# Star Wars



## noiseboyuk (Aug 12, 2010)

33 years late, I just got the OST for Star Wars (and the two original sequels). Listening to it is a fairly mind-blowing experience!

First, technically it sounds incredibly OLD, but in a wonderful way. Even the sequels sound different. It almost sounds like a score from 10 years earlier.

Second, it's familiar but new. There are huge stretches where I almost know every note and beat, but I've never heard it in isolation before. You can really hear what Williams is doing (obviously), how much he is a master storyteller, and how much of the movie itself really belongs to him - he defines the world.

Third, it's remarkable musically. It's so "populist" with those themes that are embedded into popular consciousness, but sections are very very complex, almost avant garde too. So far beyond what I could ever dream of aspiring to.... the man's a genius.

Fourth, special praise for the 9 minute cue The Battle of Yavin. In the film this is broken up, the final attack on the Death Star. It's just a masterclass in scoring for action - the storytelling again is supreme, almost no reliance on percussion like I'd lazily do. Also I love in the movie itself that there is a very long stretch with no score at all - when it kicks back in its so effective, a genius bit of spotting. But (ahem!) I got so emotional listening to this... I remember it so well as a kid, how it changed my movie-going world...

Fifth - on the CD there is a "hidden" track of 5 successive takes of the main titles, with the cue makers in between... makes the hairs on the back of your neck go up! I've not listened carefully to this yet, to hear how it evolves, but look forward to doing so.

So it's no earth-shattering conclusion... John Williams is a peerless genius.


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## david robinson (Aug 12, 2010)

i'll agree with you.
but just remember - the players............
first water.
j.


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## noiseboyuk (Aug 12, 2010)

david robinson @ Thu Aug 12 said:


> i'll agree with you.
> but just remember - the players............
> first water.
> j.



Yeah, how true. It did occur to me that most of this score would be horrible with even the greatest VIs...


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## stevenson-again (Aug 12, 2010)

now here is something i can agree with you 100%. in fact i would defend you to the death! 

do you mean the CD comes with some of the out-takes. man that would be interesting. where did you get it?


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## noiseboyuk (Aug 12, 2010)

stevenson-again @ Thu Aug 12 said:


> now here is something i can agree with you 100%. in fact i would defend you to the death!
> 
> do you mean the CD comes with some of the out-takes. man that would be interesting. where did you get it?



Ha ha! It's the 3CD (well, 6CD) set on UK Amazon here - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Star-Trilogy-Deluxe-Remastered-Version/dp/B0002W2KR2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1281643216&sr=8-2 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Star-Trilogy-De ... 216&amp;sr=8-2) (which seems to have added £8 in a week!) 

The last track on CD1 is around 2 minutes, but it carries on silently. The outtakes start at 5 minutes, and they are named takes #16 to #20. Just having a listen now... very busy woodwinds in #16... actually I think they're just mixed way back in the final version...

Just (ahem) watched the movie again. Still - and always have - prefer it to Empire!

EDIT - should have said, there is an alternate version of Binary Sunset too, which doesn't have that incredibly famous and wonderful version of the Main Theme.


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## stevenson-again (Aug 13, 2010)

just bought it. thanks for the recommendation. 

i am really good friends with some of the guys from the LSO. one of them is the 2nd trumpet and tells some pretty insteresting stories about recording with williams. i can tell you, these guys rate his mausic as some the best they have ever played in their careers - including the classics, but also one of the best conductors they have ever worked with. he can here an out of tune 2nd oboe's c# in fast busy passages with the rest of the band going crazy. he is truly a phenomenal musician.

do you know he often records his cues without click? just relies on streamers and his amazing sense of timing.


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## noiseboyuk (Aug 13, 2010)

stevenson-again @ Fri Aug 13 said:


> just bought it. thanks for the recommendation.
> 
> i am really good friends with some of the guys from the LSO. one of them is the 2nd trumpet and tells some pretty insteresting stories about recording with williams. i can tell you, these guys rate his mausic as some the best they have ever played in their careers - including the classics, but also one of the best conductors they have ever worked with. he can here an out of tune 2nd oboe's c# in fast busy passages with the rest of the band going crazy. he is truly a phenomenal musician.
> 
> do you know he often records his cues without click? just relies on streamers and his amazing sense of timing.



That 1979 documentary on John Williams and Empire Strikes Back (on youtube) really brought home to me just how incredible he is, so good to hear the musicians think the same thing. I guess this was a skill that everyone needed once upon a time, but the idea that he sat down with a notepad, a Steenbeck and George Lucas to do the spotting, then never saw picture again until the recording session... and then hits every beat and nuance so perfectly is incredible. Do you (or anyone) know how he likes to work now?

It's funny, I hear a modern soundtrack that I love (say by John Powell or Angelo Badalamenti) and although I can appreciate a real orchestra brings more over a VI, to be honest it doesn't seem a MASSIVE gulf (compared to top programming and top libs). However, Star Wars almost sounds unachievable. I can't quite put my finger on it... yes, the overall tone is markedly different of course (and plenty of analogue distortion!), but somehow there's always something going on in the playing that would be incredibly hard to capture. Is it all in the composition and orchestration, using different styles and techniques from today? Is it what the finest musicians in the world themselves brought to it? Is it partly driven by technology - just performing in one take, no overdubs, no boosting with samples and no "perfection"? Is it (as I suspect) a combination of all of these things?


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## stevenson-again (Aug 14, 2010)

that's an interesting question. i believe it to be a combination of many of the factors you mentioned.

- firstly, temp love was probably not as strong in his day. in star wars at least you can hear for certain some temp ideas which JW chased down. eg the desert on tatooine. but other than that he had a much freerer hand at how to go about it. listening to the music against the pictures these days, i know i would not be allowed to get away with that approach even if i could pull it off. it's almost a scatter gun approach in star wars. lots of busy stuff some of which sticks and some of which doesn't but the overall effect is this wonderful lively and colourful bed on top of which the action rests.

re-peat made the point in the 'bored with film music' thread that he didn't feel later JW was nearly as strong. i don't really agree with that but certainly that quirky magic is not as evident. the writing is much more focussed and i strongly suspect it might be the rise of the tyranny of the temp. it's a theory.

