How John Williams Recycles His Motifs
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2024
- In this video I take a look into the motific similarities between John Williams's many wonderful scores.
Below are links to where you can purchase the soundtracks which contain the themes that were shown briefly in this video.
"Finale and Credits" and "No Ticket" from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade:
www.amazon.com...
"Main Title/Rebel Blockade Runner" from Star Wars-A New Hope:
www.amazon.com...
"Hedwig's Theme" from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's (aka Philosopher's) Stone:
www.amazon.com...
"Gilderoy Lockhart" from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets:
www.amazon.com...
Theme from Schindler's List:
www.amazon.com...
"The Magic of Halloween" from E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial:
www.amazon.com...
"Marion's Theme/The Crate" from Raiders of the Lost Ark:
www.amazon.com...
"Han Solo And The Princess" from The Empire Strikes Back:
www.amazon.com...
Links to Interviews and Documentaries sourced for this video:
John Williams Scoring E.T.:
• Video
John Williams Scoring Session Indiana Jones:
• John Williams Scoring ...
John Williams and Tavis Smiley:
• FULL John Williams Int...
When you've been writing music for over half a century you're bound to repeat ideas.
The melodies are no more similar than most. "The Study of Counterpoint" was written by Johann Fux. If you study Bach, you know the book. Beethoven, Haydn, and countless others have read it. The majority of theory books since are essentially copycats of this book. Every composer who has studied classical composers will understand that to leap up then move stepwise in the opposite direction is extremely common in all music. Our ears like it more. This guy changes the melody to find similarity. If you only look at the already similar parts, they are just as similar to every other composer. We live in a world where after Batman was released, everyone seemed to think Hans Zimmer invented the interval of a minor 3rd. People think you are copying Harry Potter if you use a Celeste, because they've apparently never heard one anywhere else. If you can't read music, I suppose all notes look alike. It's a superficial, or surface level analysis. Classical music is anything but. For that reason, the rhythm is essential to understanding the motif the way the composer was using/saying it. If we reduce every expressed idea by taking things away from it, I suppose we're all really saying the same thing all the time. If you remove 2 of the primary colors from every canvas, most paintings would look a lot more similar, wouldn't they? If you removed every color, every canvas would amazingly look the exact same. I suppose I'm just as amazing as Williams and Bach. I just had to take away the clef, intervals, and rhythm and I sound the exact same! ;)
Well said!
I was 7 when Star Wars came out. When I was about 13, I learned that all of my favorite movie themes, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jaws, Superman, ET, and Close Encounters were all done by the same guy. I don’t think my mind has ever been blown like that since.
I noticed that "Poltergeist" and "Alien" sounded a lot alike...also same guy.
I can teach you his secret : All his music is composed with only twelve notes ! Amazing isn ‘t it ?
It's like saying that the content of every English book consists of just 26 letters. It's a true statement, but with no content whatsoever.
Bon Bon that’s the fucking joke
r/whooosh
How about trombones glisses in Quidditch match? They're beyond the 12-notes scale
But, there is only 12 notes. lol
Brilliant, brilliant video! Really well made, I'm learning! I hope you don't mind me asking, how do you make staves which are sort of 'transparent' and animated? E.g. around 2:33, or the sequence from 3:20. I've been copying and pasting from Sibelius but this is much more beautiful - I love it.
Looking forward to seeing what's next!
Inside the Score thank you! It depends on what software you use. I use Final Cut Pro, and I had the same questions when I started the channel. The tricks that cut down on time and which I use for the animations are keying and the transform tool. Both very rudimentary tools in Final Cut Pro, but they take a bit of patience and practice to get used to. I think you do a good job on your channel regardless. And sometimes it's just better to see black notes on a white background.
Ah thanks - interesting. I'm using Sony Vegas so not sure it'll be possible, unless I make a PNG or something. May be more trouble than it's worth.
I started making tons of pngs for my original videos and in the process wasted days of my life. I never realized one could achieve the same thing with keying in Final Cut. I am sure Vegas has something similar.... But even with keying the animations still take forever.
Just realized this fine chap has hundreds of thousands of subs now. Amazing! Maybe he'll give me a shout-out someday, lol one can dream... 😅
@@MusicaUniversalis Yeah, I’m actually subbed to both of you. I was surprised to see him hear lol 😂
9:02 Woah, Spielberg has whistling skills!
That's why JW was his goto guy. Many directors know shitall about being musical.
