Loert

Have you listened yet?

U r sick !!!

Smells Like Teen Spirit I'm also impressed by the second section of the overture, especially the chord change was handled very well. Will be listening to the whole thing...

Another one (though not a proper reaction gif):

The point of going to a concert is first and foremost to listen to music...so, if they play a piece of music you don't recognize, just listen to it and enjoy it. Sure, they didn't play Jaws, but you can't have everything. At the end of the day it's a 3 hour JW concert w/ 4 encores. I would love to have the opportunity to see something like this. Btw can we confirm that JW himself organised the programme of this concert? Is this JW fan spewing vitriol at the right person? Actually, I have a feeling he isn't being completely serious! EDIT: So after a bit of searching around it turns out that they played E.T., Superman, Star Wars title, Imperial March and Yoda's Theme as well. Disappointment? Ha. ha. I would've inserted the Trumpet Concerto in there as well, but with no introduction. Imagine the audience trying to guess from which film the music came from for 20 minutes...

You're welcome! Eb major has an Ab instead of a Db. I'm referring to measure 32. It would be interesting to analyse indeed! I didn't know there was a thread about "williamisms". It definitely won't hurt to have a solid grounding in theory when composing, but I agree with your overall point. I think for Williams a lot of this comes down to experience. After playing in orchestras and composing whatever you can every day for many years, you start to get an intuitive feel of where and when to put the notes so they sound good.

I used Finale 2014. You are right about the Db! I put it in the main orchestra but forgot to put it in the harp! This scale that leads to the main theme is not Bb major, nor F major (whch is its dominant and the chord that is actually spelled out the beat before the entrance of Luke's theme). It can probably best be described as a hybrid of F major and Ab major. The chord progression Ab major to F major is IIIb - I. All these chord progressions like IIIb - I, I - IIIb, iiib - I, i - iiib.... etc. are quite common in film music because: They can be extended easily to form full "cycles", since the distance between an I and IIIb is 3 semitones, which is a factor of 12, the number of semitones in an octave. So you can go C - Eb - F# - A - C. For similar reasons, III - I and so on is quite popular because the distance between those chords is 4 semitons, another factor of 12.Luckily, in terms of voice leading it sounds good.And, actually, VIIb - V - I (or IIIb/V - V - I) also works, because the voices all achieve a sense of "going up". Let's take I to be Bb major. If you play VIIb - V - I (Ab major - F major - Bb major) you get voices like: Ab -> A -> Bb and Eb -> F -> F/Bb (the Eb here also features prominently in the little fanfare just before) And all other voices are shared. So rather than just have a plain F major scale, Williams infuses it with a bit of Ab (i.e. by transforming the D into a Db) to give it a sort of "darker tang" which makes the eventual Bb major chord sound even more...well, awesome. Williams also uses IIIb - I as a motif in Star Wars. E.g 3:43 and 4:57. Sorry I didn't mean to get sidetracked into a lecture like that but thought that I would offer some more explanation if anyone's interested. Here's another curiosity: At 1:02, you get a D natural in the ascending bass, but in the next bar there's a Db in the treble. Shouldn't they both be Db since the chord spelled out is Gb major? The regular score sheet is 28 separate lines of music and it can be difficult to look at the score and know immediately what's going on. The purpose of an orchestral reduction (or, perhaps more properly, "condensed score") is to take the instruments that are playing the same thing and put them on one line of music, to make the score easier to read.

I prefer Leia's theme. Anakin's Theme is also good but not as iconic. Although Luke and Leia is my favourite "romantic" theme from SW.

Thank you BloodBoal for the links. The action stuff is pretty standard Powell bombast, not on the same level as HTTYD but still good. I sense notable influences from the "Mars Needs Moms" score in some of the themes. However I really love "Mermaid Rescue music_02" and "Neverland Your Room loop", in particular I like how he mixes the harp, celeste and synth in the first one. Will definitely be picking up the final score!

Absolutely mesmerizing, love the stuff with the harp in the beginning. Blasts Zimmer's/Whitacre's "Mermaids" out of the water.

I like the whistling strings from 2:15 to 2:29. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UQ5a-tAj58 I also like the fanfare addition from 4:30 to 4:42 (was this new ending done by William Ross?):

Thank you! I think it took about two weeks with 3 hours work a day, and the voicings filled my entire evening yesterday, so enough to keep me busy!

Hello fellow JW fans, I've just posted an orchestral reduction of the Star Wars main titles suite on Youtube, with audio and scrolling score (created by me). Dunno if any of you are interested in this sort of thing, but if you are, please check it out! The encircled numbers refer to voicings I did of individual chords in a separate document (because they were too big and complex to label on the reduction itself). This document can be viewed and downloaded here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18637418/star%20wars%20voicings.pdf Enjoy!

