The Composing Processes of John Williams, Hans Zimmer, John Powell
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This video looks at different methods of composition for film, focusing on techniques used by John Williams, Hans Zimmer, and John Powell.
I know tons of people would be very happy if you did a full in-depth analysis of the score of the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy.
We french people have it in french in the channel "Tyllou", the videos are called "partoche", but i don't think there is a traduction, maybe you can ask for it :)
Hey, I'm currently doing a series where I analyze the HTTYD scores and bring attention to lesser-known aspects of them. I did one on the main theme of the sequels and how it tells the story from Powell's perspective and one on how he uses the bagpipes. Here is a sample: th-cam.com/video/9e718DgOZ4k/w-d-xo.html
yes
You can buy the full score sheet music for the first movie from Omni publishing and study it yourself. They sell full scores for around $85 a piece. You learn best from doing.
@@Skitdora2010 Not everyone has the money for official scores sadly, so it's great we have these alternative resources that can better fit the budgets of students, young professionals, and others alike!
John Powell is awesome, I adore all of his work.
I do too. The king of animation and action film scores.
Wait, that’s not John Powell, isn’t that Danny Elfman?
… Is John Powell just a grey-haired Danny Elfman with the same glasses?
basically...
...yes. Yes, he is.
Road to El Dorado 2000 Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Music Composed & Conducted Score By Hans Zimmer & John Powell Intrada Records Limited Edition $100.00 CD www.Amazon.com & www.eBay.Com Coming Soon!
I've never really written music, but what you describe seems strangely close to what writing can be like. Deciding to write on paper or with a computer makes a massive difference in the creative process, in my opinion.
yeah, My compositions definitely come under the John Powell idea of writing it on piano first, and then orchestrating it later. although, for me, I find that I get the general Ideas of my composition on piano and I put them onto an orchestra and then compose via orchestra from then onwards.
Brruh, I remember seeing you before in the comments of Alex Moukala's recent video. what a coincidence
@@abadmusician2176 that's awesome, both of the channels are pretty amazing right, they've helped me understand so much about music that I otherwise wouldn't have found out and overall made me a better composer because of it, the least I can do is leave my thoughts on a video.
(Also I recognise your name, I think I've saw you before)
Brazen Dragon Brazen Dragon I think it's quite hard for my profile picture to go unnoticed. And I agree, I would definitely be much further behind in my ability if it weren't for these videos
What about no piano?Just check the ideea ,if any, and see if the notes from the score are the right ones, after writing?
@@adrianfundescu5407 could you elaborate on what you mean there
A very interesting video. I want to actually try John Powell method. I'm usually somewhere along the lines of Zimmer - just trying ideas using end sound right away, and when I do piano I often times limit myself to one piano. I will try the many pianos approach. I now know why Powell music sounds so rich and layered. Sounds so logical, but yet I never actually tried it.
Today digitized film shooting and editing directors are taking full advantage of it and constantly making changes and score composers are getting daily re-edits some pretty major and expected to re-compose the previous days score. Writing by hand can't keep up with that pace. I hear John Williams just writes the initial themes these days and his orchestrators do all the heavy lifting after that.
You are correct. I dropped a project because of that. I started working on an animation short and started immediately when they had the "full" movie in a rough edit but then when they started changing colour and movie scenes here and there I think I wrote and -rewrote the score hundreds of times in 3 years and at the end, I said I can no longer do that(then they got another composer for the final scoring and he took most of my spotting ideas and finished it-I was glad I was out). It is just frustrating. Today I get the final cut and I want the director to assure me that the movie timing will not change at all because if you record the score with a live orchestra is easy to adjust the timing but with computer is really time consuming and really hard + you have to make very good simulation (to sound like a real orchestra) that puts more hours in the work. It is absolutely crazy. I finished a drama/horror movie this summer (1h 30 min)and I had the locked version and thank God I did not have to re-adjust or drop-down scenes and so on because it was crazy. In the scoring world, you have to work fast and good, otherwise, they will drop you.
