Journal of Film Music 6.

1 (2013) 49-74
doi:10.1558/jfm.v6i1.49

ISSN (print) 1087-7142

ISSN (online) 1758-860X

ARTICLE

Modal Interchange and Semantic Resonance in

Themes by John Williams1
Tom Schneller
Ithaca College, NY, USA
ts256@cornell.edu
Abstract: This article examines the semantic properties of several characteristic triadic shifts in the film and
ceremonial music of John Williams. These shifts result from particular modal inflections in major keys, which
include the Mixolydian subtonic (associated with the heroic and/or patriotic), and the Lydian supertonic (associated with magic, wonder and flight). My aim in examining Williams use of modal interchange is both to gain
a more precise understanding of one particular aspect of his style, and to place it into the larger context of the
musical tradition in Hollywood.
Keywords: film scores; harmonic analysis; John Williams; modal interchange; semiotics

We sense that in many different films people have

danced or suffered, loved or died to the same or
at least very similar music, Zofia Lissa wrote 50
years ago in her classic study Aesthetics of Film Music.2
Musical stereotypes cause stereotypical physiological
reactions. These have not yet been systematised
by physiologists, but composers intuitively employ
certain devices which are suited to triggering specific
reactions in the listener.3 The use of such devices
is rooted in a historical practice that dates back to
nineteenth-century opera and stage melodrama.4
1 All music examples in this article are reduced transcriptions by the author,
used in compliance with the U.S. Copyright Act, Section 107. Since many
Williams scores are unpublished, and not accessible to researchers, the bulk
of examples have been transcribed by ear. Where published scores were
consulted, the sources have been cited.
2 Translation mine. Zofia Lissa, sthetik der Filmmusik (Berlin:
Henschelverlag, 1965), 372.
3 Lissa, sthetik der Filmmusik, 355.
4 See David Neumeyer, Melodrama as a Compositional Resource in Early
Hollywood Sound Cinema, Current Musicology 57 (1995): 61-94; Anne Dhu
McLucas, The Continuity of Melos: Beginnings to the Present Day, The
Journal of Film Music 5, nos. 12: 15-28; or Michael V. Pisani, When the
Music Surges: Melodrama and the Nineteenth-Century Precedents for Film
Music Style and Placement, in The Oxford Handbook of Film Music Studies, ed.
David Neumeyer (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 559-582.

During the period of silent film, the classification of

musical conventions or topoi linked with particular
dramatic situations was already highly developed, as
Tobias Plebuch demonstrates in a recent article that
details the complex taxonomy of musical affect around
which photoplay collections such as Giovanni Becces
Kinothek were organized.5 From its inception, film
music relied on standardized gestures to communicate
with speed and efficiency.
Film and television music thus provides a
particularly rich quarry for musical semioticsits
coordination with images, moods, characters, or
actions allows semantic content to be determined
with greater precision than is possible in most concert
music (although even ostensibly absolute works
of the classical canon present the listener with a
tapestry of signifiers pointing to expressive meaning
or extramusical concepts, as the investigation of
musical topics by Robert Hatten, Raymond Monelle,
5 Tobias Plebuch, Mysteriosos Demystified: Topical Strategies Within and
Beyond the Silent Cinema, The Journal of Film Music 5, nos. 12: 77-92.

Copyright the International Film Music Society, published by Equinox Publishing Ltd 2015, Office 415, The Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield, S1 2BX.

50 THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC

and others have shown).6 One of the first scholars

to attempt a semiotic examination of contemporary
media music is Philip Tagg, who in the late 1970s
introduced the concept of musematic analysis as
a framework for the study of musical codes. Tagg
defines a museme as the basic unit of expression
which in the framework of one given musical system
is not further divisible without destruction of
meaningfor example, a chord or chord progression,
a characteristic phrase, or a motivic rhythm.7 The
extramusical meaning of a museme in a given cultural
context is established first through comparison of
the museme to particular gestures from previous
music that are similar to it, and secondly through
examination of any semantic resonances that may
have accrued around these gestures through repeated
association with images, dramatic situations, song
lyrics, etc. Tagg points out that
thanks to the world-wide marketing and unchallenged
dominance of Hollywood on the international film
arena, an efficient global audio-visual learning process
has come into being in which filmgoers, perceiving
time and time again similar combinations of visual,
verbal, sonic, and musical message, have been taught
set patterns of musical behavior through identification
and reinforcement.8

In addition to this process of cultural conditioning,

Tagg points to immanent features of a museme
that, by way of analogy, can map onto extramusical
meanings, such as sonic anaphones (the onomatopoeic
stylization of non-musical sound including thunder,
bird song, etc.) or kinetic anaphones (musical gestures
that are perceived as analogous to various types of
bodily movement, including walking, running, flying,
etc.).9
In recent years, Scott Murphy, Matthew
Bribitzer-Stull, and Frank Lehman have further
elucidated the extramusical connotations of several
harmonic musemes typical of film music.10 These
6 As Monelle puts it, Within the music of our civilization, as in our
literature, we may find heroes, riders, journeys, pomp and ceremony,
weeping and dancing, the woodland, the church, the salon. See Raymond
Monelle, The Musical Topic: Hunt, Military and Pastoral (Bloomington and
Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2006), 31.
7 Philip Tagg, Kojak: 50 Seconds of Television Music. Towards the Analysis of Affect
in Popular Music (Gteborg: Musikvetenskapliga institutionen vid Gteborgs
universitet, 1979), 71.
8 Tagg, Kojak, 59.
9 Philip Tagg and Bob Clarida, Ten Little Title Tunes: Towards a Musicology of
Mass Media (New York: Mass Media Music Scholars Press, 2003), 99-100.
10 See Scott Murphy, The Major Tritone Progression in Recent Hollywood
Science Fiction Films, Music Theory Online 12, no. 2 (May 2006), The
Tritone Within: Interpreting Harmony in Elliott Goldenthals Score
for Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, in The Music of Fantasy Cinema, ed.
Janet K. Halfyard (Sheffield and Bristol: Equinox, 2014), 148-174, and
Transformational Theory and Film Music, in The Oxford Handbook of Film

The International Film Music Society 2015.

