Study on Orchestration in John Williams’s Film Score “Superman Main Title”

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to comparatively analyze the orchestral operating technique, which was shown in “Superman Main Title” that is John Williams (1932~)’s film music, with the analytical technique that the writer devised, and was to discover the horizontal consideration and the progression principle in the orchestral arrangement based on the results. In other words, the functional part split method was applied, which divided and distributed the basic functional elements of music such as melody, harmony, rhythm, and tone color, to the Fore Ground, Middle Ground, and Rear Ground depending on auditory recognition level. And, it allowed vertical structure and voicing structure to be pattern in the musical instruments, which were distributed in each functional part, based on this, and comparatively analyzed the standard point of a change and horizontal consideration, which were shown in progression of music, namely, the operating technique. As a result of the research, each theme has the specified instrumentation pattern and voicing pattern. The instrumentation pattern is being consistently maintained in the repetition and recapitulation of each theme. However, the voicing pattern is indicated contrastively a change by expansion or alternation of part. Also, the instrumentation pattern is indicated the alternation in Part I depending on distribution of theme that each part has. In Part II and III, the similar pattern is maintained. Each passage within part is consecutively indicated a small change in the voicing pattern by adjunctively adding or omitting part. Accordingly, this study is desired to be one opportunity of establishing the theoretical system and educational method in the orchestral technique based on the conclusions, which were shown in this work.

This work was supported by Research foundation from Hanseo University in 2012.