- secondly, that kind of writing is nigh on impossible to achieve as a mock-up. or at least very very difficult. and because mock-ups are common place now, you can't just simply throw down the notes and get the musicians to make something of it. i have been fortunate to write for full orchestras for stuff before, and actually you can throw material down very very fast knowing that the players will know how to make it work. there is no trying to force samples that were really meant for a different sort of gesture into the thing you have in mind, no fiddling to try and get them to mix properly etc etc. it's agonising and frustrating. yet if you know its going to be recorded you don't have to try at all - you do all that work with the musos in the studio and all you have to is just say 'do it like this' and hey presto. it just works. that the players the easier this gets. to the extent that they will make suggestions and adjust your parts virtually automatically to make it work right.

honestly, recording good players is such a joy. the LSO are renowned for being able to do this. my trumpet mate actually rearranged completely a brass section for a composer during a break because it was full of mistakes and was virtually unplayable. this was a major blockbuster movie too. sounded great when they recorded it.

- and because of the point above, we all tend to write for the samples, get the mock-up approved and thus the live performance has in-built all the restrictions of writing for samples. which is why they don't sound as alive and as interesting as the scores the JW wrote at his piano.

actually an interesting thing to note as you listen to JWs scores; he is a piano player and writes orchestrally like a piano player. because pianos don't sustain, he tends to rite busy textures that reflect keeping a sound going on a piano. his sustained lines sounds like he sang them - probably what makes them such good melodies anyway, because they fit and work with the human voice.

i had the fortunate experience of working on a show that was really behind schedule. i had no time and had to smash out a cue for the recording session - no time to get it approved. as such i didn't worry about the samples - just banged the notes down as fast as i could. the choir part was only half finnished and had been recorded a day or two earlier, in its unfinished state. talking real seat of the pants stuff. still, just getting some dots in front of the players with a click track and it just sprang to life! some last minute tweaks to the orchestration in the session and it was a superb (by standards anyway) cue. and it sounded uncannily john williams like...

and that's the thing. samples sound like samples and an orchestra sounds like an orchestra....


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## noiseboyuk (Aug 14, 2010)

Wow, fascinating reply. You've got far more direct knowledge and experience than me, but it all sounds highly plausible to my ears.

So... I guess the most interesting wider questions is... have mockups changed music itself? Do composers sit down at Symphobia now with their clients rather than a piano to hammer out those very first ideas? Then does it get mocked up and approved first.... and exactly as you say, that very process will negate the kind of techniques that JW uses (used?)

For a composer like myself not from a classical background, I'm totally reliant on VIs to be able to do what I do. Listening to JW exposes the huge gaps in my musical knowledge and ability, frankly. Fortunately for me, his style isn't in vogue! I just posted a very short piece that's Badalamenti-like in the music composition subforum - it dead simple musically (and I'm a fan of simple!) but sounds not half bad, and with more time, care and better VIs I'm sure it would sound even better. That style is totally achievable... as is John Powell's work (though again I should say of course I'm nowhere near his level either!). But I can aspire to this. And you've really got me thinking Rohan.... how much of that is luck, and how much is that the musical style itself has been shaped by VIs?


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## stevenson-again (Aug 18, 2010)

well this is it isn't it? it's a very good question. if you listen to a lot of LOTR it really sounds like howard shore was sat at his keyboard playing chords and sending it off for orchestration. which of course is exactly what happened. but i also happen to know that he was badly under the pump on a couple of occasions for that gig. what was it something like 2 hours of recorded and signed off music was dumped because they completely recut the movie after they started recording the music?

that's the otherside - with re-editing being much easier these days it tightens the amount of time available to get the score ready. that combined with the hugely in vogue orchestral music as pop, VI's and the general democratisation of music, scores like JWs for star wars are much harder to achieve.

i think the main problem too is that in order to get a cue past the directors and producers, it has to be really successful, meaning you are tied to what the samples can achieve. then if you deviate from that in the recording, the 'magic' you created with the mockup is lost and even if that means you have something even more special, the directors and producers won't be used to it.

then the movie goes out with those limitations and then it becomes the temp for the next project, and slowly but surely the interesting orchestral writing gets watered down.

that said - if you can achieve something special or different, by whatever means, that works and is 'cool', you have something with which to stand out. then suddenly it is your music and cues that are being used as temps for everything.

BTW - listened to the first disc whilst painting the other night. jesus it is incredible stuff. that really is music that survives perfectly without the picture. amazing stuff.


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## noiseboyuk (Aug 19, 2010)

GADZOOKS!!!! There's a synth in Return of the Jedi, track 2 at 5'32!!!! It's a whopper!!!!

I'd be interested in other people's comments... but on cursory listens thus far, the music in Star Wars is considerably more complex and less soundtrack-y than in either Empire or Jedi. Those are both outstanding too of course, but I don't get quite the same feeling of it being in-another-stratosphere-out-of-my-league... merely it's way-out-of-my-league.


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## re-peat (Aug 19, 2010)

stevenson-again @ Sat Aug 14 said:


> (...) re-peat made the point in the 'bored with film music' thread that he didn't feel later JW was nearly as strong. i don't really agree with that but certainly that quirky magic is not as evident(...)


I really find (and have always found) the difference between the pre- and the post-95 Williams quite remarkable, I must say. There is, in my opinion, not a minute of post-95 Williams-music that compares favourably with almost anything he wrote prior to that year.
Just compare the three early "Star Wars" scores with the 3 more recent ones. While the former literally burst with invention, confidence, gusto, breathtaking inspiration and, yes, … genius, the latter are, at best, impressive masterclasses in functional musicwriting, but really nothing more. There’s not a single new theme, not a single new musical idea or phrase in any of those new "Star Wars" episodes which I consider a worthy addition to musical universe of "Star Wars".
Same thing with “Indiana Jones”: the three early ones just explode with musical invention of incomprehensible quality, whereas "The Crystal Skull” is nothing more than a tedious collection of very competently written but painfully uninspired filmmusic.