include the Major Tritone Progression (e.g., C

majorF# major), which features prominently in a
number of science fiction films, and the Tarnhelm
Progression (e.g., C minorA minor), which is
usually associated with the sinister, the eerie, and
the eldritch.11 Lehman suggests that because certain
harmonic progressions bear consistent cross-stylistic
connotations a harmonic field guide of sorts
could be devised for all absolute progressions, to be
used by composers, filmgoers, and analysts alike.
While cautioning that this would require a complete
oversimplification of the complex task of harmonic
hermeneutics, he concludes that there is sufficient
consistency of triadic relational associations and
affects across individual films and scoring styles
that a complete theory of film expressive tonality
cannot discount outright this reductive taxonomical
approach.12
That a taxonomy of affect and sonority is indeed
viable in the context of contemporary film music has
been demonstrated by Philip Tagg and Bob Clarida,
who have conducted reception tests that gauge
listener responses to film and TV title themes,13 as
well as by Scott Murphy, who has surveyed over 300
recent popular movies in search of a semantics
of triadic progression in film music.14 Murphy has
located several progressions with consistent, and
occasionally quite specific, narrative associations.
For example, minor triads separated by tritone often
accompany mortal threats and dangers that issue
from situations, objects, or natural phenomena15 as
in John Williams theme for the Ark of the Covenant
from Raiders of the Lost Ark, which, in its coupling of
minor triads with the diabolus in musica, draws on
centuries worth of associations with dark magic.16
The music of Williams is particularly interesting
in this context, since it embodies many of the
Music Studies, ed. David Neumeyer (New York: Oxford University Press,
2014), 471-499; Matthew Bribitzer-Stull, From Nibelheim to Hollywood:
The Associativity of Harmonic Progression, in The Legacy of Richard Wagner:
Convergences and Dissonances on Aesthetics and Reception, ed. Luca Sala (Lucca:
Turnhout, 2012), 157-183; Frank Lehman, Reading Tonality Through
Film: Transformational Hermeneutics and the Music of Hollywood (PhD
diss., Harvard, 2012), Music Theory through the Lens of Film, The Journal
of Film Music 5, nos. 12: 179-198, and Transformational Analysis and
the Representation of Genius in Film Music, Music Theory Spectrum 35 ,
no. 1 (2013): 1-22. Other examinations of harmony in the music of John
Williams and other film composers include James Buhler, Star Wars, Music
and Myth, in Music and Cinema, eds. James Buhler, Caryl Flinn, and David
Neumeyer (Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 2000), 33-57 and
Jamie Lynn Webster, The Music of Harry Potter: Continuity and Change in
the First Five Films (PhD diss., University of Oregon, 2009).
11 Bribitzer-Stull, From Nibelheim to Hollywood, 159.
12 Lehman, Reading Tonality Through Film, 122.
13 See Tagg and Clarida, Ten Little Title Tunes, 107-154.
14 Murphy, Transformational Theory.
15 Murphy, Transformational Theory, 488.
16 Lehman, Music Theory through the Lens of Film, 184.

Modal Interchange in Williams

51

Example 1: Men of the Yorktown March from Midway (1976)

defining features of Hollywood scoring in the last
half-century. This article will explore his use of
several characteristic triadic progressions and their
association with particular emotions, concepts,
or dramatic situations. My aim in examining
these progressions is both to gain a more precise
understanding of one particular aspect of Williams
style, and to place their use into the larger context of
the musical tradition in Hollywood. While Lehman
and Murphy have proposed neo-Riemannian theory
as an effective tool for the analysis of harmony in film
music, particularly for elucidating the trajectory of
tonally ambiguous passages in underscore, most of the
progressions I will examine occur within the relatively
stable tonal framework of principal themes and
leitmotifs, and can be explained by the use of modal
interchange.17

Modal Interchange
As several recent psychomusicological reception
tests involving both musically trained and untrained
subjects have confirmed, the communication of
musical emotion is closely related to modenot
only in regard to majorminor tonality but also
to the diatonic modes (Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian,
etc.).18 According to a study by Temperley and
Tan, listeners respond quite consistently to the
emotional connotations of diatonic modes.19 Not
surprisingly, the three major modes (Lydian, Ionian,
and Mixolydian) were more strongly associated with
17 In neo-Riemannian theory (NRT), triads are related directly to each
other through a system of transformations, rather than through reference to
a tonic-centered functional hierarchy. This flexible, contextually determined
analytical approach to harmonic progression makes NRT especially useful
in passages of highly chromatic, roving harmony that resist functional
interpretation (as is the case in many of Williams restlessly modulating
action cues). Themes, on the other hand, tend to be tonally self-contained,
and thus respond better to more conventional analytical approaches (see
Lehman, Reading Tonality Through Film, 23).
18 The idea that particular modes can affect the emotional state and even
behavior of the listener can already be found in Antiquity (see Platos
Republic [398d-399c] and Aristotles Politics [Book VIII, chapters 5 and 7]).
19 David Temperley and Daphne Tan, Emotional Connotations of Diatonic
Modes, Music Perception 30, no. 3 (2013), 255.

The International Film Music Society 2015.

positive valence than were the four minor modes,20

but affective gradations between individual modes
were perceived as well. Thus, Straehley and Loebach
report that Phrygian was most strongly identified
as expressing fear, apprehension, and sadness. Major
was very strongly identified with joy and serenity.
Mixolydian was most frequently selected as conveying
admiration, joy, and serenity.21
Film composers have been adept at utilizing
modality as an affective resource, whether by writing
extended melodies cast in a single mode (as in Nino
Rotas melancholy, archaizing Aeolian theme for
Romeo and Juliet), or by flavoring an otherwise diatonic
tune with a dash of modal spice. Many Williams
themes open with a tonicsubdominant progression
(sometimes grounded on a tonic bass pedal) and
conclude with a cadence on the tonic or dominant.
This sturdy diatonic framework is typically enriched
by one or more chromatic surprise chords, usually
preceding the cadence. The result strikes a balance
between the familiar and the unpredictable, as in the
Men of the Yorktown March from Midway (Example
1), in which the VII chord preceding the half-cadence
provides a colorful harmonic twist.22
In major keys, Williams frequently replaces
diatonic minor and diminished chords with major
triads borrowed from the Aeolian, Mixolydian,
Lydian or Phrygian modes. Although his themes
generally do not adhere to any single mode, and
could in some cases be analyzed simply in terms
of parallel majorminor mixture, I assign a modal
nomenclature to most of the progressions discussed
in this article because they are harmonic gestures
20 D. Ramos, J.L.O. Bueno, and E. Bigand, Manipulating Greek musical
modes and tempo affects perceived musical emotion in musicians and
nonmusicians, Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research 44, no. 2
(2011), 170.
21 Ian C. Straehley and Jeremy L. Loebach, The Influence of Mode and
Musical Experience on the Attribution of Emotions to Melodic Sequences,
Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain 24, no. 1 (2014), 31.
22 Other examples include the Olympic Fanfare and Theme, in which the first
two phrases of the theme alternate between I and IV, while the third and
fourth phrases introduce the chromatic twist of VI and II, and Luke
Skywalkers theme from Star Wars, in which the diatonic opening is followed
by the same chromatically altered half-cadence (VIIV) as in Example 1.

52 THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC

Example 2: Modal Interchange in Three Hollywood Themes (transposed to C for comparison)

characteristic of modal music, such as the Aeolian

VIVIII or the Mixolydian VIII cadences.
Other typical modal inflections include the Phrygian
(II) or Lydian supertonic (II#). While II and II#
are chords that are also commonly encountered in
the context of functional tonality, Williams usually
does not treat II as a predominant (i.e., it does
not serve as a Neapolitan chord borrowed from the
parallel minor),23 nor does he usually deploy II# as an
applied dominant (V/V). Both sonorities tend to be
color chords that fleetingly import the flavor of the
Phrygian or Lydian modes into an otherwise diatonic
setting.24
The elimination of minor and diminished
sonorities through modal interchange results in
a major key on steroidsa simple but effective
procedure in heroic passages of Williams film and
ceremonial music. In its sonorous muscularity,
Williams triadic harmony is occasionally reminiscent
23 An exception is the use of II in the march from Raiders of the Lost Ark,
which precedes the dominant.
24 This analytical methodology generally conforms to the one proposed
by John Vincent in his 1951 book The Diatonic Modes in Modern Music: [t]he
interchangeability of scale forms above a single tonic for the enrichment of
the melodic and harmonic means is not limited to the juxtaposition of Major
and Minor modes, but also includes those diatonic scales which are the
modern counterpart of the ecclesiastical modes. When applied to harmonic
analysis, this mutual interchangeability offers a valid means for a simple
and diatonic explanation of the relationship which certain chords (hitherto
considered chromatic) bear to the tonic. John Vincent, The Diatonic Modes
in Modern Music (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1951), 1.

