John Williams

John Williams

Composer Paper

By: Jess White

MUSIC APPRECIATION

Chances are, whether you are totally clueless about music or not. you’ve probably been exposed to numerous John Williams compositions and film scores. If you were raised up watching “JAWS”, “Star Wars” or even “Superman” You can more than likely hum the theme song of each of these Hollywood films; and you can thank the genius and emotionally linking work of composer John Williams for that. “Williams has long been reputed to be cinema’s most highly paid and recognized composer, whose music has since the mid – 1970’s consistently dominated both soundtrack and awards charts.” (Cooke, 462) From the most recognizable tunes of the movies Jaws, Star Wars, Superman, Indiana Jones, and even E.T., Williams composing ability of putting emotion and depth into films of all kinds is undeniable, his talent should not go unrecognized.

John Towner Williams, was born in New York on February 8, 1932. He began learning the piano from the age of eight. After moving to Los Angeles in 1948, he studied with pianist-arranger Bobby Van Eps. Williams served in the Air Force from 1951 to 1954 orchestrating and conducting service bands. After finishing up in the Air Force, he Enrolled in UCLA and began his private composition studies; he would soon become a world icon of film scores.

Before Williams obvious main “hits”, he began arranging and composing music for television shows, and record companies such as Columbia Records; where he worked as a pianist and arranger. Some of his first hits include, John Goldfarb, Please Come Home and How to Steal a million.

As his career kept gaining momentum, “Star Wars” comes into the picture. As most of us know, George Lucas is the writer of this trilogy; he was very good friends with Spielberg, who recommended William’s to and could ask him to develop any kind of feel to a scene and knew it would be done. Lucas told Williams while writing the script for the movie, “I want a...