If Williams' orchestrators only do copyist work...

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

...then why does he not hire copyists instead?

Stefancos- :?

[Marian Schedenig 8,211]

From what I read, they "expand" his sketchy orchestrations. I have no real idea what that means, but my guess is that Williams e.g. may write a passage and label it "woods", and then the orchestrators arrange the phrase for flutes and clarinets....from what I've seen, these two instruments are often used interchangably, flutes for the higher and clarinets for the lower notes. So he wouldn't have to care for details that don't really make a lot of difference.

Marian - just guessing.

[Guest]

Here's my take on it:

Williams may write a part of a cue for trumpets, and unless it's a solo, he may not specify how many trumpets should be used. That's where his orchestrators come in. They take the score and figure out how many trumpets to use to make the passage effective.

[Trumpeteer 302]

Above post is me!

[Harry Potter 0]

But if they do that amount of work, isn't that enough for them to get credited on the albums?

~Harry

[Hlao-roo 389]

X-Files composer Mark Snow said in an interview, "I remember walking into a room at Fox and seeing the sketch for a movie called Dracula with the score by John Williams. Herb Spencer did the orchestrations. These sketches by Williams were as good as the finished score. It was complete! Williams gave Spencer almost all of the information he needed to complete the full score."

Assuredly, Williams is in full command of how he wants his score to sound and what it needs to sound that way, but I would reject the notion that his orchestrators always have zero creative input. To what extent the orchestrators have to "think" a little for Williams probably varies from project to project, depending upon time constraints.

What Williams does not do is write out all the various instrumental parts on a full 20-30 stave score. He probably writes out sketches on 12 staves, explicitly denoting instrumentation as he goes. His orchestrators then flesh that out to a full score (perhaps, as Jeff suggested, sometimes indicating the number of each instrument needed and maybe even making a suggestion or two to Williams), after which the music copyists jump in to make separate instrument-specific scores for each orchestra member.

[jsawruk 0]

12 staves is even a little much. Most film composers use four staves, which seems to get the job done. Writing on 12 staves even takes a lot of time. Four staves takes 1/3rd of the time of 12.

[jsawruk 0]

12 staves is even a little much. Most film composers use four staves, which seems to get the job done. Writing on 12 staves even takes a lot of time. Four staves takes 1/3rd of the time of 12.

[jsawruk 0]

12 staves is even a little much. Most film composers use four staves, which seems to get the job done. Writing on 12 staves even takes a lot of time. Four staves takes 1/3rd of the time of 12.

[Hlao-roo 389]

All right, all right! You made your point -- I heard you the first time.

[jsawruk 0]

Very strange it posted twice. Oh well.

[Bart 0]

1,2,3

[Lurker 5]

Very strange it posted twice. Oh well.

Actually it posted 3 times.

Neil

[Marian Schedenig 8,211]

But if they do that amount of work, isn't that enough for them to get credited on the albums?

I think Williams' point is that it would sound exactly the same if he took the time and orchestrated everything all by himself. So the orchestrators get credit in the movie for their work, but no credit on the album for the music.

[Hlao-roo 389]

But if they do that amount of work, isn't that enough for them to get credited on the albums?

I think Williams' point is that it would sound exactly the same if he took the time and orchestrated everything all by himself. So the orchestrators get credit in the movie for their work, but no credit on the album for the music.

One wonders why Goldsmith doesn't feel the need to make such a point.

[Simon R. 10]

Who cares- bottom line: Williams orchestrates (which is a big part of composing) all his stuff, he just doesn't have the time to write it out part by part for the entire orchestra. This is also why Williams always sounds like Williams.

[ocelot 508]

This point again :roll:

[Hlao-roo 389]

Who cares- bottom line: Williams orchestrates (which is a big part of composing) all his stuff, he just doesn't have the time to write it out part by part for the entire orchestra. This is also why Williams always sounds like Williams.

Obviously you're one of the few who doesn't care.

[Frosty 0]

This point again  :roll:

Thank you!!!

[Morn 8]

...then why does he not hire copyists instead?

Stefancos-  :?

Because orchestrators are tradition in film music. And probably reading a sketch is something that an orchestrator is better suited for.

From what I read, they "expand" his sketchy orchestrations. I have no real idea what that means, but my guess is that Williams e.g. may write a passage and label it "woods", and then the orchestrators arrange the phrase for flutes and clarinets....from what I've seen, these two instruments are often used interchangably, flutes for the higher and clarinets for the lower notes. So he wouldn't have to care for details that don't really make a lot of difference.