You beat me to it :) I was impressed at his accuracy with the intervals
he was apparently a Clarinetist, which explains it tbh.
I didn't realize how characteristic John Williams's composing style was until I listened to a horn concerto of his. The phrasing and melodies just scream movie music to my brain which has been conditioned to associate his specific sound with cinema.
Fantastic, your work is insightful and much appreciated.
I have noticed a couple of things that Williams likes to do. He likes to jump chords that have no relation to another (b3, 3, b5, b6, 6). He does this with major chords for the protagonists, and minor chords for the antagonists (go figure lol). He also likes to make use of the Mixolydian modality within his major themes, such as the Star Wars theme and the bridge to the Indiana Jones Theme. In addition, he will add the major 7th scale degree on the bottom of major and minor chords. He does this to major chords to give it a more modern sound, rather than dissonance. He does this to minor chords to add more sinister-ness, as it makes it *more* dissonant, strangely enough.
"No relation to another" is a relative term. John Williams has a jazz background. Lots of obscure and unusual harmonies to draw from.
I wouldnt say he simply fits major chords to the leitmotifs of protagonists. For example the tie fighter theme in one of the later films user major chords in parallel voice leading
@@oibruv3889 Lol i know I just meant generally
yesss his unconventional chord changes and modulations is one of my favorite things, and one of the things that makes his themes so space-y. Anakin's Theme is a good example.
Some soundtracks from Home Alone (1-2) and Harry Potter "Hedwig's theme" are also have VERY similar motifs.
it's the one similarity i noticed
The comparison at 3:51 of Schindler's List Theme to Harry Potter was REALLY STRETCHING your credibility dude. Where you wonder aloud if John was "intentionally" plagiarizing himself is an absurb notion. Now really. First of all I hope he did, and there would be nothing wrong with it. But the explanation is that his musical sensibilities and creativity make him who he is and so of course he will have similar musical inclinations and tendencies over and over again.
Who is Tavis Smiley, and where can we get more of that kind of questioning on talk shows?
7:37 And then Spielberg added full CGI shots of ET, ruining any suspense
I would so want to have dinner with JW and talk with him about all his scores... oof
My theory about his taste of music is that he uses mostly the 5,1,4 and 2 grade of any major scale and that's because the 3,6 and 7 grade sound somewhat opposite to them if you take the 2 grade as the center of a pile of fourths you get the 7 notes piled up this way 7,3,6,2,5,1,4 with the 2 grade right there at the center. And John Williams seems to like most the 2,5,1,4 part of it.
Too bad there isn't any "lexicon of musical words" that would contain all such motifs and chord progressions with their corresponding emotional "meaning" to a listener :/
I once tried to make myself such a lexicon, but it turns out to be very hard to catch and describe with words a particular emotion that corresponds to a piece of music. I mean, I can feel it, it is always the same feeling, but I can't put my finger on it what emotion it precisely is and how to describe it in words. So I can only go through them one by one and look for the one that works in a particular situation. Maybe we should start making such a lexicon, and involve more people into it, to have a better measure of what those "musical words" actually mean? (by taking some average of how people described it)
Hmm, Music is too subjective to be categorized in that matter. Chord progressions can generally convey a certain mood, but the amount of variables that can slightly or almost completely alter that defined mood are near infinite. I think it's best if we don't venture into such territories, I think academics find such things more intriguing than composers do. Nothing stops composers from making their own collection of motifs and progressions, I have my own sketchbook for that very reason. If you have to copy a chord progression or motif from a book to convey a certain feeling, how can that feeling ever truly be authentic? Perhaps I am too much of an idealist in this regard.
@@MusicaUniversalis Well, the same could be said about poetry, good writing, programming, painting, and any form of art whatsoever. And yet there are certain rules used by the masters, either consciously or subconsciously, that make them convey emotions the way they want it (which makes them the masters they are). Even such great masters as John Williams use certain patterns over and over in their compositions because they learned that they work in a certain way and induce certain emotions. In my opinion, understanding how art works doesn't strip the word "art" from it. Quite the contrary. It lets us understand it better and improve the art, by using these patterns consciously. Does it make Greek architecture, sculpture, art etc. less an art when you know how they implemented proportion, golden ratios, balance, and other secrets? Is their music less beautiful when you understand how they used simple ratios of frequencies to create harmony? Is it less an art if you know why a certain group of tones that makes a chord sounds good and pleasant to our ear? Is it less pleasant when you know that it's a matter of overtones coming together in a certain way so that their wave nodes match?
