Originality of John Williams(?)

I thought it'd be neat to have a balanced discussion of Williams and the originality of his music, among composers!

His music is so well-known and often-played that it's been subjected to many analyses, and in some cases people have alleged he's lifted whole passages from other composers.

Of course, when you have an antsy director, a temp track, and a deadline, there can be a blurry line between:

*writing something revolutionary and new... that gets rejected by the director

*writing what the director wants, albeit something conventional in melody, orchestration, etc.

*being too influenced by the temp track (in mood, orchestration, melodic shape)

*borrowing from the temp track (melodies, harmonic motion)

*lifting whole passages (stealing/plagiarizing) from the temp track

and it's unclear how ethical/unethical the first four options are.

Let's look at some examples.

One of the most famous and striking comparisons is this one:

Star Wars vs Kings Row

Korngold was a big influence on Williams, especially in orchestration. It's possible that this motif got stuck in his head and he used it thinking he came up with it. He certainly takes it in new directions!

Star Wars vs. Holst and Stravinsky

1. Star Wars vs. Neptune The Mystic: only a mood similarity. He uses similar orchestration - high strings, ww, and celesta/harp - because these are good tools to communicate that mood!

2. The Stormtroopers vs. Dance Of The Adolescents: a clear case of being too influenced by the temp track here. The chords and rhythm are different, but the unison of accented strings and stopped horn is clearly inspired by Stravinsky.

3. Planet Core vs. Neptune The Mystic: not as convincing a similarity - basically a high pedal tone in female voice. You can hardly patent that!

4. General Grievous vs. Dance Of The Earth: not very convincing. They're both "action music." Which means they make use of "woodwind licks" and "brass stings."

5. ET Escape vs. Hanson Symphony No. 2: This sounds like a clear case of borrowing to me. The same woodwind licks, in the same key and even mode (Lydian with its #4 is what gives it that magical quality). I can sort of see how the theme is related - it's in the horns, it emphasizes the 1st and 5th scale degrees, and then the 4th scale degree.

6. Dune Sea Of Tatooine vs. Rite of Spring: This is completely borrowed. In fact I think in a documentary Williams basically admitted that he rewrote the temp track.

7. Home Alone vs. Russian Dance: this is so borrowed that most of you probably recognized where it's from without needing to hear the source clip. Open and shut case here.

One more youtube:

Star Wars vs. Dvorak

While I was initially amazed, in cold-blooded analysis I have to say this is no biggie. It's clearly possible that Lucas used Dvorak as the temp track. But apart from being in the same key, the two pieces are NOT very similar. The Force Theme is not like Dvorak's motive; and the Star Wars B theme (played at 1:01 here) is entirely unlike Dvorak's. Basically the two pieces are in the same key and use brass heavily.

That's my take on these clips! Your mileage may vary. :)

I really dont see how this is a debate at all. I can remember my high school orchestra teacher showing how Williams borrowed...

If you want to talk about "originality" then at least talk about works he did where there was no requirement for it to SOUND like something in particular.

Jeeze, these discussions are so stupid.

Show me ONE film score that doesn't have SOME influence from somewhere.

Three quarters of James Horner's scores are directly lifted from Prokovievv.

Hans Zimmer does constant underscore, so there's not much chance he's actually going to lift something from someone else.

Danny Elfman just keeps repeating the theme to The Simpsons.

All these people who crap on John Williams for doing what he does seem to forget that the EXACT same accusations can pretty much be brought against ANY Hollywood composer.

And an interesting thing, mind you, would be to also make mention of well known classical composers doing the exact same thing. I'm sure the repertoire is chock full of these examples.

And an interesting thing, mind you, would be to also make mention of well known classical composers doing the exact same thing. I'm sure the repertoire is chock full of these examples.

Mozart... :whistling:

Oh, and listen to Williams' non-film pieces.

I think you can get too caught up on searching the far recesses of music to test a composer's originality. I do agree some of his music may well have been knowingly influenced by other composers works, but I'm sure this is the case for every single composer who has ever lived!

In this piece, the motif at 00:38 could be attributed to L'apprenti Sorcier, but I think it would be very unfair to look past the other material in this piece - which in my opinion is very interesting - and focus solely on one particular idea that may or may not have been influenced by another composer.

well, where did he steal this this music?

Soundings

or this one?

Tuba concerto

(sorry, those are the only non-film scores of his I could find on yootoob)

I simply believe it is unfair to examine a film composer's FILM output, and expect it to stand up to the same scrutiny as music for the concert-stage.

I also think that starting to look for three and four note similarities, or similarities of orchestration is pushing it to extremes. If you apply this type of scrutiny to all music, very little of it will withstand the examination.

One could say something like, "well, Steve Reich is original"... but could easily counter with "have you heard parts of Respighi's Botticelli Triptych?"

