Horizontal Not Vertical ?

[tedfud 38]

Im wondering if i'm making a mistake in trying to analyse John williams's music Vertically. Would it be better to look at it Horizontally ? Its almost as if each idea is in a separate key, mode, scale…whatever. And it's the piling up together that gives the flavour i'm hearing. Very difficult to analyse.....

T

[Datameister 2,042]

I would say it's important to look at both. Williams certainly has no qualms about shifting between tonalities, often in a pretty short span of time.

[Wojo 2,453]

I prefer to analyze his music horizontally because laying down is so relaxing.

[Omen II 1,235]

Apologies if I am going off on a tangent, but how should one analyse Diagon Alley? Horizontally, vertically or somewhere in between?

[BloodBoal 7,538]

Apologies if I am going off on a tangent, but how should one analyse Diagon Alley? Horizontally, vertically or somewhere in between?

Hehehe... Good one!

[Thor 7,495]

Upside-down.

[Marcus 390]

It depends on what you wish to examine in your analysis. If you're looking for insights into his melodic structures, horizontal is the way to go. If you wish to explore his sonorities and his harmonic tendencies, go for vertical.

If you're looking for specific scales and modalities, you will find that they shift so easily and seamlessly as to truly generate an entire continuum from total chromatic saturation to diatonicism (and everything in between). His chordal constructions tend to be mixed; triadic chords are often expanded with quartal harmonies and seconds.

You will find certain sonorities that keep returning, though! A few right off the bat: min6-min3, maj6-maj3, P4-min3-min3, P4-P4-min3, P4-P4-min3-min3, min2-maj2-maj2-min2, maj3-P4-min3. These can be analysed in a variety of ways, depending on how you choose to look at them (as pitch sets, modal fragments, chords etc.), but the bottom line is, Williams will potentially employ these 'sonic pets' of his regardless of modal context and/or tonality.

[tedfud 38]

it seems like both. I'll be looking at a score and see that the brass is obviously playing major chords. Yet underneath it there is a string ostinato in Hungarian Minor whilst in the high winds there are phrygian runs !!!!. What i don't get is why it doesn't all sound like a mess . I'm hopelessly looking for some kind of choice pattern...but i can not spot it. Maybe he just picks the notes he likes the sound of .

T

[Marcus 390]

If harmony is a continuum from chromatic saturation to white note diatonicism, all notes may "refer" back to the tonic.

So we may have pumping G major chords with an added 9th in the horns, while celli and

basses play a line emphasizing C#s, Ebs and Bbs, while woodwinds keep playing flourishes that accentuate Abs, Fs and Cs.

The reason it doesn't sound chaotic or random, is that it wasn't chaotically or randomly conceived. Rather, all these various harmonic shades flow together and form an essentially seamless integration of all pitches.

I think it might be helpful not to immediately think in terms of isolated modalities, but embrace a wider view.

An exercise would be to play a major chord, and listen to how it retains its harmonic dominance also when we play its tritone, b6 or b3 as a bass note (Gb, Ab and Eb in a C-context), and how for instance a melodic line consisting of #1,2,3,#4,5,6,b7 (C#,D,E,F#,G,A,Bb in a C-context) still gravitate towards it.

[tedfud 38]

hmm...so are you saying that the presence of some material , obviously in key, acts as a kind of anchor and chromaticism is just flavouring ?

T

i'm also conscious of how he does try to separate ( either by pitch or instrument class ) the consonance from the dissonance . So the can be heard clearly ?

but the pattern still alludes me. In the rite of spring for instance Stravinsky quite often will harmonise an obvious consonant melody with chromatic notes . It's almost sounds like he is controlling the level of the spikiness on a single fader. That he can raise or lower against the harmony. But williams music seems to be much more chaotic ......well to these novice ears.

t

[Marcus 390]

Steady triads do indeed offer a point of anchorage!

What lends such remarkable clarity to Williams' writing (harmonically and timbrally), is the lucidity of his textures. In this regard, Shostakovich

might be a more servicable reference than Stravinsky.

Also, I'd argue that whereas chromatic dissonance might have been almost a "goal" for Stravinsky, Williams -albeit decidedly more modern in technique- really strives for

eloquence. As such, his rhetoric is really more that of a classicist's. Williams rarely aims to obscure, even when his music is at its most saturated.