What many great artists say is that passion is what leads to sucess, not the desire for fame or money, but the passion in the art itself. The passion is what drives you to keep going despite all the failures, and even the best have failures.
Keep making these videos! You’re a pleasure to watch and listen to
Fascinating. I hadn’t given much thought to the non traditional ways it might be done. Glad you are going back to composing
Amazing videos dude! Love them! Always looking forward to them.
My process is peculiar but it basically falls into the traditional pencil and paper method. I'm self-taught so getting to a point where I felt comfortable with the notation took a while, and I'm still learning a lot. Before that I would compose straight into the daw with a midi keyboard like Zimmer
Really enjoyed that. Fascinating insights as ever.
Starting with the end credits is a *genius* idea! Why have I never thought of that???
Thinking the same thing.
I’d love to see another video on the How to Train Your Dragon scores
Great video! I'm probably going to spend the day to read/watch more about it! It adds a lot to their music to know the process behind it. Great work as always, thank you!
I really liked this video, the content I already knew - but I kinda got me thinking along the lines of how do I comopose for the things I do? I've fallen into the powell way of doing things because I feel it always ends up being musically more interesting than applying a zimmer type of method. You certainly don't get fooled into thinking some things fit when they really don't.
Thank for this great video, you're amazing as always. I really wish you'd discuss "The Prince of Egypt" one day, I'm honestly not a big Zimmer fan but this is a masterpiece and in my opinion his best work.
You’re welcome
John Powell worked on that film as well.
@@marnixpeeters2675 oh my god, I had no idea until now... Thanks
Don’t Mention It
Prince Of Egypt 1998 Legacy Collection Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Music Composed Score By Hans Zimmer Dreamworks Records Limited Edition CD $100.00 www.Amazon.Com & www.eBay.Com Coming Soon!
Thank you!!!! Thank you so much for covering orchestration! I am also a biggener composer, so this has been very helpful to me!
Great video! Could you do a video on Thomas Newman, one of my favourite composers?
I didn't know you wrote music! That's real cool!
Very interesting and well explained ! Thank you. I know where to go now
Nice video bro .. good content ❤️ thank you for making it 😊
I really like this kind of videos where you just talk to the camera
But many people forget Hans Zimmer also made orchestral scores. My absolute favourite are king fu panda, pirates of the Caribbean, prince of Egypt and the last samurai.
He doesn't just experiment with sounds and microphones, he experimented with so many styles and has some of the most beautiful orchestral scores. Now his scores are different but he is capable of making epic, sad and or beautiful orchestral scores as well
I enjoy your videos. Keep up the good work
Nice video! ♥ So, I'm more the John Powell type of composer, but I often just sit somewhere and scribble my ideas with traditional pen and paper. As you said, it gives an an enormous sense of creative freedom.
Great video! Please do more composing related content. I also really liked your recent orchestration demonstration.
I absolutely adore all 3 of these composers. The only one I would add to this list to represent the titans of modern film score would be Michael Giaccino
Thank you very much!!! That really helped me!😗😁
Interesting ides here.
It was great to finally see you as well.
Great video! As I'm finishing up my final year of university I'm finding I still don't know what process *actually* works best for me. I believe Howard Shore also works pretty similarly to John Williams. My understanding is hat he'll begin by writing themes based on the script, story, or what have you, both at the piano and physically on staff paper. He'll sketch the themes out and flesh it out with counterpoint and harmony, never just a melody. So then when it comes time to actually 'score' a scene he already has the melodies and themes all created, then it's just finding out how that idea actually fits within the scene.
Do you see a difference in the quality of the composition depending on the process the composer seems to use?
when writing for orchestra I definitely tend to compose with piano first and then expand it in my DAW. I might even notate it just so I can make sure I'm getting all the note values right and everything right, depends on the piece though. For film music I honestly think that the way Hans writes is the future, sonic innovation and imagination is what people gravitate towards more now, especially with the ground breaking Dune soundtrack. Orchestral melodic music is still amazing and people love it obviously, I love it. But sound seems to be so the thing moving forward, but this ain't news haha
Where did you get the info that John Williams writes the credit suite first? It makes sense but I've never seen that said anywhere...