The supreme talent that gave us “Jane Eyre”, “The Fury”, "Temple Of Doom", “Images”, “Jaws 1 &2”, “Superman”, “The River”, “E.T.”, “Hook”, etc. ... is of an entirely different order than the one who wrote “Harry Potter”, “War Of The Worlds", “Munich”, “The Lost World", "The Terminal”, “A.I.”, “Angela’s Ashes” and “Schindler’s List” ... There really is no comparison, as far as I’m concerned.

This puzzling difference is most noticeable, I believe, in his themes, his phrases, in the pure invention of musical material. Almost every melody or phrase of the pre-95 Williams, even his melodic cells of secondary importance, have, in my view, an absolutely perfect natural balance and beauty, and are also completely devoid of anything contrived or forced. No traces whatsoever of all the work that went into the making of these melodies, they simply sound like pure, golden flashes of inspiration. 
Every single melody of the post-95 Williams on the other hand (and there is — amazingly — really no exception to this), sounds laboured, overwrought and strained, and you can really hear the composer trying his very best to inject something of authentic musical interest in his writing but never really succeeding.
The "Phoenix"-theme from "Potter", the "Anakin"-theme or the "Skull"-theme (to name just three): all perfect examples of someone desperately in search of a great melody but not quite finding it ...

If we only knew Williams through is post-95 work, I really would agree completely with everything his critics accuse him of: plenty of dazzling fireworks, but very little of real, lasting substance. (In fact, I would even consider him a fairly undistinguished composer, and only of interest for mere technical reasons.)

To me, it really almost sounds as if the young Williams did make a pact with the devil (or with god, depending on your perspective) which gave him Mozart-like inspiration and limitless musical creativity, in return for whatever the devil or god had set his eyes on. Unfortunately, that contract - which, in my view, resulted in some of the very best and most inspired music of the twentieth (or any other) century - seems to have ended somewhere around 1995. Very, very strange.

_


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## RiffWraith (Aug 19, 2010)

re-peat @ Fri Aug 20 said:


> To me, it really almost sounds as if the young Williams did make a pact with the devil (or with god, depending on your perspective) which gave him Mozart-like inspiration and limitless musical creativity, in return for whatever the devil or god had set his eyes on. Unfortunately, that contract - which, in my view, resulted in some of the very best and most inspired music of the twentieth (or any other) century - seems to have ended somewhere around 1995. Very, very strange.



I liken what happened to JW as to what happened to Metallica - the hunger disappeared. 

When Metallica was piss poor - before they were signed, were sleeping on the rehearsal room floor, eating last night's left over pizza for breakfast, they were hungry. And you heard it in their music. Even after they acheived a little success with the first few albums - they still had that hunger....it's like they got to a certain point, and they wanted to take it further. And you heard that in their music. Then, they become the biggest musical monstrisity on the entire planet, and what happens? They don't become total crap, but the music - and the attitude that made Metallica Metallica - nose dives, and the music reflects a certian level of complacency; the hunger was gone.

Enter John Willaims.

Cheers.


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## lux (Aug 19, 2010)

re-peat @ Thu Aug 19 said:


> stevenson-again @ Sat Aug 14 said:
> 
> 
> > (...) re-peat made the point in the 'bored with film music' thread that he didn't feel later JW was nearly as strong. i don't really agree with that but certainly that quirky magic is not as evident(...)



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## Stevie (Aug 19, 2010)

I loved "catch me if you can".


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## sevaels (Aug 19, 2010)

Man I so badly wish whatever happened to John Williams post '95 would happen to me.

...any day now...

...come on....

:wink: 


BTW - I just recently spent some hours within feet of the man and based on what he said he seemed very understanding of his place in film music today.

o-[][]-o



P.S. Herbert W. Spencer ~o)


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## Frederick Russ (Aug 19, 2010)

Sadly I have to agree that post '95 JW seemed to lack access to the intense inspirational fire that he had previously. Sometimes he wakes up and writes cues like the dissonance found in Jurassic Park and some of the inspired writing from Olympics 2002. He still has chops galore - Jango's Escape from SW Ep.II (a fabulous cue attached to a rather bad and uninspired movie) still impresses me. But its very different than his Asteroid Field cue from SW Ep.V which just has more "something" (energy, excitement) although it could be argued that the actual movie itself completely smoked Lucas' later attempts. Perhaps Williams write so well to picture that if the actual picture sucks then the music might reflect that - just guessing. 

I think "Hook" was a turn for the worse for him as that seemed to be the marking point of inconsistency afterward for some reason. He's still a major player and anyone with half his chops could probably do some serious damage but I miss the old John Williams enthusiasm and brilliance that only John Williams could do.



sevaels @ Thu Aug 19 said:


> P.S. Herbert W. Spencer ~o)



That guy was really a brilliant orchestrator who seemed to be present on just about every personal favorite blockbuster JW scored. Superbly talented.


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## noiseboyuk (Aug 19, 2010)

Excuse the horrific quality, but this in its own joyous way is also a work of genius...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj8JPMy2 ... re=related

I think "If this is a consular ship, where is the ambassador?" should be my new signature...


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## stevenson-again (Aug 20, 2010)

well, as i say i can't fully agree that JW is a shade of what he was prior to 95. but i do have sympathy with the opinion. i wonder though if some of that is the experience of the listener, the association music forms in the mind. perhaps they were the 'good old days' and at some point they became not so old and not so good. i actually think JW in some ways became a better film composer the further on he went, though i agree, there was an inventiveness and freshness that was lost along the way.

if star wars was mocked up and put to the picture today, vast swathes of it would be altered or watered down. and that really is where noiseboy and i started with on this thread. could you really do a star wars score today? i know exactly what i would get back in the form of notes from the directors. and that's kind of a shame. i think back to some of my early scores smashed out with some mates round a DAT machine and there is a charm there i think i have lost personally as well, even though overall my abilities are far greater now. i wonder what sort of processes have worked against JW with the rise of the temp, and the midi mock-up? for example, as midi scores become more prevalent, are they then used as temps for films that JW naturally is forced to follow to an extent. when a scene cut and conceived with the temp of far lesser quality than his music, does that then have an affect on what he himself can conceive?