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of rock, which also makes use of modal interchange.25

The patriotic anthem America, The Dream Goes On
(1982), for example, consists almost entirely of major
chords, many of which are modally inflectedout
of 84 bars, only eight contain minor triads. The
supersaturated major mode is also at work in the
Theme from the Olympic Fanfare and Theme, which
uses two diatonic chords (I and IV) and two modal
substitutions (II and VI).
Extensive use of modal interchange is an integral
part of the classic Hollywood style, particularly in
the grand, epic manner to which Williams is often
considered heir.26 Among the most common modal
inflections in film music are the flattened seventh and
the raised fourth. These have been utilized by several
generations of Hollywood composers, as can be
observed in Example 2, which shows the main themes
from Erich Wolfgang Korngolds The Prince and the
Pauper (1937), Bronislau Kapers Mutiny on the Bounty
(1962), and Jerry Goldsmiths The Blue Max (1966). As
we will see, ^7 and ^#4 appear frequently in the
music of Williams as well.
25 See Walter Everett, Making Sense of Rocks Tonal Systems, Music
Theory Online 10, no. 4 (2004), accessed December 14, 2014, www.mtosmt.
org/issues/mto.04.10.4/mto.04.10.4.w_everett.html
26 Kathryn Kalinak, for example, describes Williams as the major force
in returning the classical score to its late-Romantic roots, and notes that
through his example, the epic sound established in the thirties once again
became a viable choice for composers in contemporary Hollywood. Kathryn
Kalinak, John Williams and The Empire Strikes Back, in Settling the Score:
Music and the Classical Hollywood Film Score (Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press, 1992), 188.

Modal Interchange in Williams

53

In the following discussion, I will focus on five

particular progressions. Three involve the flattened
seventh degree and are often associated with heroic
individualism and/or the mythology of American
nationhood (VIIV, VIII, VIVIII). The
other two involve the altered supertonic and are
usually associated with romance, the exotic, and the
wondrous (Iii7II and III#).

VII in Major as a Signifier of

Americana

As conductor of the Boston Pops from 1980 to 1993,

and laureate conductor since then, Williams has been
intimately associated with the pomp and circumstance
of national festivities. He has contributed music to
various patriotic events ranging from the centennial
of the Statue of Liberty in 1986 to Barack Obamas
presidential inauguration in 2009. In his film music,
Williams has provided a portrait gallery of American
presidents (Kennedy in JFK, Adams in Amistad, Nixon,
Lincoln) and illustrated defining conflicts in American
history (the revolutionary war in The Patriot, World
War II in Saving Private Ryan, Vietnam in Born on the
Fourth of July). His musical representation of American
subjects is thus an especially rich, and ideologically
pregnant, aspect of his work.
Williams American sound has several
components, including plain hymnal textures,
pandiatonicism, and blues or folk song pastiches. In
harmonic terms, one of the key ingredients is VII,
which typically appears either as a predominant chord
(VIIV), a dominant substitute (VIII) or as part of
a IVsus4 chord. The lowered seventh degree in major
has long been associated with American roots music
(Appalachian folk, blues, jazz, and rock). It is also
an integral part of Aaron Coplands nationalist style:
VII features prominently, for example, in the iconic
Fanfare for the Common Man (Example 3), the shadow
of which looms large in Williams oeuvre. This cluster
of associations helps to explain why Williams (along
with Goldsmith, Horner, and other film composers)
resorts to VII again and again as a musical shorthand
for America.
The use of the lowered seventh is already a feature
of Williams earliest film scores, particularly those
for Westerns. Since the cowboy is a central figure in
American mythology, a closer examination of VII in
the context of Williams Western music will provide a
gateway into the use of this sonority as a more general
signifier of American identity.
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Example 3: Copland, Fanfare for the Common Man (1942). 1944 The Aaron Copland Fund for Music. Copyright Renewed.
Boosey & Hawkes, Inc.

VIIV (The Cowboy Half-Cadence)

The use of triads derived through modal borrowing
to add a bold American aroma to otherwise plain,
folk-like diatonic harmony was pioneered by Copland,
as can be observed in Corral Nocturne from Rodeo
(1938).
Coplands Prairie Neonationalism, as Richard
Taruskin calls it, quickly turned into grist for the
mill of studio composers.27 In 1946, it inspired one of
the most celebrated examples of Americana in film
music: Hugo Friedhofers score for The Best Years of Our
Lives, which broke with the cholesteric chromaticism
of Steiner and Korngold in favor of the leaner triadic
folklorisms of Copland. In the main title, Friedhofers
use of colorful modal predominant substitutes (III
IIVIIVI) is almost identical to the progression
from Corral Nocturne (VIIIVIIVI). Note,
in particular, the VIIV progression, which lends a
characteristic swagger to both passages (Examples 4
and 5).
In the 1950s and 60s, Coplands influence in
Hollywood was most palpable in Westerns. Copland
himself paved the way with his music for The Red
Pony (1948). Perhaps the most characteristic element
bequeathed by Copland to the Western genre is what
Philip Tagg terms big-country modalism, that is, any
27 Richard Taruskin, Music in the Early Twentieth Century, vol. 4 of The Oxford
History of Western Music (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press,
2005), 662.

54 THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC

Example 4: Copland, Corral Nocturne from Rodeo, ms. 1315. 1946 The Aaron
Copland Fund for Music. Copyright Renewed. Boosey & Hawkes, Inc.

Example 5: Hugo Friedhofer, Main Title, The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). Reproduced in Roger Manvell and John Huntley, The Technique of Film Music (Hastings House:
Communication Arts Books, 1975), 166.
modal sequence of chords that occurs in connection
with pictures showing or words describing wide
open spaces, especially those of the North American
West. Tagg notes that the most common big-country
modalism is the VIIV change, which he refers to as
a cowboy half-cadence because it recurs in numerous
Westernsmost famously in Elmer Bernsteins theme
from The Magnificent Seven.28 According to Mervyn
Cooke, the score that established VIIV as a Western
sound in film music is Jerome Moross The Big Country
(1958).29 As it happens, Williams performed as pianist
28 Tagg and Clarida, Ten Little Title Tunes, 357.
29 Mervyn Cooke, A History of Film Music (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2008), 129. Moross had been a member of Coplands Young
Composers Group in the early 1930s, and later orchestrated Coplands
score for Our Town (1942), so his adoption in The Big Country of the blend
of diatonic and modal elements that characterizes Coplands style is not
surprising. Despite this biographical and aesthetic connection, Lehman
cautions against reflexively attributing the origin of the cowboy half-cadence
to Copland. He notes that, while Moross used the cadence throughout

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in the orchestras of both The Big Country and The

Magnificent Seven, so he was exposed early on to the
Western sound of Moross and Bernstein.
In keeping with his wonderful ear for endearingly
hackneyed tropes of film scoring,30 Williams uses the
VIIV progression in several of the Westerns he scored
in the 1960s and 70s, including the James Stewart
vehicle The Rare Breed and the made-for-TV feature The
Plainsman, both released in 1966 (Example 6).
Williams use of the cowboy half-cadence is not
restricted to Westerns. More generally, it can serve
as a signifier of rural Americana, as in the two Mark
his career, it is not particularly common in Coplands work, and suggests
that Moross may have arrived upon the progression on his own. (Frank
Lehman, Hollywood Cadences: Music and the Structure of Cinematic
Expectation, Music Theory Online 19.4 [December 2013]). For additional
analysis and information on the impact of The Big Country on Western scores,
see Mariana Whitmer, Jerome Morosss The Big Country: A Film Score Guide
(Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2012).
30 Steve Simels, Star Wars: The Soundtrack, Stereo Review 39 (1977), 95.