As you said, music is a language. And if you want to be a good poet or writer, you _have_ to know the language well. Sure, you can mash up words at random and _sometimes_ come up with something great. But wouldn't it be better if you knew exactly what you're doing and using those words consciously to convey the emotions you want to convey, and not just what your viewers/listeners randomly pick up?
That's why I don't see anything wrong in learning the language the masters speak, and in understanding how does it work and why.
@@bonbonpony A lexicon like that could begin with the harmonic series, then continue with melodic intervals and their harmonic effects, dissonant versus consonant. Hindemith did this work already. Then it could move to functional harmony’s melodic implications. Afterward, since modes exist now as special effects in contrast to functional major/minor, they could be brought in. Then at the very least, common harmonic movements could be described, beginning with V - I, IV - I, etc. A lot of the basic elements would have broad characterization like “tense” versus “relaxed.” This idea seems very interesting, surely similar work exists already
I always confuse Han's love theme for Marion's theme
U just blew my mind! I never analysed him like this. Your video on motifs is gold. It'll definitely change my way of composing. It'd be great if you could make some more videos, analysing motifs. How to make such powerful and apt motifs? For simplicity, I'd suggest making a video analysing the motifs and all that you can in Beethoven's 5th Symphony, 1st movement in details. I heard, when you listen to a good music closely, it'll tell you a story. What story comes to your mind when you listen to it?
Williams is brilliant at making statements with his motifs, which I think is one the keys to them ultimately being so thematic. For instance the Star Wars theme tells the story of reaching, failing, reaching, getting closer, then reaching a third time and succeeding at getting the high note, then returning triumphant. The Patriot theme is similar, making a statement about building something worthwhile, starting with laying a foundation, then a frame, then finishing the structure. You are left with a sense that the project is not complete but have hope that it will continue. In the Raiders theme the chorus is boldly going into the unknown, the bridge is meeting the newly discovered danger with determination.
I think this is the Williams video I've been waiting for over years. Especially the Schindler's List + Harry Potter motif, where Ralph Fiennes plays a prominent, menacing villain.
I’m really happy to see someone make a video out of this. I’m constantly watching movie and hearing themes that sound like something I’ve heard before, and I’m like Boom this movie was done by John Williams. Or Boom Hans Zimmer. I’ve gotten the knack of knowing who the composer is without knowing prior to watching the movie. It makes me happy and excited at the same time. I’m like Dang! John Williams you did it again! You recycled your music! One movie I got instantly was when I first saw Silence of the Lambs. It began with this one quick clarinet piece and I’m like Boom this is Howard Shore! I knew this because that same piece was done on a later film, the Hobbit 2, used in the Feast of Starlight track. I know popular moments people compare are the Coruscant chase from Star Wars 2 and the snitch chase from Harry Potter. Another being the Count Dooku theme and the Lucius Malfoy theme. One I just came across, that being the reason for searching this, is the theme for the Patriot and the theme from the movie Amistad. Both composed by John Williams and only a year apart. Another is a theme from Hook which is reused in the Across the stars track from Star Wars 2. It amazes me every time when I watch a movie and instantly know it’s done by a composer I love because they “recycle” their music.
7:25 I'm gonna have to stop you there and suggest an improvement to your statement:
Only a genius like Williams could write almost identical themes for two different movies and those themes still perfectly fit the very different moods of their respective films.
Lots of people notice the similarities. You noticed it, I've noticed it, my dad points this out whenever I put on my "Force-strong beats to relax/study Jedi arts/ponder sand to" playlist. 😆 The genius part is his ability to perfectly evoke moods and feelings with a very simple theme that may be recognizably similar to another theme that yet nevertheless manages to evoke a very different mood or feeling. And that lines up with how he spends hours carefully fiddling around with note placement of the main leitmotifs to make sure they evoke exactly what he's trying to evoke. I have always been drawn to artists/composers/musicians who can create diverse sounds and atmospheres and moods and yet still retain some essential quality that makes even their most widely divergent works recognizably _theirs,_ and Williams has this quality.
Couldn't agree more. One can only say so much in a TH-cam video especially when the focus of the video is just about motific alteration.
One most obvious example of recycling his motifs is the Dagobah swamp theme raising the fighter with its rich tenor and baritone sound gets picked up at the Halloween forays in ET in the flutes or piccolo's.
I was listening recently to the Superman OST. I found some striking similarities with later work from Williams. Lots of his motifs are already there.
