The John Williams appreciation thread

[BLUMENKOHL 1,064]

Um, I can tell you that no creature with a brain has the capacity for absolute analysis. You cannot be born with an absolute analytic ability. While a person may have genetic features that allows for better analysis of the sensory input, the brain cannot analyze without a reference point of comparison.

If you had been born and never heard a single tonal note in your life, and I played a note for you, your brain would be able to do exactly nothing with that information. It's the same concept that causes you to see patterns in the random noise on analogue televisions. Your brain has no reference point for that information, so it manufactures its own.

[indy4 152]

Um, I can tell you that no creature with a brain has the capacity for absolute analysis. You cannot be born with an absolute analytic ability. While a person may have genetic features that allows for better analysis of the sensory input, the brain cannot analyze without a reference point of comparison.

I don't know what exactly you mean by "absolute analysis," but perfect pitch is a reality. I've met a guy who had it.

What about colors? If I see a red poster I can analyzing it without first being shown an orange poster. Really I'd like to know why everybody doesn't have perfect pitch.

[Red 73]

Reading music helps to identify key changes though. Someone who wasn't familiar with music reading probably wouldn't know that particular piece was played in a different key. They could recognize it sounds different obviously but not that the key was off, because they wouldn't know what a key signature is.

If they heard the theme from Jaws played in one key and then another, most people would be able to tell the difference. That's kind of using relative pitch. Really what it is is using a note as a reference point to know what another note sounds like, ie somebody plays an E and because you know the interval between E and G you can "predict" what the G will sound like.

Yeah but Nick heard it played once and knew it was in the wrong key. I don't know about you, but unless I had the music in front of me I couldn't have been able to do that.

[indy4 152]

Reading music helps to identify key changes though. Someone who wasn't familiar with music reading probably wouldn't know that particular piece was played in a different key. They could recognize it sounds different obviously but not that the key was off, because they wouldn't know what a key signature is.

If they heard the theme from Jaws played in one key and then another, most people would be able to tell the difference. That's kind of using relative pitch. Really what it is is using a note as a reference point to know what another note sounds like, ie somebody plays an E and because you know the interval between E and G you can "predict" what the G will sound like.

Yeah but Nick heard it played once and knew it was in the wrong key. I don't know about you, but unless I had the music in front of me I couldn't have been able to do that.

Yeah, that's why I was wondering if he had perfect pitch. Either that or he saw where the guy's hands were on the keyboard.

[BLUMENKOHL 1,064]

If you'd never seen a color before, and I showed you red, you would not see red. What you hear and see is how your brain constructs sensory input. With no point of reference, there is nothing to see.

[indy4 152]

If you'd never seen a color before, and I showed you red, you would not see red. What you hear and see is how your brain constructs sensory input. With no point of reference, there is nothing to see.

Okay, but that's not analogous to perfect pitch. People have heard plenty of notes in their life, but if I play them a G most won't know what it is without some sort of reference. Whereas if you showed them nothing but red they'd be able to correctly label it. Perhaps if they've never seen a color in their life it'd be different, but it just so happens that everybody has, just as everybody who studies music has heard notes and been told their names.

[BLUMENKOHL 1,064]

I get the distinct impression perfect pitch is one of Psychology's great "Nature vs. Nurture" debates, and you're just taking a staunch stance and passing it as fact, indy4.

[indy4 152]

I get the distinct impression perfect pitch is one of Psychology's great "Nature vs. Nurture" debates, and you're just taking a staunch stance and passing it as fact, indy4.

If you want to spend 5 hours at a piano trying to memorize notes then go ahead, but I know I'm right!

[Desplat13 1]

Nick, I know what you mean. A lot of times it seems that people will think that the simpler the melody and orchestration, the more emotional the music.

Seriously.

Don't ask me.....

To others, I do not have anything like perfect pitch. However, I have found that as I have worked on it more and more I have gotten to where I can more frequently tell you exactly which key is being played on the piano without looking. I know these are just the first baby steps, but it does make me wonder how much I am capable of without being born with perfect pitch.

[Nick Parker 3,017]

Nick, do you have perfect pitch?

