NEW book by Frank Lehman - The Skywalker Symphonies: Musical Storytelling in Star Wars

[Jay 37,374]

The happy news I cryptically alluded to last week is now something I can make official: I just signed a book contract with OUP for 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘬𝘺𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘦𝘳 𝘚𝘺𝘮𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘦𝘴: 𝘔𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘳 𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘴!

 

It's a book it feels like I've been writing in my head for a long, long time -- since middle school, kinda? And unless Williams somehow returns to write another entry in the series, I'm treating it a chance to provide a properly 𝘴𝘺𝘯𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘤 investigation into these scores, all nine of them.

 

Even Rise of Skywalker?? 𝘌𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 Rise of Skywalker!

 

My hope is this book does some justice to the complexity, challenge, and sheer magic of this music.

 

Now, back to the grindstone!

 

https://www.facebook.com/Falstaft/posts/pfbid0L6wUjeDDxj6AmhwHh1f9obrVMJfYbPx4GJM8YaEWiZtqxwp37A88monPFVDxBQ26l

 

Congratulations, @Falstaft!

[Jurassic Shark 12,091]

Congrats! Is it true that you interviewed John Williams for the book?

[Jay 37,374]

How did I get italics in the thread title?

[Marian Schedenig 8,211]

13 minutes ago, Jay said:

How did I get italics in the thread title?

 

I think you copied Falstaft's Facebook post and then copied the title to the thread title. Facebook, Twitter & Co don't do italics, but there are websites that fake them by replacing latin characters with fancy unicode characters that look (more or less) like their italic equivalents. I bet if you run the thread title to a unicode code point extractor, you'll get all kinds of fancy characters.

[Jay 37,374]

yup, you nailed it

 

TIL!

[Marian Schedenig 8,211]

I wondered why the italics in the original post looked so odd, but I didn't think far enough to figure it out before I read your question.

[Holko 9,532]

Will there be an updated second edition in 20 years when the expansions finally arrive and reveal new things?

[Jay 37,374]

I would assume Frank will be given all the recordings and sheet music, no?

[Holko 9,532]

Ah nice, so we can read about it, just not hear it.

[Chewy 2,396]

2 minutes ago, Jay said:

I would assume Frank will be given all the recordings and sheet music, no?

Will Frank have to pay the reuse fees to the AFM? 

[Tom 4,672]

Congratulations! I love that it is OUP--top level academic press.  A book that I will not only buy, but buy in hardcover.  

 

PS.  Imagine your mixed feelings when your edit and approve the final proofs, and then it is announced Williams is doing Episode X.   

[Edmilson 7,473]

13 minutes ago, Holko said:

Will there be an updated second edition in 50 years when the expansions finally arrive and reveal new things?

Fixed 

[Jurassic Shark 12,091]

11 minutes ago, Holko said:

Ah nice, so we can read about it, just not hear it.

 

Use your imagination. 

[Tom 4,672]

33 minutes ago, Holko said:

Ah nice, so we can read about it, just not hear it.

Sometimes the better option.

 

 

 

[crocodile 8,020]

Fantastic. A long overdue project. Congratulations Frank! 

 

Karol

[Marian Schedenig 8,211]

3 hours ago, Jay said:

I would assume Frank will be given all the recordings and sheet music, no?

 

This would be the ideal time to release score expansions…

[Bounty95 558]

12 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

This would be the ideal time to release score expansions…

 

The book, theatrical re-releases of the films... Your move, Disney! 

[enderdrag64 624]

3 hours ago, Jay said:

I would assume Frank will be given all the recordings and sheet music, no?

Is it in collaboration with Lucasfilm?

[Jay 37,374]

I would assume so, but I suppose I have no idea >shrug<

[BB-8 3,483]

I read all this as being a premature April fools.

[Tom 4,672]

59 minutes ago, BB-8 said:

I read all this as being a premature April fools.

Who is more foolish? The April fool or the fool who precedes him?  

[JohnnyD 1,223]

Awesome! Any new interviews with the Maestro to be featured in this upcoming book? Now we just need all nine scores given the definitive release treatment and we are all set!

[Groovygoth666 672]

Wow congratulations @Falstaft , this will be an instant buy and looking forward to reading it!

[artguy360 1,844]

Awesome! This is another dream come true in the growing field of exploring JW's musical genius.

