# Reverse engineering harmony, counterpoint, orchestration music courses?



## DANIELE (May 5, 2018)

Hi all, I need your help (again)!!

I'm looking for reverse engineering courses on some famous soundtracks (especially Star Wars) where a teacher could give me detailed explanations of the harmony, the counterpoint, the figures.....and in the end the orchestration of some of the most known themes, moments etc...

I'm trying to do everything by myself but I find it too dispersive and I can't reach my objectives if I don't find some type of course that shows me "what is used to achieve something".
I'm obviously still studying pure theory, I need this type of courses to glue theory and practice together.

Lastly I find out that I like so much some pieces of the Maze Runner Trilogy soundtrack but I didn't manage to find any orchestra sheets book to buy them.

I still know many courses sites (thanks to your help) but I don't find out anything similar to what I'm looking for. known tracks deep analysis whit references to harmony etc...

I know that this is a necessary process in the music school (because I did it in another type of school or university).

Thanks for anyone that could help me.


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## Paul T McGraw (May 5, 2018)

Hi @DANIELE if you are talking about the original Star Wars, you are lucky because the actual score is available from Hal Leonard publishing. You can do a harmonic analysis and even do your own midi-performance. @alexballmusic has a number of very good tutorial type videos. He has not done anything with Star Wars to my knowledge, but perhaps you could persuade him to do so. Here is a very interesting video he did regarding Back To The Future.



I am not aware of anything as comprehensive as your description of what you would hope to find, all in one place. I am afraid you will have to piece together information.

Regarding harmony, Williams uses chromatic harmonies that frequently make use of modal mixture. He is far less likely to use secondary dominants but will do so very occasionally. His harmonic modulations are usually at phrase boundaries as opposed to mid-phrase.

Rick Beato has a bunch of tutorial type videos on all kinds of musical subjects. In this video he talks about how Williams writes melodies.



Williams orchestration technique has evolved over the years, but primarily he follows the rule of 2. Never have more than two things going on at the same time. He loves to use the brass to carry melodies. An exception to the rule of 2 is that he will frequently add a little high tinkling or sparkling sounds. Even in a track as old as Raiders March you will find little flourishes for flutes and piccolo that are there simply to add a sparkle to the sound.


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## sinkd (May 5, 2018)

Hmmm. We should host a STAR WARS analysis and orchestration symposium right her on VI-Control. 

Name a cue that you want to know more about and I will have a go at a "reverse engineering" of it. There is a magisterial amount of accumulated expertise in composition, theory, orchestration and film scoring know-how on this forum—I'm sure lots of folks will chime in.


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## DANIELE (May 5, 2018)

Paul T McGraw said:


> Hi @DANIELE if you are talking about the original Star Wars, you are lucky because the actual score is available from Hal Leonard publishing. You can do a harmonic analysis and even do your own midi-performance. @alexballmusic has a number of very good tutorial type videos. He has not done anything with Star Wars to my knowledge, but perhaps you could persuade him to do so. Here is a very interesting video he did regarding Back To The Future.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Thank you Paul, I'm going to bed now but tomorrow I'll look at those videos for sure and then I'll comment here if they fill my needs. I'm speaking of Star Wars, all of it, maybe tomorrow I'll be more precise on what I need to understand better...



sinkd said:


> Hmmm. We should host a STAR WARS analysis and orchestration symposium right her on VI-Control.
> 
> Name a cue that you want to know more about and I will have a go at a "reverse engineering" of it. There is a magisterial amount of accumulated expertise in composition, theory, orchestration and film scoring know-how on this forum—I'm sure lots of folks will chime in.




...and I'll post here more points about it.

I know that this forum has a lot of know-how, this is one of the reasons why I love it. 

Now it's a slightly long time since I studied the use of dissonances but I feel stuck with triads although I know the sevenths and have done exercises with them. I'd like to be more flexible in the use of theory and JW is a master in this.

The small details I hear drive me crazy (flutes, clarinets that swirl around or reinforce the rhythm for example).

Tomorrow I'll give you more detailed indications.

Thank you so much.


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## JohnG (May 5, 2018)

you can buy a star wars suite and study it. I would do that. Cheaper and more direct / specific than a course.


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## DANIELE (May 6, 2018)

@Paul T McGraw ok, I watched the videos. I already know Rick Beato videos and I already watched it some time ago.

