# John Williams' way of thinking



## Fibigero (Feb 28, 2022)

How do you guys think JW is coming up with his harmonic progressions?

When watching analyses like these:  
(but not just star wars, but literally most of JW scores)
I always wonder how he actually comes up with the harmonic progression, like, does he think of a melody first or melody and harmony at the same time? In music theory we learn everything about functions like e.g. subdominant parallel, chromatic mediants, etc.. but I doubt that he writes music, consciously thinking about what function works well for the following chord.

Mike Verta (who wrote this, which is kind of JW style: ) 
says in his masterclasses that he never thinks about music theory and the function of a chord, but just looks at voice leading sometimes and overall just what sounds good.

But I noticed that a lot of composing/film scoring courses teach a lot about music theory (also the much-appraised scoreclub course (haven't taken that one though, so can't say anything about it)) and I wonder if thinking about the theory and trying to apply it consciously might actually be in the way of being able to compose the way Johnny does, also because some of his progressions "don't seem to make any sense" on paper but sound incredible when hearing.


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## Living Fossil (Feb 28, 2022)

There are two ways.

One is by training your inner hearing and your understanding of harmony to an extent where your inner hearing offers you such solutions. (It's the way i prefer)

The other is by learning different toolsets, scales etc. and applying them. Usually, applying harmonic receipts works good for short passages (i.e. cues of 2-3 min length). 
If it's about creating a plausible harmonic coherence over longer durations (i.e. 1-2 hours), these receipts usually only work in combination with an excellent inner hearing.


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## patrick76 (Feb 28, 2022)

Fibigero said:


> But I noticed that a lot of composing/film scoring courses teach a lot about music theory (also the much-appraised scoreclub course (haven't taken that one though, so can't say anything about it)) and I wonder if thinking about the theory and trying to apply it consciously might actually be in the way of being able to compose the way Johnny does, also because some of his progressions "don't seem to make any sense" on paper but sound incredible when hearing.


Don’t be deterred on learning music theory if you want to compose like Williams, as he is very knowledgeable on the subject. After you learn all about it, it can just work in the background of your mind when writing, but without it you’ll likely be lost.


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## ed buller (Feb 28, 2022)

The thing to remember is he almost certainly didn't sit down and play this. It's crafted and tweaked , possibly over many many hours...or weeks. *Moon River* took three months to write !

So you are talking about one of the greatest american composers ever , spending and age to come up with something wonderful. No Tricks !...just graft with a lot of training and years of experience to back it all up.

best

e


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## Fibigero (Feb 28, 2022)

patrick76 said:


> Don’t be deterred on learning music theory if you want to compose like Williams, as he is very knowledgeable on the subject. After you learn all about it, it can just work in the background of your mind when writing, but without it you’ll likely be lost.


Yea that's what I was thinking too. He of course will certainly know everything about music theory!


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## Pier (Feb 28, 2022)

I studied some music theory (chords, modes, degrees, etc) but I've never been able to apply that when making music. I just end up trying stuff, and then when it sounds good I can find an explanation for it. I think theory can help explain why ideas work, but it doesn't really help in having more or better ideas.

I've talked to many musicians with the same exact "problem".

I think there's a musical intuition which is really where ideas and musical creativity come from but AFAIK nobody has come up with a method to work on this. I think most people just bang their head against the wall and just _git good_ or die trying.

There's this Youtube channel that analyzes songs (NIN, Bjork, Massive attack, etc) and has incredible insights on why/how songs work:



https://www.youtube.com/c/iximusic



I've never seen anyone explain this stuff. I contacted her to know where she got her knowledge from, and... it's just stuff she picked up along the way analyzing music.

I guess Mike Verta is right when he says one must transcribe music every day.


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## UDun (Feb 28, 2022)

I suggest you to read Hollywood Harmony from Frank Lehman. You will understand that apart from diatonism and functional harmony there is another big world where chromatism is king, functional roles have no meaning, tonality becomes vague, and fifth based relationships are avoided. You use different parameters like voice leading, different scales, colors, a particular emotion to convey...


