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Let's get BETTER: The Quidditch Match!

I really want to create a realistic sounding mock-up of Welcome to Jurassic Park. Where can I buy the full score of it? It’s one of the best pieces of music ever written! To create a realistic mock-up of that would be (for me) a great achievement. Have you studied it @NoamL

Thanks for this thread.
 
I really want to create a realistic sounding mock-up of Welcome to Jurassic Park. Where can I buy the full score of it? It’s one of the best pieces of music ever written! To create a realistic mock-up of that would be (for me) a great achievement. Have you studied it @NoamL

I've literally been working on this for the last couple of weeks. Trying to use only BBCSO to get familiar with that library. @jononotbono you can get the score here: https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/theme-from-jurassic-park-sheet-music/19010307
 
I'm an idiot when it comes to composition and theory but I'm trying to learn. I'm having trouble matching what I hear in the video to the score (the changing time sigs aren't helping).

Would anyone be willing to provide time-stamps for the first 4 images... as in :

bars 1-5
bars 6-8
bars 9-13
bars 14-17

If so, thanks. To all those laughing, I laugh with you.
 
bar 1: 0:00
bar 6: 0:12
bar 9: 0:19
bar 14: 0:26


As far as Poe's theme:

There seems to be a consensus around this being E dorian through m. 56, of which I agree.

Measure 57 (1:26) represents a melodic arrival point - something Williams frequently underscores to great effect with "surprise" chords (whether through modal mixture or modulation).

I believe the C major also kicks off a series of 2 bar sequences through the last part of the theme ending at m. 63 (1:34).

The whole step movement of C - D is repeated up a 4th going F - G (over a C pedal). This movement repeats again up a minor 3rd, going from Ab - Bb, except oops - he substitutes Cm and F in their place. If you don't believe these form a sequence, look at the relationship of the melody in mm. 59-60 and 61-62. It's also very Williams'esque to disguise sequences.

So we end up with a harmonic sequence in mm. 57-60 (disgusied by the pedal tone) passing off to a melodic sequence in mm. 59-62 (disguised by motivic transformation in m. 62).


With that, I think you could possibly argue this whole section is a modulation to C major. The D is borrowed from lydian (a la ET), then a standard IV-V, then a borrowed from minor bVI-bVII (The Duck Tales cadence) that is substituted with i-IV, finally resolving deceptively to Am. I should say, this analysis feels shaky, at best. The point of this phrase, after all, seems to be about a hero's journey into the unknown.


Today's excerpt: "the good part" ;)

I CAN FLY ANYTHING - Part 4



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If I play the first four bars of the theme, 51-54, at the piano and "feel" for a tonic chord it feels like the music should end on D major. But if I play 51-58 at the piano and try to feel the tonic my mind changes to A Mixolydian...
Maybe this has been mentioned already, but I read somewhere that we should not look for some overarching harmonic design in Williams' action cues - they roam wherever the action takes them and may not end where they started - but it's fascinating to see what harmonic and instrumental choices he makes locally for drama. Thx for putting this together.
 
I have always felt, when listening, that Poe’s theme includes within the theme itself a modulation movement by mediant, at the Cm. That kind of harmonic movement is common in action scenes of films. You can advance by mediants indefinitely without ever resolving to an ending cadence and it moves the action along. In this case it’s literally embedded into the theme itself. Whether that was because JW wanted to infer poe is a man of action or whether this use case of the theme happens to be in an action sequence and JW was simply advancing the scene, hard to say. But i do remember sitting in the theater watching the film and thinking that the theme kind of has a fake out mediant modulation, because it doesn’t continue along in the new key. It repeats the i-(IV) sequence that was used earlier in the theme, but based on C instead of E. And then it’s already over as he drops to the Am which is something else new. In my mind it’s too quick and short to have been for the reason of advancing the action , but more about conveying an idea in the theme itself.

and in my mind that is how it always sounded to me, a mediant modulation repeat of the Dorian idea.

But the F - G/C thing in between also sounds totally different then E Dorian or C Dorian. There are different ways it could be analyzed but I hear Lydian-ness because of the B natural coming off the F chord and the C pedal tone solidifying them as connected.
 
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bar 1: 0:00
bar 6: 0:12
bar 9: 0:19
bar 14: 0:26


As far as Poe's theme:

There seems to be a consensus around this being E dorian through m. 56, of which I agree.

Measure 57 (1:26) represents a melodic arrival point - something Williams frequently underscores to great effect with "surprise" chords (whether through modal mixture or modulation).

I believe the C major also kicks off a series of 2 bar sequences through the last part of the theme ending at m. 63 (1:34).

The whole step movement of C - D is repeated up a 4th going F - G (over a C pedal). This movement repeats again up a minor 3rd, going from Ab - Bb, except oops - he substitutes Cm and F in their place. If you don't believe these form a sequence, look at the relationship of the melody in mm. 59-60 and 61-62. It's also very Williams'esque to disguise sequences.

So we end up with a harmonic sequence in mm. 57-60 (disgusied by the pedal tone) passing off to a melodic sequence in mm. 59-62 (disguised by motivic transformation in m. 62).


With that, I think you could possibly argue this whole section is a modulation to C major. The D is borrowed from lydian (a la ET), then a standard IV-V, then a borrowed from minor bVI-bVII (The Duck Tales cadence) that is substituted with i-IV, finally resolving deceptively to Am. I should say, this analysis feels shaky, at best. The point of this phrase, after all, seems to be about a hero's journey into the unknown.
I was hearing that section as a modulation to A minor, mostly because the melody feels more A minor-ish to me (E A C A B D), but a modulation to C major (the relative major) makes sense to me as well. The lydian C to D movement is very typically of JW, and considering the C pedal I think that's a strong argument.