That is the only way I am able to play music (well, I can read music, but I have to use the "Good Boys" device for every note I read), but I am reluctant to use the word "perfect", in deference to the arguments in this Thread and my own research on the subject.

[indy4 152]

Wow, nice! That's awesome.

[Koray Savas 2,095]

I've actually come to realize the FSM forum is a lot nicer and user friendly than this place, where opinions get ridiculed A LOT.

Quit whining, it's a "JW is alive, hurray!" thread and you go "Hans Zimmer is more known anyway". What did you expect??

I'm not whining, I'm telling it how it is. And I'm not using that thread as a reference point. Just in general, there are more extreme board members that'll tell you your opinion is wrong rather than having nice, light conversation. But then again, that's a big part of why I post here.

I expected HZ to be despised more on FSM than here, but he's not at all.

[Quintus 5,391]

Oh Johnny, I am so pleased you are not dead!

[Josh500 1,602]

The recent Jerry Goldsmith thread made me realize once more that we are lucky that Williams is still around, and kicking I find myself realizing everytime I log in onto JWFan that I am happy there is no headline on the Main Page stating the death of the maestro...one day it will happen - I hope that day is far away from now. I don't want this to be another morbid thread on JW's health, death or anything like that but just wanted to express my feelings on the fact that perhaps the greatest composer of modern times is still among us! I wanted to let hear a positive sound among the more common discussions about his music etc. Any other people having similar feelings or is it just me...

I can understand your sentiments, but I gotta be honest, you are not a wordsmith.

You name your thread the"I am happy John Williams is still alive!" thread and don't expect it to be morbid, and about death? The way you say it, it sounds like you're expecting him to be dead any minute. With one foot in his grave, almost. That's really in poor taste. I mean, WTF!

This thread should be renamed. "Let's hope JW keeps scoring (movies) for a long time" thread, or something like that.

[Hitch 55]

The last 2 words to be spoken by John T. Williams will be.......

ROLLO TOMASI

[JoeinAR 1,759]

I've actually come to realize the FSM forum is a lot nicer and user friendly than this place, where opinions get ridiculed A LOT.

Quit whining, it's a "JW is alive, hurray!" thread and you go "Hans Zimmer is more known anyway". What did you expect??

I'm not whining, I'm telling it how it is. And I'm not using that thread as a reference point. Just in general, there are more extreme board members that'll tell you your opinion is wrong rather than having nice, light conversation. But then again, that's a big part of why I post here.

I expected HZ to be despised more on FSM than here, but he's not at all.

Koray, your opinion is wrong, but there are even more fools at the FSM board than here.

[MSM 85]

The recent Jerry Goldsmith thread made me realize once more that we are lucky that Williams is still around, and kicking I find myself realizing everytime I log in onto JWFan that I am happy there is no headline on the Main Page stating the death of the maestro...one day it will happen - I hope that day is far away from now. I don't want this to be another morbid thread on JW's health, death or anything like that but just wanted to express my feelings on the fact that perhaps the greatest composer of modern times is still among us! I wanted to let hear a positive sound among the more common discussions about his music etc. Any other people having similar feelings or is it just me...

I can understand your sentiments, but I gotta be honest, you are not a wordsmith.

You name your thread the"I am happy John Williams is still alive!" thread and don't expect it to be morbid, and about death? The way you say it, it sounds like you're expecting him to be dead any minute. With one foot in his grave, almost. That's really in poor taste. I mean, WTF!

This thread should be renamed. "Let's hope JW keeps scoring (movies) for a long time" thread, or something like that.

Josh, I am sorry if you're offended. As you might realize it was clearly not meant to be like offending. American/English is not my mothertongue. I am quite critical about language/grammar related issues in my own language, but in English I will never become a wordsmith, I am afraid.

How about: "I am happy John Williams is still around"?

[Neimoidian 13]

How about: "I am happy John Williams is still around"?

After "Pretend Williams has only 5 Years left" thread, I can imagine next one will be more like "Are you happy John Williams is still around?"

[Henry B 49]

Okay, so this perfect pitch issue.

