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Calling BS on the John Williams "Everything All At Once" Myth


BLUMENKOHL

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I would like to say initially though that noodling need not happen on a piano or any instrument. I noodle in my head, or by humming, because I don't have confidence in my improvisational abilities at the piano and find that my hands fall into undesirable patterns there. In this sense, yes, there is a goal to "hear it all in my head" before anything gets written down. But it's not as if it's appearing there out of nowhere. That's just where I build.

Music is built, and that's all there is to it. Those moments of "discovery" where it feels like you're taking dictation rather than creating it yourself do happen, but that is not the foundation of composition. If you try to make it that, you'll write all of maybe 20 minutes of music in your lifetime. But probably not even that, because those moments don't happen in a vacuum. Pieces aren't born that way. Only after you're well into it through sheer work might that sort of inspiration pay you a visit. Inspiration knows all of us and it doesn't reward slackers.

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I agree with your post, Blume. However, in my quote above I'm referring not to the process but to the outcome: Partly because of the way cinematic action sequences have evolved in the latter stages of Williams's career, the narrative identity, direction, and flow of the musical accompaniment are, to my ears, often lacking. I have nothing against creativity as a quality developed and earned through painstaking trial and error.

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One of the many issues in life where the practical implications for all of us are exactly the same regardless of which position is true.

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So it's not worth talking about?

What I find most offensive about this, and all similar attempts to deify John Williams, is how it cheapens what he *actually* is - a warm, sweet man, practiced in his craft, and devoted to producing something that is genuine and will resonate with others, as well as the plain old hard work that that requires. There is no mystical, divine intervention involved. His greatness is the fruit of his own effort and labor. Nothing else.

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Good points, all ones I agree with. To say Williams doesn't experiment or "noodle" is a naive notion. I think TGP puts it best:

Music is built, and that's all there is to it. Those moments of "discovery" where it feels like you're taking dictation rather than creating it yourself do happen, but that is not the foundation of composition. If you try to make it that, you'll write all of maybe 20 minutes of music in your lifetime. But probably not even that, because those moments don't happen in a vacuum. Pieces aren't born that way. Only after you're well into it through sheer work might that sort of inspiration pay you a visit. Inspiration knows all of us and it doesn't reward slackers.

Bingo. Williams has mentioned a couple of times how long it takes him to write any of one of those classic themes. He probably works off certain intervals/rhythms/units and then keeps chiselling away until he gets that perfect tune. Nothing just "comes to him".

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There is no mystical, divine intervention involved. His greatness is the fruit of his own effort and labor. Nothing else.

That sounds like a whole other discussion, although I'll grant your point for the purposes of this thread (and this board). ;)

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Allow me to phrase a bit less definitively then.

There is no relevant mystical, divine intervention involved. His greatness, as far as we can understand it and pursue it ourselves, is the fruit of his own effort and labor. Nothing else.

For all I know John might have music beamed to his head from an amorphous gibbering mass of primordial energy located not that far from Sirius. But if we want to approach everything with mouths agape, wondering at wonder, never questioning why anything is the way it is because there must be some part of it beyond our comprehension, then we can close down all message boards, for starters.

Some people want to keep Williams, and the act of composing in general, as some shrouded, mysterious thing. Speaking in hushed tones about it all. Some people think that the musically literate are robbed of something by thinking too hard about the music, or by losing their sense of wonder. But that's not the case. It's just a different sense of wonder, one less akin to what a child feels about Santa Claus and more like seeing a child born and knowing the immense strand of astronomical, biological, and social chances that led to it.

This is not a situation where you shouldn't want to know how the sausage is made. There's nothing ugly or demeaning or ordinary about it. There's just nothing hyper-romantic about it either.

And finally... I would be absolutely pleased to know that music always exists, hanging suspended in space and time waiting to be perceived, and the act of chiseling out a melody is just like putting on glasses and seeing something that's already there with greater clarity. Lest anyone think I'm sterile and devoid of any capacity for awe.

