How John Williams Writes a Sketch | Composer Toolbox: Episode 6

John Williams is known for his very detailed and nearly-orchestrated sketches. But how does he write this much detail in such short amounts of time? Episode 6 of Composer Toolbox takes an in-depth look at some of the techniques and short-hand that Williams uses in his sketches.

I own nothing.
Enjoy!

[DavidMcCaulley]

I've made a post in the community tab of this channel explaining why I released this episode early. Basically, I'm going to re-record and re-edit episodes 2-5 and fix many of the problems that people have brought up: how fast I talk, the lack of score examples, the lack of audio examples, etc. These first episodes were really a test to see what kind of format would work best, and I think the format I found didn't work. In the meantime, I've made this episode public since I don't think it suffers the same problems as the first 5 episodes (although, yeah, it probably could have used more auditory examples). Thank you for your feedback and understanding!

[gatekeeper]

Willaim's - when the sad time comes deserves a WORLD funeral - his music has touched and influenced BILLIONS! over many generations.

[voppido]

A few things of note.

-The first 2 or 3 Star Wars films were recorded without click tracks. So the only way he could sync was via clock and streamers with the arrow and seconds indications.

-The sketches were taken from someone on the recording team. So the 41 and 44 notes were the take numbers they used for those portions. This also applies to the large sloppy handwritten notes on top. All mixing/booth comments.

[jeffreyphillips]

You can see the master orchestrator Herbert Spencer talking to the maestro! Two geniuses! 😊

[eaflynn]

As someone who's background is largely in musical theatre and not film, I've always found film sketches like this fascinating because it speaks to the vastly different role of the orchestrator in theatre vs. film. Traditionally musical theatre composers only produce a piano/vocal score--they may include notes for instrumentation, but it's largely just a piano score of the music, which an orchestrator then takes and arranges for the given ensemble (in ye olden days it was a 20-to-30-piece orchestra, nowadays it varies constantly, typically based on budget). So it'll vary significantly by composer--Leonard Bernstein had a large hand in orchestrating his own works, and Sondheim is known to create very dense piano scores that the orchestrators adhere pretty closely to. But much of the arrangement itself comes from the orchestrator.

This is of course wildly different from film, where the orchestrator's role is more akin to a copyist's, taking the already-determined arrangements from the sketches and formatting and copying it for the desired ensembles. Obviously still a vital role to the process, but I know when I first heard that Williams used an orchestrator on the Star Wars films, my musical theatre-head was imagining all he wrote was a piano score and that classically "Williams" sound was someone else entirely. A revelation to discover how different the roles actually are.

[jamesr]

The clef outside the bar is truly masterful.

[connorbowen]

As a complete outsider to composition and theory, I'm amazed at how complex these sketches can be, all the symbols and shorthand, etc. Goldsmith mostly worked with just Arthur Morton and Alexander Courage for his whole career because of how easily they understood what he called his "hieroglyphics"

[darthcrossfader]

@8:09 Small remark: this is not a sketch score, it is a condensed score meant for the conductor (in this case that would have been Rózsa himself, I think?), which I assume was prepared from the orchestrated full score rather than Rózsa's own sketch score. I don't think Rózsa's sketches for Ben-Hur have ever surfaced, but those for El Cid have, and they are indeed three to four staff sketches IIRC.

[scottglasgowmusic]

Cool video. I really feel sketch on paper or in a DAW is analogous. Whether I am working on paper in the 8 bars or in a DAW, mentally I am composing the same way mentally. Funny how JW draws in the lines between the printed 4 bar lines. Did you know why it is 4 bars a page on the full score? Because orchestrators are paid per page no matter what the tempo is so they devised the "4-bar per page" standard.

If you ever are looking for more of JW sketches PM me, I have a bunch of stuff.

[tjrodier]

Those numbers in boxes at the top are take numbers. This sketch was Ken's copy who made editing notes. Along the way it must have been photocopied, or scanned, or both.

[JasonFerguson]

After watching this and other videos more than once I have to say you have answered so many questions and taught me so much! Thank you, David!!!

[ThesBoy]

Excellent work, David and thanks for listening and understanding. You are certainly talented and have many skills to offer.
The pacing of your voice, the scores, which are brilliantly animated, makes much better sense.
This video would be very useful to students studying film scoring.
Bravo!!

[kevinthebeagle]

you are offering a great service to the appreciation of this art form. having worked with many of the composers you cite i'm reminded of many great years in Hollywood film music. bravo.

[zoltan]

When I first found out that JW used an orchestrator, I though everything I knew about him was a lie.... I suddenly assumed by this that none of the choices of instruments heard in the recording was of JW's own volition. Thankfully I was reassured as time went.

I also envy more learned musicians than myself being able to decipher these sketches - I have decent musicianship training and can proudly read sheet music, but these hand notated sketches are borderline illegible to me. But I'm still impressed how much detailed can be expressed so economically.

I really regret we lost Herb Spencer so long ago, seems the language wasn't quite as well carried through with orchestrators who took over his position, but they still do a fine job.

Thanks for this fine explanation!

[JasonFerguson]

This is a fascinating video! Thank you!

[briankatona]

Well done! Very informative. Thank you for sharing!

[FilmScoreandMore]

Thanks for making this all so clear! Film scores don't come with an instruction manual on how to read them and we rarely get this kind of analysis even on the FilmScoreAnalysis channel. And it's interesting that you write music on paper like Williams; maybe you can bring it back into practice when you join the field.

[DarwinIsInCharge]

Interesting note: this is from a copy of TESB score I purchased on Ebay some years ago. The marker looking stuff at the top of the page is notes from the mix session. I think Jason graves has the originals now - they were on some strange sized
paper.

[rudidegroote]

Really great and informative video! Thanks!!

[ThePianoLady]

Very interesting video! Thank you for sharing