Modal Interchange in Williams

55

Example 6: Examples of cowboy half-cadence in Williams Westerns

Rydell films The Reivers (1969) and The River (1984).
Both scores feature VIIV within themes designed to
evoke a world of decent, hard-working country folks.
The opening of The Reivers, for example, conjures up a
nostalgic vision of a hazy childhood summer around
the turn of the century. As the narrator (Burgess
Meredith) intones, When I was young, I lived in a
town called Jefferson, Mississippi..., a folksy tune
on harmonica and guitar establishes a wistful mood,
brightened by the progression from iii to VIIV
(Example 7a).
In The River (set in 1980s Tennessee), farmer Tom
Garvey and his wife struggle to hold on to their family
farm despite poverty, flooding, and the attempts of a
greedy landowner to drive them away. At the climax of
the film, the family prevails against all odds to reclaim
their land. The accompanying music, titled Ancestral
Home, features cowboy half-cadences (Example 7b)
and steadily builds to a jubilant VIII climax in horns
and cymbals.
In the preceding examples, the cowboy
half-cadence is specifically associated with
ordinary Americans from the rugged frontier
or the rural heartland. But the progression can
also be transplanted into the upper echelons of
society, and even into outer space, without losing
its semantic charge. As Frank Lehman has noted in
a recent article,31 the themes for Kennedy in Oliver
Stones JFK (1991) and Luke Skywalker in Star
Wars (1977) both prominently feature the cowboy
half-cadence. The opening phrase of the Kennedy
Theme from JFK again invokes Copland with its
open fourths and fifths. The lowered seventh degree
31 Lehman, Hollywood Cadences.

The International Film Music Society 2015.

suffuses the harmony, both as a IVsus4 and in the

form of the cowboy half-cadence (Example 8a). In
this case, VIIV functions as an imprimatur of
democratic egalitarianism: it connects the noble
heights of Camelot with the humble log cabin of the
frontiersman and thereby claims Kennedy as one of
us, while simultaneously evoking the mythical figure
of the cowboy and the associated American values of
individualism and independence.32 The music taps into
what John Hellman calls the American myth of JFK,
through which, [l]ike a film star, Kennedy became
a mirror image of the citizens desire, an idealized
reflection.33
The same harmonic ingredients are at work in Luke
Skywalkers theme, which utilizes both the quartal
sound of sus4 and VIIV (see Example 8b). This
nod to the tradition of music for Westerns meshes
perfectly with George Lucas concept of Star Wars as
cowboys in spacewhich is how he pitched the
film to executives at 20th Century Fox in 1974.34 As
Douglas Brode writes, Lucas reinvent[s] the Western
by repositioning its essence not on the old frontier
but in an entirely other galaxy. 35 Several scenes in
Star Wars were directly modeled on classic Westerns,
such as Lukes discovery of the burning moisture farm
and the charred bodies of his aunt and uncle, which
32 A similar transplantation of the cowboy half-cadence from the wild West
into patriotic historical drama occurs in the A section of Williams The
Men of the Yorktown march from the 1976 World War II drama Midway
(see Example 1). In Jerry Goldsmiths score for MacArthur (1977), it provides
a cocky swagger to the march associated with the eponymous World War II
general.
33 John Hellman, The Kennedy Obsession: The American Myth of JFK (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1997), 96.
34 Douglas Brode, Cowboys in Space: Star Wars and the Western Film,
in Myth, Media, and Culture in Star Wars: An Anthology, ed. Douglas Brode
(Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2012), 14.
35 Brode, Cowboys in Space, 21.

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Example 7: Cowboy half-cadences in The Reivers and The River

echoes Ethan Edwards discovery that Comanches

have burned the family homestead in The Searchers
(John Ford, 1956). Despite his extraterrestrial
provenance, then, the modally inflected half-cadence
codes Luke as an American hero in the tradition of
the great Western gunslingers. 36
A secondary associative layer of VIIV should
be mentioned at this point. The colorful harmonic
progression was in the air at the time Williams began
his career in Hollywood, not just in Westerns, but
in pop music as well. Walter Everett notes that in
pop, [t]he VIIVm7 first appeared in 195860 with
songs including Link Wray and his Ray Mens blues
adaptation, Rumble, Duane Eddys Because Theyre
Young, and Joan Baezs Fare Thee Well...before it
became a mainstay of all rock styles in the 1960s.37
The 1960 teen drama Because Theyre Young, which
features the eponymous song, was Williams second
film score. The title tune, composed by Don Costa and
conducted by Williams, is sung in the film by James
Darren, and later became a hit when it was recorded
by Duane Eddy. Its most memorable feature is the
insistent use of a VIIV cadence (see Example 9).
In keeping with the target audience and subject
matter of Because Theyre Young, the lyrics by Aaron
Schroeder and Wally Gold extol the innocence and
36 Frank Lehman points out that Williams derives not only the Rebel
Fanfare from the cowboy half-cadence of Lukes theme, but in the course
of the hexalogy develops the germinal harmonic gesture into thoroughly
abstracted rhythmic or harmonic allusions, including a passage in The
Battle for Corruscant from Revenge of the Sith in which the mixolydian
sounds of the prairie can be heard faintly echoing in the chromaticism of
this space battle. Lehman, Hollywood Cadences.
37 Walter Everett, The Foundations of Rock: From Blue Suede Shoes to Suite:
Judy Blue Eyes (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 278.

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idealism of youth (Because theyre young, because

theyre young/The stars are twice as bright above...).
Which brings us back to Star Wars: while working on
the score, Williams considered the film to be a mere
Saturday morning popcorn picture for kids.38 His
use of a progression associated not only with Westerns
but also with teen pop resonates with his own initial
assessment of Star Wars.

VIII
One of Williams earliest prestige pictures after his
apprenticeship years in television was Frank Sinatras
directorial debut, the 1964 World War II drama None
but the Brave, in which two platoons, one American,
the other Japanese, square off on a remote island in
the Pacific. The score is based on two contrasting
soundworlds: a theme for the Japanese (based on
the Hirajoshi scale),39 and an American theme
which alternates between tonic and VII (Example
10). The shift between two major chords separated
by wholestep is one of the most characteristic
progressions in Williams music (more on this
below).
In the scores for the 1973 Western The Man Who
Loved Cat Dancing and the 1974 drama Conrack (set in
rural South Carolina), the Mixolydian cadence VIII
helps to convey a suitably folksy mood (Example 11,
38 John Williams, interview by Jo Reed, A Conversation with John
Williams, NEA Podcasts, March 3, 2011, accessed December 14, 2014,
www.prx.org/pieces/66474/transcripts/155614.
39 The oldest and most frequently used tuning scale for the Japanese koto
(DEGAB).

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Example 8: Comparison of Main Themes from JFK and Star Wars. Suite from JFK, 1992
Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp., printed by Hal Leonard, John Williams Signature
Edition, 04490121. Star Wars: Suite for Orchestra, 1977 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing
Corp., printed by Hal Leonard, John Williams Signature Edition, 04490057.