I didn't know AlexBall videos instead. I'll look at them in details. Anyway, on YouTube you find many useful videos but I need a very professional coruse (or courses) to delve deep in the rules of every single measure.

Thank you for your indications too. I already heard of the rule of two but JW music is so full that it seems he uses some type of rule of "many". I think the trick is about the good use of textures.

The other difficulty is how to correctly use chromatic harmonies to achieve the sound you want. I need to take the theory and practice, practice and practice.

@sinkd 
I'm particularly interested in:

1) Revenge Of The Sith intro piece (without the well known intro fanfare obviously), I think it should be very useful to learn how to use textures and rhythm to build variation to not sound repetitive on an action scene piece;
2) Battle of the heroes, useful to understand the use of big choirs and alternation of different meters;
3) The Asteroid Fields;
4) Scherzo for X-Wings;
5) Torn Apart.

I think a could go forever, I stop here for now.


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## DANIELE (May 6, 2018)

JohnG said:


> you can buy a star wars suite and study it. I would do that. Cheaper and more direct / specific than a course.



I'll buy SW suites for sure but even if it's definitely cheap, I do not think it's more direct to me. Infact I need a direction and someone that brings me to focus on the important things that livings in those sheets.


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## JohnG (May 6, 2018)

DANIELE said:


> I need a direction and someone that brings me to focus on the important things that livings in those sheets.



I understand.

In that case, if you live in Montreal, ring up the faculty in music and ask if anyone would be willing to give paid lessons. Even if it's a graduate student.

There also are a lot of discussions of Star Wars online. Here's one example: http://www.filmmusicnotes.com/john-williams-themes-part-2-star-wars-main-title/


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## MatFluor (May 6, 2018)

DANIELE said:


> I need a very professional coruse (or courses) to delve deep in the rules of every single measure.



Well, the first question is - how well do you know classical and Jazz theory/Harmony? If you're reasonably proficient you can read a lot from the scores themselves. Try grabbing the score and make a Piano reduction (or reduction per se) of it - then you see clearly what it going on.

Se e.g. FilmScoreAnalysis 's Videos



I complete support JohnG -> either enroll in a music study (or music composition) or look for somebody capable to give you lessons.

Score-study, Transcriptions and a personal teacher are the best possibilities I think. I mean - the most benefit is obviously from score study and transcription - training your ear to hear the textures and devices used, and being able to reproduce them. A private teacher can help you when you're stuck, but it shouldn't be a silver platter, else you won't learn much from it 



DANIELE said:


> Infact I need a direction and someone that brings me to focus on the important things that livings in those sheets.



The teacher would ask you what you think is important - what do you hear, what harmony pops up, what do you see in these sheets of paper that spring to your musical eye?


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## DANIELE (May 6, 2018)

JohnG said:


> I understand.
> 
> In that case, if you live in Montreal, ring up the faculty in music and ask if anyone would be willing to give paid lessons. Even if it's a graduate student.
> 
> There also are a lot of discussions of Star Wars online. Here's one example: http://www.filmmusicnotes.com/john-williams-themes-part-2-star-wars-main-title/



Unfortunately I live a little bit far from Montreal, I live in Florence in Italy.

Thank you for the link, I'm going to look at it.



MatFluor said:


> Well, the first question is - how well do you know classical and Jazz theory/Harmony? If you're reasonably proficient you can read a lot from the scores themselves. Try grabbing the score and make a Piano reduction (or reduction per se) of it - then you see clearly what it going on.
> 
> Se e.g. FilmScoreAnalysis 's Videos
> 
> ...




I know the teory pretty good but I need to practice to sculpt it in my mind and this is where I fall off (see down below).

I actually have a private teacher, he's a good teacher but he's a piano teacher and he teach me all the theory he knows and he knows many things.

When I'm going to talk about orchestra, orchestration etc...he get stuck because it is not his studies.

When we will end the program of this year I'll bring to him some piano reduction of my favorite pieces to study harmony, but I will loose any orchestration tip.

Last but not least this is not my main work (as I said in other threads) so I have a very very little amount of time to spent in it. 

Moreover I work between 8 (rarely) to 10 hours per day so I'm very very tired when I came back to home. This is why I can't subscribe big courses or study so intensely without an external help. 