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## Henu (Feb 28, 2022)

ed buller said:


> So you are talking about one of the greatest composers ever


Fixed that for you!


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## Gingerbread (Feb 28, 2022)

There are many paths, and without asking Williams himself, it's obviously impossible to know for sure. But he trained as both a piano virtuoso and as a jazz improviser. He has played enough to have a highly intuitive and deep understanding of the keyboard, and how different combinations of chords sound.

In interviews, Williams has said that he rarely gets a "spark of inspiration". Instead, he tries out melody lines, and works and toils at a melody for hours, tweaking and refining, until he has something he likes.

Extrapolating, once he has a melody he likes, he probably already has some mental harmony in mind, based on his vast experience. But he likely tries out different harmonic experiments until he settles on the one he likes. 

None of this *requires* knowledge of music theory. It _can_ be done simply by tooling around on the keyboard (which is what Verta recommends), with lots of time and experimentation. But knowledge of music theory can also help things along as well. Williams has both---an ability to just tool around, and knowledge of music theory.


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## youngpokie (Feb 28, 2022)

patrick76 said:


> Don’t be deterred on learning music theory if you want to compose like Williams, as he is very knowledgeable on the subject. After you learn all about it, it can just work in the background of your mind when writing, but without it you’ll likely be lost.


100%. If learning is consciously converted into practice, in the form of noodling, exercises and whatnot, then pretty soon it becomes a fully internalized and actionable technique. We don't need to be consciously thinking about techniques when we use them. They often work like a kind of a muscle memory.


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## YaniDee (Feb 28, 2022)

What works for me, is learning a new concept, and then applying it right away. But keep it simple..for example, learn what a Neapolitan 6 chord is, and try using it in a piece..


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## ryans (Feb 28, 2022)

Not to be defeatist but the question "How to write like John Williams" has no simple answer. It's a massive, life encompassing quest. Despite what the numerous 10 min long youtube videos will tell you (Write like John Williams with these 4 simple tricks!)

William's voicings reveal his jazz background and I have no doubt his process is largely improvising on the piano. But I wouldn't say don't study classical theory because he obviously has a background there as well. 

NO musical study/exercise is going to be detrimental. Honestly I've never understood the anti-theory viewpoint. 

I see a lot of analysis of Williams coming from a classical approach and sometimes they can get a little unnecessarily confusing. I don't think it's the wrong approach but I personally analyze ALL William's scores from a jazz perspective, and it seems to make much more sense, but that's just me.


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## R.G. (Feb 28, 2022)

Fibigero said:


> How do you guys think JW is coming up with his harmonic progressions?
> 
> I always wonder how he actually comes up with the harmonic progression, like, does he think of a melody first or melody and harmony at the same time? In music theory we learn everything about functions like e.g. subdominant parallel, chromatic mediants, etc., but I doubt that he writes music, consciously thinking about what function works well for the following chord.


Harmonic functions are only an analysis technique, not a composing one, and their development as a construct only began roughly halfway into the Romantic period, ironically enough when their application was becoming increasingly problematic to the new music of the day.

When a noticeable harmonic texture exists, it is typically either a Progression or a Succession (a critical distinction). Progressions are driven by the “ gravitational pull” of tonic-dominant-subdominant relationships (think Baroque and Classical periods, and much of the Romantic). Successions loosen that inactive/active directional sense by deemphasizing the T–D–S framework. There are a number of techniques for doing that while also still using much of the familiar “chord grammar” found in T–D–S progressions.

To put the two in stark contrast by way of example, _Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star_ is a progression, and the vorspiel to _Tristan und Isolde_ is a succession.

But it's not always so clear cut, as there are elements in many progressions in the Baroque and Classical periods that presaged the concept of successions, and many successions themselves have elements of the prior T–D–S framework, so it often is largely a matter of degree inclined towards one approach or the other.