Example 9: Williams arrangement of Because Theyre Young (1960)

Example 10: Main theme, None but the Brave (1964)

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Example 11: Use of VIII in themes for American characters. Raiders March, 1981
by Bantha Music and Ensign Music Corporation, printed by Hal Leonard, John Williams Signature Edition, 04490015.
a and b). Over a tonic pedal, it appears in the themes
for all-American characters like Indiana Jones or
Dorinda, the feisty firefighting pilot from Always
(Example 11, c and d).
In Straehley and Loebachs study of the emotional
connotations of diatonic modes, the Mixolydian mode
was most frequently associated by test subjects with
joy, admiration, and serenity.40 It is also a harmonic
feature of the shared musical vernacular of American
cultureas Robert Walser has pointed out, most pop
songs are either major (Ionian) or Mixolydian.41 Thus,
it is not surprising that, in the music of Williams, the
Mixolydian shift VIII is often linked with the idea
of home in both a patriotic and a private sense. The
former is evident in Williams anthem America, The
Dream Goes On, composed in 1982 in collaboration
with lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman for the
Boston Pops. As the American Dream is compared

to a song in the dust of a country road that sings

in the farms and the factory towns of the American
heartland, the harmony oscillates between I and VII
(Example 12a). As in Coplands Fanfare for the Common
Man, Mixolydian cadences feature prominently in
music for patriotic ceremonies such as the Liberty
Fanfare (composed in 1986 for the centenary of the
Statue of Liberty, Example 12b) or the Olympic Fanfare
and Theme (composed for the 1984 Olympic Games in
Los Angeles, Example 12c).
In music for domestic settings, Williams tends
to draw on the same harmonic vocabulary as in his
patriotic themes. This conflation of national and
domestic domains reflects a powerful ideological trope
in American political discourse: the idea of family
and home as the dominant fantasy and metaphor of
national community. 42 The cognitive linguist George
Lakoff points out that:

40 Straehley and Loebach, The Influence of Mode and Musical Experience,

31.
41 Robert Walser, Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy
Metal Music (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2013), 46.

42 Robert Burgoyne, Film Nation: Hollywood Looks at American History

(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), 84.

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59

Example 12: VIII in America, The Dream Goes On and two fanfares. America, The
Dream Goes On, 1982, 1984 Threesome Music Co. (ASCAP); Liberty Fanfare 1986
Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. and Marjer Publishing Co. (BMI); Olympic Fanfare
and Theme 1984 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. and Marjer Publishing Co.
(BMI), printed in John Williams: Fanfares and Themes, 1989 Warner Bros. Publications
Inc.
[p]art of our conceptual systems, whether we are
liberals, conservatives, or neither, is a common
metaphorical conception of the Nation as Family,
with the government, or head of state representing
the government, seen as an older authority figure,
typically, a father. We talk about our founding fathers
[] The U.S. government has long been referred to
as Uncle Sam. [] When our country goes to war,
it sends its sons (and now its daughters) into battle.
A patriot (from the Latin pater, father) loves his
fatherland.43

It is consistent with this metaphoric framework

that the same harmonic progression that represents
American soldiers in None but the Brave and
underpins patriotic exhortations in America, The
43 George Lakoff, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2010), 153 (emphasis in the original).

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Dream Goes On resurfaces in themes associated with

family and domestic life, as in the Family Theme
from the legal thriller Presumed Innocent (1990), or in
the song When Youre Alone from Hook (1991), in
which little Maggie, lost in Neverland, sings of being
all alone/Far away from Home (Example 13, a and
b).
The coalescence of the familial and the patriotic
is made most explicit in the Mel Gibson potboiler The
Patriot (2000). The main character, Benjamin Martin,
is at first wary of involvement in the American
revolution, but joins the rebels after his farm is
burned and his son shot by the sadistic British
General Tavington. In the context of the film, the
imperative to defend the homestead is intertwined
with the imperative to defend the national cause.
According to producer Mark Gordon, [w]hat we

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Example 13: VIII in themes associated with Family and Home

hope the audience will take away after seeing The
Patriot is that the only way to protect your family is
to protect the family of all men.44 Individual and
collective aspirations are linked on the harmonic
level as well: the theme associated with romance/
domestic happiness (Example 13c) and one of the
themes associated with the national cause are based,
once again, on the alternation of I and VII (Example
13d).
44 Cited in Susanne Kord and Elisabeth Krimmer, Contemporary Hollywood
Masculinities: Gender, Genre, and Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2011), 59.

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IIIIVV and VIVIII: Emblems

of Righteous Euphoria

Other common progressions generated through modal

interchange and associated with an American sound
are IIIIVV and VIVIII, which provide the basis
for two of the principal themes in Williams 1972
score for The Cowboys (Example 14).
VIVIII, in particular, has become something
of a clich in Hollywood music. Ron Sadoff describes
the progression, which borrows the submediant
and subtonic from the Aeolian mode, as a portal of

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61

Example 14: Major triads ascending by wholestep in The Cowboys (1972). The Cowboys
Overture. 1972 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp., printed by Hal Leonard, John
Williams Signature Edition, 00490061.
cultural affect which elicits hope, righteousness,
and euphoria45 connotations that may in part derive
from its prominent use in the influential Hollywood
epics Ben Hur and Exodus.46 More recently, it has
become associated with both movie studio logos
(the Universal themes by James Horner and Jerry
Goldsmith) and video game music (Super Mario Bros,
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time). Since the mid1960s, the progression has also been a mainstay of
rock: With a Little Help from my Friends (The
Beatles), Lola (The Kinks), Crazy Little Thing
Called Love (Queen), to name a few.
In the context of Williams music, VIVIII often
assumes an implicitly or explicitly patriotic character.
In the Superman Fanfare, the progression is linked,
through an archetypal figure of pop mythology,
with Truth, Justice, and the American Way; in
the Ewok Celebration that follows the defeat of
the evil Empire in Return of the Jedi, it punctuates the
fist-pumping celebration song of the victorious rebels
(Freedom! Power!);47 and in Oliver Stones Nixon,
it spotlights a subcurrent of patriotic idealism beneath
the Machiavellian machinations of the main character
(Example 15, ac).48
The apotheosis of VIVIII in Williams work is
the anthem America, The Dream Goes On (Example 15d).
45 Ron Sadoff, Composition by Corporate Committee: Recipe for Clich,
American Music 22 (Spring 2004): 68.
46 The progression also appears in earlier Hollywood scores, including
Max Steiners Key Largo (1948) and Elmer Bernsteins Battles of Chief Pontiac
(1952). Thanks to Frank Lehman for pointing me to these examples.
47 I am referring to the original 1983 version of the film, not the 1997
release, which features different music for the Ewok Celebration.
48 Example 15c (from Nixon) presents a variant of the progression, in which
I is the initiator, rather than the goal, of the phrase (IVIVII instead of
VIVIII).

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This is an interesting example of Williams skill in

fusing multiple points of association into a polysemic
brew with a potent ideological punch. The opening
of the anthem, stated by the chorus in the opening
section, is based on IVIVIII. In conjunction with
the phrase and the dream goes on! it conveys a
sense of supercharged optimism which recalls not
only the big-country modalism of Western scores
and the pomp of 1950s biblical epics, but also the
power progressions of rock with their connotations of
blue-collar gritin particular, Jimi Hendrixs famous
rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock in
1969, which established VIVIII as a concluding
flourish for the national anthem (more recent
examples include Whitney Houstons performance
at the Superbowl in 1991, or Beyoncs at the 2013
presidential inauguration).
Perhaps most significant in this context, from a
musical as well as an ideological point of view, are two
themes from Ben Hur and Exodus. Mikls Rzsas score
for Ben Hur (1959) is, of course, the locus classicus
of the biblical style la Hollywood, with its massive
orchestral and choral forces and its lushly resonant
modal archaisms. These include a prominent VI
VIII cadence in the love theme for Esther and Judah
Ben-Hur (Example 16).
As Roger Hickman notes, this theme is given
the most extended playing time of any theme in the
score,49 and thus is one of the most prominent and
memorable musical elements of Ben Hur. Like the
Family theme from The Patriot (Example 13c), it is
49 Roger Hickman, Mikls Rzsas Ben-Hur: A Film Score Guide (Lanham, MD:
Scarecrow Press, 2011), 97.