[tedfud 38]

dunno much shostakovich. I have the eight and the score. I love it.

t

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

it seems like both. I'll be looking at a score and see that the brass is obviously playing major chords. Yet underneath it there is a string ostinato in Hungarian Minor whilst in the high winds there are phrygian runs !!!!. What i don't get is why it doesn't all sound like a mess . I'm hopelessly looking for some kind of choice pattern...but i can not spot it. Maybe he just picks the notes he likes the sound of .

T

Sounds like you want to familiarize yourself with the nitty gritty of consonance and dissonance. Try using this as a jumping off point.

[tedfud 38]

ha cool link....dissonance ...the dark side...easier, more seductive............ but not more powerful....

t

[Ludwig 1,120]

Hi ted - as always, a great question.

Williams' music includes such an array of different styles that it's hard to say how to analyze his music in general. I really think it has to be on a case-by-case basis, or possibly by classifying certain cues and passages as being in a certain group with other of his cues.

Without this kind of division of his music, what we say about one type of cue might not work at all for another. Our fellow member filmmusic, for example, pointed out in his thread on harmonic progressions in Williams that one of the themes in Born on the Fourth of July has an essentially diatonic melody in D major, but it becomes harmonized with some G#s, pulling the harmony in another direction. So here is a good example of the horizontal running contrary to the vertical. But that's just this theme. There are others, of course, but we'd really have to parse them and classify them together.

Is there a particular cue you're looking at?

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Im wondering if i'm making a mistake in trying to analyse John williams's music Vertically. Would it be better to look at it Horizontally ? Its almost as if each idea is in a separate key, mode, scale…whatever. And it's the piling up together that gives the flavour i'm hearing. Very difficult to analyse.....

T

all I could think of when I read this was Jeff Goldblum telling Joey on Friends how to improve his acting

Leonard Hayes/Goldblum: You're in your head. You-you're thinking way too much.

Joey: I really doubt that.

Leonard Hayes: No, no, no. It's that you're not connected with anything in your body. There's no urgency. The scene is a struggle, it's a race. Also, what you did was horizontal. Don't be afraid to explore the vertical. And don't learn the words. Let the words learn you.

Joey: Couldn't I just sleep with the producer?

[Naïve Old Fart 9,520]

Horizontal? Vertical? Can someone please explain the difference, before my brain starts to bleed?

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

Wait are you serious?

Music is generally written left to right (true for staff and piano roll/sequencers). So horizontal is effectively the "time axis"

But many things can happen in a given time. And that's usually written vertically.

[Ludwig 1,120]

What tedfud means is that there are always two different ways to analyze music. The horizontal aspect means focusing melody, that is, on how the music breaks down into different melodic lines put together. So of course there's usually a main melody in the top voice that we hear most prominently, there's the bass line, and even the inner parts form melodic lines as well.

The vertical aspect means focusing on harmony, that is, on how the music breaks down into chords.

The tricky thing is that all music involves both to some degree - by combining melodic lines together, you're going to get chords. And by combining a series of chords together, you're going to get melodic lines.

What ted is asking is whether one of these aspects is MORE important in JW's music, so whether you hear the music as being more based on its melodic lines or its chord progressions. As I said above, I don't think we can generalize with all his music, but maybe with certain types of cues.

Any ideas on which types of cues tend to be more melodically driven, and which ones more harmonically driven?

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Well, the more harmonically driven cues are generally those liturgical, religisio passages with deep, open voiced string chords. Good examples being the hymnal theme from JP or the final duel between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader in ROTJ.

[Ludwig 1,120]

Well, the more harmonically driven cues are generally those liturgical, religisio passages with deep, open voiced string chords. Good examples being the hymnal theme from JP or the final duel between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader in ROTJ.

Nicely done to point to hymnal passages since we usually think of hymns as mainly strings of chords. But there always is the voice leading and therefore a melodic structure as well. The question is whether they are as important as the harmony in these passages.

Take the Ark Theme from Raiders, for example. It's a great little theme based on various minor chords strung together. So you could say, well, it's based mainly on the harmony, since those chords give it the sound of mystery and danger it has.

But then, the melody in its first three notes goes SO-FA#-DO, giving that nice tritone between the last two notes, adding to the sense of danger. I guess what I'm saying is that even in the most chordal passages we can think of, the melody contributes just as much as the harmony. This, I think, is one of the things that makes JW's music so masterful - the ability to create a rich musical expression through the manipulation of many parameters at once.