I agree with the sequence as well. In the extended version of the theme, he adds two more bars of the Cm F and continues the melodic sequence:



Another interesting thing is that the added melodic sequence (G Eb A F) sounds similar to the motif that happens in the first section. The first three notes of the theme in m51-52, E F# D, set up a motif that he uses again in m55-56, B C# A. In the extended sequence, if you take out the Eb, then you have G A F which has the same interval pattern.
 
thanks to @Mike Greene for the newsletter shoutout, and to everyone who's been following along, I've been reading your analysis enthusiastically and it's great!

Today is the final section of "I Can Fly Anything" and tomorrow this thread is moving on to... another JW cue! It is an 8 minute action cue from the early 2000s :)

I CAN FLY ANYTHING: Part 7



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  • 113-119: some dark and clustery writing, I think the main point is the interaction between winds and low strings, playing chromatically "around" B harmonic minor.
  • 120-121: the same harmonic minor 6-7 brass figure used earlier in the cue, now on B harmonic minor.
  • 122-125: planing parallel minor chords ending on B minor... then BmM7...
  • 127-129: intensifying to a tense and dissonant voicing of BmM7#5 (or Gm/B is an easier way to write it, but the B key center is clear).
 


Thanks for posting that, it emphasizes the theme better.

My last thoughts about Poe's theme..then moving on....

My harmonic analysis would be:

E dorian: i - VII - i - IV - i - IV - (bVI) - VII, C dorian: IV - (V) - i - IV - i - IV - (vi) - VII

So that's it, just one modulation from E dorian to C dorian (modulating starts with the first F chord.). Not that complicated. Some modal interchange thrown in (in parens).

The C dorian (V) chord (G/C) is borrowed from C major. Note that a borrowed major V7 chord is used in minor key classical works as well, creating a very strong leading tone. Could certainly be done in dorian too. So one could say that this still fits in very well with the C dorian idea, but allowing the 7th to be raised to the leading tone on the V chord. There is no "harmonic dorian" scale as such (technically its the same pitches as melodic minor, but functionally its doing for dorian what "harmonic minor" does for works that are meant to be in minor).

Borrowed chords create emphasis. We notice modulations, they strike us. Borrowed chords also tend to create strong emotional tugs.

In this theme, that first borrowed Cmajor chord "soars" super man style.

The borrowed V of C dorian, I feel does provide some lydian-ness, but functionally its also using the leading tone to make us want to feel like modulating to the key of C. Which it does, and makes us feel like action is happening; because of modulation by mediant.

The borrowed Am at the end also has a very strong emotional punch...different then the soaring bVI, this one has a more serious tone to it...like "yea..poe is the super man of action, but take him seriously"

alright...moving on...
 
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Hey all,

took a day off to consider how I want to do the next cue. This one is going to be a short-score analysis with 2 lines each for winds, brass and strings. That means there will be some duplication of parts, but the orchestration is interesting & important in this cue. The reduction will also look more like the way JW actually writes, as this is his method (short score with 6 or 8 staves).

And the cue is..... The Quidditch Match from John Williams's 2001 score to Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone!


THE QUIDDITCH MATCH - Part 1





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  • Simple establishment of G natural minor but with a lot of rhythmic interest, especially the rhythmic independence of the snare from the low strings.
 
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Alright! Continuing on!

Trying something different, putting the analysis notes right in the sheet music, and questions/discussion below.


THE QUIDDITCH MATCH - Part 2



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  • As we go through a bunch of establishing wide shots with no dialogue, JW plays the Quidditch theme and reminds us of the School theme. Trills, flourishes, contrary motion, a rhythmically displaced bass, and alternating triplets and duplets are used to convey a celebratory, fanfare atmosphere.
  • 27-28 are a little ambiguous, you could call beat 2 of both measures Bsus4, but the A major tonality continues in the background harmony parts.
  • Similarly in 22-24 the D6 might be more about the voice leading of the two contrary parts, than any harmonic idea.
 
Part three.... John Williams has got JOKES! :emoji_eyes:


THE QUIDDITCH MATCH - Part 3



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edit: fixed a silly French horn error ;)

  • It's worth thinking about how JW got from the key of F major at the end of yesterday's excerpt, to Ab major today. He used E major as his last chord yesterday, which was a secondary dominant in F major (V of iii) and in Ab major it's the borrowed bVI (enharmonic to an Fb major chord).
  • 39-44 aren't perfectly clear either. I guess you could say he lets the melody get "stuck" on the Ab and then uses that to start raising the key signature??
 
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Part three.... John Williams has got JOKES! :emoji_eyes:


THE QUIDDITCH MATCH - Part 3



QUID_008.png
QUID_009Fixed.png
QUID_010Fixed.png
QUID_011.png
QUID_012.png


edit: fixed a silly French horn error ;)

  • It's worth thinking about how JW got from the key of F major at the end of yesterday's excerpt, to Ab major today. He used E major as his last chord yesterday, which was a secondary dominant in F major (V of iii) and in Ab major it's the borrowed bVI (enharmonic to an Fb major chord).
  • 39-44 aren't perfectly clear either. I guess you could say he lets the melody get "stuck" on the Ab and then uses that to start raising the key signature??


So my take away from glancing at this is that every time somebody tells me, "You can't write with parallel Octaves" they are in fact as clueless as a person can be. :laugh:
 
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