Will John Williams let Remote Control influence his style?

[crocodile 8,033]

I think we're confusing some things here. There is a difference between wailing and vocalising. In my mind at least.

Karol

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

They are in essence the same thing.

[crocodile 8,033]

I thought many of those wailing performances are generally improvised, not written by the composer (with some exceptions).

Karol

[Incanus 5,723]

They are in essence the same thing.

Well the end result between classical vocalise soloist and wailing lamenting one can be worlds apart. Think of Renee Fleming in Return of the King or Edda Dell'Orso in Once Upon a Time in the West and Lisa Gerrard in Gladiator and Lisbeth Scott in Munich (where the music was written but Scott invented her own words to sing) or Narnia for example. But this is all splitting hairs as not all vocal performances can be so easily categorized.

[Quintus 5,399]

Rule of thumb: If it's of an eastern flavour, it's wailing.

For some reason I think Darabont used it as a sort of foreign juxtaposition at the end of The Mist.

[Datameister 2,064]

I thought many of those wailing performances are generally improvised, not written by the composer (with some exceptions).

I don't know if that's the case or not for most of them, but for "Padme's Ruminations", it's partially written out. There are directions for what sorts of things to sing and when, but there's a lot of room for interpretation.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Rule of thumb: If it's of an eastern flavour, it's wailing.

For some reason I think Darabont used it as a sort of foreign juxtaposition at the end of The Mist.

That was Lisa Gerrard too

I'm fan of it, if done properly. I don't understand how it became so cliche. It was pretty much just everyone and everything using "Now We Are Free" from Gladiator. Not like every score had it at the time.

[pixie_twinkle 48]

His work used to be a little simpler, more harmonically straightforward, and more emotionally direct -

Don't confuse atonality and emotional detachment with complexity. His recent scores are a lot simpler than you think compared to his first couple of Star Wars scores, for example. That fact that it takes more listens to really get into his recent scores is not necessarily a mark of added complexity. Quite the opposite. Many of his recent scores are functional, but don't always work as well as a pure listening experience the way many of his older socres did. The majority of Williams' scores do tend to sound a little more generic these days.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

They don't have the heart of his earlier work.

[Brónach 1,302]

War of the Worlds lacks a heart completely and I love it for it.

It's one of these wonderful moments when JW just "gets it".

[Datameister 2,064]

I disagree, pixie_twinkle. Williams used to favor a more streamlined approach. It could still be staggeringly complex when appropriate, but on the whole, they didn't rely on so many disparate layers. I'm especially talking about his action music, which used to be a lot leaner and more direct, using a smaller number of discrete ideas at any given moment to convey emotions more directly and powerfully. It only became frantic and complicated when the action onscreen demanded such chaos, whereas these days, Williams has more of a tendency to default to contrapuntally frenetic, harmonically indecipherable material.

Please don't misunderstand me - I wasn't trying to downplay the brilliance or effectiveness of Williams' earlier works. On the whole, I prefer the way he wrote back then. Increased complexity and increased quality are not the same thing.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I find stuff like Adventures On Earth, The Asteroid Field, Hyperspace, Desert Chase a lot more complex and varied that much of his recent action stuff.

[Datameister 2,064]

I didn't say anything about how varied it is - I agree that there's considerably more variety in his older works, because Williams used to do a better job of tailoring the music to perfectly fit each moment of the film. Nowadays, the music is a little more generic, to use pixie_twinkle's word. But what I'm talking about is layers and harmonic structure. The number of discrete musical ideas happening at any given moment in time, and the difficulty the brain experiences in extracting emotion from and comprehending the harmonic framework of the music. Williams has gone overboard with these in recent years, producing music that certainly takes considerable skill to write, but somehow feels lacking to many of us.

I could cite specific examples, but I don't think it'd be worth the effort.

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

His work used to be a little simpler, more harmonically straightforward, and more emotionally direct -

Don't confuse atonality and emotional detachment with complexity.

There's nothing wrong with atonality in itself. There's lots of great examples dotted around in Williams's 70s-80s scores that we all love. I'd say the problem with it in Williams's approach in the later years, is that for the most part, it's done with a very broad brush. Almost like a factory production line, as if Williams knows beforehand that's it gonna be cut, drowned out by sound fx, or replaced with tracked music.

Data can count all of them - wailing harmon muted trumpets and bones, piccolos shrieking to highest pitches, low chromatic figures for cellos and basses bracketed 'repeat pitches as fast as possible.' For many of these types of scenes, what were before used as a side dish have now become the main meal. If that makes sense.

Maybe he just got old?

I disagree, pixie_twinkle. Williams used to favor a more streamlined approach. It could still be staggeringly complex when appropriate, but on the whole, they didn't rely on so many disparate layers. I'm especially talking about his action music, which used to be a lot leaner and more direct, using a smaller number of discrete ideas at any given moment to convey emotions more directly and powerfully. It only became frantic and complicated when the action onscreen demanded such chaos, whereas these days, Williams has more of a tendency to default to contrapuntally frenetic, harmonically indecipherable material.

I think the example set forth by is heroes - Bernard Herrmann and Alex North were much fresher in his memory at the time. After all, it was Herrmann who told Williams, when he rang up to tell him what he thought of his 1st Symphony "It's a good piece, I like the first movement, you have a good tune in there. What did ya cover it up for with all those effects, all that excessive orchestration?"