I know that for a fact from John Williams himself. John Williams calls this De-Composing.
For example, you cannot score a movie from start to end it is just not possible,you have to see the culmination of the movie first and write the lead themes there and then re-use them.
And John Williams is not the only one doing it
Example Braveheart movie
Play the scene where (William Wallace was gutted out dying) well this is the exact theme where Horner wrote the theme to fit and then he borrowed that theme and put it in front of the movie but with some ethnic whistle where young boy Wallace is saying "One day I will be big ....." I do not remember the exact words but this is done on purpose(how I know he did this :because the theme was used as a light motif and not the enrite theme just small bit of it). First, these big themes that appear later in the movie -they affect you the most because they put them with a quieter instrument (orchestration) at the beginning of the movie and you know them subliminally and when the culmination comes you see them with full force and then you have no idea why you are so emotional.
This is a simple scoring trick that works really well when you want to prepare the culmination of the movie and prepare the audience without pushing it in their faces.
I do that too.
thanks for the great video
Don’t Mention It!
I've heard John Powell say in interviews that he starts with pencil and paper as well.
His approach seems to be basically the same as John Williams, only Powell ends up actually putting in into a MIDI orchestra to create demo's. Which I'm sure Williams doesn't have to do
Great comparison! I was actually considering a similar Zimmer/Powell comparison for an upcoming video that will touch on Powell's writing style. And I think he's said before he doesn't work with paper first, that he's too "musically handicapped."
My methods vary. Sometimes it starts as piano and evolves, other times I open Finale on the computer and create a document with specific instruments and work with those given restrictions, and other times I open ProTools with EWQL and either work from scratch or try to create something that's been floating through my head lately.
Using ProTools is kind of a good combination, because with EWQL I'm really still just playing the piano no matter which instruments are heard.
Some of my personal favorites have come from the Finale method of picking instruments without an idea and making something fit the instrumentation. That's how I've done all my video game music.
Apart from your immensely rich and interesting information, I like the way you talk and how you use your hands and facial expressions. You are also devastatingly good looking!!
I feel very often that some music by our “classical” classical composers is perfect for films as well...pity directors don’t use it so often
2001: a Space Odyssey: "Am I a joke to you?!"
I think a lot of film composers - like Morricone or Howard Shore - could write fantastic operas. They are not afraid of melody and they love to go big and epic. I don't find much appeal in post-Britten opera composers.
Really? I honestly think it gets used too often.
The real shame is that there's no variety when it is used... you get a handful of Mozart, some Beethoven, a little Bach, some Vivaldi, and that's pretty much the extent of Hollywood's classical music knowledge.
Unless it's a holiday movie, and then there's Tchaikovsky and stuff too.
I think it's best to give living composers their chance to be heard
@@josephalvarez5315
Especially with some of the geniuses we have in the field.
Fascinating that Williams starts with the 'end credits'. His end credits suite for Prisoner of Azkaban is really fascinating in that many of the themes in the score are reversed in order. So we hear the themes unfold at the beginning and then in the same themes in the credits go backwards. Much like the time turner.
My three favorite composers, I see my self most like Hans. I just keep adding to my pieces (I do edits to my peices if I don't like it or it doesn't work, duh! ) But this was a useful guide. Thank you :)
Very very interesting
Hi and thanks for this! Could you please indicate some links for Powell's how to compose (the ones you mentioned)...I can't find it!
Thanks again!
Max B
Great video, thank you!
I got curious on one thing: why did you switch to Cubase from Ableton?
Similar journey for me. I gave up in university when I got smacked that I wouldn't be one of The Greats™. But I'm getting back into composing after a decades long hiatus, and I'm doing it for myself. I hardly share nor promote what I compose. It's more like therapy.