all that said, i still can think of numerous scores that are amongst very favourites of his that come from post 95. seven years in tibet is as beloved to me as any cello concerto. i absolutely love that score - and i have never even seen the film. harry potter scores are virtually the only thing that can keep in the cinema...but when i sat down to the first one and hedwigs theme soared over us, i had a bit of that experience i had when i was seven and saw star wars for the first time. it was the sound of cinema. one of my all time favourite percussion concertos is 'zam the assassin and the chase through the coruscant'. i would just remove that silly electric guitar thing that was probably put in to keep a director happy.

memoirs of a geisha was an extraordinary score, as was war of the worlds, which unfortunately suffered from being dubbed so low as to be hardly worth having. and of course jurassic park. i didn't like the main theme very much but i love a lot of the score. i quite like this cue:

Hatching Baby Raptors

catch me if you can was a great score. and what about JFK? how about this: Motorcade

err...except that is pre 95. actually i had to look on IMDB. you know there really isn't that much post 95. you have your star wars's and the 3 harry potters and a few others i have mentioned, which i did think were good. and if i look pre 95 there are a few scores there that didn't exactly knock me out. ok then if you are saying did he hit that level of consistent quality that he did with star wars and indiana jones, then ok, i might have to agree. but did he never hit that same level or even exceed it at any time past, then i can't.


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## sevaels (Aug 20, 2010)

Overall including the fine details a big +1 stevenson 8)


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## rayinstirling (Aug 20, 2010)

The fascinating thing for me listening to these 30th aniversary CD's is how dry the recordings are. I'm just listening to The Battle of Yavin now and what a feeling of being practically in the orchestra.


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## re-peat (Aug 20, 2010)

Rohan,

I don’t know how it is for anyone else of course, but as far as I’m concerned, the “good old days”-sentiment really does not enter into it. It’s got nothing to do with some sort of nostalgia as to why I prefer pre-95 Williams. In fact, I’m a bit of a latecomer to the world of filmmusic, having discovered Williams (along with a lot of other great and not so great names) quite some time after all that terrific music was first released. Also, there are very few films which Williams wrote music for, that I’d consider truly great movies, so it’s not that either.
I simply think that the music then — the pure, abstract musical material, I mean — was much better. Not cleverer, or more complex or more sophisticated or anything, no, just better: much more inspired, exciting, richer and alive. Williams radiated something of a creative invincibility in those days, it seems to me, and there appeared to be no limits to his musical imagination. 

Of course, there are still many moments of excellence is his later work — it would be extremely arrogant to deny that — but I really can’t think of any post-’95 score, or even a single cue, which has that same effortless and generous magic, that same mark of genius, which can be heard so often in his earlier work. (Not in all of it, obviously, but in a surprising lot nonetheless.)

I think, for me, one of the first signs that things were about to change for the worse, was in a few of those long action cues for “Last Crusade”, pieces like “Escape From Venice” and “Belly Of The Steel Beast”. Those, to me, are among the first appearances of ‘the new Williams’: still an undisputed master, whichever way you look at it, obviously, but not quite that incomparable genius who seemed to posses a sheer endless supply of the most sublime music ideas, during the period starting with “Jaws” and ending around the time of “Hook”.

_


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## synthetic (Aug 20, 2010)

I love Harry Potter too but agree it doesn't have some of the spark of his earlier stuff. I supposed because he's repeating himself, the curse of having a "sound?" 

Lots of synth on Raiders too, also cimbalom and Rhodes piano!


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## David Story (Aug 20, 2010)

+1 for stevenson's view.

A few features of John Williams' style:

1. Gradual increase in technical complexity from Checkmate(1960) to Close Encounters(1977). He's added new techniques, like minimalist gestures in AI, Asian articulations in Seven Years.

2. Gradual increase in size of ensemble, reaching a first peak with Fiddler on the Roof.

3. Fusion of pop-broadway with classical influences. This is a key to all of his mass appeal themes, and the hollywood sound. Started when he orchestrated for Alfred Newman in the 50's.

4. Active counterpoint, usually in woodwinds. The accompaniment lines are often much more active than the theme. This is where the increase in complexity happens, until the tuba concerto(1985). 

5. Flourishes and embellishments - are there from 1960 on, maybe earlier. Grow longer up to Lost in Space, where they merged with counterpoint. 

6. Spare electronics. Probably the most live and least synthesized of any composer in film or tv since the 70's.

7. Sensitivity to the story. This gradually increased until Jaws, where the story is more strongly in the score than the picture.

There's lot's more, but this gets the idea across, I hope. John developed a distinctive and adaptable sound before Star Wars. Williams himself says that he wrote the music he did because of the kind of films he was scoring.
The first trilogy was a historic opportunity for a composer. He made more of it than anyone else could have, using what he had already developed in other projects.

Superman, Raiders, ET, Schindler, JFK, Harry Potter- these are films of global importance. The man is more inspired by those than many other films, naturally. The fact that he's been able to land so many, and respond so brilliantly, is really a testament to his character. Who do you trust with your magnum opus 100-mil project?

Yes, there are more of these projects for him in the 70s 80s than the 90s and 00s. But even a film like The Patriot or Seven Years in Tibet has thrilling, exquisite music. I do think that the Harry Potter scores are magical. They are stunning live, the audience is rapt. Escapades from Catch Me If You Can is my current favorite jazz concerto. Right, I like it as much as Rhapsody in Blue, which I have performed and love.

John Williams is no longer the king, getting all the major films. But he's still a great artist, and produces work that is different, and equal in quality to what he composed earlier. But the world has changed.

I had a conversation with a well-know director, a big Williams fan. He hired JW to score a movie. The director and editor temped the film, but told JW to "score it how you like, don't follow the temp". Williams frequently followed the temp, to the directors dismay. The score works, the movie was a hit.

But the director says that he had a chance to get a better score, and blew it by temping it. JW is not going to ignore the temp score, he's too collaborative to just dismiss it.

By getting more control over the movie, producers and directors are depriving the world of a lot of great art. The artists are being handcuffed. Samples can be the most constraining of all, and composers are often doing that to themselves.

Yes, technology can be liberating. That's not how it's being used in many projects. The change from a score to a sound design paradigm happened in the mid 90's. Every composer was affected, including JW. But every once in a while, someone breaks free. A producer let's music take the lead, like in Star Wars. 

I hope everyone here, and John Williams, gets a chance at being "set free" as Spielberg used to say.