Or even "Well, Penderecki/Xenakis/Ligeti were original with their alleatoric works"... and one could easily counter with "Have you heard the beginning of that Martinu symphony?" (sorry, can't remember the exact number, I THINK it's the 5th).

This is an exercise in futility.

You know what WOULD be an interesting exercise?

Figuring out what makes a John Williams piece SOUND like a John Williams piece. One IMMEDIATELY recognizes the way he blends all those influences together. One IMMEDIATELY recognizes his own little special touches added to what oftentimes were very banal "inspiration" pieces.

If you want to talk about "originality" then at least talk about works he did where there was no requirement for it to SOUND like something in particular.

Good point. Here is one of his few non-film works on YT:

Soundings

(edit: oops, I see you already linked to it!)

And here is the arrangement/composition he wrote for Obama's inauguration:

Air and Simple Gifts

Personally, I think his work in film is better.

Three quarters of James Horner's scores are directly lifted from Prokovievv.

And unlike JW, Horner refuses to admit some of his most blatant instances of copying, like Alexander Nevsky -> Star Trek.

All these people who crap on John Williams for doing what he does seem to forget that the EXACT same accusations can pretty much be brought against ANY Hollywood composer.

if my original post wasn't clear, I'm not "crapping on" him for borrowing.

Personally I think if the borrowing is not too obvious, and the composer has improved what he borrowed (a matter of taste) then he has committed no musical sin at all. I prefer ET to Howard Hanson's symphony, for example. So I don't really think it's terrible if JW was inspired by it.

On the other hand, instances like using the Russian Dance for Home Alone, or the way Hans Zimmer ripped off Mars The Bringer Of War for the introductory battle scene in Gladiator, have less artistic merit to me.

But again, people will have different opinions on this.

You know what WOULD be an interesting exercise?

Figuring out what makes a John Williams piece SOUND like a John Williams piece. One IMMEDIATELY recognizes the way he blends all those influences together.

In fact, one of the funniest musical experiences I've ever had was watching Catch Me If You Can, because in the middle of all the jazz you can recognize the kind of string doodling that Williams puts in, well, everything:

Catch Me If You Can main titles

Harmony is also a big part of what "makes Williams Williams" - all his main themes have similarities harmonically. Heavy use of bVI7 (or substitute V/V in a jazz/pop context) for example.

Ok, Air and Simple Gifts does not count! :P

Yeah this is a dumb conversation.

Williams is an amazing composer. The end.

Wasn't Williams ASKED to sound like Korngold? He's original enough in his own more "private" works and undoubtedly an amazing composer.

There is only one thing that really really really bothers me in his film music. Why must every action scene have those XYLOPHONE strikes everywhere?? xD

I really hate that.

Other than that, he's probably one of the greatest living composers.

I think the real point of this is... John Williams is a great orchestrator and re-arranger. He has his own place. There are composers that seek to create new ideas altogether, then there are ones that seek to make a living off of putting old ideas in a new light. Williams takes motifs and orchestration from other places/influences and put them into new musical environments. I think it would be fair if Williams attributed more to the "temp tracks" you mention, but I don't think it's fair to just say Williams is a copycat.

Also... I find his concert music a lot less interesting to his film music. Perhaps because his film music is designed to please and concert music has a more specific purpose, not always the same.

I guess the bottom line is that if all these film composers were doing was "copying," everyone would be doing it and be just as notorious, but that isnt the case. I dont think it's logical to imply that anyone is paying John Williams to do what he does only because he's a big name. "Copying" makes it sound simple, which once again, if it were, everyone else would be doing just as good of a job.

I mean, go ahead and listen to the opening of the Gladiator soundtrack, and once you get a few minutes in, you've basically got exactly what Holst did for 'Mars' in The Planets. And then wait a bit more and you hear a rather large fragment of one of the themes used for Pirates of the Caribbean with a slightly different twist on it, but the same notes, the same shape, the same rhythmic organization, etc.

But what does that mean when everyone acknowledges that Gladiator essentially changed THE "hollywood sound" for the decade that proceeded it? Obviously he did something significant.

And I guess more importantly, we have to look at the nature of Film Scores. Essentially we take the "main theme" that can be summed up in about 30 seconds, or we take some other fragment within. We arent looking at a complete work and the way it develops throughout, we're taking a 30 second clip and saying "Look! They use a similar accompanimental pattern with heavy brass and high strings!"

Well, duh. Our concept of "originality" seems to be rather twisted. If we took this mentality and applied it to the past, Beethoven would have been afraid to use the dominant because "Mozart already did that."

Interesting.

Anyway xylophone is good :) and i like the general grevious music so much.

And anyway show an aleatorical piece from Ligeti :| He always wrote down every notes.

Wasn't Williams ASKED to sound like Korngold? He's original enough in his own more "private" works and undoubtedly an amazing composer.

