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Horner's 4-note danger motif


Pelzter

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You guys sound like the people who just read the davinci code and think every triangle is a fertility symbol.

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I don't agree that the Dies Irae is in everything you guys say it is. It's such a banal little obvious snippet it's bound to happen now and then. I don't agree that it was an intentional reference in CE3K or JP. Just a composer writing the intervals he thought were effective.

I agree that Williams probably does not always intentionally use the Dies Irae, but it's an extremely famous theme in the classical tradition, so Williams is bound to be conscious of at least some of his uses of it.

Also, doesn't Williams use something similar to the Wagner's Displeasure Motif in Harry Potter 1? Think of the end of the Chess Game, right after Harry yells "checkmate," and the sword falls from the knight... (it's unreleased music, I believe).

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Actually, I think he uses Horner's 4 note Danger motif there.

I don't think it quite is because it's not chromatic.

And thus the endless cycle of debate continues...

Haha! Yes, it's beginning to sound rather repetitive, isn't it? I still find it extremely interesting though.

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I don't think it quite is because it's not chromatic.

i'm not talking about the cronological order.....

? Sorry man, I'm not sure what you're saying. I just mean that the Williams triplet in HP1 is in A minor: A-B-C--B-- While the Horner triplet, if in A minor, would be G#-A-Bb--A--

...I think...

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Haha!  Yes, it's beginning to sound rather repetitive, isn't it?  I still find it extremely interesting though.

this thread is quite boring actually.

K.M.

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Actually, I think he uses Horner's 4 note Danger motif there.

Actually it may be williams writing something similar the the thing is Superman the movie i meantioned.

I think it was written well before Horner used it unless it is in his 1st score, 'The Watcher' from 1978.

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Ah yes, now Williams was referencing the age old "danger motif" of yore. Patterns everywhere! What could they mean! Only in the case of Horner is it obvious it is not accidental. Harry Potter Chess game ending? Danger motif? What possible motivation could Williams have had for referencing said motif. Could it be that it is a shape with 4 sides? Such things when found in art are not said by experts to be derived from previous music. Lines (notes) form shapes (phrases). Working with lines causes shapes to occur. What mysteries are you trying to discover here?

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Ah yes, now Williams was referencing the age old "danger motif" of yore. Patterns everywhere! What could they mean! Only in the case of Horner is it obvious it is not accidental. Harry Potter Chess game ending? Danger motif? What possible motivation could Williams have had for referencing said motif. Could it be that it is a shape with 4 sides? Such things when found in art are not said by experts to be derived from previous music. Lines (notes) form shapes (phrases). Working with lines causes shapes to occur. What mysteries are you trying to discover here?

I hear you, man. But we do know that Williams is a big Rachmaninov buff, and a big Wagner buff, and I would bet that the cue at the end of the Chess Game comes from the same place Horner's music comes from--either Rachmaninov or Wagner. That is not a criticism; it is simply something stated by me because I find classical/filmscore links very interesting--there is no further "mystery" to it for me than that. If you find it a wearisome topic, then :P see you in the next thread!

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Some time ago now somebody posted a link to a website that contained sound clips of some of Horner's (amongst others) self-borrowings; does anyone know what the URL is? I've done my best with Google but can't find it. I think one of them was Aliens/Clear and Present Danger, if that helps. Many thanks in advance to anyone who can help!

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Ah, I was totally mistaken when I saw this thread. I was thinking of Horner's OTHER 4-note danger motif--or would that be the 4-note evil motif? I'm thinking of the one used perhaps most prominently in The Rocketeer as the theme for pretty much all the bad guys. I remember being very confused because I heard the same theme in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids--only not used as a theme.

Interestingly, though, THE 4-note danger motif being referred to here is in The Rocketeer also...

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So Horner is doing the score for Apocalytpo? That's kind of funny, since that movie seems to be chock full of apocalyptic danger. I bet the entire score is the 4 note motif. ;)

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I remember a funny contest by one of those soundtrack website (was it filmtracks? Soundtrack.net?), where you had to guess 4 samples each week and tell which they were from.

On one were the four samples were all Horner's danger motif and you had to guess from where (Projet X, A Beautiful Mind, and two other similar). Fun :)

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I have lately been "wrangling" for a forthcoming Mel Gibson movie.This means that I am charged with the task of assembling the, somewhat specialist, musicians from several corners of the globe. I also have to, as I did with "Troy", procure strange and exotic instruments including, for example, a Tromba Marina. The name may imply that it's some kind of deep-sea trumpet but, in fact, it's a stringed instrument, popular in Medieval Europe until it fell into obsolescence in the eighteenth century. You play it with a bow and the vibrating string passes over a "floating bridge", which rattles against the soundboard making a noise like - a deep-sea trumpet!

This, along with sets of Swedish bark trumpets and Ugandan wildebeest horns, have come from the kind musicians at the "Shakespeares' Globe" theatre in Southwark, London. In addition to myself, with my usual arsenal of ethnic instruments, there will be Bob White, Jan Hendrickse and Guo Yi, all possessed of equally formidable equipment. Gary Kettel and Frank Ricotti, on drums , will finally ensure that the cavernous Studio 1 at Abbey Road will have no floor space for the duration.

I have also contacted Rahat Fateh Ali Khan in Pakistan, who will be singing and, as I mentioned earlier, composer James Horner has asked me to find an Ethiopian female singer, hence the "wrangling almost complete" tag.

The movie, by the way, is called "Apocalypto", and is set in Pre-Columbian Central America. I'm told that all the dialogue is in Mayan, hence the orchestra-free primitive style approach to the score from James.

From his website

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