It's not a simple matter. I believe that Blume is right: it is thoroughly impossible to identify a note without a reference. Where we differ is in how we retain our references. My aural skills professor remarked that if we carried around tuning forks for a few weeks and listened to them often, the note A = 440 would be ingrained in us forever. It's probably true (and it's something I keep meaning to do). This would not grant the ability of perfect pitch - which should actually be called absolute pitch - but it would provide a reference note that one could recall to compare to other notes. People with absolute pitch have such reference notes, but recalling them is immediate and natural. Chalk it up to brain functioning.

These reference notes have to come from somewhere, in most cases, modern Western tuning: A = 440 Hz. For whatever reason, some people find it easy to lock into such tunings so that they are always in memory. Tuning, however, is a human construct. There is no absolute reference point for pitch. There's no lowest note or highest note; it goes on forever. Humans can only hear a small spectrum of pitch, anyway. So if a person with absolute pitch can only identify notes by the tuning that is ingrained in him (and who knows how early that happens? probably before birth, even).

There's then the separate issue of perfect pitch, which actually means an ability to detect pitch with unusually high accuracy. For people with perfect pitch, music that is just a little out of tune sounds awful. I have a friend with absolute/perfect pitch and she can't stand listening to Baroque music because it is customarily tuned to A = 415 Hz, not 440 Hz. For me, that means, "oh, just transpose down a semitone," but for her it's at odds with the 440 system that feels natural to her. She's also a fan of synthesized video game music, which I think may have something to do with it being pitch perfect. Some people, though it's uncommon these days, are raised hearing mean tone temperament, not equal tone temperament, meaning that the distance between each half step of the octave is not the same (not exactly a semitone). This tuning is more natural in its treatment of 4ths and 5ths, but introduce chromaticism and it becomes a mess. (Consider that a particular interval sounds pure but if transposed becomes a different, impure interval because of the irregular spacing of notes.) However, a person with perfect pitch and a preference for mean tone temperament will find equal tone tempered music grating; every interval but the unison/octave sounds impure. I once saw a book in my school's music library titled How Equal Tempered Tuning Ruined Music. No kidding.

Point is, pitch memory comes from, well, memory. There's nothing our minds can do with a sound wave on its own. It's like if I asked you to cut an infinite line in half.

[Koray Savas 2,095]

I've actually come to realize the FSM forum is a lot nicer and user friendly than this place, where opinions get ridiculed A LOT.

Quit whining, it's a "JW is alive, hurray!" thread and you go "Hans Zimmer is more known anyway". What did you expect??

I'm not whining, I'm telling it how it is. And I'm not using that thread as a reference point. Just in general, there are more extreme board members that'll tell you your opinion is wrong rather than having nice, light conversation. But then again, that's a big part of why I post here.

I expected HZ to be despised more on FSM than here, but he's not at all.

Koray, your opinion is wrong, but there are even more fools at the FSM board than here.

Thank you for proving my point.

[Henry B 49]

Joe may be an arrogant, self-assured jackass, but he's an arrogant, self-assured jackass with a sense of humor. See if you can find it, Koray.

[Josh500 1,602]

The recent Jerry Goldsmith thread made me realize once more that we are lucky that Williams is still around, and kicking I find myself realizing everytime I log in onto JWFan that I am happy there is no headline on the Main Page stating the death of the maestro...one day it will happen - I hope that day is far away from now. I don't want this to be another morbid thread on JW's health, death or anything like that but just wanted to express my feelings on the fact that perhaps the greatest composer of modern times is still among us! I wanted to let hear a positive sound among the more common discussions about his music etc. Any other people having similar feelings or is it just me...

I can understand your sentiments, but I gotta be honest, you are not a wordsmith.

You name your thread the"I am happy John Williams is still alive!" thread and don't expect it to be morbid, and about death? The way you say it, it sounds like you're expecting him to be dead any minute. With one foot in his grave, almost. That's really in poor taste. I mean, WTF!

This thread should be renamed. "Let's hope JW keeps scoring (movies) for a long time" thread, or something like that.

Josh, I am sorry if you're offended. As you might realize it was clearly not meant to be like offending. American/English is not my mothertongue. I am quite critical about language/grammar related issues in my own language, but in English I will never become a wordsmith, I am afraid.

How about: "I am happy John Williams is still around"?

