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How can I write crazier Williams-style action cues?

ed buller said:
not even a tiny bit ?

e
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Honestly, no. I have immense respect for his skills and would never say he’s not an incredible composer on a technical level, but his music just does nothing for me personally. His music is great to study and learn from, but I don’t get any enjoyment out of listening to it
 
Speaking about action music...

Do you know what kind of scales and techniques Sakuraba applies to these types of action tracks?



Most Dark Souls tracks are simple, either tonal or modal, with a lot of modulation, but easy to pick up by ear. However, in this type of 'final boss' tracks, the dissonances are greater and the harmony is one step more complex.

It doesn't seem to me that he uses hexatonic, Hungarian minor or octatonic (alpha chord, atonal subsets, axis...) scales and techniques in the style of J. Williams, Goldsmith, Bartòk... At least, he doesn't use them broadly, consistently or recognisably.

To my ear, it's as if it were from another "school of action music" other than Williams' (perhaps even consciously chosen to, among other things, differentiate itself from Williams' immense imprint). I relate this action style more to the music of Ligeti or Berg than Hollywood 70s, but maybe I'm wrong because I'm a newbie to these topics.

This music is not purely atonal, but rather it mixes tonal passages (a multitude of cadential 6/4, Vsus4-V7, V/V, viiº/V... can be found in his music) and modal passages (aeolian cadence, dorian i-ii and i-iv), with a lot of harmonic planing, and especially these denser and "not very tonal" parts that I have a hard time deciphering and unraveling into a functional and replicable system.

What should I study? Polytonality? Modes of the harmonic and melodic minor scales? Chromatism in the vein of Tristan and Isolde? In some passages of other Dark Souls action tracks I thought I heard eolian b5 and phrygian dominant, but the truth is that I'm lost and I would like to know how to study the matter.

(Sorry, a bit Off Topic, but surely we all find it interesting to talk about this variant of action music).
 
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Rob said:
I believe this is a different John Williams, passed away in 2018

EDIT: I was wrong, looks like he's "that" JTW
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Thanks for the heads-up. There is indeed 2 JTW (the "Towner" and the "Thomas" one) so I tried to be careful when picking up an example; everything from the album Jazz Beginnings seems to be from our John "Star Wars" Williams indeed. 👍
 
JotaArkham said:
Most Dark Souls tracks are simple, either tonal or modal, with a lot of modulation, but easy to pick up by ear. However, in this type of 'final boss' tracks, the dissonances are greater and the harmony is one step more complex.
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I feel the need to give some context to where this music plays in the game, since you call it a "final boss" track. It's the opposite, it's the track of the first boss you meet. You first encounter the Asylum Demon when you aren't equipped yet to win against him (a pro could in theory win even then, but it would take a long time, for a new player it's impossible), and you're supposed to walk past him and find better gear first. Then later - when you have a proper sword - you re-enter the same arena from a higher position, where you can get a strong first attack in by doing a plunge attack and the fight is much more doable. Then you encounter him again a little later - as the Taurus Demon - where you fight him on a castle wall and you can lure him towards a tower where you can repeat the trick with the plunge-attack that you learned during the tutorial fight, but you could also just duel him if you feel up to it. So that boss theme plays on 3 different occasions, as far as I remember without any changes, but I'm not sure. And the first time it's supposed to signal you that you're facing an overwhelming amount of danger. I think that may be the most important information that this track is trying to convey, because if the average player thinks they are supposed to win that fight to progress, they are just going to give up on the game at that point.

The actual final boss of the game has a beautifully somber piano piece playing:



If you want to hear more theory about that piece, I've got this for you:

 
Bara Matahari Pagi said:
Yes, I noticed that too some time ago! Now if only I can play some killer jazz solos, that would make things easier 😂
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If anything, I'd say it goes to show that there is something interesting in borrowing things from different genres / idioms and blending them in your own music. It doesn't have to be jazz per se as it has more to do with keeping an open-mind (will however mention (just in case) that I think it is necessary to take those genres seriously and properly study them, I believe that's the respectful thing to do).
This is something composers like John Williams, Ennio Morricone, Toru Takemitsu, Michel Legrand or Astor Piazzolla didn't shied away from.