Williams's earlier scores never as direct and no-nonsense as Herrmann's music, but not as ornate as North's, either. They fell somewhere in between. A happy marriage of two different Gods, if you will.

One shouldn't forget that North was still an active colleague back in '81 with the likes of DRAGONSLAYER, and Herrmann had only been dead for 6 years.

[Datameister 2,064]

Brilliant post, Prometheus. Especially the comment about the side dish becoming the entree, and about classic Williams striking a good balance between the overly simplistic and the overly ornate.

[Alejandro 26]

No.

1. He only works for Spielberg

2. If he did work for someone else, they'd want to hire him for his sound. You don't get John Williams and then tell him to change.

I think the entire first quarter of "Minority Report" was RC-ish, but better.

[Trent B 337]

Those computer game scores are better than 90% of the film music composed in the past 15-20 years.

Even though I'm not into game scores that much I do have to agree with this.

Too many directors of today want music to sound like something Zimmer wrote. If directors allowed the composers to have as much freedom as needed they would turn out good scores, especially the veteran composers like JNH, Silvestri, etc.

[Thor 7,574]

What is the closest Williams has ever been? The brief techno outburst in A.I.? The electric guitars in ATTACK OF THE CLONES? I could have said the "Training Montage" from SPACECAMP, but that's really more 80's disco than the RC sound.

[Brónach 1,302]

The brief techno outburst in A.I.?

I find that really weird.

[Datameister 2,064]

I don't have the OST, but when I saw the film, that definitely jumped out at me. Very un-Williams.

I think "Padme's Ruminations" is indeed the closest he's come to selling out to contemporary film score cliches. I suppose it's rather effective in the film, but it doesn't feel like it belongs in Star Wars...or even Williams' oeuvre, really.

I must say, if a 40-year-old Williams were somehow alive in 2010, and if he were to enthusiastically emulate/parody the stereotypical RC style while blending it with his own taste and talent and tendencies...well, the results would be both hilarious and impressively listenable, I think. He's no longer really capable of writing such ballsy music, but he had a lot of musical energy when he was younger, and he's always had a knack for taking a style and making it his own.

[pixie_twinkle 48]

I'm especially talking about his action music, which used to be a lot leaner and more direct, using a smaller number of discrete ideas at any given moment to convey emotions more directly and powerfully.

I wasn't thinking specifically of action music when I wrote my reply above, but I still think some of Williams' older action cues are considerably more sophisticated (a better word than complex, perhaps?) than his recent efforts. Battle in the Snow for instance is a small masterpiece of timbral colour and orchestration, and even of structure. The opening ostinato is always the driving force of the music, even when it is not playing directly. Some wonderful counterpoint too! You can probably tell I have a huge amount of affection for those classic Williams scores (I know, I hide it well...)

[Datameister 2,064]

"Battle in the Snow" is absolutely brilliant, for all the reasons you mentioned. I think it's a top-notch action cue, and it ranks among my (many) Williams favorites. And it's certainly not simplistic. But it's still a lot more streamlined and direct than much of Williams' modern action music. He really says what he means, instead of veiling it in all these layers of challenging material. Like you, I'm enormously fond of his music from that period, but it's precisely because of this less complex way of working. It's more tightly organized, emotionally impactful, and appropriately variegated than his more recent efforts, on average.

Perhaps one of these days I'll pull out my collection of scores and albums and try to offer some specific examples of what I'm talking about. It's a little difficult right now because I'm not at my own computer. And besides, technical discussions about music tend to be pooh-poohed by those here without the background to understand why they matter.

[King Mark 3,631]

I think "Padme's Ruminations" is indeed the closest he's come to selling out to contemporary film score cliches. I suppose it's rather effective in the film, but it doesn't feel like it belongs in Star Wars...or even Williams' oeuvre, really.

Yeah on this cue I agree

[crocodile 8,033]

I might open a can of worms here (which is not my intention), but I think the action ostinatos from cues like The Ferry Scene sound a bit like something from The Rock. The kind of raw sensless drive behind the music. Not in the same style of writing, of course.

Karol

[Incanus 5,723]

I might open a can of worms here (which is not my intention), but I think the action ostinatos from cues like The Ferry Scene sound a bit like something from The Rock. The kind of raw sensless drive behind the music. Not in the same style of writing, of course.

Karol

Shush! Keep that can of worms shut!

[Brónach 1,302]

I think "Padme's Ruminations" is indeed the closest he's come to selling out to contemporary film score cliches. I suppose it's rather effective in the film, but it doesn't feel like it belongs in Star Wars...or even Williams' oeuvre, really.

Yeah on this cue I agree

I like it because he actually did it.

He can do anything. Go JW!

[Thor 7,574]

I'm not good at remembering track titles. Is "Padme's ruminations" the one with the twangy guitar licks?

[crocodile 8,033]

Karol

[Ollie 1,063]

I have yet to find a Wailing Woman cue as effective as the ones from Yared's Troy.

My wife makes me skip those two cues.

Maybe he just got old?

Uh-oh.

I mentioned that in the past and was nearly burned at the stake. That's what happens when you try and bring common sense into a discussion.

[Brónach 1,302]

I have yet to find a Wailing Woman cue as effective as the ones from Yared's Troy

Great score. The use voices through the score really conveys a sense of ancient tragedy.

[crocodile 8,033]

Some of these bits might be a bit unlistenable for most people, but the fact is they are probably the most authentic sounding examples out there.

Karol