End Credits by themselves fit this description perfectly. All the themes are (more or less) presented in chronological order, like a sort of rundown of the music from the film. It's my favourite end credits track from all the Star Wars films.

It will either be a piece for gospel choir and orchestra, or a set of suites from his films.

That "We, The Glorious Dead" excerpt is positively chilling!