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## stevenson-again (Aug 22, 2010)

a little fuel for an interesting discussion:

here is a small excerpt from petrouschka. it has lovely gestures that really to conceive as a mockup would be incredibly difficult to execute - although we try to achieve these kinds of effects in other ways - for example relying on electronica from time to time. but to this is the kind of writing that abounds in JW's best work, but it really needs to be conceived with paper and pencil with the benefit of the knowledge of how to achieve this with a real band.

having started out well before sample libraries (i have a boxes and boxes full of hand written manuscript) i know how a gesture can be roughly conceived in the mind, notated somewhat and left to great musicians to make work. there are guiding principles involved, but part of the joy of this approach is the reveal of a fantastic sounding gesture when musicians play it for the first time. of course, the down side of that is that something can also sound shit, so you need to be quite prepared to cross out whole bars, add in notes, or remove instruments altogether in your first rehearsal.


but can you imagine trying to conceive these 2 pages at the wheel of your DAW? i think this is what is shaping film music, for better and worse.

http://idisk.mac.com/rohan.stevenson/Public/stuff/Petrouschka-excerpt1.mp3 (Petrouschka Excerpt 1)

the pdf:

http://idisk.mac.com/rohan.stevenson/Public/stuff/Petrouschka-excerpt1.pdf (Petrouschka Excerpt 1)


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## Justus (Aug 22, 2010)

Hey David and Stevenson,
that's very good information. Keep it coming!


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## dach (Aug 22, 2010)

Thank you David. Excellent summary!


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## synthetic (Aug 23, 2010)

I have been hoping that he would use his retirement to write a symphony or two. 

It seems he's "dumbed down" his orchestrations in recent years, using bigger percussion with smaller flourishes and harmonies to sound current. Unfortunate.


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## David Story (Aug 23, 2010)

Thanks dach and Justus!

synthetic, I agree adapting to changing times is a mixed bag. Sometimes you're out of date if you don't change, and away from your strengths if you do. 

Here's Williams' without orchestration, in this case it's good concert music. Skip to 3:45, the piano player is better at accompaniment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdbBU883iho&NR=1

Stevenson, you put the spotlight on a key issue:
Orchestrators and sound designers can know what it's going to sound like. They may experiment before the final recording.
A composer for live instruments has to experiment. The final result is discovered in the process of rehearsal and recording. Everyone from Beethoven to John Adams has written about this.

If you stay with composing only what you know, it's going to sound uninspired eventually. 

Stravinky's early ballets were thought to be full of broad effects, because people hadn't learned how to perform them with clarity. Yet the scores worked in both eras.
By the time players and audience caught up, he moved on to other styles.

Williams' is still trying new ideas, in concertos. I'm rooting for him to come through with a masterpiece for Tin-Tin.


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## Mike Connelly (Aug 23, 2010)

David Story @ Fri Aug 20 said:


> John Williams is no longer the king, getting all the major films. But he's still a great artist, and produces work that is different, and equal in quality to what he composed earlier. But the world has changed.



I was under the impression that Williams is semi-retired from film scoring, only working for Spielberg, Lucas, and making a few exceptions for things like the Harry Potter films and things he really wants to work on. It seems like there would be plenty of projects that would love to have him do the music but he's not willing. But I'm sure someone else here knows more about the situation and can clarify.


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## David Story (Aug 23, 2010)

You can retire from composing?!?!


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## Aaron Sapp (Aug 23, 2010)

What?!

One of my favorite scores of his is Star Wars: Episode 1. To me that score is a rare example of absolute refinement. While the old scores were indeed spontaneous, energetic and inventive, it was sort of all over the place at times. Some of Episode 2 was cool, and Episode 3 was certainly a by-the-numbers effort (no doubt Lucas played a big role with this). 

Memoirs of a Geisha is another example of mature, refined writing. That score is incredibly crafted. 

When the first Harry Potter came out, the score tickled me pink. The "Quidditch Match" track is some of the finest action writing he has ever done. Azkaban is no slouch either.

A.I is just gorgeous in spots. Love the minimalistic elements. Haunting score. One of his best.

Minority Report - the Leo Crowe scene. Wow. 

I could go on and on and on....


I don't understand all this talk about the post-95 Williams being inferior to the pre-95 Williams. While his stuff today isn't a whirlwind of invention, I think he has grown to be a much better composer in a variety of ways. I think if he was given a proper film with plenty of musical headroom devoid of any producer cockblocking, he could come up with something that would quickly quiet naysayers.


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## stevenson-again (Aug 24, 2010)

well re-peat can speak for himself, but i think what he is saying is that post 95 doesn't show the same consistent breath-taking level of invention. maybe he is right. maybe we have to find nuggets within a score that take us up there. but certainly i think those nuggets exist that are every bit as good if not better than pre-95. i mean, i thought azkaban was amazing - just amazing. and geisha was incredible too. in any case, he most certainly isn't saying that he is not a craftsman of the first order in any of those post 95 scores.


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## Christian Marcussen (Aug 24, 2010)

Mike Connelly @ Mon Aug 23 said:


> David Story @ Fri Aug 20 said:
> 
> 
> > John Williams is no longer the king, getting all the major films. But he's still a great artist, and produces work that is different, and equal in quality to what he composed earlier. But the world has changed.
> ...



Yeah, that is my impression too... It's not like people no longer want him to score their movies.


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## noiseboyuk (Aug 24, 2010)

stevenson-again @ Tue Aug 24 said:


> well re-peat can speak for himself, but i think what he is saying is that post 95 doesn't show the same consistent breath-taking level of invention. maybe he is right. maybe we have to find nuggets within a score that take us up there. but certainly i think those nuggets exist that are every bit as good if not better than pre-95. i mean, i thought azkaban was amazing - just amazing. and geisha was incredible too. in any case, he most certainly isn't saying that he is not a craftsman of the first order in any of those post 95 scores.



This is a really interesting debate. I find the universal popularity of Williams' themes interesting - everyone knows Star Wars, Indiana Jones etc. However with Harry Potter... I love the theme, but milkmen don't go around whistling it, you know? Although the films are huge, I don't think the theme is inconic in the same was as his earlier ones. Perhaps it doesn't need to be... just an observation.