There is only one thing that really really really bothers me in his film music. Why must every action scene have those XYLOPHONE strikes everywhere?? xD

I really hate that.

Other than that, he's probably one of the greatest living composers.

The xylophone thing he has been doing a lot more in recent years...I don't like it either.

I think JW's film output from 1975 to 1985 was brilliant, though. How can you not love this stuff?

YouTube - 1979 - Dracula: Main Titles and Storm

The other great thing is that he inspired a lot of people and got a lot of young people hooked on classical music...

And if you want to be fair, don't look at the movie "Star Wars"- in that case George Lucas made him stick closely with the temp track.

I too love the Dracula music! Sure, it's not his best, and it's cheesy, but it *is* good, and it gets overlooked because most of his other films are blockbusters.

I'm also rather fond of the music in Catch Me If You Can.

You are all ridiculous. You cannot bring yourself to admit the obvious. There is no "bringing to a new light old ideas". It is blatantly and obviously the same exact thing. Just be honest about it. I don't know what any of you owe to John Williams.

And about the two non-film score pieces mentioned in this thread, they suck. I had a discussion on the obama arrangement a while back. It is very poor. And there really is not much too the other piece at all. You might as well be listening to the orchestra tune their instruments.

Yes, there are similarties bewteen his themes and themes that are composed by others For instance, Thr Ring and Star Wars have striking similarites. But does that mean that John Williams is not orginal. I would say that it means that it does because not all his music is like this. How about Harry Potter, E.T., Jurassic Park, Superman, and Schilder's List. Were they taken from somewhere else? Or even better, Jaws Main theme. So my point is all composers do this. Look at Brahms varation on a theme by hadyn( I think who did it). and also, how brahms borrowed the theme by Beevothan.(His Fith). And can we, say that he is not orginal by doing this. Again, I would say yes. Because he is orginal what he does with the thenmes. Thus, Williams is orginal because he re-invents themes in new ways. He also orginal because he can also invent themes that we never hearld of.

And there really is not much too the other piece at all. You might as well be listening to the orchestra tune their instruments.

Soundings is a great piece of music. Your ignorance to that style of music shows through here. Did you even listen till the end?

You are all ridiculous. You cannot bring yourself to admit the obvious. There is no "bringing to a new light old ideas". It is blatantly and obviously the same exact thing. Just be honest about it. I don't know what any of you owe to John Williams.

And about the two non-film score pieces mentioned in this thread, they suck. I had a discussion on the obama arrangement a while back. It is very poor. And there really is not much too the other piece at all. You might as well be listening to the orchestra tune their instruments.

How does it feel to embody the reason for an all around lack of intelligent discussion within the human race?

I'm glad John Williams was pushed, especially of collaboration with Lucas and Star Wars, that he was pushed into the project and took after older composers, or else I think it wouldn't have been a much cheesier effort.

Interesting.

Anyway xylophone is good :) and i like the general grevious music so much.

Yeah. I'm tired of people saying they don't like use of a certain instrument. All I have to say to that is, last time I heard you complaining that you could find no use for this instrument, and now you're complaining about a use for it?

:w00t: Learn to adapt boyo!

Listen to his score to Images or his Flute Concerto. I couldn't find them on youtube but here is a link to hear some tracks: Images Soundtrack - John Williams and Stomu Yamash'ta, those are late 1960's/early 70's examples of Williams at his most experimental. Check out "The House" or "Visitations" and I think you'll be very surprised. The bottom line, he is a brilliant craftsman and quite original - with just one bar you identify the music as his own style. He was hired on Star Wars not to compose the score, but to arrange the Planets and other classics. He had to convince Lucas it would be better to use original themes rather than adaptations of the classics, but you can hear the influence. Williams is very skilled at adapting music from various sources but still making it his own. The same could be said of MANY great composers. You can immediately tell an imitator of Williams from the real deal. He has a unique stamp that is immediately recognizable as his own regardless of what the wishes of those that hired him to do a job – that stylistic fingerprint - the trademark sound is what makes him unique and irreplaceable. He was hired to do a job at someone else’s close scrutiny. That makes it a bit challenging to successfully argue a lack of originality. Regarding his symphonic music, like anyone, there are some hits and some misses. Regardless, I believe he has talent, skill, technique, and ideas to spare and I thoroughly enjoy listening to anything new he does. There is no one doing what he does today who comes close to his level of skill and quality. Needless to say, I am a fan. I do agree James Horner is the less original. He lifts music from other sources and claims them to be original. There is a big difference between the two.

Ravich, where can I hear examples of your originality?

Come on, get real. He is a brilliant composer and he has his own voice. Like someone else said, you can instantly tell John Williams from someone trying to imitate him.

"he should not be called a film composer because all he does is take other things and arrange them for the big screen. None of it is original."

OK. What did he copy from on this, then?