How to Train Your Dragon: "This Is Berk” by John Powell (Score Reduction and Analysis)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.พ. 2025
- A full score reduction of the opening scene from How to Train Your Dragon.
Order the score here: omnimusicpubli...
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Enjoy!
I apologize in advance for the film moving all over the place! It seems it had a little extra caffeine this time around...
Don't forget to purchase the beautifully engraved score from Omni Music Publishing! omnimusicpublishing.com/product/john-powells-how-to-train-your-dragon-full-orchestral-score/
The size of the brass section he used for this score blows my mind:
4 trumpets
6 trombones
12 HORNS?!
Can’t forgot Tuba 😢
Basically, not only did John Powell opt for a full 60-piece symphonic string and a 3 per woodwinds also with contrabass clarinets and contrabassons, he frickin DOUBLED the brass size, and have an array of percussion and traditional instruments from bagpipes to penny whistles. It feels something a composer like Mahler would be proud of.
The decision for him to put ALL 12 horns as one melody gives the sense of grandness and scale, couple with octave with the full number of violins or trumpets, and letting the lowest group of instruments play octave bass lines, and you got yourself an epic and larger than life opening of a tale.
But for me, their best was playing the Test Drive motif, when Hiccup and Toothless flies over the sea, and the ending scene. Utilizing all the instruments that make it sounds as wondrous and adventurous the movie makes it.
Also I think why Powell doubled the brass instruments is that since they're dealing with noble warriors and humongous dragons, they need something to give such notion, and thus more brass.
@@cornoBassoJohn Wonderfully put; I wish there was an entire degree just to analyze this one movie's soundtrack.
I don’t know how else to say it - this is a perfect score, and this analysis of the first six minutes of music perfectly covers everything that John Powell does so well throughout the film. There’s a reason this was my first purchase from Omni.
Same here
Yo David, im a composition student at USC and I gotta say, my favorite classes are orchestration, jazz piano, AND YOUR TH-cam CHANNEL man! Your work is a resource unmatched by any other material I’ve come across, a million thank you’s and you have a VERY loyal subscriber!! 🙏🙏🙏
Finally, A John Powell Score. Can't Wait for Chicken Run. Thank you so much for all you do David! You're Score Reductions inspire me to be an even better Film Composer!
Chicken Run and Solo!
Amazing job, from the composer who created this musical masterpiece, and from you, who captured the majestic beauty in a very analytical way. Kudos! Thanks for sharing! :) AL
Man Im sure glad you did this... I will look forward to more scenes from the rest of the franchise.
I never thought I'd see this on your channel. I love your content so much, not the least of which is because you seem laser-focused on all the stuff I'm most enthralled by, and here you are, tackling one of the best traditionally-orchestrated soundtracks since Lord of the Rings! Thank you for doing this.
John Powell! Finally, my favourite movie composer :)
I'd love to see you do test drive!
This movie came out while I was in music school and it motivated me to get into composition, specifically test drive. One of my favorite pieces from the franchise!
Outstanding job, David!!!
Love this movie! Very informative analysis, gotta enjoy pausing to read all the notes around the music
Amazing as always! I’ve always wondered what this looked like on the page.
Great! There's so much happening in this cue, so it's nice to see it in the reduced form.
Last year I had an occasion to listen to this live at the Film Music Festival in Kraków at it was enormous!
thx for your videos, this is very helpful for composers and musicians
One of my favorite cues from the movie! Thanks for doing this 😁
I don't throw the word "perfect" around lightly, but when I say not a single damn thing about this score could be changed to improve it, I mean it. Powell's work for this trilogy alone cements him as the greatest working film composer alive (with the exception of John Williams, of course).
Oh my gosh seeing this in my feed made me so happy. My old theory professor exposed me to your channel and I've loved it since; any chance you'll do the famous Test Drive scene from this one as well?
Really impressive stuff! I might like this even better than my own analysis given how much detail was put into this one.
Wow I'm glad someone make this study! I've been wanting this for years, thank you very much for your work!
Would you mind to analysing forbidden friendship or new tail as well? Not many people analyze that.
4:13 what's this song, I don't find him.
What a master piece!!
Fantastic performance 🎶
Hello there! Been watching for a while now, but I don't think I've commented before. As a composer, I like to listen to the best of the best in order to draw inspiration for my own creations- and the score reductions you make continually blow my mind. Oftentimes, there are extra parts woven into the overall piece that I wouldn't have caught otherwise- and the amount of detail and effort that goes into this is incredible.
Although it's only a suggestion, (and I am quite late in viewing this one), there is a particular song I would love to have a score reduction for if you ever feel like doing so: Anakin Vs. Dooku, from Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. The song is one of the most overlooked tracks in the franchise, and I believe Count Dooku himself is overlooked as well. With that in mind, I decided to research the character and his themes- and there is a particular section (at about 18 seconds into the song) that is... amazing, really- but one I can't quite wrap my head around.
Thank you for all the wonderful work you've done over the years. It has done wonders for me, and I'm sure it's helped a lot of other people as well. Have a wonderful day, whoever's reading this.
More John Powell please!
At measure 46, with all the triplets going on all throughout the orchestra, I wonder why it's moved into 4/4 instead of 12/8
I continue to marvel at your score reductions! They really give one a jump-start into picking apart a score. But I'm curious... I see this is made in MuseScore 3. Any reason why you haven't yet moved to version 4? EDIT: oh... I just saw your pinned comment saying "7 months ago". So I guess you made and uploaded this video long before MuseScore 4 was released, but just had the video set to private. Hope we'll be seeing your amazing score reductions being made with MuseScore4 in future! :)
This is nice. Maybe someday you can do analysis on that swing music from 1941 by John Williams
Good work, David! I’m glad to see more people using and citing the Omni Music Publishing scorebooks. They’re high quality. Do you have the book for the second movie as well?
I don’t have the 2nd one yet, though it’s definitely next up on my list to finish completing my Omni collection!
@@DavidMcCaulley I think they'll have to restock everything soon, but I'd definitely recommend it! I even had a small hand in the theme descriptions at the start of the book.
"Warring Vikings Theme" is so similar to Montagues and Capulets by Prokofiev!
Hey can you do Indiana Jones Belly of the Steel Beast (Tank Fight) or Escape from Venice (*Boat Chase*) from Last Crusade? It would be cool if you did
David, can we contact somewhere?
12 horns? who needs that many?
Hell yeah low brass!!
Pretty decent music but I don't understand at all why he wrote for 12 horns.
Because he can. Also 12 horns = epic. May also be a balancing thing with 6 trombones.
Music from Cat Tale be like…