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Harmonic Progressions in Williams


filmmusic

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Hello. this question is addressed to the musicians/musicologists of this forum.

I've been stack for a while, trying to identify a certain chord in a final cadence of a theme..

I'm searching various harmony books that I have, but i can't find anything..

It may be so simple, but I don't know..

here is the passage:

(the whole theme is in G minor, before the first bar notated here we have the tonic (G minor) , then the unidentified chord (d#-f#-a-c#), and then the final tonic again.

how would you call this chord?

Is it an "altered" dominant? (with raised tonic and 7th) or is it something else?

or do you call this a borrowed 7th dominant from the G# phrygian mode? (the phrygian mode has a diminised dominant - d#-f#-a )

30329827.png

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That's a pretty good question. A really great thing about reading this forum is that you get so many great and elaborate answers from the many gifted thinkers out there, but the way I'm reading it the answer is actually very simple: It's the V of V with a lowered fifth, inverted to place the lowered fifth as the root (an A major chord with the E lowered to D# and placed as the root) which in this way neatly leads to D natural, the root of the dominant. I'm not sure if there are other ways to interprete it? The added F# may complicate it beyond my explanation? :)

Edited to add: glancing at it a second time I'm pursuaded to think there is a better explanation! :P

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thank you Mark for your reply..

I was wondering though:

if it is V of V as you say with lowered fifth, woudn't the fifth be written as eb (and not as d#).

but here it's specifically written as d#, and moreover, in the bass..

Just wanted to add some information:

upper line: melody in woodwinds

middle: synth figures

down: pizzicato bass strings

and also in the middle staff, it's specifically writen as d#-f#-a-c#, which seems to me like pointing that the d# is the root of the chord (plus the same note in the bass)

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It's not the V of V (AKA a secondary dominant) but the iii of V. You do in fact get a V here, but it's a major seventh, not the dominant seventh you'd traditionally expect in a tonic to dominant cadence. Because of that, it's got the feeling of chromatic modulation (up a from F#m to Gm) - up a semitone. I'd classify it as a secundal progression.

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if it's the III (f#-a-c#) of V, what is the d#? and especially written in the bass too?

yeah, if we didn't see the written score, the d# could be a eb (so the 7th of the chord you say), but here it's written as d#..

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Forgot about the D#. That means we're talking about a D#ø7 (half dim 7th), with the lowest voice moving down a half step, making it DMaj7 - which becomes the dominant of Gm. That's said, it's a little hard to analyse without knowing what comes before it.

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Forgot about the D#. That means we're talking about a D#ø7 (half dim 7th), with the lowest voice moving down a half step, making it DMaj7 - which becomes the dominant of Gm. That's said, it's a little hard to analyse without knowing what comes before it.

the bar before this, is the tonic G minor.

In fact the whole theme is in G minor with regular chords -progressions, and only this chord is the "strange" one..

by the way, the tempo is quick, so don't pay any attention in that regular d in the bass in 3rd bar.

it's just used to form the tonic for a second (see upper voices too) before the final tonic in the final bar..

I don't know how to call it in english.. an anticipation of the final tonic sort of..

(wait, i'll try to write the 4 final bars for you)

here you are:

(also don't pay any attention to the reb in the 3rd bar. this is by a clarinet in Bb [written as Mib])

79832896.png

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I would consider the chord in question to be a variant of the augmented sixth, written enharmonically with sharps instead of flats. In other words, it's almost a French sixth, which would be Eb-G-A-C#, but the third is lowered to create Eb-Gb-A-C#, then written enharmonically as D#-F#-A-C#. Of course, augmented sixth chords resolve to V, and in this case I would not ignore the chord on the final eighth note of the third bar. The bass is the dominant of G minor, and all we have above is Bb, which sounds to my ears like the outline of a V13 chord rather than an anticipation of the tonic. I think it's really important that the D appears in the bass since it suggests a V-I cadence, no matter how quickly it occurs.