It doesn't really have to do with the language barrier. If you know what these words mean, they would be offensive in MOST languages. It's like some people have a hard time understanding that JW is a human being. He should be treated and spoken of with respect. Here, more than in any other place, actually.

And making threads with words like "still alive" or "still around" or "still healthy" etc... I mean, seriously, that's not showing respect. Or do YOU go up to your grandma or grandpa and say, "Hey, you're still ALIVE!" Or "Hey, you're still AROUND!" I mean, that's just common sense.

Now, I can take a joke now and then, but I think this is crossing a line. I just really HOPE John Williams or one of his people doesn't see this...

[John Crichton 4]

Joe may be an arrogant, self-assured jackass, but he's an arrogant, self-assured jackass with a sense of humor.

[Koray Savas 2,095]

This isn't the first time we've had a thread like this. I don't get why everyone is all of a sudden complaining about it.

[Quintus 5,391]

I'm still waiting for the "How would you murder John Williams?" thread.

[John Crichton 4]

This isn't the first time we've had a thread like this. I don't get why everyone is all of a sudden complaining about it.

There've been plenty of complaints before. I'm always the first one in line to critcize something that's more of a direct "death watch" type thread. We had a run of them a few years ago, all obsessing over Williams' health and how he looked while conducting a concert.

[JoeinAR 1,759]

I'm still waiting for the "How would you murder John Williams?" thread.

well I have had him meet his end on numerous occasions, some more funny than others.

[indy4 152]

Okay, so this perfect pitch issue.

It's not a simple matter. I believe that Blume is right: it is thoroughly impossible to identify a note without a reference. Where we differ is in how we retain our references. My aural skills professor remarked that if we carried around tuning forks for a few weeks and listened to them often, the note A = 440 would be ingrained in us forever. It's probably true (and it's something I keep meaning to do). This would not grant the ability of perfect pitch - which should actually be called absolute pitch - but it would provide a reference note that one could recall to compare to other notes. People with absolute pitch have such reference notes, but recalling them is immediate and natural. Chalk it up to brain functioning.

These reference notes have to come from somewhere, in most cases, modern Western tuning: A = 440 Hz. For whatever reason, some people find it easy to lock into such tunings so that they are always in memory. Tuning, however, is a human construct. There is no absolute reference point for pitch. There's no lowest note or highest note; it goes on forever. Humans can only hear a small spectrum of pitch, anyway. So if a person with absolute pitch can only identify notes by the tuning that is ingrained in him (and who knows how early that happens? probably before birth, even).

There's then the separate issue of perfect pitch, which actually means an ability to detect pitch with unusually high accuracy. For people with perfect pitch, music that is just a little out of tune sounds awful. I have a friend with absolute/perfect pitch and she can't stand listening to Baroque music because it is customarily tuned to A = 415 Hz, not 440 Hz. For me, that means, "oh, just transpose down a semitone," but for her it's at odds with the 440 system that feels natural to her. She's also a fan of synthesized video game music, which I think may have something to do with it being pitch perfect. Some people, though it's uncommon these days, are raised hearing mean tone temperament, not equal tone temperament, meaning that the distance between each half step of the octave is not the same (not exactly a semitone). This tuning is more natural in its treatment of 4ths and 5ths, but introduce chromaticism and it becomes a mess. (Consider that a particular interval sounds pure but if transposed becomes a different, impure interval because of the irregular spacing of notes.) However, a person with perfect pitch and a preference for mean tone temperament will find equal tone tempered music grating; every interval but the unison/octave sounds impure. I once saw a book in my school's music library titled How Equal Tempered Tuning Ruined Music. No kidding.

Point is, pitch memory comes from, well, memory. There's nothing our minds can do with a sound wave on its own. It's like if I asked you to cut an infinite line in half.

Interesting. Thanks!

[Desplat13 1]

Well said, Henry. I just keep working on that memory thing...

[Eric_JWFAN 11]

Okay, so this perfect pitch issue.