The Star Wars Main Theme doesn't occur all that often in the scores though, does it? The only times I can think of are the rope swing and Jabba's barge, and a few incidental times in the prequels. I would argue that "the Force theme" aka binary sunset aka the Skywalker theme is much more iconic of a motif, at least in the contexts of the films minus the title crawls.
He composes his motifs leitly
I don't think ET and SW are similar. If you change the motif so much of course they will be similar.
only one note is added otherwise the motifs are tonally almost identical.
In this video you removed rhythm from the motifs and you can't do that -- the durations of the notes are a huge part of the information that a motif carries. Also, the jump of a minor seventh in the Star Wars motif is probably the most important bit of information in it, and it induces tension, while in E. T. the same note C (down the octave) is relaxation. They do have some things in common -- but then remember there exist only 12 notes and if you're on one of them and you think it's time for a change you only have about 6 choices that wouldn't make the general public raise an eyebrow. I think I could almost as easily argue similarity with the Gone With the Wind theme. When talking about these motifs it is easy to forget how much art goes into everything else.
"In this video you removed rhythm from the motifs and you can't do that --"....... but I did... hehe. That's like saying you can't reduce a piece of music to it's chords in order to understand it. Seems dogmatic to me.... You are free to make a video proving Gone with the Wind is similar. Idk, that might've been more of a flippant remark than a serious one, as that would probably be a stretch.....
I always thought they sounded rather similar
You can see the breeding and I think that is the point. Excellent vid
Well done! I love John Williams' music, and always find creative inspiration in videos like these. Thanks!
Has anyone else ever noticed the similarities between John William's Jurassic Park Theme and the second and third season theme of the Lost and Space television series which he also composed?
William is a genius at disguising a theme and recycling it, whether, its his own theme or someone else's.
Amazingly informative video, thank you!
It's a bit unfair to point out the similarity of Gilderoy Lockheart and No Ticket, since Chamber Of Secrets was not a full time job for Williams, he squeezed it in between Star Wars Episode II, Minority Report, and Catch Me If You Can, which were all released in 2002 as well. William Ross did adaption work on Chamber Of Secrets, and that score is largely a collection of existing cues conformed to new picture. Williams also borrowed heavily from Attack Of The Clones for the Quidditch match in CoS.
Just found this channel, this is great work. I'm surprised you didn't mention how most of Williams famous motifs are all pentatonic scales lol.
I wonder why you didn't analyzed that most of his motifes are using a scale.
This is a good episode. You could go deeper, though.
If developing those short little motifs is hard for HIM, then it’s pretty much impossible for the rest of us. 😳
Thanks for posting this very informative video at 9:49 John Williams gives one of his tricks to composition... perspiration and fun hard work ;-) Cheers, Max T.
0:08 after the first two notes I thought you were showing "awake" from skyrim.That brought the idea to my mind that you could make a video about modern video game music(modern because there are already many videos about "older" 8-bit pieces).
Thanks for the suggestion. I am not a big video game player, but I always think of Halo first when I think of good "modern" video game music. I briefly played skyrim and own a copy, but never got into it (not because I found it bad, it just seemed overwhelming to me). I'll have to pop it back into my neglected Xbox and take a listen to the music.... I'm afraid to get into that game though, seems like something that would suck up months of my life. I listened to the track you mentioned "Awake", and understand why you'd initially think it was the same piece in the first few seconds. Isn't it funny how a few intervals can instantly remind us of another piece? The truth is I am no expert in the video game department, I'll leave that stuff to other TH-camrs.
It seems like all his famous love themes uses the sixth intervall and and the fifth for his more heoric themes like Star Wars and Superman.
Makes sense, the sixth is associated with lots of the romantic era Canon. The fifth, due to the way horns have historically worked, its associated with its predominatnt use in battle signals
I like how Han and Leia's theme (and Leia's theme, which it's based on) use the major sixth and Anakin and Padmé's theme (Across The Stars) use the minor sixth, which reflects the overall hopefulness of Han and Leia's romance and the tragic, star-crossed, doomed quality of Anakin and Padmé relationship, respectively.
Pure genius ! Need we say more?
"To a smoker it's a Kent"
And you one of my favorite themes, The Grail!
No need to get bogged down on theory of his writing. He writes from a jazz piano player's perspective, that's why his voicings are as they are. His themes come, like from most composers', from his influences (Korngold etc.). Mike Verta has been studying JW for 30 years and understands his music to a level that very few people do; I consider him perhaps the world's foremost expert on JW's music. You should look him up.