If you want some theory literature to back this up, there's a good article in the Canadian journal Intersections. The author discusses the same type of chord in relation to Wagner's Tristan chord, which is a half-diminished seventh chord that resolves to a dominant, just like we have here. Here's a link to the article online (see especially pp. 18-21 for the relevant discussion):

http://www.erudit.org/revue/is/2008/v28/n2/029953ar.pdf

By the way, where is this excerpt from? It's pretty cool!

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Thank you Ludwig for your reply..

Another thing I would like to add, is than in a later rendition of the theme, in addition to the notes we have in the example, in bar 3, it adds a fa#-la-do# sustained chord in the strings, with the re# still in the bass pizz, so I'm not sure if the "enharmonic interpretation" of the whole chord still stands..

As Prometheus said (in prive), the whole environment is probably a G hungarian minor (G,A,Bb,C#,D,Eb,F#)(due to some melodic motifs before maybe), and so the progression could be understood as

viiø7 - i (if we choose to keep one enharmonic - namely mib instead of re# in the bass).

Of course again, the 7th stressed in the bass, seems a bit much to me..

* * *

I just wanted to add a 2nd example that kept me busy today..

we have this series of chords (i haven't included the 7ths/9ths and inversions in the Roman numerals)

the whole theme is in G major with nothing strange or peculiar..

What do you say for the chord in question? (by the way the sol in the next bar, is just an appogiatura. it's in the melody too)

23574315.png

the thing i thought of is this:

maybe we can reinterprete those few bars as being in tonic of B minor (which is the III in G major),

so the chord in question would be a V/V? (thus making the chord before it [iV in Gmajor] a Neapolitan II in B minor?)

or maybe the more obvious: a II from the melodic minor?

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The only thing about the Hungarian minor interpretation is that is doesn't account for the C-natural we hear in bars 1-2. When C# enters in bar 3, it sounds fresh and wonderfully chromatic. If we hear it as Hungarian minor, this would be just another note in the scale. To me, it sounds like something outside the scale, something chromatic, which is why I would still go with the augmented sixth interpretation myself.

The second example you give is indeed strange. I would say that the whole passage is in G major with no modulation to B minor. I hear the III you have in bar 3 as a G major chord with no root, a common situation in jazz. After all, we still have a dominant chord just before it - VII. The question mark you put under the 5th bar is entirely appropriate. Who knows what this is, really! I suppose there are two options for it:

1) It could be a V/V as you suggest, so without the root or 3rd - strange, if you ask me.

2) A voice-leading chord that has no harmonic function but only a contrapuntal one. In other words, the soprano E goes up to F# (through the appoggiatura G you mentioned), the alto C# goes up to D, the G# up to B, and the bass falls back to B. Again, could we not hear the III as a G major chord with no root? Maybe the G isn't really an appoggiatura after all, but both the G and F# in the melody are chord notes in the G major chord. In that case, it would be an intervening chord between the IV of bar 4 and the possible I of bar 6. You might call it something like a passing chord, something that's "on its way" to the next chord, filling in intervals between the two surrounding chords. With that view, you could say that Williams wanted something chromatic here with smooth voice-leading to the next chord, and that he arranged the result so that it happens to be a triad instead of just some dissonant notes.

As you can probably tell, I like the second interpretation better. But it is very strange. That's the best I can come up with.

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Ludwig, i haven't notated the melody in the above example.

this is just the harmony underneath it (i have omitted the melody)

here it is with the melody (sorry, i couldn't fit the bars well, since i had deleted the file for the harmony)

(it's the B section of the theme. You can hear the theme at 0.55 of the above video, and the passage i have notated from 1.19'' and on - i have omitted one bar that it was just the re in the 3rd bar sustained for another bar )

22867780.png

why did you say the V/V doesn't have the root or the 3rd? it has both.

if we are in B minor as I suggested, fa#-la#-do# is the V, and do#-mi-sol# (the chord in question) is the minor V of V.

but again, when i thought of it, wouldn't a V/V go to V?

so i said II - I (in B melodic minor)

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My bad. I meant V of B minor for the strange chord in bar 5, not V/V. It seems to me that to be V/V, we really need to have its leading note, E#. With E-natural, I think the V/V interpretation is rather strained. But even an interpretation as V is strained as well. Myself, I don't hear this in B minor, but G major all the way through the passage you cite.