That's slightly wrong you see, what you have is a 6 or 7 Staff score sheet with staffs labeled as strings, wood, brass etc. Williams saves time by just writing the notes on the staff and using like the word flutes with an arrow pointing to the line of notes that is to be played by the flutes. You see what these sketches really are is an orchestral score sheet is a sort of musical short hand. Other composers just write Wood, not Williams, or Goldsmith for that matter.

Williams may write a part of a cue for trumpets, and unless it's a solo, he may not specify how many trumpets should be used. That's where his orchestrators come in. They take the score and figure out how many trumpets to use to make the passage effective.

Quite likely that often happens, but a lot of the time he probably specifies how many instruments he wants.

They also have to vary the passages between the trumpet players so as not to tire certain ones out too much.

But if they do that amount of work, isn't that enough for them to get credited on the albums?

Yes, but that doesn't mean they should be credited for all the orchestration either. Williams does choose which instruments he wants you know.

One wonders why Goldsmith doesn't feel the need to make such a point.

Because he's a different person maybe? :roll: It's likely to be simply a difference in what they view as the important way of judging something, Goldsmith seems more interested in capturing the essence of the film and innovating than orchestration.

[Marian Schedenig 8,211]

Other composers just write Wood, not Williams, or Goldsmith for that matter.

Of course. I was just refering to instances when they're used pretty interchangably, i.e. clarinets as low flutes or flutes as high clarinets - I've seen this in Bruckner scores at least, he simply had a changeover point when the pitch was out of reach for one group.

When it's about a more specific sound, of course the "good" composers write for the specific instruments. For example, those cool bassoons in JP must certainly have been written by Williams himself.

Marian - who likes those bassoons.

[Morn 8]

Of course. I was just refering to instances when they're used pretty interchangably, i.e. clarinets as low flutes or flutes as high clarinets - I've seen this in Bruckner scores at least, he simply had a changeover point when the pitch was out of reach for one group.

Hmm, the orchestrator is told what the changeover point is that means he still doesn't have any artistic input.

[Marian Schedenig 8,211]

Which was exactly my point: Work, but no artistic input. Pure speculation though.

I remembered something else:

Omen CD release]On The Omen, Arthur [Morton] was absolutely invaluable. I hadn't written that much for chorus in the previous 25 years and I admit I was somewhat rusty. He made a tremendous contribution in that area alone. At least 65% of the choral writing was arranged by Arthur, and he opened it up in a way that sounded much better than the way I wrote it. It's situations like that where a talented orchestrator is of great assistance.

The Final Conflict (Jerry Goldsmith)

[Trumpeteer 302]

Here's a somewhat simple way of thinking of Williams and his orchestrators:

We all probably knew someone in school who asked "nerds" to read over their homework and correct the spelling, clean up the grammar, etc. While I'm not saying that Williams is a football jock or something, I'm saying that because of time and efficiency, he asks someone to clean up his sketches, make them look pretty for the orchestra and make sure what he wrote makes sense.

I hope I made sense!

[Guest]

If you're interested, Conrad Pope will answer this very question in next month's Film Score Monthly.

-Doug Adams

[Hlao-roo 389]

Mr Pope also discusses the issue somewhat in an April 18, 2001 interview with Christopher Coleman, the webmaster of Tracksounds! -- The Film Music Experience

CC:  I just had a quick look at the notes for the original Sony Classical release for Episode 1, but didn?t find your name there, unfortunately.

CP:  John?s point is that, he is the author of that music ? fully and completely.  When you take one of his albums, he is saying, ?Look I am the architect of all the colors and you (the orchestrator) have just executed them.?  And this makes perfect sense.  I?m the same way.

CC:  But you are credited in many of the film credits.

CP:  Yes.  You see, in the picture business the orchestration credit is a specific facet of the ?picture? business NOT the ?music? business.   So John makes sure, once you have achieved a certain status with him, that you?ll get that credit in the picture, but not on the album.

[Hlao-roo 389]

And I'm still wondering why John Neufeld was credited on the Nixon album... Clerical error? Or did Neufeld actually have creative input in the final product?

[Luke Skywalker 1,796]

Well it seems Williams does enough work to do not credit his Orchestrators but does not enough to credit himself for it....

Luke ,who thinks (and hopes*) Williams composes almost every note of his scores (i believe his concert works are by himself totally, right?)

*Williams works have so much good things in low sound and backgroud that i cannot think he did not compose them

[Trumpeteer 302]

That's a good point, Luke. Ennio Morricone (and Howard Shore on his LOTR work) expressly note in the film credits that they orchestrated their music:

Music composed, conducted and orchestrated by .....