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Example 15: Examples of VIVIII. Superman March, 1978 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp., printed by Hal Leonard, John Williams Signature Edition, 04490228.
America, The Dream Goes On, 1982, 1984 Threesome Music Co. (ASCAP).

Example 16: Mikls Rzsa, Love Theme from Ben Hur, VIVIII cadence
associated with the protagonists private, domestic
existence, an existence which, like Benjamin Martins,
is threatened by an overbearing imperial power. Ben
Hur, like Martin, is at first reluctant to be drawn
into conflict, but once the security of his private
domain is shattered, he thirsts for revenge against the
oppressor. His rejection of Rome, as Jonathan Stubbs
argues, can be seen in the context of contemporary
Jewish nationalism and the support for it in 1950s
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America. In this sense, Ben-Hurs struggle for national

self-expression in a homeland oppressed by Roman
imperialists resonated with the modern founding of
Israel in British-occupied Palestine.50

50 Jonathan Stubbs, Historical Films: An Introduction (New York and London:

Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013), 98. When pressed by the Roman tribune
Messala to inform on Jews critical of the Romans, Ben Hur replies: Theyre
not criminals, Messala. Theyre patriots.

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63

Example 17: Ernest Gold, The Exodus Song. 1960 & 1961 by Carlyle-Alpina
S.A., printed by Hal Leonard, 150 of the Most Beautiful Songs Ever, Hal Leonard
00360735.
In his Oscar-winning score for Exodus, released
the year after Ben Hur, Ernest Gold draws on a similar
modal vocabulary to lend a biblical sweep to the
film version of Leon Uris novel about the founding of
the state of Israel. As shown in Example 17, the main
theme from Exodus resembles the love theme from Ben
Hur, both in its melodic outline and its conspicuous
use of the ascending wholestep progression (both as
VIVIIi and as IIIIVV). The similarity between
the two themes was sufficiently pronounced for
Robbins Music Corporation, the publisher of the Ben
Hur music, to consult with an outside expert (Vincent
Persichetti) to determine if a plagiarism case could
be made. Persichetti decided that the two pieces,
while related in their use of modal harmony, exist as
independent and separate creations. 51
Nonetheless, the resemblance suggests an
intertextual link between the Jewish heroes of the
two epics. The biblical flavor of the music was made
explicit after the fundamentalist evangelical singer Pat
Boone added lyrics to Golds theme (God gave this
land to me...). Boones version of The Exodus Song
(This Land is Mine) became a hit in the early 1960s,
and has remained the most famous melody associated
with Israel in American popular culturean icon of
musical Zionism. The image of Gods chosen people
laying claim to the Promised Land resonates deeply
51 Vincent Persichetti, letter to Joseph Levin, November 7, 1960. Mikls
Rzsa Papers, Syracuse University Special Collections.

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with the mythology of America, a persistent feature of

which is a belief in exceptionalism, Manifest Destiny,
and divinely sanctioned nationhood which can be
traced back to the Puritans and John Winthrops city
upon a hill.52 This resonance may explain in part why
Uris novel was such a publishing phenomenonthe
biggest bestseller in the United States since Margaret
Mitchells Gone with the Wind.
Given this complex of associations (and Williams
finely tuned ear for widely known points of reference,
especially within the Hollywood tradition), a
connection can be drawn between the harmonic
gesture associated with the Promised Land of Israel
in Exodus and the opening of Williams paean to the
Promised Land of America. But there are revealing
contrasts as well: whereas the Exodus theme evokes
a background of adversity and tragedy by fluctuating
dramatically between the Aeolian and Dorian modes,
and between major and minor forms of the tonic and
dominant, Williams anthem maintains a consistent
52 From the Puritan era on, many American Protestants have identified
with Israel, whose sacred history offered a metaphorical narrative for the
Puritan founding and establishing of communities in the New World. Like
the Jews, the Puritans had suffered under the yoke of tyrannical rulers, and
the Jews exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land was deemed analogous
to the Puritan crossing of the Atlantic to the New World. Both journeys
and new foundations were perceived as part of a divinely ordained mission
to establish the true kingdom of God on earth. Political oratory, literature,
and the visual arts from the Puritan era to the present have all made use
of a metaphorical identification of America as the Promised Land, the
New Jerusalem, and Americans as Chosen People with a divine mission.
Margaret Malamud, Ancient Rome and Modern America (Malden, MA and
Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 141-42.

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focus on the major triad. This relentless brightness,

combined with the simplicity of the melodic material,
creates an effect of banality that makes America, The
Dream Goes On a fitting counterpart to the hollow
optimism of the Reagan era (Its morning again in
America!).

The Half-Diminished and Phrygian

Supertonic as Signifiers of Romance
and the Exotic (Iii7, III)
While the flat submediant and subtonic in major keys
are integral to Williams heroic style, his love themes
tend to place strong emphasis on altered forms of
the supertonic. It typically appears in three modally
inflected forms: half-diminished (ii7), Phrygian (II),
and Lydian (II#). The half-diminished and Phrygian
variants of ii are the operative sonorities in the love
themes for the first Star Wars trilogy and Raiders of the
Lost Ark, the opening phrases of which are shown in
Example 18.
Note the prominent use of the ascending major
sixth; Williams seems to correlate this interval with
romance, just as the ascending fourths and fifths that
dominate his themes for Luke Skywalker, Superman,
and John F. Kennedy are linked with the heroic. As
illustrated in Example 19, all four love themes utilize
the same harmonic components.
The rich emotional associations triggered by this
constellation of chords provides another example
of Williams skill in drawing on the affective
connotations of harmony. The progression Iii7
recalls love themes from Hollywoods Golden Age
such as those from Roy Webbs Notorious or Mikls
Rzsas The Lost Weekend and Spellbound (Example 20):
a touch of nostalgia in keeping with the retrospective
aesthetic of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones series,
which constantly evoke visual and narrative tropes
from 1930s and 40s cinema.53 The chromatic
alteration of ^6 serves as a poignancy-enhancing
tendency tone, either gravitating by descent to ^5 (as
in Princess Leias Theme and Luke and Leia), or
by ascent to diatonic ^6 (as in Marions Theme).54
53 Neil Lerner argues that this retrospective aesthetic, with its
conventionalized musical codings of gender, reinforces the masculinist and
authoritarian tendencies some critics perceive in the films of Lucas and
Spielberg. See Nostalgia, Masculinist Discourse and Authoritarianism in
John Williams Scores for Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind
in Off the Planet: Music, Sound and Science Fiction Cinema, ed. Phillip Hayward
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), 96-108.
54 In the case of Marions Theme, the sinuous chromatic line ^5 ^6
^6 ^6 in the harmonic accompaniment taps into another vein of
association that can be traced back to late-19th-century Russian exoticism,
as manifested in the Chorus of the Polovtsian Maidens from Borodins

