How to Use Orchestral Percussion Like Star Wars
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- Опубліковано 12 кві 2022
- How John Williams uses the percussion section of the orchestra in Star Wars: The Force Awakens
🎺 How to Train Your Brass Section: • How to Train Your Bras...
Writing orchestral percussion is a lot different from playing drums in a band. Rather than just lay down a beat, the number one thing John Williams and his orchestrator William Ross do with percussion is provide support. Wether that's supporting accents, transitions and form, bass parts, or melodic parts, the percussion section is always writing with an intentional purpose.
The percussion section is rich with colors and instruments, and the examples in this video include crash cymbals, suspended cymbals, snare drums, bass drums, triangle, timpani, celesta and glockenspiel.
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as a percussionists i can confirm it is not only williams who doesn't use much percussion
i second this
I felt that…
Emotional Damage
“Long have it waited” I’m so happy you uploaded this video! Percussion is a huge part of an orchestra and can make or break a piece, it adds energy and often a pulse to the music. John Williams is certainly a master at using percussion! Please continue to upload more videos about John Williams music! Thank you so much this video was so inspirational!!! Will be taking these tips and applying them to my own music!!! 🎶🎶
More to come for sure!
@@RyanLeach Can't wait!
At school I learned that timpani often doubles the tuba. In old score (like classical era) they were often on the same staff. Thinking that way might help to know when to use the timpani even though it's function has evolved since then.
And in baroque and classical period scoring the timpani often emphasized the trumpet and horn lines since those instruments were usually the only brass present. Just shows how the timpani has always been a support instrument for emphasis and for crescendos, not only just an instrument that reinforces the bass line in loud passages.
@@ericfalley I didn't know that, thank you for the info! :)
In band in many of the pieces I’ll often find the timpani playing the same part as me while I’m playing tuba, I think it’s a really nice duo and sounds great when listened to
Great video as always!
One thing I'd like to clarify is that yes, Williams has orchestrators, but really for him they're more copyists than "pure" orchestrators (unlike, say, Menken, who usually gives his orchestrators a piano score). The sketches Williams gives them are so detailed that there's very little leeway or even decisions that the orchestrators need to make at all. Their job, as it were, is almost exclusively "exploding" the 8-staff sketches into a full score from which the copyists extract/make the parts.
Case in point: Williams is known to only ever conduct using his sketches and not the actual full score in sessions, because, well, no details are missing from the sketches in the first place!
So basically, the only reason Williams uses orchestrators is because he doesn't have the time to write into full score!
Exactly, I was about to point this out as well. The obvious exception being that the sketches are not transposing scores, so in addition to ‘exploding’ what he wrote, like you said, the orchestrators transpose the instruments that need to be. It has little to do with how most other film composers and their orchestrators work.
Additionally, Williams is known for re-orchestrating from the podium in order to perfect the sound he (and/or the director) wants. His alternate takes can be incredibly illuminating.
Nowadays he just sends his sketches to Joanne Kane music who input it to finale from there and create the full scores and parts. Orchestrators are obselete but still on hand for any unlikely “idiomatic” JW handwriting that someone at Joanne Kane might be unsure of. But this is very very rare.
There is no industry for handwriting orchestrators anyway now (apart from the famous and established ones who have worked with the greats in film music: Bill Ross, Conrad Pope etc..) Orchestrators are now mainly software notators and typists. Some may call this a “copyist”, some might call this a “score assistant”, some might call this an “orchestrator”. It all still requires similar skills.
I say this all as an aspiring orchestrator, so please correct me if you know better!
Fun fact: the timpanist on The Force Awakens is John Williams' brother, Don Williams.