Given the _ad hoc_ nature of film scoring, and JW’s unparalleled ability to deftly amalgamate compositional devices and effects, when he composes using familiar chord grammar, that “matter of degree” between progressions and successions is what usually plays out, according to the picture, natch. His composing influences mostly span the Late Romantic and early 20th Century. His Jazz studies were of swing era harmony, which also uses a T–D–S framework, but the chord grammar is denser, and while the voice-leading is in some respects similar philosophically, it is about equally _dissimilar_ to “conventional” voice-leading. The only noticeable Jazz influence you can detect is in some of his voicings, particularly those biting major 7th chords he uses coloristically.

TL;DR: The degree to which a given composer consciously thinks about theory while composing depends on the composer and the type of composition. Composing a straightforward melody plus its harmony is a very natural act. Whereas composing something like a canon, strict Renaissance polyphony, serial music, pitch sets and the like all require more theoretical input.


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## bdr (Feb 28, 2022)

ryans said:


> Not to be defeatist but the question "How to write like John Williams" has no simple answer. It's a massive, life encompassing quest. Despite what the numerous 10 min long youtube videos will tell you (Write like John Williams with these 4 simple tricks!)
> 
> William's voicings reveal his jazz background and I have no doubt his process is largely improvising on the piano. But I wouldn't say don't study classical theory because he obviously has a background there as well.
> 
> ...


Interesting you say that. I saw a talk the other day with John Williams' brother Don who plays percussion on all his scores, and he said that someone said to him on a session that John's music is really just 'all bebop'.


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## ed buller (Mar 1, 2022)

bdr said:


> Interesting you say that. I saw a talk the other day with John Williams' brother Don who plays percussion on all his scores, and he said that someone said to him on a session that John's music is really just 'all bebop'.


Yes Conrad Pope told me a similar thing after a BOSSBABY meeting. I asked about something specific and he just looked at me with his big smile and said "Johnny's a Jazzer ed !"....

best

e


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## ed buller (Mar 2, 2022)

Here he acknowledges how hard it IS to write !...he struggles just like us. But when he get's it right.......he's NOT like us. Part of that is what makes him sooooo good. He's standards are impeccable. 

best

e


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## bFooz (Mar 2, 2022)

ryans said:


> ... I personally analyze ALL William's scores from a jazz perspective, and it seems to make much more sense, but that's just me.


I wonder if you know any videos or materials approaching JW's music this way?


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## liquidlino (Mar 2, 2022)

Who wants to sound like Williams anyway? I want to sound like me. Not that I've quite figured out what I sound like yet, but that's my goal. Creation, not imitation. 

That said, until a few months ago I'd refused to learn theory. Then dawned on me maybe I should. I've spent equal time producing vs learning music theory for. Few months, and whilst I'm still super basic at theory, ready I can see how much it's helping me. No longer am I a blind man fumbling in the dark, now if I'm struggling with what harmony next, or how to vary a chord sequence, I can whip out a few basic theory concepts, like chromatic mediants. I did some counterpoint 1:1 and 2:1 exercises recently, and suddenly my string lines are more interesting and have more natural movement in them. Theory rocks, no question.


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## MauroPantin (Mar 2, 2022)

I don't know... Answering "How does JW do it?" is probably the holy grail of film music composition.

It is important to mention that there is a certain anachronism in pursuing this question, though. We all love him, and we love his music, but I don't know how his style would be received today if he wasn't already a legend. It's not outlandish to say that jazz harmony is not in vogue at the moment. This is not to say that it isn't still worth it to ask this question and learn as much as possible, regardless of what the market wants.

Sometimes the selfish part of me wishes he would write a book about writing themes. Because that's really THE thing. The orchestrations are great but there's no big secret there, he has a big palette of options and puts them to use. Harmony is no secret either, it's jazz and some Neo-Riemannian Theory as Frank Lehman and Mark Richards have talked about in their articles, books and courses. It's the themes. Man... a book would be awesome! But I bet he either a) probably doesn't want to spend time doing that and/or b) there is no secret to write about, it's just being a perfectionist, having superior standards and the craft to sustain them and deliver on-par each time.

