John Williams - Star Wars, Main Title - Analysis

The

main

music of the Star Wars films is probably the most recognizable cue in the history of film music since its debut in 1977 in episode 4. A New Hope. It has re

main

ed popular among moviegoers of all ages and no doubt played a substantial role in its catapult. Sales of the film's soundtrack surpassed 4 million copies after its initial release with its opening orchestral explosion. John Williams famously tells us that a story awaits us that is larger than life. Something extraordinary. Something from the kingdom of The Myths Sign, which functions as both the main

title

song and Luke Skywalker's theme, retains this mythic feel in its entirety, yet is surprisingly diverse in its musical material.

It

star

ts with an introductory fanfare of fast, overlapping lines and then moves into a big melody that has a slower, more stately rhythm then a softer melody plays for a middle section before returning to the big tomb, but somehow it all fits together. incredibly well and carries us from

star

t to finish in an engaging and remarkably cohesive manner, aside from the surface consistencies in its loud, strident major key. and largely consonant chords - how is it that such different sections can sound so unified and maintain the mythical feel of the music? Some answers are suggested by the melody q's harmony and rhythm Let's start with the melody Naturally, the fanfare is built overlaid at the beginning of the queue It increases our enthusiasm before the big melody plays, but more than that, it provides much of the material for the future music in terms of musical intervals.

There is a predominance of fourths in the melody, especially when used in brass. Fourths tend to suggest strength and heroism so a liberal use of them here already lets us know that this mythical tale involves some type of hero but a closer look reveals that the fanfare contains a fourth, a seventh and another fourth in a four-note motif that repeats the motif several times afterwards. becomes part of the big melody but is transposed to start on F and has a second statement that omits the first note, so it sounds like this entirely, of course the melody's initial jump of a fifth in the trumpets is in itself a marker of heroism, but notice that the melody also makes the seventh leap we saw in the fanfare in these slower note values.

This larger leap has a deeper impact on us, especially being at the top of the trumpet's range in a climactic B flat if the initial fifth signals a Hero, this second larger leap signals a superhero. The central section of the main

title

begins with a melody that may seem quite different from anything that has gone before, but even here the four-note motif enters only with the first note omitted, as we saw in the great tune and sound like this with this version of the motif. of four notes, the heavy brass instruments are absent and the melody is made more lyrical by being written for strings and continuing mainly in step motion and yet the four note motif underpins all this, suggesting that it What we are hearing is the gentler and more compassionate side of our superhero.

This more compassionate setting carries over to the return of the big heroic melody which is now also written for strings but also combined with horns, a softer version of the more aggressive trumpets we heard earlier. It seems that even in his most heroic feats our superhero manages to have heart and now to harmony the fanfare of the main title begins with the mythical orchestral touch in the key of Q in B flat major the harmony of The fast brass lines that follow do not They sound like a block chord, but rather sounding the notes of the chord one at a time, grouping all the notes of these lines together, resulting in a chord built in fourths or what is known as a chord of chords.

The fanfare then sounds its last three notes on the chord of the dominant or fifth note of the B-flat major scale. Surprisingly, the big melody that follows has the same harmonic scheme just as the melodies return after the middle section and starts with a bang. of tonic harmony in B flat that then alternates with the same quartal chord in F before closing on the dominant chord. This dominant chord gives the music a forward feeling, since what we really want to hear next is a closing tonic. When taking out the phrase, when a phrase is deprived of this tonic closure, we feel that the music must continue forward to reach it and, in fact, each phrase in this main title ends in a dominant, we never reach a tonic conclusion in mythical terms , this could be seen as an appropriate musical reflection of the superhero whose work is never completely finished, in addition to the explosive tonic chord, chordal chord and final dominant chord, both sections also have a prominent A-flat just before the dominant further strengthening the similarity, let's listen and compare them both now, even the middle section which follows a different scheme contains broken chords and a line given to the victories and the piano.

This harmonic connection is another way we can hear this lyrical section as the softer side of our mythical and now superhero character. Moving on to rhythm, the opening fanfare of the main title sets the rhythmic basis for the rest of the queue, consisting almost entirely of moderately fast triplets, although the subsequent grand melody slows the pace with longer notes at the beginning, the triplets not They disappear, but they disappear. incorporated into the melody and although Williams writes them in longer note values ​​than in the fanfare, they are actually played at the same speed as the triplets of the fanfare due to a change in notation, so what we hear turns out to be the same rhythm as in the fanfare, even the central lyric section retains the triplets with the wind and piano accompaniment that I mentioned before in the context of a four-beat or two-beat like this.

The triplet rhythms give the music a marching character. In fact, these triplets are so ubiquitous that the entire queue could aptly be called the Star Wars march, as it is essentially a march in all but name; In any case, the implication is of a powerful military aspect for our mythical superhero and now, for our conclusion, the main title music of the Star Wars films has had a lasting impression on audiences since it burst onto the screen in 1977, is perhaps the perfect sonic introduction to this mythical world to which we have long been transported in a galaxy far, far away, no doubt part of its overwhelming success is due to its larger than life quality through its heavy music of brass and its memorable melody, but more than that, the music seems to work incredibly well in firmly holding our attention from beginning to end, as I have argued one of the reasons we feel so attached to this music in the film is that it all The track is highly unified in both its musical structure and expressive qualities;

In other words, we hear the same melodic motifs, the same harmonies and the same rhythms played over and over again, but in slightly different ways, but at the same time these musical aspects are such strong indicators of the mythical superhero that, in fact, they are builds a constant emotional quality into the musical structure. Given this powerful connection between the musical structure and the mythological world of the film, it will be difficult to imagine any other music that fully works. Besides this, we will do it for today. If you like this video and would like to see more, just subscribe, thanks for watching everyone and until next time.