[BB-8 3,483]

4 hours ago, JohnnyD said:

Now we just need all nine scores given the definitive release treatment and we are all set!

All set for April fools day.

[QuartalHarmony 543]

Fantastic! Is there any suggestion of a release date, even an approximate one?

[BB-8 3,483]

17 hours ago, Jay said:

How did I get italics in the thread title?

The italics show up as bold lines on my "wooden" device.

[JWScores 28]

Congratulations, @Falstaft ! Looking forward to it.

[Falstaft 2,132]

Wow, thanks everyone!  Obviously, the most important question to address is how I got those italics. Simple! https://lingojam.com/FacebookFonts 

As for the timeframe: I have over a year to hand in the finished manuscript, but my goal is to have it completed well before that. It's a big book, and publishing is a very slow process. But everything so far is proceeding as I have forseen...

 

It's not a guide to the scores really, but something more holistic, with each chapter looking at cues from all three trilogies from some angle: musical referentiality, thematic transformation, concert arrangements, and so on. There will be a ton of music examples (all my own annotated transcriptions as usu.), hopefully presented in an accessible way that draws in people who can't read sheet music. I know notation and music-theory jargon can be intimidating, and I'm hyper-aware of the potential gatekeeping effect it could on an already niche readership. But at the same time, I think we can all agree this music warrants deep and serious analysis! It's a balancing act for sure... 

 

Alas, I don't have special access to recordings, and can't speak to official expanded album releases, as amazing as they would be! 

 

Incidentally: I don't see it trumpeted nearly enough on these boards but Chloé Huvet came out with a book on SW music (mainly the OT and PT) a couple years ago that is absolutely brilliant and similarly synthetic in approach. The book is in French, which limits the audience, but it's worth getting your hands on if only for the fantastic music examples and charts.  The amount of insight in her prose is incredible too, and it's been a major source of inspriation to me. 

[Thor 7,521]

Congrats on the book, Falstaft! Did you consult the EMPIRE STRIKES BACK chapter in Kathryn Kalinak's book SETTLING THE SCORE at all? Or Evensen's(?) seminal online rundown comparison of Wagner and STAR WARS? Those are some STAR WARS music sources I remember from the olden days.

 

In any case, while the musicological musings in your book will probably fly over my head, it would be cool to own.

[Andy 4,141]

Congratulations @Falstaft! I’ll buy it!

[Miguel Andrade 1,263]

@Falstaft Congratulations. Can't wait going through your book.

 

I do know about Chloe Huvet's book, but as my French is really poor (a petty, as I really love the sound of it, both the book and the language), I've passed on it.

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,091]

It's annoying that so many of the books on JW's music are not in English, probably because most of them are based on theses.

[eitam 364]

Can't wait to read this ! 

 

17 hours ago, Falstaft said:

Incidentally: I don't see it trumpeted nearly enough on these boards but Chloé Huvet came out with a book on SW music (mainly the OT and PT) a couple years ago that is absolutely brilliant and similarly synthetic in approach. 

 

Ordered ! Strange that this escaped my notice. 

[Jurassic Shark 12,091]

On 30/03/2024 at 3:45 PM, Falstaft said:

Incidentally: I don't see it trumpeted nearly enough on these boards.

 

That's because French is indecipherable. 

[Jay 37,374]

@Falstaft, how am I meant to interpret the thinking emoji that you put on the main post?

[Falstaft 2,132]

2 hours ago, Jay said:

@Falstaft, how am I meant to interpret the thinking emoji that you put on the main post?

 

Haha, nothing really. Thinking I should really be spending less time online and more time finishing this book, I guess!  

[mrbellamy 6,293]

I see it as "Who, me?"

[Smeltington 1,441]

On 29/03/2024 at 12:20 PM, Jay said:

Even Rise of Skywalker?? 𝘌𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 Rise of Skywalker!

 

Love it! This score deserves some attention! Although it'll be harder to unravel its mysteries than most, given what's available to us.

 

Wow the italics are even showing up in the thread url. Never seen that before.

 

 

[Marian Schedenig 8,211]

They're not italics! (These are…) 

[Smeltington 1,441]

What happens if you take the "italic" unicode characters and make them italic?

[geom_00 36]

@Falstaft  Either way, I will be buying your book.