That's why I like the more contrapuntal approach. And now that you add the melody, I think it works a little better since the E-G is now filled in with stepwise motion. I suppose I still think it's best to view it as a sort of passing chord.

By the way, when I listen to this passage on the video, I hear both of the III chords as G major chords with added notes. I think the melody supports that in both bars 2-3 and 6. The G in bar 2 seems to be an anticipation of a G that is implied in the next bar.

One other thought. The bass is such a strongly articulated voice here that when we hear C# in bar 5, it's as if we want to hear it as supporting V/V (of G), but once we clearly hear what the upper voices are, that interpretation is either negated or at least altered. So maybe one could say it's a contrapuntal chord with an element of V/V?

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you still hear the III as a tonic without root, even in the music?

I don't hear it at all.. I hear minor there...

by the way, I didn't mean that the theme made a modulation to B minor.

the theme is still in G major all the way from start to finish.. I just used B minor to interprete those bars.

i think we should take into account other voices that i omitted too, but i thought that the basic ones would do fine and were clear..

eg.

along with those whole notes in the bass, we have a dotted rhythm pattern of synth bass, as you hear in the music:

bar 1: do sol sol

bar 2: do la la

Bar 3: si si si

bar 4: do sol sol

bar 5: do# sol# sol# do#

bar 6: si si si si

bar 7: la la la re

also in bars 3 and 6, we have woodwinds flourise in B minor..

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can you please explain more? we don't use all the same symbols for chords..

You mean an altered IV chord (with raised root and 5th)?

yes, of course it's a passing chord, but still it's a specific chord. I mean even in harmony books if you look, they always try to interprete most chords (even if they are passing), let alone here, which has a duration for a whole bar.

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can you please explain more? we don't use allt he same symbols for chords..

You mean an altered IV chord (with raised root and 5th)?

Yep. IV means an augmented IV chord (i.e. F# in C Major). Same goes for all other Roman numerals with lines through them. "6" in figured bass means first inversion.

FWIW, I'm using the system found in Schoenberg's Structural Functions of Harmony.

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Pertaining to the first example:

I would consider this straightforwardly a VI-chord variant, meaning a b6 chord, but in this harmonic context (Hungarian minor), this chord exists in three basic tonal variants: Eb major, Eb minor and Ebm7b5 (or if you will; F#m/D#).

I wouldn't really worry too much about enharmonic spellings!

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you still hear the III as a tonic without root, even in the music?

I don't hear it at all.. I hear minor there...

by the way, I didn't mean that the theme made a modulation to B minor.

the theme is still in G major all the way from start to finish.. I just used B minor to interprete those bars.

Yes, tonic. Even without the root. This whole passage strikes me as very jazzy in nature (almost everything's a seventh or ninth chord!) and rootless chords are not at all uncommon in jazz, so the III in bar 3 would still strike me as a GM7add9 without the root.

I think there's a tendency in harmonic analysis (Lord knows, I've been guilty of it) to get hung up on trying to decide on what chord is sounding when the more fundamental question is what harmonic function is sounding. Tonal music can basically be boiled down to the three functions of subdominant, dominant, and tonic. So if we say that the chord in bar 3 of your second example is III, which I can of course understand from the standpoint of chord construction, than we should be able to say what function the chord has. It doesn't really matter to me whether you call it III or I, but I think it's indisputable that the chord has tonic function. After all, it comes after a VII chord, which is dominant function.

Similarly, I consider the III chord you have in bar 6 to be tonic in function as well. There, I think it's even stronger because you get the root in the melody. The F# that follows is, to me, a chord tone in GM7.

The mystery chord doesn't have a strong sense of harmonic function (at least not to my ears), which is why I say it's a contrapuntal formation. Perhaps it has a hint of subdominant function, or the IV pointed out by Prometheus. But it's by no means clear, which is certainly why we're all still talking about it.

