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What's JW's "danger motif" (recurring idea)?


Jurassic Shark

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You have a good ear for those Ludlows! I never made that connection with TROS.

 

41 minutes ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

And then there's the reoccurring three-note "drama" thing; not really sure how else to describe it.

 

 

Now you point that out, I feel like I've heard it everywhere.

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I wish people used WORDS instead of endless Youtube videos, because I can't really glean what you're talking about most of the time.

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1 hour ago, Thor said:

I wish people used WORDS instead of endless Youtube videos, because I can't really glean what you're talking about most of the time.

 

It's much easier to just show people what you mean than attempting to loosely describe something with words.

 

32 minutes ago, MikeH said:

I think JW’s danger motif is his sequence of minor chord + same minor chord and add a flat 6 on top.  

 

B231F82E-A8AA-4026-8F3E-FC6F44584841.jpeg

 

 

 

Yep that definitely relates to the one I pointed out. It's just that sometimes he has that third additional chord duplicate + descending note and sometimes not.

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John Williams really loves using ♭6-♮7 in his minor chords. (For those who don't know what it sounds like, it's the penultimate chord in the attached file.) It's basically become a signature of his. On the other hand, ♭6-♭7 is more "Rachmaninoff", for example...

jw_danger_motif.mp3

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6 hours ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

reoccurring three-note "drama" thing

I think there's one of these in Tintin too...can't remember which track it is or if I'm imagining stuff. Will have to look it up tomorrow.

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I also think that Ludlow's motif is Williams'

recurring phrase.

17 hours ago, mrbellamy said:

The other one that comes to mind is that ostinato he uses in Seven Years in Tibet, Memoirs, and Force Awakens. Sort of like the Ludlow Motif how it hangs around on low notes then bounces up irregularly like an EKG.

 

 

 

 

I seem to remember it popped up again in Rise of Skywalker.

 

Don't we have a John Williams Self-Plagiarism thread? I feel like there were a bunch of these examples in there.

Yup it appears in revenge of the sith too. (padme goes to mustafar and/or anakin crawling from the lava)

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On 8/31/2021 at 7:36 PM, Falstaft said:

 

Need to update that vid at some point with examples from The Post and TROS. 
 

 

and 

 

 

 

We usually place the first instances of the "Ludlow Motif" towards the final San Diego scenes in The Lost World, but there are a few proto versions earlier on in TLW too, like:
 

 

God I love this score.

And what about the second year of Quidditch?

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