It's not a simple matter. I believe that Blume is right: it is thoroughly impossible to identify a note without a reference. Where we differ is in how we retain our references. My aural skills professor remarked that if we carried around tuning forks for a few weeks and listened to them often, the note A = 440 would be ingrained in us forever. It's probably true (and it's something I keep meaning to do). This would not grant the ability of perfect pitch - which should actually be called absolute pitch - but it would provide a reference note that one could recall to compare to other notes. People with absolute pitch have such reference notes, but recalling them is immediate and natural. Chalk it up to brain functioning.

These reference notes have to come from somewhere, in most cases, modern Western tuning: A = 440 Hz. For whatever reason, some people find it easy to lock into such tunings so that they are always in memory. Tuning, however, is a human construct. There is no absolute reference point for pitch. There's no lowest note or highest note; it goes on forever. Humans can only hear a small spectrum of pitch, anyway. So if a person with absolute pitch can only identify notes by the tuning that is ingrained in him (and who knows how early that happens? probably before birth, even).

There's then the separate issue of perfect pitch, which actually means an ability to detect pitch with unusually high accuracy. For people with perfect pitch, music that is just a little out of tune sounds awful. I have a friend with absolute/perfect pitch and she can't stand listening to Baroque music because it is customarily tuned to A = 415 Hz, not 440 Hz. For me, that means, "oh, just transpose down a semitone," but for her it's at odds with the 440 system that feels natural to her. She's also a fan of synthesized video game music, which I think may have something to do with it being pitch perfect. Some people, though it's uncommon these days, are raised hearing mean tone temperament, not equal tone temperament, meaning that the distance between each half step of the octave is not the same (not exactly a semitone). This tuning is more natural in its treatment of 4ths and 5ths, but introduce chromaticism and it becomes a mess. (Consider that a particular interval sounds pure but if transposed becomes a different, impure interval because of the irregular spacing of notes.) However, a person with perfect pitch and a preference for mean tone temperament will find equal tone tempered music grating; every interval but the unison/octave sounds impure. I once saw a book in my school's music library titled How Equal Tempered Tuning Ruined Music. No kidding.

Point is, pitch memory comes from, well, memory. There's nothing our minds can do with a sound wave on its own. It's like if I asked you to cut an infinite line in half.

Interesting about your friend. Absolute pitch can be a curse more than a blessing. I have a friend who sings in a choir and he has a nearly impossible time dealing with the director's decisions to transpose. For example, the octavo he is reading from is in A-flat, but the director chooses to transpose to F, thinking that no one will notice or care. My friend cannot "imagine" it in F, because his absolute pitch is so firmly embedded in him. His only solution is to close the music and just listen to his neighbors and try to memorize it. The octavo in the "wrong key" is just too distracting to him. Crazy stuff, but fascinating.

[Jeshopk 8]

I have a wierd thing, where I only have perfect pitch if I am not trying. I will hear a note in my head and my hand can go right to that key on the keyboard. But then if I try to test myself, it doesn't work. Only when I am completely relaxed and not wanting it to happen.

[Ollie 859]

I don't have perfect pitch but I can tell when someone hits the wrong note or plays off key.

Just thought I'd join the fun.

[John Crichton 4]

I don't have perfect pitch but I can tell when someone hits the wrong note or plays off key.

Just thought I'd join the fun.

Yes, I have no musical knowledge whatsover but I've got a good ear and can usually tell when something's being played wrong.

[Koray Savas 2,095]

Well that's pretty easy, isn't it? I can do that.

[Henry B 49]

Shut up you cretins, you don't understand this!

Sorry. Erm.

To put it succinctly, anybody with an ear for music (e.g. everybody) can hear a note and sing it back (or at least hear it in their head) with a reasonable degree of accuracy. The difference is that those with absolute pitch know, just by hearing it, where the note falls in the overall spectrum (of human construct).

Interesting about your friend. Absolute pitch can be a curse more than a blessing. I have a friend who sings in a choir and he has a nearly impossible time dealing with the director's decisions to transpose. For example, the octavo he is reading from is in A-flat, but the director chooses to transpose to F, thinking that no one will notice or care. My friend cannot "imagine" it in F, because his absolute pitch is so firmly embedded in him. His only solution is to close the music and just listen to his neighbors and try to memorize it. The octavo in the "wrong key" is just too distracting to him. Crazy stuff, but fascinating.