I had a feeling you wouldn't like the term "modulation" for the B minor you mentioned. Okay, let's call it a temporary tonic then. Again, I'm not so concerned with what to call it as how to understand it. To say it can be explained through B minor means that we must hear B minor as a tonic somewhere. But nowhere do we have a chord that suggests its dominant. At best, what we have is, in bars 2-6, an alternation of subdominant and tonic functions in that key. If the music is actually going to pass through another key, though, it had better use a dominant function. Otherwise, it's not enough to really get the sound of the old key out of our ears. Rather, it gets swallowed up by the old key and we're more likely to hear it as still in the old key.

By the way, there's a really good book on jazz theory in case you're interested. I think more of that would apply to Williams' music than traditional harmony textbooks. The book is The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine. Totally, totally awesome! Especially if you play piano.

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... Only just saw the "Heartbeeps"-example:

Here, C#minor is simply a passing chord, and assigning a function to it would be potentially misleading (unless #IV was established in context as a gravitational pull to be reckoned with).

Were you to be missing an A, it would of course be a V/V.

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@ Ludwig.

1) Yes i have that book, but i find it a bit difficult to read, since I'm accustomed to another way of symbols, with the Roman Numerals.

2) Well, yes, i understand this thing with the functions (eg. 3-4 chords in a row maybe have just one function), but I wanted desperately to assign a specific chord to it, since I must come up with conclusions about which chords Williams generally uses etc.. And i thought maybe that was something, if i ever find it again in another theme..

(eg. one of my findings is about a VII chord from mixolydian that he uses in a lot of themes)

3) about the modulation and temporary tonic thing:

I guess I didn't put it exactly right.

I meant it with regions, like it's in Schoenberg's Structural Functions of Harmony that prometheus mentioned..

One example:

pagesfromarnoldschoenbe.png

As you see, we have a passage that starts in the tonic G minor, and then some chords are re-interpreted in the Mediant, and others in subdominant.

maybe i should put it that way too?

that we have those chords that are reinterpreted in the Mediant (instead of saying B minor)

I'm not sure how I should say it, maybe i should consult my teacher..

Since I'm studying only the Williams' Themes, and of course in the short boundaries of a theme there isn't usually any modulation to be found, maybe I should write it like this, instead of writing X minor/major..

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Can I suggest we next look at Williams's island fanfare theme from JURASSIC PARK? It's a very interesting example, and contains a classic use of one of Williams's favourite chords - the Lydian II.

I haven't got there yet.. :P

If you want to talk about Witches of Eastwick, I will be on it tomorrow hopefully..

(a little sidenote: i just got the BLurays today and i browsed through JP a bit! OMG! It seems magnificent! I went to the T-Rex attack scene and i was literally scared by the sounds!! I couldn't have thought that I would be scared by a film that I have seen dozens of times :P . And the island introduction scene! WOW!)

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@ Ludwig.

1) Yes i have that book, but i find it a bit difficult to read, since I'm accustomed to another way of symbols, with the Roman Numerals.

Yes, Roman numerals and jazz symbols don't mix well, but I think it would at least help explain what the root is when you have a lot of added notes in chords, as happens so often in Williams.

2) Well, yes, i understand this thing with the functions (eg. 3-4 chords in a row maybe have just one function), but I wanted desperately to assign a specific chord to it, since I must come up with conclusions about which chords Williams generally uses etc.. And i thought maybe that was something, if i ever find it again in another theme..

(eg. one of my findings is about a VII chord from mixolydian that he uses in a lot of themes)

I see. Well, if you see the mystery chord as I do, couldn't you call it a contrapuntal chord and give it a label based on how the voices move or how it is used? Something like the "passing 6/4" (P6/4) or "cadential 6/4" (C6/4)? Maybe in this case, "passing #iv" (P#iv)?

3) about the modulation and temporary tonic thing:

I guess I didn't put it exactly right.

I meant it with regions, like it's in Schoenberg's Structural Functions of Harmony that prometheus mentioned..