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Williams fondness for the nostalgic sound of

ii7 is a feature of other love themes as well, including
those from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and The
Terminal (see Example 21). As Philip Tagg notes, the
use of half-diminished seventh chords in a major-key
context has an instant dramatization potential.
Due to whatever vestiges of woe they may have
inherited, half-diminished sevenths in major offset
the general delight of their tonal surroundings and
heighten the musics dramatic value, adding emotional
depth.55 Tagg traces the correlation of anguish
and the half-diminished seventh back to Dowlands
Flow My Tears and Purcells Dido and Aeneas. In the
nineteenth century, it acquired connotations of
romance (e.g., Wagners Tristan, Liszts Liebestraum)
which established the sonority as a musical symbol
of love, longing, and pathos. It has been invoked in
this capacity by numerous film composersincluding
Williams mentor Bernard Herrmann, whose score for
Vertigo is stuffed to the gills with references to Tristan.
If the half-diminished supertonic serves as a
signifier of romance, the Phrygian supertonic (II)
is redolent of gypsy music and flamenco and has
long been associated with the erotic and exotic (as in
the Seguidilla from Bizets Carmen, or the opening of
Ravels Tzigane).56 Its prominent use in the Star Wars
and Raiders love themes adds a whiff of sensuality
and the faraway to the musical depictions of Princess
Leia and Marionboth well-traveled and adventurous
heroines. In the Indiana Jones series, with their exotic
settings in South Asia and the Middle East, Williams
draws on the orientalist associations of II, both as
a chord and as a melodic inflection of ^2, to convey
a sense of locale and adventure. For example, the A
section of the March of the Slave Children from
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (a film set in a
phantasmagoric version of India) is based on the scale
DEbF#GABC. The augmented second created
by II between Eb and F# (m. 2 of Example 22) is
standard orientalist practice.57
Prince Igor. Richard Taruskin notes that [t]he reversible chromatic pass
between the fifth and sixth degrees isthe essential symbol or marker
of sex la russe (Richard Taruskin, Music in the Nineteenth Century, vol. 3
of The Oxford History of Western Music [Oxford and New York: Oxford
University Press, 2010], 401). In film music, the most famous manifestation
of sex la russe is the opening four-note bass line of Monty Norman/
John Barrys theme from James Bondan appropriate point of reference for
Marions Theme, considering that the world of international intrigue and
glamorous women depicted in Indiana Jones is heavily indebted to the James
Bond franchise.
55 Tagg and Clarida, Ten Little Title Tunes, 195.
56 As Philip Tagg observes, Flattwo Spain and flattwo Gypsies must
be among Western exoticisms most exploited musical tropes. Philip Tagg,
Everyday Tonality II: Towards a Tonal Theory of What Most People Hear (New York
and Huddersfield: The Mass Media Music Scholars Press, 2014), 106.
57 Ralph Locke, Constructing the Oriental Other: Saint-Saenss Samson
et Dalila, Cambridge Opera Journal 3, no. 3 (1991): 267.

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Example 18: Love themes from Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and
Raiders of the Lost Ark (transposed to G major for comparison). Star Wars: Suite for
Orchestra, 1977 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp., printed by Hal Leonard, John
Williams Signature Edition, 04490057. Luke and Leia, 1983 Bantha Music,
printed in John Williams: Fanfares and Themes, 1987 Warner Bros. Publications Inc.
Raiders March, 1981 by Bantha Music and Ensign Music Corporation, printed by Hal
Leonard, John Williams Signature Edition, 04490015.

Example 19: Basic progression of themes in Example 18

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Example 20: Love themes from The Lost Weekend, Spellbound, and Notorious

Example 21: Love themes from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and The
Terminal (2004)
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67

Example 22: March of the Slave Children from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
(1984)

Example 23: Comparison of Augurs and Jaws chords. Suite from Jaws, 1975 USI B
Music Publishing, printed by Hal Leonard, John Williams Signature Edition, 04490414.

While the flat supertonic is often used to convey

the allure of the exotic, it also has a dark side: the
Other in the sense of the alien and monstrous. In
Straehley and Loebachs study of the emotional
perception of diatonic modes, more test subjects
associated Phrygian with Terror, Fear, and
Apprehension than any other mode (closely followed
by Locrian, which also has a flat supertonic).58
In the iconic shark motif from Jaws, the tension
between ^1 and ^2 is stripped down, through
simple alternation, to its starkest formso stark,
in fact, that Spielberg at first rejected the motif as
too primitive.59 Of course its primitive character
is precisely what renders the music suitable for a
single-minded killing machine; the accelerating
oscillation between two neighboring pitches vividly
evokes the seesawing motion of the caudal fin which
propels the shark toward its prey.
In its emphasis on the half-step, the shark
motif follows in the tracks of Wagners Fafner, who
rises from the depths of his lair in a serpentine
succession of ascending and descending half-steps.
Its harmonized variant dredges up other musical
58 Straehley and Loebach, The Influence of Mode and Musical Experience,
26-27.
59 Joseph McBride, Spielberg: A Biography (Jackson: University of Mississippi
Press, 2010), 253.

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associations as well. The first, and most obvious,

is the pounding, polytonal Augurs chord from
Stravinskys Rite of Spring, which Williams seems at
first glance to have lifted wholesale.
But the chords, while similar in pitch content, are
not identical. The Augurs chord belongs to set 7-32
[0,1,3,4,6,8,9], while the Jaws chord (and its half-step
transposition) belongs to the octatonic subset 5-31
[0,1,3,6,9]: a characteristic tension sonority used by
Bernard Herrmann in Hitchcock thrillers like Psycho
and Marnie (see Examples 23 and 24). Herrmann
usually presents 5-31 as a fully diminished seventh
chord in root position with added ninth; Williams, on
the other hand, models his voicing on the Augurs
chord (same register and transpositional level, with
the E dominant 6/5 sonority on top).
By cross-breeding elements from the Sacre
and Psycho, Williams manages to conjure up two
different demons at once. The shark motif is a kind
of resonance chamber which gathers and amplifies
multiple musical echoes of murderous violence into a
single sleek and streamlined signifier of terror.60
60 In a recent interview, Williams noted that it...touches on some kind of
primal fear and defense network that we all have of reptiles and of monsters
that are unstoppable and are the predatory sovereigns of the earth. (John
Williams, interview by Tommy Pearson, John Williams at 80: A Classic FM
Interview Special, Classic FM, August 27, 2012).

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Example 24: Comparison of Jaws chord and Herrmann tension chords

The Lydian Supertonic as a Signifier

of Flight, Magic, and Wonder (I
II#)
We have observed Williams predilection for moving
between major chords a wholestep apart in his use
of VIVII, VIII, and IIIIV. This infuses much
of his music with the otherworldly brightness of the
Lydian mode, since all of these progressions generate
Lydian hexachords.61 It is not surprising, then, that the
third, and perhaps most typical, modal inflection of
the supertonic is II#, which borrows the raised fourth
degree of the scale from the Lydian mode. In most
instances, II# is preceded by I, and often appears over
a tonic pedal, which maximizes the tritonal tension
of the progression. This harmonic maneuver conveys
a sense of joyous anticipation in both Korngolds
score for The Prince and the Pauper (1937; see Example
2) and Leonard Bernsteins West Side Story, where it
features prominently in the song Tonight.62 Williams
himself has described the progression as ceremonious
and heraldic.63 Its characteristic buoyancy, which
conveys a visceral sense of lifting off, results from
the unexpected suspension of the usual gravitational
forces that condition melodic movement in major:
instead of ^4 falling to 3, ^#4 sets up an anticipation
of upward resolution toward ^5. Williams typically
does not, however, resolve II# to V (as Beethoven does
61 B major to C major = BCDEFG.
62 Williams, incidentally, was pianist for the 1961 film version of West Side
Story.
63 The style [of the music for Superman] is tonal and kind of ceremonious
and heraldicC major to D major-ish, if you know what I mean. Williams,
interview by Derek Elley, John Williams, Part I, Films and Filming, 28 (July/
August 1978), 21.

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in the opening of the Waldstein Sonata, op. 53).