There's something to be said for accompanying movies on the piano. Especially those old ones that didn't have a sound track, yet. I bet John Williams still had an awareness of that.
Love this...Do you have a link to John Powell's piano midi to midi orch mockup ?
If you just search for his name he's got a TH-cam channel with all of that on there.
@@JonnDthunDer I have . Watched all the videos on his channel. There is none that starts with a piano mockup composition process then goes to a orchestra mockup.
@@edbuller4435 I think he uploaded it on his Facebook page
very cool
I am pretty sure that John Williams wrote an amazing amount of music for "Lost in Space." One of my favorites is the suite for the episode, "The Great Vegetable Rebellion." Please, have a listen to it, I am sure you'll agree that it is perhaps one of his most beautiful pieces.
Do you have any videos of your compositions?
Where can I find where john powell first uses piano to orcestrate?
Starting with the credits actually sounds really hard to me personally. I prefer to have many established motifs before I try making a mega mix of different ideas. Therefore, what I do (although I don't compose film score) is start with the characters, and experiment how I can express their personality with a melody (which becomes their lite motif). When I've composed an idea of what the world is like (a world motif), an idea of what each character, theme, or element is like, then I'm able to make arrangements depending on the scene.
Is my main character charging off to battle? I will write a strong triumphant arrangement of his motif with many horns in a fanfare fashion. Is he devastated about his lover leaving him? I will write a somber arrangement of his motif with light strings. I can also then combine ideas to address the unity or conflict between characters because I've established their motifs. Everything then in the exposition or conclusion includes the main character's themes in a state that fits the narrative.
subscribed
Was Harold Faltermayer already covered? (He did an interesting interview on THE RUNNING MAN and TOP GUN)
John Barry? (James Bond OST)
James Horner? (Kahn!!!!) :D
Question; most pro film composers, do they score the whole movie in one session, cubase for example or, are all the themes and scenes spread over multiple sessions? what is more practical you think? thank you!
you should do a video about howard shore! :)
may i suggest listening to vaporwave? its super cool
Can you articulate the Jerry Goldsmith way of composing? I found his scores very interesting.
I'm pretty sure Goldsmith would have worked the same way as Williams, largely with pencil and paper and a piano. Even though musical notation software did start becoming a thing towards the end of his career, by that point he had probably been working so long that he wasn't about to shake up his methods. Goldsmith did use synths heavily sometimes, but the way he treated them was quite different to how, say, Hans Zimmer does. Zimmer does a lot of sonic manipulation and combining and blurring of the lines between the organic and the electronic, but Goldsmith strictly treated synths as an extra section of the orchestra and only used them to create sounds that no orchestra could, layering them on top of his orchestral music.
@@LordMangudai Thank you, that was very helpful! 🙂
cool my teacher assigned this to me
4:27 Darth “VADAR” 😊
I have a disconnect between my piano and composing skills. Basically when I improvise on the piano it has a different style from writing on Sibelius.
Could you do something similar to Steve Jablonsky? I've been a really big fan of him since I was 9 in 2008.
Sorry, whats the name of the software you use now to compose? Didn't understand the name of it. Thanks.
I have one question regarding film scores: The composer´s que titles are often just short terms like "1m9" or something like this. What does this mean? The pieces are not called like "Luke Skywalker Han Solo Scene" for example. Whats up with this, really want to know for a long time.
OMG. You're cuteness incarnate. Your handsome face matches your great voice.
On other topics - I learned classical piano for about 12 years as a kid/teen, and I enjoyed composition as well. I even entered ajudications. I found that its easiest to have an strong emotion and then noodle around on the piano until I find a bunch of good melodies, and then I string the melodies together. That's how I composed. And it worked really well.
working on a computer indeed is limiting. One thing to learn is that things will work live that might not sound that well on a midi mockup at first.
cant find John Powells youtube channel, can you?
