John Williams Keywords

Bagatelle

Musical genre that features short, light compositions, often for piano. Sentimental, nostalgic, and associated with Beethoven

Celesta

A musical instrument played like a piano but with steel rods instead of strings. Creates complex sounds with different tones, often used with a synthesizer

Cue

A single, discrete span of music in a movie

Melody

Leading musical tune or idea that you can sing along to

Accompaniment

Music playing during melody but distinct, includes harmony and background music

Music box

Mechanical instrument winded up to play melody, often lullabies or bagatelle

Musical nostalgia

An illustration of a musical past that is idealized, common for Williams (e.g. Sugarplum Fairies in Nutcraker)

Musical point of view

Whose opinion or perspective is captured through the music/cue

Underscore

Music written for under the dialogue to subtly capture the emotions, meanings, and implications

Homage

Music or melody that has a similar composition or sound to another score

Hymn

Devotional song of adoration or religious prayer

Interval

The relationship/distance between two notes, high or low

Melodic profile

The distinguishing shape of a song that is usually used as a theme that is easy to remember, often a hook with a large interval in the beginning

Ostinato

The stubborn part of a song that continuously repeats a musical phrase or rhythm (e.g. Jaws theme)

Parody

Imitating, exaggerating, or commenting on another piece of music or style

Rhythm

How time is divided, duration and emphasis of notes, order of beats

Dynamics

Loudness/amplitude (e.g. crescendo)

Theme

Distinctive and repeating melodic idea associated with a certain thing/person

Harmony

The combination of different pitches at the same time

Pitch

Frequency of a note, high or low

Chord

3+ pitches played together to create a harmonic effect

Consonance

The combination of 2+ different sounds/pitches that feel resolved and pleasing

Dissonance

The combination of 2+ different sounds/pitches that sound at odds and incomplete

Tonal

Has an identifiable, stable home key/note

Atonal

Unstable, dissonant sound without an identifiable home note (e.g. dementor scene)

Major

Arrangement of notes with a generally happy quality

Minor

Arrangement of notes with a generally dark quality

Diatonic

Music that only uses 7 pitches

Chromatic

Music that uses all 12 pitches, rare but mostly in film or narrative multimedia

Wrong-note chromaticism

Music is predominantly diatonic but includes infrequent notes that sound like a mistake

Texture

Overall sound of music created by individual layered parts

Counterpoint

Use of multiple melodic lines combined, harmonically related, sounds busy and full

Timbre

The sonic quality or texture of the sounds that come from an instrument, tactile vocabulary

Timbral palette

Set of instrumental/timbral choices that distinguish the score and give it a genre matched to the scene

Timbral associativity

How a certain timbre is linked to a type of feeling/event

Orchestration

Arrangement of music for a performance or media

Brightness

Quality of sound with higher/sharper pitches and often major chords

Darkness

Quality of sound with lower/flatter pitches and often minor chords

Clarity

The degree to which individual sounds or notes are perceived clearly and distinctly, not complex, sounds light and open

Density

The degree of compactness of musical information, which can include the number of notes, instruments, or harmonic complexity, sounds thick or full

Solo

One or a few people play at a time

Tutti

Almost everyone is playing at once

Form

Structure and organization of a piece determined by rhythm, melody, and harmony, broken down into A, B, …, sections

Idiom

A style or genre of music being played (e.g. jazz idiom in Catch Me if You Can)

Audiovisual congruence

Matching of audio and visual elements through temporal alignment, emotional similarity, or structural similarity (e.g. rhythm)

Spotting

Sitting down with the editor and musical producer with the raw cut to decide where music should be

Syncronization

Pairing music with visual media

Stinger

Type of Mickey-mousing with a loud, sudden effect conveying shock

Non-diegetic

Music that has no explanation in the film

Diegetic

Source music that is within the world of the film

Mickey-mousing

Music written for action that literally represents movements made on screen (e.g. Boggart transformation music)

Overall scoring

Music not related to movement in the scene at all

Paratext

any form of artistic expression that is directly related to but not the original experience of the text, notes on sheet music