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## stevenson-again (Aug 24, 2010)

gee really? i would have thought hedwigs theme was right up there with his very best. though possibly nothing is ever going to beat star wars or indiana jones. i know my kids go around whistling hedwigs theme. i can hear seven years in tibet in my head as i type this. one of the all time gorgeous themes and i don't even have the visuals in my head to create the stronger associations. having seen images of the mountain scenery is enough - i get it right away.

who you gonna point to beat duel of the fates? i know one of the engineers that recorded it for him. he records film scores for a living and actually is a damn good composer ion his own right having written for a few himself. he said after recording that - pretty much what noiseboy did at the beginning of the thread. there is just no one to touch him. it sounds like it was an incredible recording session.


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## re-peat (Aug 24, 2010)

stevenson-again @ Tue Aug 24 said:


> (...) but i think what he is saying is that post 95 doesn't show the same consistent breath-taking level of invention (...)



Yep, that's more or less what I'm saying. 

In my opinion, there isn't a single minute of music in ANY of the cues from "Harry Potter", "SW 1-2-3", "Geisha", "Catch Me ...", "Shindler's", "War Of The Worlds", etc. ...that's of the same divinely inspired quality as, say, the music for "Superman", "Jaws 1 & 2", "Star Wars", "Temple Of Doom" or some of "Hook" (to name just a couple of titles). 

Again: I definitely agree that there's still plenty to enjoy and Williams still delivers fantastic and often quite exceptional filmmusic. But that's precisely it, you see: it's become filmmusic. And it used to be so much more.

_


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## stevenson-again (Aug 24, 2010)

> Again: I definitely agree that there's still plenty to enjoy and Williams still delivers fantastic and often quite exceptional filmmusic. But that's precisely it, you see: it's become filmmusic. And it used to be so much mor


e. 


yeah but that's where you lose me. when i first heard 'seven years' (on radio) i thought it was a cello concerto. well i have sat in orchestras and know most of the repetoire and i was bowled over that i didn't know it. i couldn't place the composer either. i thought it might be arensky (btw do you know his stuff? brilliant brilliant composer - or the works i have heard are), but it wasn't quite the right vibe. it's a 'go to' piece for me. it's had as least as many turns on my CD player as say the brahms 1st serenade (nonet version) or beethoven 4th piano concerto. 

i have on my phone not a lot of music. but one of my absolute all time favourites in the 'chase through the coruscant'. for me its the best percussion concerto i know.

i have been listening to the OST from star wars on noiseboys recommendation and look - i know where you are coming from. but i have to say there is so much post 95 stuff still thrills the hell out of me.

but again i have a nagging suspicion you have good grounds for this opinion and it leads back to the question of how temping has bent the general underscore for williams. in actual fact if you think about some of the underscore for star wars its a touch OTT for modern tastes anyway. so how much has modern temping of modern (probably sample library influenced) scores tended to shape JWs music and film music more generally?

or is it JW becoming more 'tasteful' with his underscore?

i have to say it's got me thinking...as i write is there thread that runs through a scene? or is it just a collection of classy effects?


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## David Story (Aug 24, 2010)

> In my opinion, there isn't a single minute of music in ANY of the cues from "Harry Potter", "SW 1-2-3", "Geisha", "Catch Me ...", "Shindler's", "War Of The Worlds", etc. ...that's of the same divinely inspired quality



To me, many of those scores are divinely inspired. Three examples: 
Hedwigs theme. I hear children spontaneously sing that melody, with reverence. This week.
Duel of the Fates. 18,000 people go silent to hear every note, at the hollywood bowl. 
Catch Me If You Can(Escapades). This is a recital piece from high school to Branford Marsalis. Jaw-dropping virtuosity live.

These examples are concert music and educational and a part of childhood play. It's more than filmmusic.

Re-peat, I respect your opinion, and almost always agree with you, in detail. In this one area, I think you could try hearing this music live. It's magic.

The world has changed and so has John Williams, yet there's still great music. He finds places to shine. He's more "tasteful". Still thrilling.



> when i first heard 'seven years' (on radio) i thought it was a cello concerto.



Stevenson, yes, I think it's a hybrid of concerto and film. Narrative, with virtuoso episodes.
Isn't this an evolution of Williams' style? It's similar to Fiddler, but more Silk Road than Broadway.
It's wise to challenge the best players in the orchestra, if you know their strengths. They'll respond with their best effort. If you can do it without distracting from the story, then you have a concert music value in your score. But why stop there? JW was able to get melody and concert music forms in original scores.

s


> o how much has modern temping of modern (probably sample library influenced) scores tended to shape JWs music and film music more generally?



That's the big one, imo. Samples often are: short, similar and lack flow. Not very melodic.
Temping kind of does the same thing, you have the same fragments in different movies. That's really hard to steer around, and not spontaneous.

I first met sound designer/composers in the 90's, they felt they were making "soundscapes" not composing music. That changed quickly, led by Hans. A string of effects. I like effects, but it's not listening music to me.

JW seriously considered retiring in the 90's, and became more selective. Or maybe just slowing down. Though he's done 14 films in the 00's
Even the hot new guys, like Giacchino and McCreary, have difficulty getting the score heard, let alone a flowing through line/melody.

I feel JW is a culmination. I enjoy his best recent scores as much as anyone else's, including TN, JH, etc. Melody and live are coming back, and maybe we'll hear a new version of the rollicking score's of the 70's. If the time is right.

I work to get melodic, live score in every project. He's still the icon for that.
The Leo Crowe sequence is full of musical ideas that convey deep thoughts and humanity within modern constraints.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5elAfCEE0A


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## noiseboyuk (Aug 24, 2010)

stevenson-again @ Tue Aug 24 said:


> gee really? i would have thought hedwigs theme was right up there with his very best.



It's a great theme and a great score. Just that I think it isn't as "famous" among the masses as Star Wars, Jaws, Superman, Close Encounters and Indiana Jones - arguably the 5 most famous film themes (or perhaps motifs in some cases) in the past 40 years? I think any milkman could whistle those 5... well, with Jaws perhaps not whistle, but he'd probably give it a spirited duh duh duh duh...