The Indiana Jones theme appeared in a 1960s Kent commercial, question is, did a young John Williams write that jingle? Likewise the Jurassic Park theme appeared twice in the 1960s, once in a Chevrolet commercial (I don't know who wrote that jingle) and once as the ending-credits Lost In Space theme (by "Johnny Williams").
I wonder what kind of music maestro would write for Game of Thrones
Excellent 😊
Love your channel. Thank you for your amazing effort! Any chance you might do a video on Max Steiner as composer? Thanks again :)
Easy the first 2 notes are always double, either half or quarter, depending on the time signature. Then followed by 8 or 16th's. Listen to Star Trek Voyager...same idea with Goldsmith for his themes in that series. Of course I've simplified it, but with Super Man, Star Wars, ET, and I think Close Encounters his main themes had similar approaches.. David Arnold actually "borrowed" from William's Poseidon Adventure for the Independence Day score, you can here it in track 01. Same thing with Danny Elfman for the 1989 Batman, he borrowed that from Bernard Herrmann for the Journey to the Center of the Earth soundtrack.
Harry Potter and Chamber of Secrets uses a lot of music, very similar to music made by Williams for other films, especially Star Wars.
There is a theory to good movie music so why judge it? Im a composer and major influenced in good harmonies. Theres a reason why people who dont know about music in film they enjoy the film on a deeper level! Stop judging! I appreciated you view but this is composers fame!
Listen to Toy Story 3 when the toys are on the conveyor belt to the furnace. You can literally hear copies of JW's Jurassic Park and Star wars during a few minutes of that scene, and that was composed by Randy Newman. He must be a big Williams fan.
There are only a handful of notes, they are bound to repeat, however they are like ingredients in a recipe. With their order and how long the note is, or how many added at once, you change it. Just like you could use flour and water and eggs to make pasta, flatbread, pop overs ect. Then the choice of instruments used is like putting in chocolate or fruit. So, even if there are similarities in his notes used, there is still a whole world of pieces which can be derived from them which are basically nothing alike.
The most impressive part of this entire video is Spielbergs ability to whistle in key so well
Great, this term motif, has changed my life, thanks a lot....
Yo I don't know why yandere Dev is explaining this to me and not working on the game
more videos like this this video is so simple in understanding music :)
Funny story:
I found this video today, thinking "Hmm, this looks interesting." So I clicked on it, and while I had always noticed the similarity between Leia's theme and the Love theme, when you said that the Star Wars and ET themes were similar, I did a double take, as I just made that connection earlier today (I never made the connection between Hedwig's theme and Schindler's List, though).
P.S. Gilderoy Lockhart's theme is a twisted version of Hedwig's theme, though I do acknowledge that it was probably heavily influenced by "No Ticket".
This comment section is what the internet SHOULD be.
Is there a transcript or subtitles available?
Need a autogenerated subtitle, please!
This was awesome, thank you!
great video ! Thank you
Well done. Great video!
Great video!
Genius of our times
Danke aus Buenos Aires!
More people need to see this musical analysis.
Correction: they need to know how to understand it.
I don’t think more people need to understand it necessarily. Music is to be enjoyed. Not analyzed. We as musicians get caught up in that a lot. And it’s fun for us because it’s what we do. But for the layman it’s a subconscious journey. No analysis. Just taken in a direction by the music. It’s a beautiful thing that a lot of musicians miss.
I am not music genius, but Star Wars theme and Superman theme that many ppl confused between these two themes as both scores and Instruments used are too similar.
Non Orchestra or theme song fans often confused and named them vice versa.
Those people should stop listening to mainstream trash to save the last bit of their aural sensibility.
He straight up lifts entire phrases from classical and romantic music.
All film score composers have issues with directors who edit with temp tracks and ask them to make a similar-sounding score. I know the first Star Wars was like that, but JW really went from there afterwards didn’t have to compose to temps anymore.
For someone who doesn't have any musical background, it can be hard to tell if a director stepped on William's toes or not (Like Lucas did to him). Are there any scores he did that are completely original ?
Yes, his concert music. All film scores (from all composers) all have the director's vision in them I'd say...
Ah I see, thanks !
He doesn't compose, just steals.
@Sunny Sunny Wake up and see the truth!
If there was TH-cam in the early 19th century there would be videos by “know-it-all” TH-camrs who would tell us all about how Beethoven stole themes.
@@MusicaUniversalis It is not the same thing, dear amateur. P.S. Beethoven is an artist, Williams is a clown.