It shows up in every Morricone-scored film, and a couple of times in other composers' works. But if JW is indeed doing this on every film, he should give himself the proper credit.

[Guest]

Hmm...as far as I know, John Williams has conducted almost every score by himself(that´s the standard line on his OST:"Composed and conducted by John Williams").

So...if this isn´t mentioned in the movie credits, the conducting I mean(could someone look into some JW movie credits, I´m too tired/lazy right now ), this would indicated that it´s taken for granded and doesn´t need extra credit.

This could be the same thinking for orchestration,while he still has an orchestrator, his sketches are almost complete, so he basically orchestrated himself.

On the other hand, I doubt that John Williams has or wishes to have any influence on what the movie credits say.

Maybe it´s just Steven Spielbergs fault(how about blaming him for all bad in the world instead of George for a change ?)...

[Guest]

I have seen Williams sketches in a film scoring textbook, and they were on 4 staves, in addition to that, every instrument was specified. Essentially Williams leaves nothing to the imagination of the orchestrator, except perhaps some dynamic and articulation markings.

But, Williams is the exception to the rule. I read somewhere an interview with Danny Elfman's orchestrator, Steve Bartek, and he noted the fact that he made all the decisions as to the instrumentation for the Batman score. Elfman was just writing on 2 or 3 staves, and evidently at that point, he did not know how to write in the Bass clef.

Also, if you listen to, for example Horners' Cocoon and Poledouris' Free Willy, you can tell they were orchestrated by the same person, Greig McRitchie. He had a bunch of stock tricks that he pulled out the bag every single time, and I would imagine that Horner and Poledouris are just really writing a melody, bass line, and some chord harmonies, which McRitchie then assigned to Horns, the bass line to Cellos,D.B's,Bassoons,Tuba, etc, very formulaic and uninspired. The complete antithesis of how Williams works.

[jsawruk 0]

Which textbook were these sketches in?

[Guest]

The book is titled "On the Track: A guide to contemporary Film Scoring" by Fred Karlin and Rayburn Wright. It also features a fairly lengthy Foreword by John Williams himself, which I'm sure many readers here would find fascinating, but I just can't be assed to type the whole thing in, at this stage.

[Guest]

Who cares- bottom line: Williams orchestrates (which is a big part of composing) all his stuff, he just doesn't have the time to write it out part by part for the entire orchestra. This is also why Williams always sounds like Williams.

Obviously you're one of the few who doesn't care.

'Who cares' was more meant as a 'Let the people who don't believe Williams does all his stuff rest - it's their loss, not ours'. This is a topic that's been brought up 100 times and if the people who claim to be fans of Williams, don't even think Williams composes (orchestrates...) his own stuff, who cares... they're lost.

[Morn 8]

It shows up in every Morricone-scored film, and a couple of times in other composers' works. But if JW is indeed doing this on every film, he should give himself the proper credit.

Umm, he orchestrates the music but he is not the orchestrator. Note in hollywood orchestrator is something different.

I have seen Williams sketches in a film scoring textbook, and they were on 4 staves, in addition to that, every instrument was specified. Essentially Williams leaves nothing to the imagination of the orchestrator, except perhaps some dynamic and articulation markings.  

But, Williams is the exception to the rule.

Other film composers do the same as Williams like North, Rozsa and others. Horner and Goldsmith do too though in less detail. It's just that most.... B grade composers don't pick their own instrumentation. Williams is not an exception to the rule, it merely comes with being an A grade composer and such are rare.

Also, if you listen to, for example Horners' Cocoon and Poledouris' Free Willy, you can tell they were orchestrated by the same person, Greig McRitchie. He had a bunch of stock tricks that he pulled out the bag every single time, and I would imagine that Horner and Poledouris are just really writing a melody, bass line, and some chord harmonies, which McRitchie then assigned to Horns, the bass line to Cellos,D.B's,Bassoons,Tuba, etc, very formulaic and uninspired. The complete antithesis of how Williams works.

No, Horner does list which instruments he wants to use, just not in as much detail as Williams, Horner has full classical training you know.

[SkyMaker 0]

...then why does he not hire copyists instead?

Stefancos-  :?

The answer is very simple.

Just ask this question to yourself and you'll have the answer.

If a Pharmacist is just there to take your prescription, look at what pills is wanted, count, put them in the bottle and label them, then why don't they just hire minimum wage workers? It's a no brainer job to count pills and put them in little pill bottles.