Yeah. Sometimes transposing screws me up because I think, "Wait, we're in F, so why am I singing Ab? Oh, right." But then there's the issue of matching notes to vocal techniques and I think anyone who's sung in a choir can attest to this. After a while you get used to reading music and plan ahead how you're going to intone each note - how much air, how much strain there's going to be - so if you transpose a piece of music down a 4th and see a note on the top space of the staff (treble clef), you might think to yourself, "Okay, high G, gotta prepare for this," so when you come to the note you belt it with everything you've got. But then you remember you were supposed to sing the D below that G because of the transposition. And then everybody laughs at you for sounding like a fool. It's rough, eh?

[MSM 85]

The recent Jerry Goldsmith thread made me realize once more that we are lucky that Williams is still around, and kicking I find myself realizing everytime I log in onto JWFan that I am happy there is no headline on the Main Page stating the death of the maestro...one day it will happen - I hope that day is far away from now. I don't want this to be another morbid thread on JW's health, death or anything like that but just wanted to express my feelings on the fact that perhaps the greatest composer of modern times is still among us! I wanted to let hear a positive sound among the more common discussions about his music etc. Any other people having similar feelings or is it just me...

I can understand your sentiments, but I gotta be honest, you are not a wordsmith.

You name your thread the"I am happy John Williams is still alive!" thread and don't expect it to be morbid, and about death? The way you say it, it sounds like you're expecting him to be dead any minute. With one foot in his grave, almost. That's really in poor taste. I mean, WTF!

This thread should be renamed. "Let's hope JW keeps scoring (movies) for a long time" thread, or something like that.

Josh, I am sorry if you're offended. As you might realize it was clearly not meant to be like offending. American/English is not my mothertongue. I am quite critical about language/grammar related issues in my own language, but in English I will never become a wordsmith, I am afraid.

How about: "I am happy John Williams is still around"?

It doesn't really have to do with the language barrier. If you know what these words mean, they would be offensive in MOST languages. It's like some people have a hard time understanding that JW is a human being. He should be treated and spoken of with respect. Here, more than in any other place, actually.

And making threads with words like "still alive" or "still around" or "still healthy" etc... I mean, seriously, that's not showing respect. Or do YOU go up to your grandma or grandpa and say, "Hey, you're still ALIVE!" Or "Hey, you're still AROUND!" I mean, that's just common sense.

Now, I can take a joke now and then, but I think this is crossing a line. I just really HOPE John Williams or one of his people doesn't see this...

I think you are confusing this thread with Eric's poll. Did you read my original post anyway? As to the language, in Dutch it is totally normal to say you're "glad someone is still alive". You could perfectly say this to your grandma and she would be happy. I have the idea some people make use of this miscommunication to make fun out of it (Eric's thread). Therefore I have asked Mark to change this thread's title.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,251]

In Dutch there is no tradition of celebrating the fact that someone has not yet died, I'm very sorry.

[MSM 85]

In Dutch there is no tradition of celebrating the fact that someone has not yet died, I'm very sorry.

You know very well what I mean. Have you never said to your grandma "Ik ben blij dat je er nog bent".

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,251]

Said it to her, just like that? Out of the blue?

No.

If I thought maybe someone was in a serious accident and turns out to be fine....maybe.

All my grandparents died in my childhood btw.

[MSM 85]

Said it to her, just like that? Out of the blue?

No.

If I thought maybe someone was in a serious accident and turns out to be fine....maybe.

All my grandparents died in my childhood btw.

Exactly, when there is a context it can be very well appropriate. Here there was a context as I explained in my original post.

[Neimoidian 13]

I think we should rename birthday thread into The "I'm happy [insert user name here] is still alive!" Or make a special one.

[Josh500 1,602]

Said it to her, just like that? Out of the blue?

No.

If I thought maybe someone was in a serious accident and turns out to be fine....maybe.

Exactly.

Exactly, when there is a context it can be very well appropriate. Here there was a context as I explained in my original post.

That JG died exactly 5 years ago?

That's not a context!

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,251]

There is no context, this thread is dumb!

And has nothing to do with any Dutch tradition...

[MSM 85]

There is no context, this thread is dumb!

And has nothing to do with any Dutch tradition...

I have changed the title. Carry on.