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How Does John Williams Do It?


motelseti35

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I would rank John Williams among my favourite composers of all time, film or otherwise. He has written more unforgettable melodies than any other composer I have heard, and I was recently playing the Harry Potter theme, when I noticed that the first 16 Bars contain every note of the chromatic scale. He writes melodies like no other (in my opinion) and I guess the question is, how does he do it? And can I learn to Mobdro write truly great melodies (if so how), or is it something that cannot be learnt? VidMate

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How does he do it?

A lot of hard work, training, and then more hard work, honing his craft. Look upon him as an author, who "writes" with music, instead of words.

I regard JW as fucking good, at his job, and that's why he is where he is, today.

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Talent + hard work.

 

On 03/11/2020 at 5:12 AM, motelseti35 said:

And can I learn to write truly great melodies (if so how), or is it something that cannot be learnt?

 

The only way to find out is by trying to write melodies. :)

 

Studying other music + reading books on music theory helps, but only to an extent. It's just like anything else really - you can't become an Olympic runner just from watching other runners + reading books on running technique (though they help).

 

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Above all else I'd say it is pure natural talent.

 

Look how far Danny Elfman got without all the other prerequisites. 

 

Williams is just a very gifted melodist on some sort of innate tribal level. Technical explanations can only account for a small percentage of that kind of natural ability. 

 

We could have the same conversation about the likes of Elton John and Andrew Lloyd Webber. 

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It's like those eternal questions posed by fans in Q&As....i.e. "what inspires you"? I always found that a bit annoying, but I guess it's even moreso for the artist in question, as there is no real answer.

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3 hours ago, karelm said:

+ genes

 

His father was a musician, all his brothers, grandfather, etc.

 

But is that genes or social upbringing?

 

Anyway:

 

Quote

How Does John Williams Do It?

 

With great skill.

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Respect for his craft, his significant predecessors, and good taste. 

All 3 of which modern film composers lack.

Just look at Giacchino, Mr. "Joker is an all time great", or Hans Zimmer, Mr. Happy Jolly "orchestras don't need conductors". 

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Talent, opportunity, and insane work ethic - plus staff paper, a mechanical pencil, and a piano.

 

It is possible to learn a great deal from studying his work and his methods, but ultimately, if just anyone could learn to write like Williams, a lot more people would.

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On 11/3/2020 at 8:05 AM, Quintus said:

Look how far Danny Elfman got without all the other prerequisites. 

 

Williams is just a very gifted melodist on some sort of innate tribal level. Technical explanations can only account for a small percentage of that kind of natural ability. 

 

We could have the same conversation about the likes of Elton John and Andrew Lloyd Webber. 

 

Not really.  Elfman isn't a great example because he requires an extensive team of producers and talented orchestrators.  Scott Smalley showed the before and after of what he got on Mission Impossible 1 and what he produced.  They're completely different.  I've proof read the before and after from JW and Conrad Pope.  Your comparison is poor and I'll bet the first person to agree with me is Elfman.  JW cannot honestly be put in the same category.  He even goes into this in his masterclass.  I do grant that Elfman is talented and very good at what he does but you must acknowledge he has a huge debt to his team and it's just silly to equate him to JW.   Elfman is great at knowing how to leverage his team to supplement his weaknesses to deliver his unique and creative vision.  That is fine, but not the same level of talent. 

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58 minutes ago, karelm said:

Elfman isn't a great example because he requires an extensive team of producers and talented orchestrators.  Scott Smalley showed the before and after of what he got on Mission Impossible 1 and what he produced. 

 

Is that something you can see online or was it from one of the seminars Smalley sometimes does?

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6 hours ago, karelm said:

 

Not really.  Elfman isn't a great example because he requires an extensive team of producers and talented orchestrators.  Scott Smalley showed the before and after of what he got on Mission Impossible 1 and what he produced.  They're completely different.  I've proof read the before and after from JW and Conrad Pope.  Your comparison is poor and I'll bet the first person to agree with me is Elfman.  JW cannot honestly be put in the same category.  He even goes into this in his masterclass.  I do grant that Elfman is talented and very good at what he does but you must acknowledge he has a huge debt to his team and it's just silly to equate him to JW.   Elfman is great at knowing how to leverage his team to supplement his weaknesses to deliver his unique and creative vision.  That is fine, but not the same level of talent. 

 

You seem to have completely misinterpreted my post. 

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6 hours ago, karelm said:

 

Not really.  Elfman isn't a great example because he requires an extensive team of producers and talented orchestrators.

 

The 80s called. They want you back!

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12 hours ago, Skelly said:

 

Is that something you can see online or was it from one of the seminars Smalley sometimes does?

 

It was from Smalley's seminar.  He showed a before and after.  They are nothing alike.  One had a line with a "whoosh!" description and the finish version was an expertly crafted score with full orchestra.  They were nothing alike.  Anyway, it's not a big deal because I do think he's gifted, just not a good example for comparison of someone who succeeded without all those prerequisites. 

1 hour ago, Jay said:

The main post of this thread is a copy and paste of this 4 year old reddit post

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/musictheory/comments/36l371/how_does_john_williams_do_it/

What the!?!

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It's either the same person 5 years later deciding to ask the same question on a different place on the internet

 

Or some kind of new bot that copies reddit posts and pastes them in to IPBoard forums that some algorithm tells them it would fit in


I suspect the latter is the case, of course;  Probably in a few days their post or "About Me" section of their profile (or both) will be edited to contain a spam link - that's how the new bots have been doing it

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  • 1 year later...

The main poster was a bot after all, they've now inserted links into the text that was originally there

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39 minutes ago, Jay said:

The main poster was a bot after all, they've now inserted links into the text that was originally there

Wow, that's sophisticated!

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It's been happening on this board pretty frequently lately.  Usually I just delete them out, but they're also usually done as replies to existing thread s- in this case it would delete the entire thread were I to delete the spam account, and there was an actual conversation that developed from the spambot so I guess its worth keeping

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On 03/11/2020 at 7:31 AM, karelm said:

+ genes

 

His father was a musician, all his brothers, grandfather, etc.

 

The music is strong in his family. His father had it, his grandfather had it, he has it, and his... brothers have it.

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On 27/06/2022 at 12:41 PM, Pando said:

 

The music is strong in his family. His father had it, his grandfather had it, he has it, and his... brothers have it.

...his son has it...his grandkids have it but they're all more in pop music.  I believe they consider the surname to be a curse of sorts.  There are many precedents for this.  Richard Wagner's son, Sigfried struggled to find his voice without being compared to his far superior father.  None of Russian/Ukranian composer Prokofiev's children were composers but his grandson is Gabriel Prokofiev (b. 1975) who is also a DJ and sound world has no connection to his grandfather's distinctive sound seeming to have abandoned expectation.  None of Dmitri Shostakovich's children are composers though they're musicians of other disciplines (conducting or pianist) however his grandson (Dmitri Jr) might be...I once heard he was studying composition but nothing original of his has surfaced other than a Chandos album where he performs the piano concerto his father premiered.  It seems like when someone has achieved genius level talent, the talent ends with them.  Einstein had children and none of them were exceptionally bright.  It seems they collapse under expectation until they abandon their legacy and surname (like Nicholas Cage changing his surname from Coppola). 

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