One example:

pagesfromarnoldschoenbe.png

As you see, we have a passage that starts in the tonic G minor, and then some chords are re-interpreted in the Mediant, and others in subdominant.

maybe i should put it that way too?

that we have those chords that are reinterpreted in the Mediant (instead of saying B minor)

I'm not sure how I should say it, maybe i should consult my teacher..

Since I'm studying only the Williams' Themes, and of course in the short boundaries of a theme there isn't usually any modulation to be found, maybe I should write it like this, instead of writing X minor/major..

The mistake was mine, calling this "modulation" (which necessarily involves a cadence) instead of "tonicization" or "regions" or something less strong. I understand exactly what you mean, I just respectfully disagree. I don't hear any mediant region in the theme at all because everything (except the mystery chord) fits neatly into the G major scale (the mediant would have C#s and A#s if you ask me). But then, your analysis reflects that since you keep your Roman numerals in relation to G. It sounds like you want to show a B minor influence in the passage, which would require symbols in relation to that tonic at some point, no? Of course, you could show it like Schoenberg does, with different levels for different keys.

Aside: If I can add one more thing to the interpretation of "I" instead of "III" in bars 3 and 6, I would point to the melody. Notice that in bars 3 and 5, the last note in the melody is a quick eighth note that anticipates the chord on the following downbeat. In bar 2, we get almost the same thing, but the melody drops down a 4th instead of repeating the same G. I hear the eighth note G in bar 2 an anticipation of the chord in the next bar, as these quick notes are in the rest of the passage. So I hear the G being prolonged through bar 3 as well, which to me helps hear tonic here. In bar 6, it is as if the melody "realizes" what was only implied in bar 3 by actually sounding the G after the anticipation. And to me, this G is a chord note, not an appoggiatura - after all, anticipations always resolve to chord notes. You may still disagree but I wanted to give you a full picture of how I hear this theme.

Can I suggest we next look at Williams's island fanfare theme from JURASSIC PARK? It's a very interesting example, and contains a classic use of one of Williams's favourite chords - the Lydian II.

I, for one, would love that. Why don't you start a new thread on it so it doesn't get buried here? :)

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Hello Ludwig again..

I still couldn't hear the I, so i went back to see all the details of the instruments.

As i said before, i notated only the important parts, because I thought all the chords were obvious, except for the one in question.

Well, now i found it.. it was a bit easy to miss..

at bar 3 with the III (or I), it has glisses up and down of harp, in the scale of B minor. I mean, it notates the notes exactly (aeolian mode of B) AND it says above "Bm"! ;)

so, for a second there, i started doubting, but now i stick again to III. :)

plus, since the theme "rests" for a bit, melody wise and length-wise on the III twice, that's why I thought we can say that we have for a brief span of time, the region of mediant.

anyway, doesn't matter much..

the one that matters to me most is the other chord, but I guess I'll leave it for now..

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ok, a 3rd example!

this is from the final cadential progression of the Witches of Eastwick theme

0.24-0.31''

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFOc0aJr1Ts

86534657.png

the theme is in D Dorian

how would you interprete those last chords of the theme?

i can think of this for the time being:

D Dorian F Dorian D minor

I - II - I -II -V- IV(= VI) - V

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Hello Ludwig again..

I still couldn't hear the I, so i went back to see all the details of the instruments.

As i said before, i notated only the important parts, because I thought all the chords were obvious, except for the one in question.

Well, now i found it.. it was a bit easy to miss..

at bar 3 with the III (or I), it has glisses up and down of harp, in the scale of B minor. I mean, it notates the notes exactly (aeolian mode of B) AND it says above "Bm"! ;)

so, for a second there, i started doubting, but now i stick again to III. :)

plus, since the theme "rests" for a bit, melody wise and length-wise on the III twice, that's why I thought we can say that we have for a brief span of time, the region of mediant.

anyway, doesn't matter much..

the one that matters to me most is the other chord, but I guess I'll leave it for now..

I had a look at the score, and there's no scale of B minor in the piano (harp is scratched out and piano is left in) where you mention. And I don't see any "Bm" marking either. Is that in a piano version you have? If so, that would be someone else's interpretation of the harmony. And in jazz lead sheets, chord symbols change from one arranger to the next.