Who also played the epic timpani solo in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
As I gather more experience with composition, I find that suspended cymbal is pretty much my workhorse percussion instrument. Even if I have no other percussion on a track, odds are there is a suspended cymbal
Yea I overuse it for sure, one of those things that just always works though
I have always loved the similarity in the usage of percussion between John Williams and Stravinsky. Whenever I listen to Rite of Spring, there is often I find myself wanting for the brass section to belt out the resistance theme
WATCH THIS NEXT! ➡️ 🎺 How to Train Your Brass Section: ua-cam.com/video/A9nbWehBOfc/v-deo.html
The Force Awakens OST is such an under-rated masterpiece from John Williams!
Absolutely love all of your videos, the editing really adds, and the content is down right amazing!
Thanks!
Boy oh boy do I love this channel. Truly inspiring and fun to watch. Can't wait to experiment with all the things that I am learning here.
This popped up into my recommended and I find that very cool because I’m playing Jedi Steps and Finale right now in band. It’s so cool to hear the actual orchestral version of it as just how it is and not just in the movie, since we are playing it translated for a concert band setting. Hearing the strings play compared to what the woodwinds play (it’s the same parts just transcribed for woodwinds) is so cool, and in general it’s nice to hear how it’s originally played compared to what the band sounds like. I’m very excited this popped into my recommended
Ryan Leach says: « A common trait among people who love film music, like I do, is that actually our first musical love was rock or pop or jazz or some other style that is more groove and rhythm based. So then when we try to write orchestral percussion our first instinct is to lay down a beat and that doesn't really work. »
It brings it right to the point: most film music composer has not at all been trained in how to handle an orchestra. I, personally, am from the « other side »: I grew up with orchestral sounds, learned classical music and studied « academic » composition. So, often, when I am listening to film music, I think to myself that again, some pop musician has tried to write for orchestra and, well, it only sounds like a rock group playing on classical instruments. And this may have an interesting, own esthetical value, but, in fact, it is a pity, because they do use only about 2% of the possibilities of such a great and beautiful machine, that the orchestra is. But it isn’t a secret, how to handle it: think contrapuntal! (In the widest meaning of the sense, not necessary writing renaissance music) And if you are able to do tjis, you will discover, that percussion can also be treated as a contrapuntal part.
I am pretty sure, that John Williams, when he does instrumentation, get his inspiration out of orchestral works from the beginning of the 20th century, like Debussy, Respighi, Holst or maybe Mahler, etc. My advice to you, guys out there, get some score from those composers and study it. The key: how independent from each other the different parts can be. The percussion parts are, by the way, pretty cool too.
Love it! Thank you! 🎶😊
"A little extra... force" I laughed at that
Another awesome video!
So nice seeing your channel getting the attention it deserves!
I'm so happy I came across your channel. It's a fantastic resource for making music :)
Thank you for sharing your analysis of John William's scores! :)
Fantastic Ryan, your subs are up to over 60k now from just 20k a couple of weeks ago, congratulations. I only discovered you a couple of weeks ago and have watched your exponential growth. You make great videos, you deserve it. Thanks
I very recently discovered your channel and I am very glad that I did. I am an aspiring composer myself and your music tutorials are already helping me out. Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing your gifts of music with us through teaching these techniques I wouldn't have figured out on my own otherwise. Keep up the good work! I look forward to learning more! :)
Love your videos :)
Very cool analysis of one of the most iconic scores in film music history! Thanks so much, learnt a ton!
I just went to the John Williams concert at the Nashville Symphony Orchestra
Dude I’d love to see more on HTTYD I just find the music so interesting and unique while also being just so good. Nice content as always
Really love your videos, thank you so much! Right now I’m studying orchestration with Yury Poteenko in Moscow Film School, and your videos is a big help to get a better result🤍
Would love to see more video about work with brass section!
Have a nice day!
Very well explained.Thanks
Man, I've been doing something right I guess. I only used percussion in around 50% of my tracks, but that's because my "first musical love" was orchestral music, specifically tracks that almost never had percussion. And when I do use it I usually need it to fit the rest and blend in perfectly, usually the percussion always sounds bad in its whole because it's there only for support, if it's not there to support anything, doesn't do anything
i love playing the timpani my favorite instrument
Really interesting stuff cuz I''m a big Williams fun so your breakdown and analysis of these scores and films is pure bliss!
