Also, Lehah is probably unfamilar with Scriabin's "mystic" chord. But anyway, it's not as if harmony is the only area for possible musical innovation.

There will (thankfully) never be another UE album. Sony has said such.

I like how some dumbass on the internet can decide to ignore the rules of music theory for the last 140 years just because.

Well, then name some type of experimentation that was not an offshoot of what I previously made an example of.

I just wanna remind you all that I was just curious to here other members' favorites of John Williams not an argument of what's his best. :)

What about Jazz? Music pre-dating Jazz was composed almost entire in Ionian (Major) or Aeolian (Minor) modes. Jazz's "blues scales" are actually a mode that was almost never, if ever, used previously.

Williams is great when it comes to memorable themes though the meat between those bones got kinda old over the years. But that's probably a question of personal taste, I do for example enjoy every minute of Elfman's recent scores, no matter how re-hashed they may sound.

Edit:
As for my favorite works, it's a pretty close tie between the original SW trilogy and the Indy movies.

Is anyone else really sick of Hook? I know it's great, and I loved it for a while but I find it a tad overrated. I'm also starting to find ESB the same (but conversely my appreciation for the original Star Wars continues to climb).
Anyways, yeah, Williams fan here. Been one since as long as I can remember, but I started collecting back when I was 11 and Harry Potter came out. Great score. Not so good sequel though (actually, a terrible sequel, both film and score - Fawkes' theme is overrated). But enough overratedness. Give me "For Gillian" and "Epilogue" from The Fury any day. My current absolute favourite tracks.

I didn't like Hook when I got a chance to listen to it. It just seemed to drag on, but maybe I wasn't in the right mood for it at the time.....

Now, it's a huge cliche to say my favourite Williams score is a Star Wars score - and probably even more cliche to mention that it was the first Williams score I bought - but The Empire Strikes Back probably is my favourite John Williams score. I listen to it very infrequently but, when I do, it manages to capture my attention completely, no matter what else is going on. I don't think I've heard many other scores that can manage that.

Excluding Star Wars, I'd probably say E.T.

I run the risk of sounding more of an ass than usual - so allow me to say this much. I am not a music professor and am not as well versed in theory as some people seem to paint me or how I sometimes paint myself. This stuff is a hobby for me and I'm learning it slowly - and in a sense backwards, since I have a hard enough time reading sheet.

I also need to correct myself. I earlier misstated the Tristan Chord - I looked it up and it's actually F, B, D# and G#.

This being said, lets move on to Minion's topic.

I've been questioning the whole "unoriginal music" thing for sometime and haven't been able to come up with a truely solid answer. Because while Wagner's Tristan... brilliantly introduces dissonance in the peice, there are other things that were musically created afterwords. Take for instance pandiatonicism which was a method of connecting notes that didn't nessessarily "make sense". It's commonly found in americana music like Aaron Copland.

However, pandiatonicism was a word made in the early 20th century by a Russian composer who's name I cannot remember. So how can something written 60 years prior be the "final" thought in music?

However, despite my misgivings and possibly because of my undereducation on music theory, I don't find myself able to contradict or dismiss the idea that Tristan is what it is seen as. I might be an ambulatory penis on the internet for the last decade, but I know better than to think my "world's smartest cockroach" mentality means anything to all the people who've studied music for the last century and a half. I cannot fight the concensus of that many people.

Does that make me right in this arguement? Not really. Not any more than any of us can say "I know Seattle is the captial of Washington"; we all learned that by rote, not because it was ingrained into our very beings by trial and error or some survival instinct.

This isn't a knock at you - but Elfman writes like a commercial jingle. You remember it because it's catchy, not because it's good

Dude, no one mentioned "Raiders March"? C'mon, that's the shit.

The funny thing is, I've read that many composers, including Bach and Beethoven, and even some pre-baroque composers used the Tristan chord somewhere in the body of their works. It's in a Beethoven sonata and some piece in Bach's WTC. Actually, pretty much everything you can think of appears in Bach's WTC or Beethoven's Sonatas. Part of the reason they are so highly regarded is because they are a kind of microcosm of music. Everything is there. If you can play them, you can play anything. But that doesn't make Wagner any less original because his originality is in his style. When you can listen to a piece you've never heard before and say "yeah, that's definitley Wagner", that's how you know Wagner was original. He wasn't the last of his ilk, though. You should check out Scriabin's music, Lehah. And I'm sure you're familiar enough with Prokofiev and Debussy.

I mentioned Indiana Jones in general several posts back, but you're the first to mention them again since then, interestingly enough. I like "Raiders March", particularly the version of it in The Last Crusade. Can't believe I forgot about 'Escape From Venice' too. That song's awesome.

You just off-handedly agreed with me about my original Tristan... statement, Minion.

However, I failed to mention that timing is important for the Tristan Chord. The "motif" (though I loathe to use that word, most people know what it is) is only stated in fragment until the end. Wagner did that to give the story a sense of longing (as its romantic tragedy) for both the characters and as a sense of tonal completion.

As fantastic as Last Crusade is, I still find Temple Of Doom to be far and away the best of the three Indy scores.

Yeah, that is how they justify it being his, although I can't see any technical reason for regarding a chord as anything more than 2 notes in harmony.

I agree with you in part and in part I disagree. Nothing is new under the sun, but originality is in the presentation, not so much the materials. In that sense, Wagner is original as are many who came after him.

"It's not what you say anymore, it's all in how you say it"

-http://imdb.com/title/tt0202677/

Apart from 'Cavatina' from 'The Deer Hunter', I'm not a fan of Williams. I just find him a bit OTT and lacking subtlety. I much prefer Hermann.

Herrmann was many things - but I don't think he was ever once subtle.

Problem is, that goes for any sort of expanded set, UE or not...

I guess those who gave them crap on the set are getting what they want, nothing! :D

How about Taxi Driver?

You mean outside of the gigantic building drumroll and brass hits?

My dad acted like a dolt and couldn't remember the name of the song that I previously mentioned sounded like "Across the Stars", even though I sang it out for him and mentioned involved instruments. It sucks ass that I share half of his genes. Maybe in some future I can fix that.

I like John Williams' work on the olympic themes.

Agreed. However, the 1996 "Summon The Heroes" album was a hell of a lot better than the one that followed it.

Really? Hmm... If so, I should start looking for it then.

Which were off-set by the smooth jazz, representing Travis' mental decline. Hermann's scores often mirrored multiple facets of the film. Just listen to the music from Vertigo.

That... does nothing to defuse my earlier point. Taxi Driver is not subtle.