At the same spot (bar 55), there is an arpeggio in the piano and clarinet F#-B-D-G, G-F#, which is repeated in the next bar with the addition of more winds and the celeste. You say the G is an appoggiatura, but it seems to me that Williams goes out of his way to emphasize the G - he has it on a strong beat and even has it accented. And the second time this bar comes around, in bar 59, we actually reach the G in the melody and in all the arpeggios in the accompaniment. Notice how the melody reaches this G as a goal note - from E in bar 57, to F# in bar 58, and finally to G in bar 60. For these reasons, it sounds very much like a part of the chord to me and not merely a dissonant note that is not to be heard as a goal.

But I suppose the biggest piece of evidence is the progression itself. We have IV-VII then the chord in question. Well, IV is subdominant, and VII is dominant, so we are certainly expecting to hear tonic in the next bar, and indeed he gives it to us. Sure, the root is not a sustained note in the chord, but as I said before, a rootless chord is not uncommon in jazz. As I've pointed out in a PM, Mark Levine shows how this same rootless chord can be tonic in his book The Jazz Piano Book (p. 43, Fig. 7-5).

I think it matters because it would be another way that Williams tends to use a lot of tonic in his B sections. Think of the Raiders March or the Superman March, which have long tonic pedals. This chord would fall into the same category in my opinion.

the theme is in D Dorian

how would you interprete those last chords of the theme?

i can think of this for the time being:

D Dorian F Dorian D minor

I - II - I -II -V- IV(= VI) - V

As for your 3rd example, this looks good to me. You just left out the last I chord, where the phrase ends.

I would add that the entire progression seems to be motivated not so much by harmonic function but by parallelism. The first two chords move in parallel, as do the 3rd and 4th, and the 6th and 7th. The 5th chord (C minor) is almost in parallel except that the following chords are major instead of minor. But it's still a first-inversion chord in parallel.

It's really only at the beginning and end of the phrase where we hear any sort of harmonic functions in D. It starts on tonic, then ends with dominant-tonic. Probably the F minor chord is tonic in F Dorian as you say, but the other chords in between seem to me to be sequential and not functional. In other words, their purpose is just to move towards a goal rather than make us expect any particular chord.

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I think it matters because it would be another way that Williams tends to use a lot of tonic in his B sections. Think of the Raiders March or the Superman March, which have long tonic pedals. This chord would fall into the same category in my opinion.

the passage in Heartbeeps is a B section of a theme in ternary form as we said.

the themes you've mentioned I believe are second themes, not B sections of a theme..

eg. about the indiana jones, williams himself said he had 2 themes and didn't know which to use, and spielberg said to him to use both. so he used both.. ;)

although to tell you the truth, I don't see it how the 2nd one could stand on its own!

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the passage in Heartbeeps is a B section of a theme in ternary form as we said.

the themes you've mentioned I believe are second themes, not B sections of a theme..

eg. about the indiana jones, williams himself said he had 2 themes and didn't know which to use, and spielberg said to him to use both. so he used both.. ;)

although to tell you the truth, I don't see it how the 2nd one could stand on its own!

Yes, I've heard Spielberg say this in one of the documentaries. But the two themes are in the same key within the piece. If a theme is going to be considered separate from another in a musical form like a march, it is always in a different key.

Why wouldn't this be a B section?

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the passage in Heartbeeps is a B section of a theme in ternary form as we said.

the themes you've mentioned I believe are second themes, not B sections of a theme..

eg. about the indiana jones, williams himself said he had 2 themes and didn't know which to use, and spielberg said to him to use both. so he used both.. ;)

although to tell you the truth, I don't see it how the 2nd one could stand on its own!

Yes, I've heard Spielberg say this in one of the documentaries. But the two themes are in the same key within the piece. If a theme is going to be considered separate from another in a musical form like a march, it is always in a different key.

Why wouldn't this be a B section?

it's a B section in a concert version/arrangement of the main theme, but not a B section of the main theme itself. I don't know how to explain it...

eg. like - I don't know - in beethoven's 5th, first movement.

we've got the first theme (in minor with the famous motif), and then the second theme (in major).