Alain Mayrand of ScoreClub talks about "guided intuition" a lot. And while that might not be The Method™ I think it is a sensible avenue. You learn some bit of theory, use it right away as soon as you're exposed to it, and do reps on it, iterating. You don't worry about writing great music, you just worry about writing a lot. Then whatever you learn comes to you as you are free flowing and writing something else some other time. It happens naturally you hear it in your inner ear and know what it is and you use it.



ed buller said:


> The thing to remember is he almost certainly didn't sit down and play this. It's crafted and tweaked , possibly over many many hours...or weeks.


I think Ed's is the simplest answer and probably the right one. JW makes no compromises.

Going back to Alain's thoughts, I would only add to Ed's answer that it took years to write each cue. It was the several days or weeks writing the specific cue PLUS all the years before that one great theme, years spent writing things like "John Goldfarb, Please Come Home!" or "Because They're Young", sharpening his pencil and getting better.


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## LudovicVDP (Mar 2, 2022)

Fibigero said:


> says in his masterclasses that he never thinks about music theory and the function of a chord, but just looks at voice leading sometimes and overall just what sounds good.


I'm pretty sure you need to know an awful lot of theory to say things like this!!!



Personally, There is never one day that passes without being frustrated about how little I know...


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## Markus Kohlprath (Mar 2, 2022)

If you compare a lot of classic orchestral film music like Williams and even more so Horners to classical scores of the late romantic period you might be surprised how close they are in every aspect up to the point of copy and pasting. So realising this takes a lot away from the magical inspiration thing. It's more often a lot of knowledge and deep insight in music history and scores. 
This is not meant to diminish the contributions Jonn Williams made to the art form. But it might appear a bit less miraculous than it appears to some. Some of Mike Vertas classes help to understand this.


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## ed buller (Mar 2, 2022)

Markus Kohlprath said:


> If you compare a lot of classic orchestral film music like Williams and even more so Horners to classical scores of the late romantic period you might be surprised how close they are in every aspect up to the point of copy and pasting. So realising this takes a lot away from the magical inspiration thing. It's more often a lot of knowledge and deep insight in music history and scores.
> This is not meant to diminish the contributions Jonn Williams made to the art form. But it might appear a bit less miraculous than it appears to some. Some of Mike Vertas classes help to understand this.


very true with Horner. Not so much with JW. He adheres to the Stravinsky doctrine, yes he pinches but modifies. So the idea remains the same but the notes change. Stravinsky and many others where merciless at this.

This is from My Most EXCELLENT teacher. Dominic Sewell: https://www.patreon.com/DominicSewellMusic/posts

Lot's of STAR WARS analysis SIB files here to study.

The first Bar is THE RITE:...rest STAR WARS








Best

ed


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## chrishurn (Mar 2, 2022)

ed buller said:


> very true with Horner. Not so much with JW. He adheres to the Stravinsky doctrine, yes he pinches but modifies. So the idea remains the same but the notes change. Stravinsky and many others where merciless at this.
> 
> This is from My Most EXCELLENT teacher. Dominic Sewell: https://www.patreon.com/DominicSewellMusic/posts
> 
> ...


Love your thirst for knowledge Ed! I just became a patreon, looking forward to checking out his materials!


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## Pier (Mar 2, 2022)

Markus Kohlprath said:


> Some of Mike Vertas classes help to understand this.


Could you recommend some of Mike's classes that go over this?


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## MauroPantin (Mar 2, 2022)

Pier said:


> Could you recommend some of Mike's classes that go over this?


"Here's Johnny" and "Here's Johnny, Too" both cover JW's style and he gives specific examples like the famous Kings Row fanfare by Korngold.

"Putting it all together" also covers how he wrote "The Race", which is very much in that style, with the score, the mockup and the recordings made available to you for the analysis of the piece.


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## aeliron (Mar 2, 2022)

As wise man once say: "When you can balance a tack hammer on your head, you will head off your foes with a balanced attack."


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## Markus Kohlprath (Mar 3, 2022)

Pier said:


> Could you recommend some of Mike's classes that go over this?


"Here is Jonny" and "On Horner" especially. He brings a lot of pretty stunning examples.


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