Source music

Diegetic music

Cue Sheet

Detailed list of all musical cues within a film/tv show

Temp-track

Putting pre-existing music over the rough cut, to see what possible music/style wanted

Tracking

Both technical process of recording music onto individual tracks and non-technical process of syncing pre-recorded music onto film’s footage

Production phase

Film is being recorded

Insert

A musical track added to a specific scene for emotional or narrative effect

Micro-editing

Slight musical changes like changing pitch, speed, cutting and pasting certain measures in other cues

Sketch

Physically writing out a possible score

Music editor

Knows the spotting and decides on specific placement of music

Conductor’s score

Comprehensive notation including all instrument parts arranged vertically

OST (original soundtrack)

Curated albums for better listening experience

Concert arrangement

Adaptation of musical composition to be performed live

Alternates

Different versions of music when changed after being created for a scene

Arrangements

Adaptations of existing musical compositions

Mocking up

Using digital technology to give a sample of what music will sound like before recording

Orchestration and preparation

Applying rough drafts of score to the musicians who will perform and record it to clean it up

Contracting

Hiring musicians

Distribution

Making film music available to the public through original soundtrack album, additional albums, performances, trailers, etc. 

Canon

The melody is repeated against itself at set time intervals, creating an imitating texture

Cue breakdown

Specific and relevant information listed during a single cue

Fugue

Genre where one melody/voice is introduced and other repetitive pieces layered on like a puzzle (e.g. Jaws)

Idiolect

A single composer or musician’s unique and distinctive style

Learned style

A musical style that shows off technical complexity and deference to the past, John Williams’s toolkit that he picked up while becoming a composer that influenced his music, styles like third stream, neo-baroque, fugue

Scherzo

Genre of fast-moving stand-alone piece, elements of surprise in dynamics and form, exciting, brilliant orchestral technique (e.g. Indiana Jones motorcycle, Dracula “To Scarborough”, the Tennis Game, Cowboys)

Stretto

Repeated themes in different voices, technique of fugue

Third-stream

Historical movement (with JW), type of jazz that synthesizes jazz and classical styles

Absolute music

Not written for an event or the outside world, no explicit narrative story

Chorale

A harmonized version of a hymn

Concerto

A soloist playing with a huge orchestra, can exhibit contrast

Fanfare

Music usually played with brass instruments to introduce an important figure, triumphant (e.g. Superman theme)

Occasional music

Music written for a specific occasion (e.g. Olympics song)

Program music

Music written to accompany a story or an emulation of sounds from the outside world, all film scores (e.g. programmatic titles like “Summon the Heroes”)

Coplandesque

A style characterized by a modern American sound, evoking vast landscapes with slowly changing harmonies, large intervals, and folk melodies and rhythms

Hagiography

Granting someone status of statehood or the saintification of a non-religious figure, a “perfect” historical figure (e.g. Oliver Stone and JFK)

Historiography

Idea of the creation of history, piece that aims to tell a history, whether factual or not (e.g. JFK, Rosewood)

Mythopoetics

The construction/telling of mythology

Musical assimilation

Process of composer integrating stylistic qualities of another composer into their own work while still maintaining individual style

Musical populism

The use of music and performance to promote populist political agendas (the people vs the corrupt elite)

Musical universalism

Idea that music has fundamental, universal features and emotional capacities that are common to all cultures

Adagio

Slow tempo, classical piece, feels heavy and sentimental

Cluster

A chord made up of 3+ adjacent pitches in a scale played together, always dissonant

Musical desecration

Treating a respected/valued piece of music with disrespect

Paranoid style

Richard Hofstadter, the sense of exaggeration, suspicion, and conspiratorial fantasy, heard in JFK (e.g. motorcade), atonality

A cappella

Music sung without instrumental accompaniment

Blue note

Jazz technique of flattened third and seventh notes, creates expressive blues feeling

Musical authenticity

Originality and personal storytelling, connection between the artist and the art

Spiritual

Music evoking slave tradition and the black church, minimal instrumentation, religious tones and overcoming hardship (e.g. Rosewood songs)