Atonal Harmony in the Empire Strikes Back | Composer Toolbox: Episode 7 

Also, something I should have made a little more clearer in the video: there certainly ARE reasons for why Williams chooses certain scales. They probably mostly have to do with color and how they fit the mood. But, there doesn’t seem to be any pattern or anything corresponding with anything on-screen that I found.

My favorite atonal cue is "The Magic Tree" when Luke goes into the cave. So much shock and horror hidden behind the harmony. These videos are so informational! You do a great job! Hopefully, I can implement some of these techniques into my own writings.

How to “access” these atonal elements is something I’ve been puzzling over lately, especially as I’ve begun to get a handle of more traditional/tonal elements. I’m looking forward to this series!

Really underrated channel , this vid was really interesting !

Another great video 👏

When you have pedal tones, it feels like a tonal center. I think he es trying to show diferents pieces of melodies with exotic scales to achieve a disturbin sensation.

Here’s what makes me crazy: Every other atonal composer sounds like a drunk cat playing the piano. How on EARTH does John Williams make his atonal music actually pretty and good sounding????? I don’t want to pierce my eardrums when I hear it.

I get that this series is geared more towards the musically knowledgeable, but for those who'd like to understand the lingo a bit more (like me) it would be nice if you could pause the analysis to actually listen to the score excerpts

The scale used at the beginning of 1m2 "The Imperial Probe" is actually the C augmented scale, not the harmonic major. Great vid though!

How did you find these written scores?!

The beginning is not really "atonal". There are some chomatic runs in thirds over a pedal point in a. This does not sound really stable and there is no such thing as a cadence but is is not "atonal" in the sence of the 20th century. For me this looks more like distance harmonic. Lots of Ideas in the Empire Strikes back score seems to be inspired by Messian's Turangalia symphony. if you want to haer atonal music you should listen to Schönberg... or the "bloody kiss" in Richard Strauß Opera "Salome"

I was kinda hoping you'd go into the hoth battle cue, a lot of the battle music is chaotically atonal, which really gives the music doom and hopelessness.

John Coltrane with his giant steps

Where's Episode 6 in this series?

Ook!

:)

Tried to listen to the music but someone spoke OVER the music the ENTIRE TIME. Don't get the point here.