This is what you get when Williams runs out of ideas.

^I literally did something very similar just now (nice stuff btw)! Here's some more doodling...

The celeste plays D#-F-B, but the winds (bassoon and english horn) and horns later on play D-F-B, so Williams keeps changing the notes! Also, I wouldn't call it a B diminished chord, because the last note (B) is either meant to be part of the E minor triad or B major triad (with the celeste it's clearly E minor but with the horns it's ambiguous, although I would say it's also E minor myself). What I tend to think is that, with D#-F-B, Williams is evading the E to create a sort of tension, and with D-F-B, Williams is obviously referencing the D#-F-B (which I would call the 'raw' version of Hedwig's Theme), but the change to D sort of stabilises the theme more, maybe by suggesting a shift to B minor, the dominant V chord. Perhaps he does this because the winds and horns are more "forthcoming" instruments than the celeste. As for the 'magical' feeling, I think most of this comes from the orchestration and the context. The celeste playing in the minor key always sounds sorta 'creepy', and Hedwig's Theme itself, especially the last three notes, definitely add a mysterious feel to it. When the other instruments come in later, they're always supported by string runs and effects in the background, as if there was a magical spell floating through the air (or.....Hedwig!). But even so, I can well see Hedwig's Theme playing in a kid's horror movie with no reference to magic...perhaps the theme is more 'supernatural' than anything.

Bit of a shameless plug but I recently composed a short sketch based on my first viewing of A.I. on Wednesday. You can listen to it here: https://soundcloud.com/thomas-kobialka/minimalist-sketch Hope you enjoy it! Honestly, I'm so happy to have discovered this soundtrack. The final so-called "piano concerto" is just heart-wrenching. Hypothetically you can say Williams pulled up every single sappy idea he could think of and therefore it's not a great piece of music, but Williams always manages to weave his musical ideas in such a way that they're never in your face (well, apart from "suite" section of his Star Wars theme pehaps...) He will linger on an idea for some time but will always add enough variety to make it a pleasurable experience, and just when it's reached its emotional peak, he will move on to another, equally as delightful idea. Particularly in this track, the way he weaves all the different motifs from previously in the film, is genius. Another track that stood out to me was the music which plays during the arrival of the SuperMecha at the Blue Fairy ("Journey through the Ice"). Both versions on the album are incredibly haunting, and go really well with the scene.

Yes, but I don't believe that all the instruments you hear in there were written by Williams.

My point stands.

I think you might not like Star Wars. Or John Williams. Regarding Star Wars, I like it and am excited for it, but not to the point of "pre-cum"(???)... I'm a bit of a realist/pessimist and can't escape the thought that it will be a let-down in the end. As for John Williams, he's dreadful. In fact, I don't even know what I'm doing on here. In all seriousness though, those horns at the beginning were most PROBABLY not put there by Williams. For a man who puts effort into considering the number of violins in different divisi parts to get the right sound, I can't believe he would just slam marcato horns in the mid-register then decrease their volume by 90% in the final mix. That's terrible orchestral writing. So I think there's definitely some outward influence here.

Those horns playing the D right at the beginning sound like they're playing at full volume but they've been mixed down so they can be barely heard. It sounds sickeningly inspired by the "epic horns" trope. I think those horns also play a trill between A-Bb just before the end, which for some reason doesn't sound very "Williams" although it could just be me. Tbh that whole thing with the lightsabers turning on in time with the music came across a bit kitsch... I think it's either: a very well-made adaptation by a talented musician or: John Williams on a bad day.

2:08 - 2:10 The orchestral equivalent of dragging your nails down a chalkboard. 3:05 - 3:11 Simply 'WTF'.

It's been confirmed: Steve Jablonsky wrote the music.

Yeah, it sounds like a slowed down, fragmented version of the Imperial March. Dammit!

Fixed image link now! Yes, Steven Spielberg himself said that those were more-advanced mechas at the end (although he could be wrong too lol). I can't stop thinking about the movie, it was just so effective. That tragic ending was perfectly executed, because you didn't know whether to feel happy or sad. I'm quite glad that Spielberg didn't try to replicate Kubrick's directing style completely, then the movie wouldn't have been as good. Anyway, I will definitely be picking up the soundtrack. I particularly liked the music which plays during the scene when David keeps going after and blocking Monica, the "marimba" music when they travelled in that amphibicopter to Manhattan, and the piano music right at the very ending scene. @nightscape94: Will do!