Thanks for an interesting video! I find that still writing With pencil and paper is the right thing for a Composer to do, to educate Your sonar imagination. But actually I use Finale for composing my Music, and unlike many others I neither use piano to try out my Ideas, nor do I listen to the computer playback, but actually I am writing my Music directly in to the Finale score...then I listen to the playback afterwards, not to listen to the sounds, necessesarily, but to see if I got the notes right...since I do not have a Perfect pitch. ;) My concern today With tha vast use of Technology Devices inside Music business, is actually that the audience/listener, maybe more than the composeres, loose the true sense of the Acoustic tone and Acoustic Music, since everything usually is conveyed though luodspeakers and headphones. Acoustic Music/tones is the most beautiful With the most richness of nuances...my opinion.
Well listening to what you're saying at min 3:30-4:30 I believe that you can compose amazing things regardless because having that you have the instruments your imagination can compose them first then you can add the sounds vs pencil and paper you can develop a sound but you're not 100% sure you'll be able to develop that sound. John Williams has the physical instrumentalists live which is a major disadvantage to the computer composer if you will. So he can take away and put back right in, in the middle of a general session.
Bernard Hermann never composed a piano score for a film to start. He would orchestrate his scores from the piano already knowing what instruments he would use because he never trusted studio composers to orchestrate his music. Checkout the instrumentation of the music he composed for the film "The Day The Earth Stood Still." violin, cello, and bass (all three electric), two theremin electronic instruments, two Hammond organs, a large studio electric organ, three vibraphones, two glockenspiels, two pianos, two harps, three trumpets, three trombones, four tubas, and extensive percussion including cymbals and tam-tam.
Could you please make a video on ilaiyaraaja sir? He's arguably, the greatest film score composer in the world!
Some composers like James Horner use lost of themes from symphonies
Example
James Horner's Willow theme is a reworked theme from Schumann: 3. Sinfonie. also (Prokofiev and Mahler )
Willo Theme
th-cam.com/video/9H6yUZLQfes/w-d-xo.html
Schumann N4
th-cam.com/video/3lRdCGIp-rg/w-d-xo.html
He also uses lost of elements from Rachmaninoff and he uses it almost in every score where something bad is about to happen.
So basically all this means that it is really helpful to listen to as many symphonies as possible and use some of their elements and turn them into your own main themes and ideas and expand on that.
Thanks for the video! Its really nice, but at its end you’re saying “Hans Zimmer is working purely sonically largely with computers and experimenting with microphones (haha) whereas John Williams is working with his imagination and traditional orchestration”. It sounds like Hans Zimmer doesn’t use his imagination on the contrary to John Williams. I believe that both, Zimmer and Williams use their imaginations, but have different approaches of making that imagination real.
Anyway, I liked the video and subscribed! 😉👍
Ook!
Am I the only one who has a crush on this guy?
Anyone else take Hans Zimmer's MasterClass?
I thought about it. How is it?
@@stumm_and_laut
As long as you're participating in the student community, I'd say it's very good.
Yes....worth every penny
It would be cool if John Williams made one too. I know he doesn’t really do things like that though
Dear Sir I am a composer and I really love to send you examples of my work, how can I send it to you?
John powell👌
Why we talking about animations? What about Harry Gregson Williams?
I'm of the mind that the late James Horner and Hans Zimmer are the two most cinematically astute film composers. They fundamentally understand how to truly collaborate as another film savy set of sensibilities for elevating the narrative storytelling by playing the subtext to service the context of the pretext. Knowing when to feature, when to finesse, when to float, and when to fetishize. Their filmmaking acumen is often more sound than the actual directors of the films, to the level that either could have likely had great success helming their own pictures if they so aspired to.
John Williams doesn't have that level of cinephile nuance to play scenes small and build from what's lacking. Because he doesn't think like a storyteller. Just so happens he most frequently collaborates with the director that conveys every theme in his visual craft so overtly that he doesn't really need subtextual assistance. But for that reason I couldn't in good conscience call John Williams the best FILM composer. Because I don't think he's steeped in cinematic language, and therefore there are times when the busyness of his orchestrations obliviously strangles the breath out of a scene's natural plotting.