The second theme is not a B section of the first theme, but it's a B section of the exposition during the movement..

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it's a B section in a concert version/arrangement of the main theme, but not a B section of the main theme itself. I don't know how to explain it...

eg. like - I don't know - in beethoven's 5th, first movement.

we've got the first theme (in minor with the famous motif), and then the second theme (in major).

The second theme is not a B section of the first theme, but it's a B section of the exposition during the movement..

How is the B section defined in the concert version? Double-bar lines?

The Beethoven example proves my point exactly. The first and second themes there are in different keys - the first in C minor, the second in E-flat major. In the Williams examples, the "second themes" are in the same key as the first, so I consider them part of the same overall theme.

B sections also usually use the same motives as the A section. So in Raiders, we get the same dotted rhythm as a pickup to all the downbeats, just like in the A section. And the same thing happens in the Superman March, where there the iambic (long-short) rhythm that opens the A section returns to start the B section and is heard throughout that section as well.

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Here's another one: again a relation of tonic and mediant

i guess everyone will interprete all this passage in tonic with altered chords, right? (no re-interpretation in mediant of some chords?)

(the passage is from 0.57''- 1.13'' - it's 1st half of the theme)

So we have (no matter about inversions):

re-fa#-la I

fa#-la-do# III

do#-mi-sol# VII (with 5#)

mi-sol#-si II (with 3#)

si-re-fa# VI

fa#-la-do# III

mi-sol-si (or do#-mi-sol-si) II (or VII7)

re-fa#-la I

the culprit here for the altered chords is the sol#, but we can't say that the theme is in Lydian (re-mi-fa#-sol#-la-si-do#). It doesn't sound Lydian..

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i guess everyone will interprete all this passage in tonic with altered chords, right? (no re-interpretation in mediant of some chords?)

the culprit here for the altered chords is the sol#, but we can't say that the theme is in Lydian (re-mi-fa#-sol#-la-si-do#). It doesn't sound Lydian..

Great example. Part of the confusing thing about this passage is that we like to think of a theme as being in a certain key or certain mode. Here, the G fluctuates from G# to G natural, so we can't say it's any single mode.

But since it comes back to D as a tonic chord after only 4 bars, it seems to me that D governs the whole passage. The chords with G# are a bit like secondary dominant chords - they are borrowed from another mode but they don't undermine the feeling that the original tonic is still in place.

So I would say that the passage borrows from the Lydian mode on D then goes to the D major scale. It's a mix of both but D remains the tonic throughout, so you could say the theme is in D Lydian/Major. I know it doesn't sound like the Lydian mode because we don't have the more familiar I-II# progression as in other cases, but if you're going to say D is the tonic throughout, you kind of have to say that the mode is Lydian, IMO.

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the funny thing is that eg. this theme like others, seem so natural when you hear it, and when you start to analyze it you see how chromatic it is with borrowed and altered chords..

another thing that confuses me on this is when we say "borrowed" and when we say "altered"?

yes, they are the same chords but these things somewhat differ I think.

i guess we say borrowed when we have many chords that occur naturally in a mode, and say altered more for individual chords that just appear briefly? but again then we can say that "this chord is borrowed from that mode"..

A marvellous score by Williams nonetheless. I watched the film again today.. He did a remarkable job.. I cried my eyes out! :mrgreen:

You don't hear this level of craftmanship very often nowadays..

edit: oh, i just wanted to add that here in this theme ( 0.57''-1.36'') we see a feature of Williams that has been brought up again:

diatonic melody harmonized chromatically

the entire melody of the theme (except a 16th sol# which is a passing note), is entirely diatonic in D major.

Yet, Williams harmonizes it with all these chromatic chords and makes it what it is..

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I'd have to agree with Ludwig and say this passage (and melody) is in D Lydian, with the occasional passing note taken from D Ionian (D Major).

One things I'd like to draw attention to is how Williams loves minor chords with the third in the bass (1st inversion), usually in open voicing. It creates a great sense of weariness, yearning and poignancy.

