The soundtracks for the first and second films sound almsot nothing alike, in my opinion. Obviously, the major motifs for the main characters are going to stay the same. However, being the genius of Williams, they did change around quite a bit. There was about 50% new material on the second movie...
I do agree with you, though... I'm ready for something fresh and unique.
Gabby... John Williams writes every bar of music you hear in the film. The "team" you are refering to is a team of orchestrators. An orchestrator is someone who takes the score that the composer has written and expands it for the orchestra.
John Williams has built a long-standing relationship with Herbert Spencer, who orchestrates the majority of Williams' material along with a team of three to five others. Given Williams' training as a classical pianist, he usually composes on the piano. He'll come up with the two-staff composition, then expand it into what we call an orchestral sketch, which usually has eight to ten staves, detailing what each instrument or section should be doing and when.
He will then give his sketch to Mr. Spencer or whomever the orchestrator happens to be, and the "team" will build the score for the orchestra. They do not write music, change the music, or remove any music. They do stuff like noting which direction the bow of a string instruments should play a certain note, or where a brass player should stop to breathe. Some instruments can only play certain ranges at certain dynamic levels (the trumpet, for example, cannot play high notes at soft levels very well), so they make sure the score will be balanced. Through this process, they work very closely with Willaims (or whomever the composer is), who also does some of the orchestrating.
Basically, the orchestrators are there to aide the composer in making sure that his score will be realistic for musicians to play.
Williams is actually more famous for his orchestration technique than his composition... he was a concertmaster for several years, and his style of orchestraion is very full and sophisticated. Most of his team is actually learning from him just as much as they are helping him. On "smaller" films, Williams does all the orchestration himself.
Hope that clears everything up for y'all. Maybe we should start a thread about John Williams, since we seem to be getting a bit off topic - I'll leave that to KJ.
gaboman said this in post #49 : *cough*He usually only writes about 4 bars of music himself. Then he's got a team of 8 music professors who do the rest.*cough*
That's a nasty cough there Grant, I'd get yourself to a doctor quickly.
Who says I can't multi-task? I walked and breathed at the same time at least once today.
Mike James said this in post #50 : Maybe we should start a thread about John Williams, since we seem to be getting a bit off topic - I'll leave that to KJ.
Mike... you know how to make a thread... and if you two want to do that, it's fine with me.
Mike... you know how to make a thread... and if you two want to do that, it's fine with me.
Eh! I said what I had to say, I don't care to argue over something so trivial to me. Just thought it's an interesting fact. People believe what they want though
"I'm for it so we can put Nuclear power plants up there, and then beam the power back to earth on a laser beam." ~ Whidden
Even if Williams isn't responsible for every stage of the orchestration of his themes, the fact remains that the themes are the most memorable of any composer in the last 30 years, and are probably more significant than the combinations of instruments he uses. If not for him, we wouldn't have the famous two-note Jaws motif, any of the music from Star Wars, ET, Hook, Jurassic Park and of course Harry Potter. I don't know about you guys, but I find myself humming those all the time.
Who says I can't multi-task? I walked and breathed at the same time at least once today.
Mike James, you sound like someone who actually plays an instrument. I think John does do his own work and would have others to help out with the tedious process of scoring each instrument. NO offense Grant.
John Williams is a masterful composer and I love the fact that he is doing the Harry Potter series.
I'm wicked scared (I don't fancy much of the new cast, though Emma Thompson's brilliant and some of the other stuff I've seen/heard), but I want to see it the minute it comes out. I'm too big of an HP fan to refuse to see this no matter how bad it is.
"Mr Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape, and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people's business." - Remus Lupin (p. 211, PoA)
02-03-2004 01:26 AM
but he's still good. 