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If there is anything that quickly becomes clear when reading or listening or watching John Williams interviews is that he never attributes his music to anything but hard work, a process that is sometimes easier sometimes more difficult but always a process of discovery while writing, experimenting and "noodling". He doesn't make it entirely blase though and has retained his sense of fascination, inspiration and enthusiasm in the music itself but it seems from his numerous quotes that it has always been to him an excercise, a routine and discipline and by his own words he approaches it almost monastically in seclusion and hours on end every day, especially earlier in his career when he was churning out scores at a faster pace but it can be said he probably continues it to this day. It certainly is a trial-and-error process and time and time again Williams professes that the most difficult and time consuming thing is the finding of these deceptively simple themes and he certainly doesn't do it by sitting down and waiting for the muse or divine inspiration to strike. And again without trying to trumpet JWs famous humility, he often states that he is still learning and it is in part what must drive him as there is constantly things he can find out, try to do better and learn.

And this is what I expect it to be for most creative people, part hard work, part inspiration, trying to improve yourself and your work and do things better than the last time. And it involves a lot of experimenting, reworking, starting again from scratch but it is the sustained effort is what most often leads to that final destination, not just sudden full envisioning of something in your head fully made although that can happen as well at times.

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Though i might ask if all these laborious summations lined up here rest on only the weak case of Kehrl randomly citing 6 out of 6,0000 million posts. There are relatively few users here so naively clinging to the 'Williams is deity' notion.

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Though i might ask if all these laborious summations lined up here rest on only the weak case of Kehrl randomly citing 6 out of 6,0000 million posts. There are relatively few users here so naively clinging to the 'Williams is deity' notion.

Hey it got the discussion rolling! ;)

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Though i might ask if all these laborious summations lined up here rest on only the weak case of Kehrl randomly citing 6 out of 6,0000 million posts. There are relatively few users here so naively clinging to the 'Williams is deity' notion.

If something so silly comes up over and over in 8 years from different people, it must be crushed!

In all seriousness, it is at least worth discussing. If the people with this notion are really as rare as you say, then it's worth having a thread where it's obvious to see that, because it balances out any potential disproportionate loudness in opinion.

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Great post Blume.

Music is built, and that's all there is to it. Those moments of "discovery" where it feels like you're taking dictation rather than creating it yourself do happen, but that is not the foundation of composition. If you try to make it that, you'll write all of maybe 20 minutes of music in your lifetime. But probably not even that, because those moments don't happen in a vacuum. Pieces aren't born that way. Only after you're well into it through sheer work might that sort of inspiration pay you a visit. Inspiration knows all of us and it doesn't reward slackers.

I can't do music, but I can relate to this.

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"Noodling" (as you call it) is the true joy of any art form. Approaching any artistic act as though it were an assembly-line process would sap it of nearly all its ecstasy and render it a dull, mechanical procedure. Composition is no exception, and if you think Williams has wrought a lifetime of music the same way an amatuer cranks out paint-by-number pictures, then you can't have much experience with the creative process yourself.

Of course, the creative "muscle memory" he's cultivated over that same lifetime no doubt makes the process a little easier, and keeps him from getting blocked very often (which would leave him in a situation that some of us have been in—where we're not so much "noodling" as we are cranking out pounds of raw pasta in an attempt to find something useful). I'm sure it's easier for him to find the music he refers to as sounding "inevitable" these days than it was in his youth. But I can promise you he still draws satisfaction from discovering what was previously undiscovered by means of pure experimentation.

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Wanted to say that today I experienced one of the great moments of payoff that noodling and chipping away leads to. A good tune!

Awesome and congratulations! Now chisel away at it using your craftsmanship. Looking forward to hearing it.

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If only I could get over the crippling depression caused by the realization that it didn't occur to me in one moment of divine inspiration, like it does for John Williams. Why, I imagine even his farts make up a good melody! But I've only been doing this competently for a measly fifteen years. Maybe when I'm 83 I'll finally be able to compose on the toilet and put all this "work" bullshit behind me.

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