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i guess we say borrowed when we have many chords that occur naturally in a mode, and say altered more for individual chords that just appear briefly? but again then we can say that "this chord is borrowed from that mode"..

That's how I would think of it, though borrowed chords can also be thought of as altered, so they're not mutually exclusive.

One things I'd like to draw attention to is how Williams loves minor chords with the third in the bass (1st inversion), usually in open voicing. It creates a great sense of weariness, yearning and poignancy.

I feel this way about all 1st inversion major and minor chords if they're spaced widely with only 4ths/5ths in the upper parts - love it.

Any other examples you had in mind?

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I'd have to agree with Ludwig and say this passage (and melody) is in D Lydian, with the occasional passing note taken from D Ionian (D Major).

One things I'd like to draw attention to is how Williams loves minor chords with the third in the bass (1st inversion), usually in open voicing. It creates a great sense of weariness, yearning and poignancy.

I would have to disagree that the melody sounds lydian. It doesn't to me. (as i've said it has only one quick sol# as a passing note. all the other notes of the melody are notes from D major)

I have connected lydian with something like this (the opening rhapsodic horn theme):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzANQfFrtXw

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I'd have to agree with Ludwig and say this passage (and melody) is in D Lydian, with the occasional passing note taken from D Ionian (D Major).

One things I'd like to draw attention to is how Williams loves minor chords with the third in the bass (1st inversion), usually in open voicing. It creates a great sense of weariness, yearning and poignancy.

I would have to disagree that the melody sounds lydian. It doesn't to me. (as i've said it has only one quick sol# as a passing note. all the other notes of the melody are notes from D major.

That's simply because the only difference between D Major and D Lydian is the augmented fourth. I know what you mean about the example from ALWAYS, but I'd just say the melody's more obviously Lydian (i.e. exploiting the #4 while the tonic is sustained). The difference between that and BOT4J is that the later is accompanied by more harmonic movement - which kind of masks the modality.

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I'm not sure how helpful it is to analyse the passage in question in light of a lydian modality. The passage is not truly lydian, nor is it truly a case of modal writing. Rather, like so often with Williams, it is a matter of shifting freely (and often!) between various "modalities" -in

fact, so freely and frequently, it is probably more accurate to describe it as "free chromaticism" (in a tonal context).

Actually, this is true of all the examples in this

thread so far.

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ANother question chord!

last chord in last bar of 1st page : dob-mib-solb

withejfk.pngwithejfk0001.png

The whole theme is in F major, with common chords except some mixolydian VII here and there (bar 2, 6, 11 in page 1)

now, last bar:

chords borrowed from F minor (or F aeolian [=natural minor] to count the Mib)

I VII VI ?

(I just put the 2nd page too, to see the end of the theme which turns immediately to F major after the chord in question)

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about the last bar on page 1 of JFK... looking at it... except for the G flat... it looks like it could be in either Gbmajor or E flat minor......... considering the C flat on the last chord. Could be wrong.

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it goes to VI after it.

well, i just said that it's in F minor, so as to stick to the F for the whole piece (shifting between major and minor).

now that i think of it maybe we could say that it's a V borrowed from Phrygian F (do -mib-solb), with a flat in its tonic (dob) so as to avoid the dimished chord and have a major one? (dob-mib-solb)

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it goes to VI after it.

well, i just said that it's in F minor, so as to stick to the F for the whole piece (shifting between major and minor).

now that i think of it maybe we could say that it's a V borrowed from Phrygian F (do -mib-solb), with a flat in its tonic (dob) so as to avoid the dimished chord and have a major one? (dob-mib-solb)

sounds right. = )

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so, if we take it in pairs we have at that bar:

F aeolian: I VII F Phrygian: VI bV and afterwards F Major: VI etc..

actually, i had read a Ph.D. on Vaughan Williams' style, and in the harmony it has this intermixing of modes even in one bar.

I mean he interpreted a couple of chords in one mode, and the others in another mode (in the same bar), so maybe that makes sense..

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