 

I am curious though: due to a VERY long commute (I live in Los Angeles County) I burn through a couple of dozen audiobooks a year.

 

Will this be released on Audiobook, and if it is, will be cues on it?

 

Thanks, and looking very forward to reading/listening to your book!

[Marian Schedenig 8,211]

1 hour ago, Smeltington said:

What happens if you take the "italic" unicode characters and make them italic?

 

Nothing, at least on my system:

Quote

 

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘬𝘺𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘦𝘳 𝘚𝘺𝘮𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘦𝘴: 𝘔𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘳 𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘴!

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘬𝘺𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘦𝘳 𝘚𝘺𝘮𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘦𝘴: 𝘔𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘳 𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘴!

 

 

The first line is the original, the second line is in italics (see, you can tell by the exclamation point).

[Holko 9,532]

10 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

Nothing, at least on my system:

 

The first line is the original, the second line is in italics (see, you can tell by the exclamation point).

Not nothing on my end!

 

Italic²!

[Smeltington 1,441]

haha I'm getting the italics in italics too! I've never seen this level of emphasis before...

[toothless 964]

@Jay Just so you know, fake italics that use special characters do not play well with screen readers and therefore render the website hard to read for people with disabilities.

 

Other than that, can't wait to read that book!! 

[Jay 37,374]

OK, fixed the thread title.

[Falstaft 2,132]

5 hours ago, Smeltington said:

 

Love it! This score deserves some attention! Although it'll be harder to unravel its mysteries than most, given what's available to us.

 

It's definitely a challenge, given how frustratingly incomplete and jumbled the score's presentation is. I'm not approaching any of the 9 as if they need any special defending. But in the case of TROS, I do feel I can offer a small corrective to what I see as a kind of mistreatment of Williams's swan song, both by the filmmakers and (more vexingly to me) the general public.

 

 

4 hours ago, geom_00 said:

Will this be released on Audiobook, and if it is, will be cues on it?

 

I doubt there will be an audiobook -- it'd be unprecedented if there were for this particular book series (the Oxford Music/Media line). Though who knows... with AI emulation these days, maybe someone could enter all the text in and have it read back to you in the voice of Ian McDiarmid!

 

There certainly will be an online companion though that has lots of short clips and such on it.

 

 

On 30/03/2024 at 10:49 AM, Thor said:

Did you consult the EMPIRE STRIKES BACK chapter in Kathryn Kalinak's book SETTLING THE SCORE at all? Or Evensen's(?) seminal online rundown comparison of Wagner and STAR WARS? Those are some STAR WARS music sources I remember from the olden days.

 

I'm sure I'll cite Kalinak's chapter somewhere, though it's not especially central to what I'm doing. I don't know Evensen's SW/Wagner work, though, trust me, that angle is something I've got plenty to say about. Particularly since I think a lot of the existing scholarly treatment of the Williams/Wagner connection is at best superficial. But the man is a black hole: get too close and he completely dominates whatever subject you thought you were writing about before. So I'm trying to take care to keep the focus on JW rather than him.

[Thor 7,521]

2 minutes ago, Falstaft said:

 So I'm trying to take care to keep the focus on JW rather than him.

 

Probably a good idea. Should you nonetheless be curious, it appears it's now only available via the Wayback Machine.

[Smeltington 1,441]

4 hours ago, Falstaft said:

It's definitely a challenge, given how frustratingly incomplete and jumbled the score's presentation is. I'm not approaching any of the 9 as if they need any special defending. But in the case of TROS, I do feel I can offer a small corrective to what I see as a kind of mistreatment of Williams's swan song, both by the filmmakers and (more vexingly to me) the general public.

 

It just felt like it got chucked out there, with interest in the films kind of instantly dying upon the release of TROS, and Williams not even including the music in his concerts. It felt like even more of a crime given how good the score turned out to be. I'll enjoy seeing it reconsidered and given the attention it deserves in your book. And that goes for the whole ST and the PT too, since the OT has had way more written about it than the other 6. Probably because the OT will always be "classic" and the others will never be taken nearly as seriously. But since we're here to talk about the scores and not the films, obviously they ARE classics and deserve the royal treatment!

 

You'll have some work to do trying to figure out the musical storytelling in the ST though. It's hard to be sure what Williams intended given the ever-changing cuts of the JJ films, or whether he was able to maintain a consistent vision at all.