Quite appreciate that's not the be all and end all of the discussion, just one element of it. But I do find that mix of the extremely popular with the technically and musically brilliant to be really awe-inspiring.


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## re-peat (Aug 24, 2010)

David,

I'm truly sorry but those three examples are in fact PERFECT illustrations of what I think is missing from Williams' recent music: inspiration.

There really is nothing much wrong with "Hedwig's Theme", it's something that most any composer would be proud of, I suppose, it's just that, in my opinion, it simply doesn't have that unique melodic inventiveness and sparkle that Williams invariably conjured up so effortlessly in most of his earlier work. There's a certain self-consciousness in Williams' post-'95 melodies which wasn't there at all before. Like I said earlier: these new melodies don't have the natural, organic purity that his earlier ones had, there's a certain cramping in the flow of ideas, a feeling of hard-won and therefore strained complexity (as opposed to musically organic complexity), and it all sounds like the result of very long and difficult work. The work was probably just as long and intense 20 years ago, but it all sounded so much more spontaneous, vibrant and magnificently self-assured then.

As for "Duel Of The Fates": sorry, but that is, I believe, one the most overrated pieces in the entire Williams catalogue: a tiresome sequence of stretched-out banalities, tedious ostinati, boring crescendos of Rossini-esque emptyness ... I mean, just compare this with something like "The Asteroïd Field" (or any action piece from the first three Star Wars scores) and notice the huuuuuuuuuge difference in musical quality. "Duel Of the Fates" is, in my opinon, one of the worst things Williams ever put to paper.

I never liked "Catch Me If You Can" either, I'm again sorry to say. I don't like its sophistication, its overworked cleverness, its polish, its ... lack of even a single great idea. (And, surprisingly perhaps, I don't like its jazz ingredient either, I must confess.) 
"Catch me" may make for a memorable live experience, but that was never a parameter for good music in my book anyway. I listened to the soundtrack many, many, many times (which I invariably do with any Williams album), but I really have no interest whatsoever in doing it again. There's nothing on it that makes my heart go even a tiny bit faster.
Besides (although completely unrelated to the point I'm trying to make here), "Catch Me" was also one of the very few Williams scores that really failed as as film score, in my opinion. Its big, glossy sound and musical complexity was completely at odds with Spielberg's visual approach. No match whatsoever between the colour and texture of the images and the colour and texture of the music. I've always considered the "Catch Me"-score one of the weakest moments — both musically and functionally — in the entire Williams-Spielberg partnership.

_


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## sevaels (Aug 24, 2010)

Well said Aaron. I completely agree.


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## David Story (Aug 24, 2010)

I'm glad I hear awesome inventiveness and inspiration in his current work. Plus it's new.

Harry Potter is wildly popular globally. The young wizard is outperforming Star Wars, kids know his theme by heart.

These opinions on inspiration remind me of folks who like Stravinsky's first 3 ballets, and not the later music . I see that the composer and times changed, but his talent, knowledge and inspiration are still clearly present. imo. Love the old and new.
EDIT: (It's probably significant that Williams' is uniting the audience, and splitting the critics.)

Well, I guess no one's changing their mind, but a fun topic. Especially Stevenson's suggestion that the change in style is based in technology. 

If you're in LA, see you at the concert Friday night at the Hollywood Bowl.


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## re-peat (Aug 25, 2010)

Aaron Sapp @ Mon Aug 23 said:


> I think if he was given a proper film with plenty of musical headroom devoid of any producer cockblocking, he could come up with something that would quickly quiet naysayers.


*Aaron,*

Over the past decades, he has had every possible kind of film a composer could wish for — one new Indy, three new SW's, two Harry's, thrillers, comedy's, drama's, serious stuff, lighthearted stuff, ... the whole gamut really and more or less the same type of films he has always has done (and which inspired him to produce his very best material) — but never came up again with anything that approaches the quality of his earlier work. As for 'musical headroom and producer cockblocking': surely, a man of Williams' calibre, expertise and standing (and price bracket), gets more or less all the headroom he asks for? There will have to be made compromises, sure, and the music might occasionaly suffer as a result of other people's involvement, but certainly no more so than during the earlier stages of his career, quite the contrary in fact, I would think.

I'm not a naysayer, you know. I truly love Williams. Deeply. He's extremely important to me, in my life. In fact, I'm quite sure I do rate him higher than most people do who can't make the distinction between his good and his 'less good' work. I mean: anyone who seriously thinks that Indy 4 is musically as strong as the three previous ones, never really heard why precisely those three earlier ones are as fabulous as they are. There really *is* a profound difference in musical quality. If, for whatever reason, one doesn't hear that "Empire Strikes Back" is vastly superior to "Attack Of The Clones", then that person, it seems to me, has been missing rather a lot all those years — the very essence even, I dare say — as to why Williams is such a unique musician.

Williams' best work, to me, is as good as _anything_ by Prokofiev, Shostakovitch, Gershwin, Tsjaikovsky, Britten, Poulenc, Bartok, Milhaud, Copland, ... He's right up there, as far as I'm concerned. I would happily trade _any_ Shostakovitch symphony for just the second half of "Superman", any day of the week. Seriously. That's how great a composer I think he is. Or was, anyway.
So, no, I'm not a naysayer, it's just that I've been a bit puzzled and disappointed over the past years. (A selfish and greedy sentiment, I'm aware of that.)

_


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## NYC Composer (Aug 28, 2010)

Melody, melody, melody. Why does modern film composition have to eschew melody?


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## synthetic (Aug 28, 2010)

I'm with Aaron. He's still the man. Even his worst scores kill almost anything out there, whether you look at the melody, orchestration, or how well they work with picture.


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## choc0thrax (Aug 28, 2010)

What happened to Williams is what happens to everyone - he lost the magic. He's still real good but it's kind of sad to think that these days Zimmer > Williams.


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## synthetic (Aug 30, 2010)

Listened to Hook this weekend, another overlooked score from the 90s.


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## choc0thrax (Aug 30, 2010)

synthetic @ Mon Aug 30 said:


> Listened to Hook this weekend, another overlooked score from the 90s.