Thank you! I find it horrible how people often trashtalk Zimmer in comparison to Williams. But it's as you said, Zimmer can be so subtle and his music actually drives the plot at some points and hints at things to come, while Williams is always very straightforward with his Leitmotifs and even the instruments he uses. People often say that you can identify Zimmer very fast and then give Pirates and Gladiator as an example, but forget movies like Inception, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda or Last Samurai, while Williams seemingly always uses the same instruments for his music and some of his pieces are also very similar, take Harry Potter and Star Wars for example (the quidditch scene in Chamber of Secrets could have been a scene in Attack of the Clones). Williams is a musical genius, no question. But Zimmer is too. They just have very different styles. And for all the people who think that Zimmer sounds like Holt, well... Listen to the Jaws theme and then listen to Dvorak's symphony 9 the allegro...
Horner?
"Pen and Paper" is more like "Piano, Pen and Paper", in which case you also get immediate feedback. Sure, you may not hear back the music in its orchestrated form, but a piano reduction removes a major part of the imaginative process.
I'm pretty sure when he's mentioning pen and paper, most of the time he's literally referring to pen and paper without a piano as nowadays, there is literally no reason to use piano, pen, and paper when programs can score things up pretty automatically.
He also mentions about the advantages of being pen and paper is being able to go out and not being confined to a piano or a room, furthering the claim that he literally means, pen and paper
@@inky_64 and that's precisely the reason behind my comment. He says JW is using pen and paper, but he also has a Steinway which you can even see in the videoclip with him and Spielberg.
Thomas Newman creates at the pano and others orchestrate it -due to time constraints,....
Who else has the for school
This makes sense. I can now see why I dont like Hans Zimmer scores at all. A chain of sounds
Problem with Hans Zimmer is everything he does sounds exactly the same, and now to a point where everyone else's music sounds just like his music. There's no real melody or theme, but mostly just a bunch of sounds that sound kind of nice together. Whereas the composers of yore (including John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner before his death, Alan Silvestri to a smaller extent have varied themes that all sound like they come from the same person, just not the same movie) (okay well maybe James Horner on Battle Beyond the Stars, Krull, and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn all sound like they're from the same movie, but at least they have good melodies and actually help you remember key scenes from the movies when listening to them).
I have to agree, Zimmer's music always fits the picture really well but a lot of the magic of yesterday's film scores have been lost. Even Zimmer's own soundtracks used to be more memorable
Don't forget Elmer Bernstein boyeeeee
You have to listen to Ilayaraja India, you will be really feeling well....
Why is your face so close to my face?? You are a close talker, my friend. I'm glad we have a screen between us or we'd be bumping foreheads.
Could you normalize the voiceover? It's very quiet
Plural of staff is "Staves." C'mon, I'm an American- if anything YOU should be correcting ME on that one.
Both ways are acceptable
@@N-JKoordt Yeah, I know. But I like "Staves" better. lol
williams= steal classic , especially holst , change one note and call it yours!;)
pretty short-sighted
Hans Zimmers process is looking up what Gustav Holst wrote.
Tricks are for kids.
If you want to sound like Hans Zimmer, then just use ghostwriters...
So are you implying hans Zimmer use ghostwriters?
Yes, Take a look at the album credits. Almost all of them have "additional music" credits. It's well-known.
@@drewcollier1138 All of the big composers use assistants in order to meet deadlines
@@drewcollier1138 from my understanding they were his assistants, ghost writers never get credits for what they do.
Hans famously mentors up and coming musicians and uses his influence to help launch their careers. Ignorant haters then post about it as a knock on the guy because they want to sound smart, and it's popular to hate on Hans. Look it up. It's well known.
youre so cute
You're so cute
This dude reminds me of a less awful James Deen...
Lol
Oh no
Hans Zimmer what a genius 🤮
I hate most of Hans Zimmer's stuff, mostly what he's written in the past 15 years