Those are the latest words from Henry Mancini's orchestration book:

Sounds.png

Your music sounds great btw, wishing you the best of luck with your musical endeavours!
 
I would recommend studying the source of Williams' inspiration-Stravinsky's early ballets have tremendous rhythmic energy as well as incredible orchestration. Bartok's stage works (Miraculous Mandarin, Bluebeard's Castle, and The Wooden Prince) are all very good to study as well.

You can even go back to Korngold's Sea Hawk and his concert works as the level of activity he imbued into his music is something Williams definitely gained inspiration from. I'm not talking about lifting but the concepts behind the approach.

Finally, study symphonies, especially the development sections. this is where the composer takes the expository material and varies it. Bruckner's 8th symphony last movement has some pretty terrific, heroic writing.



The appeal of this approach is most scores are available to study from IMSLP.
 
dcoscina said:
I would recommend studying the source of Williams' inspiration-Stravinsky's early ballets have tremendous rhythmic energy as well as incredible orchestration. Bartok's stage works (Miraculous Mandarin, Bluebeard's Castle, and The Wooden Prince) are all very good to study as well.

You can even go back to Korngold's Sea Hawk and his concert works as the level of activity he imbued into his music is something Williams definitely gained inspiration from. I'm not talking about lifting but the concepts behind the approach.

Finally, study symphonies, especially the development sections. this is where the composer takes the expository material and varies it. Bruckner's 8th symphony last movement has some pretty terrific, heroic writing.



The appeal of this approach is most scores are available to study from IMSLP.
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Couldn't agree more. Remember the first 'film' scores were ballets. (opinion not fact).
 
This is a perfect example of Dominic's deep dives and how much info is available from them. As always it's the pitch set choices and the scales and harmony they make that is the key to the quality of these cues. This one 4M2 from Phantom Menace is just festooned with fast narliness and must have taken an age to write.



Best

ed
 
Unfortunately we rarely get good action movies with great music like John Williams these days but a lot of corporate garbage and a lot of generic music written by committees ... made of drones , drum loops , one note " melodies " and dated EDM sounds
 
Post Singularity said:
Unfortunately we rarely get good action movies with great music like John Williams these days but a lot of corporate garbage and a lot of generic music written by committees ... made of drones , drum loops , one note " melodies " and dated EDM sounds
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Well, I think both styles can work depending on the film. A composer can be creative with both.

The music I linked was from a Star Wars game so it's no surprise that the music sounds like JW. But of course, it's not the right fit for everything.

I can't imagine how films like Across the Spider-Verse, that has a unique and creative animation style, would fit a JW type score. Daniel Pemberton crafted the perfect score for that.

Although I do agree that we get too much generic and "epic" film music these days (you know, the string ostinatos, big percussion, replicating Dark Knight type of thing). That's not the case with HZ though.

Just my two cents... :)
 
Bara Matahari Pagi said:
Well, I think both styles can work depending on the film. A composer can be creative with both.

The music I linked was from a Star Wars game so it's no surprise that the music sounds like JW. But of course, it's not the right fit for everything.

I can't imagine how films like Across the Spider-Verse, that has a unique and creative animation style, would fit a JW type score. Daniel Pemberton crafted the perfect score for that.

Although I do agree that we get too much generic and "epic" film music these days (you know, the string ostinatos, big percussion, replicating Dark Knight type of thing). That's not the case with HZ though.

Just my two cents... :)
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I wasn't saying that the John Williams style should be the only type of score , I love Trent Reznor for example ... But when it comes to recent action blockbuster movies we tend to get a generic corporate garbage approach a lot of the time and way less John Williams / Alan silvestri . I re watched jurassic park 1 and raiders of the lost ark recently and I was shocked at how good movies used to be , not just music ...
 
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