That score contains what I think is one of Williams best cues: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G_fffsYHMI


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## synergy543 (Aug 30, 2010)

stevenson-again @ Sun Aug 22 said:


> a little fuel for an interesting discussion:but can you imagine trying to conceive these 2 pages at the wheel of your DAW? i think this is what is shaping film music, for better and worse.


Very interesting question. However, is it the DAW or samples that really makes this more difficult to conceive over say, with just a piano?

Or is it that trends and styles have changed? As much as stuff like this gives me goose bumps, it hardly ever would fit with a project that comes my way. More often than not, a four-bar rock jingle is what fits the bill both in terms of what is asked for and what feels appropriate for the production. So trends and requirements of the project dictate more than my heart and passion. The only way I know to change this is to work on non-commercial projects which seems like suicide.

So my question is, how many commercial opportunities are there where this style of music is called for?


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## David Story (Aug 30, 2010)

A glorious piece, who else would give such class and dignity to a children's film?

Saw him live this week: The 18,000 greeting him as a conquering hero. The LA Phil played incredibly, they actually surpassed the soundtrack performance in the Throne Room and End Titles. He took it faster live, then rubato for the lyrical melodies.

If anyones interested, I can report on how he adapted and conducted scores from Psycho, Sunset Blvd and Planet of the Apes.


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## synthetic (Aug 31, 2010)

Damn, I really wanted to go to that. I want to see him at Disney Hall even more, but they don't sell individual tickets to that. You have to buy four concerts to attend that one.


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## David Story (Aug 31, 2010)

Disney Hall has remarkable acoustics. Even soft sound travels clean and clear everywhere. 
But the crowd at the bowl, cheering and waving a sea of multicolored light-sabers, is uplifting to be in.
I'd like to see him at DH, don't see him on the 2010-11 schedule...

In 2011, he will be playing suites from new scores.
Any film/game concerts coming up? VGL is back in June!

Edit
Synergy534,
That is so true, the technology and taste of 2010 are based in 4bar rock. JohnG has mentioned today is a bit like the 70's, when rock-pop was dominant in films.

Action score in 80's
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY0ClsW1QX4

In 00's
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRsNivu3 ... re=related

BTW, they turned up the sfx for the dvd


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## stevenson-again (Sep 2, 2010)

topical - a friend of mine put together this fantastic little parody. it's really wel done - check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpvlTVgeivU


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## clarkcontrol (Sep 2, 2010)

synthetic @ Sat Aug 28 said:


> He's still the man. Even his worst scores kill almost anything out there, whether you look at the melody, orchestration, or how well they work with picture.



+1

His quality of work could deteriorate by half and he would still be the man. There isn't a movie out there that couldn't benefit from a JW score, but as steveson said so ably, temp-tyranny as well as re-edits etc. have made the opportunities rare for this sort of thing. 

I think people equate the general distillation of film music and it's appropriate gestures (evolving from the hyper-Mickey mouse scores of the thirties and forties to the slick, moody atmospheres and minimalism today) to favor the 70s and 80s as the JW's strongest period, when melody and counterpoint were making their renaissance. Also, I think it's worthy to note that I too like the earlier stuff but only because:

It's MIXED differently. Not all glued together in a large homogenous over-produced texture. It's not so bad that it destracts me but I still prefer to listen to the original mixes of starwars than the reissues from 1997. 

Even so, I listen to war of the worlds and I marvel at how brilliant jw can be even when the dictate is for a non-melodic sound-design type treatment.
Clark


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## Christian Marcussen (Sep 2, 2010)

choc0thrax @ Mon Aug 30 said:


> synthetic @ Mon Aug 30 said:
> 
> 
> > Listened to Hook this weekend, another overlooked score from the 90s.
> ...



Agreed - especially the part around 2:28. Great theme and not used enough in the score. In fact the Hook score has many really good themes.


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## Ranietz (Sep 2, 2010)

Christian Marcussen @ Thu 02 Sep said:


> choc0thrax @ Mon Aug 30 said:
> 
> 
> > synthetic @ Mon Aug 30 said:
> ...



That's another great thing about John Williams. A lot of his scores do not have one great theme but two or more great themes. You don't hear a lot of that thees days.


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## David Story (Sep 2, 2010)

> Christian Marcussen @ Thu 02 Sep, 2010 19:44 wrote:
> Agreed - especially the part around 2:28. Great theme and not used enough in the score. In fact the Hook score has many really good themes.



Hook was intended to be a musical. Spielberg is still trying to make one.



> It's MIXED differently. Not all glued together in a large homogenous over-produced texture. It's not so bad that it destracts me but I still prefer to listen to the original mixes of starwars than the reissues from 1997.



+1 Clark and stevenson, THE MOVIES have changed, watch the the 80's and 00's action sequences above, it illustrates your points.


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## choc0thrax (Sep 2, 2010)

Christian Marcussen @ Thu Sep 02 said:


> choc0thrax @ Mon Aug 30 said:
> 
> 
> > synthetic @ Mon Aug 30 said:
> ...



For me the best part starts from 1:47 till the end of the cue. That flute is so beautiful. 2:28 is the same theme just restated with sweeping violins so you get that emotional punch but 2:28 relies on 1:47 for it's strength!


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## clarkcontrol (Sep 3, 2010)

David Story @ Thu Sep 02 said:


> THE MOVIES have changed, watch the the 80's and 00's action sequences above, it illustrates your points.



My broader point was the entire industry (along with the movies themselves of course) has changed. Williams has adapted, hence my comment about WOTW.

My own personal beef concerns the mixing only. In fact, Jaws has to be my favorite mix sound. Raw and intense. Close Encounters and New Hope/Empire a close second. After that, the mixes get a little too "silky" after that. 

Clark


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## noiseboyuk (Sep 3, 2010)

clarkcontrol @ Fri Sep 03 said:


> David Story @ Thu Sep 02 said:
> 
> 
> > THE MOVIES have changed, watch the the 80's and 00's action sequences above, it illustrates your points.
> ...



Yeah, I really noticed this too. As someone else said here (forgive me, it's late!) that you feel right in the orchestra with Star Wars. It seemed so, so far from my Symphobia or EWQL SO libs. And not really like the dryer libs either... there is an ambience and distance there, but much tighter. It would be nice to hear that again.


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