This denial of normative, functional resolution marks
the progression as an extraordinary harmonic event
and thereby intensifies its affective impact.
Given its implicitly levitational trajectory, the
progression lends itself to suggesting, among other
things, the physical sensation of flight, as it does in
Jerry Goldsmiths main theme for the World War
I aviation adventure The Blue Max (see Example 2).
According to Williams, the emotion he most enjoys
expressing through music is exhilaration...being
able to escape gravity, and just fly.64 The importance
of the Lydian fourth in attaining this state of
exhilaration is exemplified by the Adventure Theme
from Jurassic Park, which is heard for the first time as
John Hammonds helicopter speeds toward Isla Nublar
(the dinosaur island). The III# progression, in
conjunction with the rousing orchestration, perfectly
complements the kinetic excitement of the camera
sweeping across the glittering ocean (Example 25).
Since the 1970s, the Lydian supertonic has been
utilized in many science fiction and fantasy scores,
by Williams as well as other composers.65 It is a
key component of what Frank Lehman describes as
Williams soaring wonder style:
The mode finds such extensive employment in film
music in part because of its brightening of the already
positively-valenced major mode, an intensification of
its upward tendencies...and a super-saturation of its
64 Meeting with John Williams, YouTube video. 4:17, undated backstage
interview, posted by narutosaiyans, May 27, 2007, accessed December 14,
2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVmxJ0YmVkQ.
65 Examples include Alan Silvestris Back to the Future (1985) or James
Horners Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), Star Trek II (1982), Star Trek III (1984),
and Deep Impact (1998).

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69

Example 25: Journey to the Island, Jurassic Park (1993)

victorious, childlike, and optimistic connotations. At

the same time, its divergence from the diatonic norm,
and the presence of a prominent tritone between tonic
and subdominant scale-degrees, enables suggestion of
the extraordinary and otherworldly.66

Victorious, childlike, optimistic, extraordinary,

and otherworldly: suitable adjectives for E.T., Yoda,
Superman, and the boy Anakin Skywalker, all of
whom are characterized by themes based on III#
(Example 26). It is through their ability to defy
the laws of gravity that E.T., Yoda, and Superman
demonstrate their magical powers. In Superman,
Lois Lane falls in love while soaring skyward in
Supermans arms, to the strains of the love theme; as
they float above the clouds, we hear a vocal version of
the theme, with lyrics by Leslie Bricusse that stress
Supermans celestial origins (I dont know who you
are/Just a friend from another star...You can fly/You
belong in the sky, etc.). In The Empire Strikes Back,
Yoda restores Lukes flagging faith in the Force by
telekinetically lifting his submerged glider from a
swamp, accompanied by an apotheosis of the Yoda
theme. In E.T., Elliott and E.T. take off into the night
sky during their famous bike ride to the strains of
what Williams calls the Flying Theme.
Considering these magical and levitational
associations, it is surely no coincidence that all three
themes utilize the same basic harmonic components
(Example 27).67
66 Lehman, Reading Tonality, 31.
67 Note that the Flying Theme from E.T. presents the only exception
among the examples presented here of II# operating as a secondary
dominant, since it resolves to V and can thus be interpreted as a
conventional V/V. Even in this case, however, there is a connection to the
Lydian mode, since the theme is derived from the unambiguously Lydian
E.T. motif. For a detailed discussion of this derivation, see my article Sweet
Fulfillment: Allusion and Teleological Genesis in John Williams's Close
Encounters of the Third Kind, The Musical Quarterly, 2014; doi: 10.1093/musqtl/
gdu001

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Like E.T. and Yoda, Anakin Skywalker in The

Phantom Menace is diminutive and childlike in outward
appearance, but gifted with extraordinary mental
powers. He is driven by his yearning to escape from
slavery and, quite literally, ascend to the stars. I'm
a pilot, you know, and someday I'm going to fly away
from this place, he says early in the film as we hear
the first statement of Anakins Theme, a sinuous,
complex melody that recalls the bittersweet lyrical
idiom of Prokofiev (Example 28). Once again, the
progression III# over a tonic pedal suggests not
only otherworldly powers, but also the idea of flight.
The plot of The Phantom Menace hinges on Anakins
prowess as a pilot, which is displayed in the pod race
that wins him his freedom, as well as the climactic
battle, in which he pilots a starfighter and manages to
single-handedly turn the tide of battle by destroying
the Federations droid-control ship.
The magical flavor of I#II is often intensified
by transposing the initial progression, as is the
case in Spacecamp (1987). The main title, which
accompanies images of nebulae and galaxies, opens
with a shimmering synthesizer ostinato. This
provides a backdrop for a majestic horn cantilena
which shifts first from C major to D major, then
from D major to E major (Example 29a). The
Adventure motif for the Jurassic Park sequel The Lost
World is similarly saturated with Lydian hexachords,
progressing (over a tonic/dominant ostinato pedal)
from A major to B major, then from C major to D
major (Example 29b).
Many other progressions with strong associative
connotations could be added to this overview of
characteristic harmonic devices. As we have seen,
progressions such as VIIV or III# tap into
well-established veins of association. The connotations
I ascribe to them are evident in many cases, but

70 THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC

Example 26: The Lydian supertonic in Superman, The Empire Strikes Back, and E.T.
(transposed to G major for comparison). Star Wars: Suite for Orchestra, 1977 WarnerTamerlane Publishing Corp., printed by Hal Leonard, John Williams Signature Edition,
04490057. Adventures on Earth: From the Universal Picture E.T. (The Extra-Terrestrial),
1982 MCA., printed by Hal Leonard, John Williams Signature Edition, 04490009.

Example 27: Harmonic components of Example 26

Example 28: Anakins Theme from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999). Star Wars:
The Phantom Menace, Suite for Orchestra, 1999 Bantha Music (BMI), printed by Hal
Leonard, John Williams Signature Edition, 04490125.
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Modal Interchange in Williams

71

Example 29: Transposition of Lydian supertonic. Theme from The Lost World, 1997
MCA, Inc., printed by Hal Leonard, John Williams Signature Edition, 04490069.

they do not, of course, apply in all instanceseven

the most stereotyped progressions in film music are
capable of harboring a rich diversity of polysemic
meaning, depending on the dramatic context.68
Musico-cinematic topoi, as Tobias Plebuch has
noted, are not fixed symbols like traffic signs, but
flexible and constantly evolving signifiers that can be
handled with subtlety: Once a topos is established, a
composer or improviser may just use a characteristic
feature and inject, for example, a tiny but recognizable
dose of mysterious, pastoral, religious, or military
sound into any scene.69 The inclusion of a cowboy
half-cadence in the main title of Star Wars, for
example, adds just the right dash of Western flavor to
music that otherwise evokes the grand Korngoldian
tradition of Golden Age adventure movies. Thus,
from the start the music points up the mixture of
genres that is a defining feature of George Lucas

dramatic concept for the franchise. A lot of these

references are deliberate, Williams notes, Theyre
an attempt to evoke a response in the audience
[when] we want to elicit a certain kind of reaction.70
It is indicative of Williams compositional skill and
vivid sense of dramaturgy that his music sounds
consistently fresh and compelling, despite its frequent
reliance on harmonic gestures common to many
Hollywood scores.

68 See Lehman, Reading Tonality, 149-50.

69 Plebuch, Mysteriosos Demystified, 78.

70 Randall Larson, Musique Fantastique: A Survey of Film Music in the Fantastic

Cinema (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1985), 297.

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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Frank Lehman for his incisive
comments on a draft of this article.

72 THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC

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