I don't want to be repetitive but this is a very big issue for me right now, I'm happy to have a work but it's eating pretty all of my time and my brain.
I'm looking for shortcuts only because of it, my will and my passion are very strong and they are the only reasons that carry me forward.


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## MatFluor (May 6, 2018)

The idea behind reductions (I don't mean piano reductions per se), is to "implode" the whole score to a few staves like 2 or 4. John Williams uses a lot of Jazz Harmony at times, and a lot of things are visible in reductions.

It highly depends what you are after - shortcuts for what? It seems like Orchestration - then you profit the most of making reductions (And have a look at Ravel's "Mother Goose" suite, if I'm not mistaken by Alexander Publishing, where you have the actual piano score in the bottom, and the Orchestra on top. Ravel Orchestrated from a piano piece - which he did fairly often). Come to think of it - Ravel is a great resource, since he orchestrated a lot of Piano pieces - then you see exactly what he translated where.

Use your piano teacher as good as you can - and with your limited time available, use as much as you can. Don't overwork yourself, and it sounds dumb but, "there are no shortcuts". It highly depends what you are after. Explanations as e.g. in Riemannian theory (or Jazz theory for that matter) are one thing, explanations on intention another. Stuff like "He modulated over a dominant 7 into an Eb minor chord" is doable on your own - you see that in a score reduction (see FilmScoreAnalysis), but the "why did he do that thing there" is much more complex, and can in some places answered by watching the scene, looking at the orchestration to understand it - or is simply "his decision".

As said, know what you want and get a private teacher - easy over Skype, one or two hours weekly, and go for specific things. Take e.g. the "Map Room" from Indiana Jones, transcribe it, analyze it, and then show your teacher if it's right and what his opinion is. Make observations and "double check" them with him. That way it's a very fruitful learning experience. If you want a "cheat sheet" - there are some things a lot of Film Composers do, which you can quickly find online (open vs closed chords, instrument ranges, color combinations). But (on the map room example) why Mr Williams chose the Flutes and these chords - can be answered in multiple ways, all right.

For Orchestration itself, have a look at Mike Vertas Masterclasses - he has a very Williams style and you can learn a lot from them (and for the amount of information in them, they are dirt cheap). To cherry pick something from his Masterclasses - orchestrate the way you play it. You play a Melody somewhere around C5? What instrument can play in that range strongly? How did you play the melody? soft, sweeping (which e.g. would go well with Violins), loud and accented (e.g. Trumpets) or with a soft accompaniment and dreamy (nice for e.g. flutes). Know the ranges of the Instruments, compose and convey what you want - a strong accented thing with hard accompaniment would lend itself less to flutes for instance. So - with this small nugget here, listen to Williams' stuff and look at score reductions, and you see the choices he made.

I hope it helps you somewhat


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## sinkd (May 6, 2018)

DANIELE said:


> @sinkd[/USER]
> I'm particularly interested in:
> 
> 1) Revenge Of The Sith intro piece (without the well known intro fanfare obviously), I think it should be very useful to learn how to use textures and rhythm to build variation to not sound repetitive on an action scene piece;
> ...



OK. I will have a go at the Revenge of the Sith intro. Very interesting cue and it will be fun to do a "take down" and analysis.


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## DANIELE (May 6, 2018)

MatFluor said:


> The idea behind reductions (I don't mean piano reductions per se), is to "implode" the whole score to a few staves like 2 or 4. John Williams uses a lot of Jazz Harmony at times, and a lot of things are visible in reductions.
> 
> It highly depends what you are after - shortcuts for what? It seems like Orchestration - then you profit the most of making reductions (And have a look at Ravel's "Mother Goose" suite, if I'm not mistaken by Alexander Publishing, where you have the actual piano score in the bottom, and the Orchestra on top. Ravel Orchestrated from a piano piece - which he did fairly often). Come to think of it - Ravel is a great resource, since he orchestrated a lot of Piano pieces - then you see exactly what he translated where.
> 
> ...



Sure, very very helpful advices, thanks a lot. I'll try to follow everyone of them. Talking of shortcuts I didn't mean to shorten the learning process by avoiding important phases but more go straight to the point without loosing time.
There are things I know that takes me a long time to learn, things that now I can tell to other people like me with the same doubts and questions.



sinkd said:


> OK. I will have a go at the Revenge of the Sith intro. Very interesting cue and it will be fun to do a "take down" and analysis.