It's be aweseome if did more breakdowns like this for other film composers like Pinar Toprak, Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner or Shirley Walker.
My first thought in this video was "I fucking love that lamp"
Amazing work Ryan! thanks for your great videos :)
Where do you purchase/find the orchestral scores that you are basing your mock-ups from?
amazing!
*Well done!*
Of you wanna listen to John Williams lay down a beat, listen to “Dennis Steals the Embryo” from Jurassic Park. Groovy masterpiece 👍
He also supports with piano, playing percussion parts
I love your channel. I just discovered it recently and am happy to see someone who is doing something very similar to what I am planning for my future career. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
I think it's kind of funny that I got this recommended. I'm playing the John Williams trilogy with my orchestra group. We have a drum, and a piano playing alongside us and the drums really tie everything together and really works as a very nice metronome as well.
Yes to the new title, very good
Where did you find these scores? I have been looking all over for them and can't find them
Helpful
How do you get your hands on these scores? I have one i got through Onni publishing. Is there more? Thanks for the great content!!
Thank you so much, recently I've started writing for bigger orchestras (with 4 horns instead of 2, trombones and various percussion) and these videos are very helpful!
Also, where do you find the Star Wars scores? Can I find the Pirates of the Caribbean scores in the same manner? I really want to study them (especially the one for the first movie)
Where do you get Williams scores?
Where do you get these orchestral scores?
Did you know that the Star Wars Timpani part was highly influenced by the LSO recording timpanist at the time, kurt Hans Goedicke. In the first Star Wars recordings he pretty much given a very unmusical part by John Williams and his team so he examined the tuba line and changed the timpani part with lots of pedaling which John Williams loved.
Huh
Where do you get access to the scores? Is there an online shop or something similar?
Where’s the best place to buy these scores? I’m particularly interested in accurate full orchestral scores not concert band arrangements or the like.
Commenting to hear the answer
Are they not on JW Pepper?
@@kylemorey8735 Sorry, what's JW Pepper?
I got the full recording session scores
Where did you get the sheet music you analyze
The timpani is like 15ma below it's written pitch
Where do you get original transcriptions?
We've got a Scarbo sighting at 3:25
Love Star Wars. First?
Modern music: 4/4 overwhelming ostinato
The Towner: HAH, THE FOOLS!
name music 4:50 ?
Timpani is only a bass instrument on Jupiter
Who else is a percussionist?👋
Nice change of thumbnail
this is the original, it just never performed very well even with trying different options so I went back to this one since I liked it
6:38 I can’t be the only one hearing nyan cat am i?
I'm actually the opposite. I like rock music and jazz and other stuff now but I my first musical love was star wars
same here! Star Wars was also my first & favorite piece!
@@jediknight9371 hell yeah. I realize it gave me a love for orchestral pieces and those tight arrangements. Also really liked video game music as well.
@@htesreyzaw6114 Bro I like video game soundtracks too. Clash of Clans was my fav
@@jediknight9371 i fav was mortal kombat, the movie soundtrack too and also music from the Megaman series. Always a bop
:o
you should start with
"this is euro music"
percussion in Afro Music is starring such
players have absolut tempo earing.
if it's played at a different speed,
then is another thing
Very true. Africa has many musical cultures centered around percussion and complex polyrhythms, but this video seems to be focused on how orchestral composers in the European and North American traditions utilize percussion.
Bruh
AI thumbnail. Great. (2024 - It was changed)
Like your channel. Don't really care for Mary Sue Palpatine.
You weren't really meant to. The audience was only meant to _understand the character and her place in the story. John Williams provided musical clues within _Rey's Theme:_ clues that strongly imply the character's origin, plight, and ultimate fate. Keep in mind that the completion of Luke Skywalker's arc was not shown at the end of Episode VI. It follows then, that the completion of Rey's character arc was not shown at the end of Episode IX.