Thank you so much. :D


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## ed buller (May 8, 2018)

Hi

i'd reach out to Leon Willet (http://www.leonwillett.com/leonwillett.com/Welcome.html) he lives in Barcelona and really understands this stuff. I had a bunch of Skype lessons with him and learned loads. Highly recommended 

best

e


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## Parsifal666 (May 8, 2018)

Paul T McGraw said:


> Hi @DANIELE if you are talking about the original Star Wars, you are lucky because the actual score is available from Hal Leonard publishing. You can do a harmonic analysis and even do your own midi-performance. @alexballmusic has a number of very good tutorial type videos. He has not done anything with Star Wars to my knowledge, but perhaps you could persuade him to do so. Here is a very interesting video he did regarding Back To The Future.



Heyyy, they also have concert bands for Goldsmith's Wind and the Lion and Star Trek! Gotta have.


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## tehreal (May 8, 2018)

DANIELE said:


> I'm looking for reverse engineering courses on some famous soundtracks (especially Star Wars)



Does it have to be film scores? You'd have more luck finding analyses on the works of Holst, Ravel, Barber, etc... (the composers whose works many film composers draw from).


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## DANIELE (May 8, 2018)

ed buller said:


> Hi
> 
> i'd reach out to Leon Willet (http://www.leonwillett.com/leonwillett.com/Welcome.html) he lives in Barcelona and really understands this stuff. I had a bunch of Skype lessons with him and learned loads. Highly recommended
> 
> ...



Thank you for the link Ed, saved!!


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## DANIELE (May 8, 2018)

tehreal said:


> Does it have to be film scores? You'd have more luck finding analyses on the works of Holst, Ravel, Barber, etc... (the composers whose works many film composers draw from).



No no, it could be even a classical piece. I talked about Star Wars because I like it, it glues classical with modern and it has many different figures and cues that cover many different moods. So by studying one of them you learn a lot.


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## Leon Willett (May 8, 2018)

ed buller said:


> Hi
> 
> i'd reach out to Leon Willet (http://www.leonwillett.com/leonwillett.com/Welcome.html) he lives in Barcelona and really understands this stuff. I had a bunch of Skype lessons with him and learned loads. Highly recommended
> 
> ...



Hello Ed, long time, hope you are well, and thanks for the plug :D 

If anyone wants info on my lessons, they can find it here: 

http://www.leonwillett.com/leonwillett.com/Skype_Lessons.html 

Cheers!!!


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## Farkle (May 8, 2018)

Leon Willett said:


> Hello Ed, long time, hope you are well, and thanks for the plug :D
> 
> If anyone wants info on my lessons, they can find it here:
> 
> ...



A second "Yes, you should study with Leon" from me. I studied with him a couple of years ago; great energy, the guy really knows his stuff, and communicates it very efficiently and eloquently. Plus, he's a great guy, and a phenom composer! 

Mike


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## ed buller (May 8, 2018)

Leon Willett said:


> Hello Ed, long time, hope you are well, and thanks for the plug :D
> 
> If anyone wants info on my lessons, they can find it here:
> 
> ...




Hi sir

i hope your well

e


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## SillyMidOn (May 9, 2018)

http://www.filmmusicinstitute.com/courses.html 

It's a pretty well known "course" put together by a Mr Smalley who has had his hand in many Hollywood orchestrations. You download a load of scores with audio lessons. There are no assessments/no coursework.


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## nulautre (May 9, 2018)

Alain Mayrand (From scoreclub) did a bunch of Star Wars analyses on his youtube channel... They might be of help to you.


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## DANIELE (May 11, 2018)

Thank you all for your advices, I'm bookmarking all of yours suggestions.


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## Eric G (May 11, 2018)

I would recommend Norman Ludwin. His is a working Orchestrator who has written many books on Composition and Orchestration and has worked with many active composers including John Williams. And he can be hired as a private tutor. https://www.musicnewapproach.com


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## DANIELE (May 11, 2018)

Eric G said:


> I would recommend Norman Ludwin. His is a working Orchestrator who has written many books on Composition and Orchestration and has worked with many active composers including John Williams. And he can be hired as a private tutor. https://www.musicnewapproach.com



Thank you too, saved!!


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