How John Williams Composed the Perfect Finale

I think this is one of the best climaxes John Williams has ever written, where the train leaves Hogwarts and Harry realises that he now has a true family. It's a perfectly executed cue. And it's so good that not only did they use it at the end of the first Harry Potter, but then they used it at the end of the second one too. And then they reused it again for the end of the entire series. It's like the producers realised that nothing new is going to trump what John Williams did here. I want to break it down and reverse engineer it. Get inside what his thought process might have been musically. So here's how John Williams might have composed this step by step. You might know his composing method. Ever since the 70s, if not before, John Williams has used sketches like this. This is from the original Star Wars. If we look at the layout of this, he has eight staffs, four in the top half and four in the bottom half, and a line going through the middle of it. The middle line is often used for percussion. The four staffs below the line are often used for strings, and the four above the line are often used for brass and wind. However, there's huge flexibility here too. He can use whatever staff or whichever instrument is needed at that moment. So you can see here how he fits in a harp right at the bottom, just for this one moment. So by labelling the instruments as he uses them, it's clear which instruments he's using, and he can switch from one to another at a moment's notice. This allows him to sketch entire orchestrations using only eight staffs, which I think is an incredibly efficient and clever method of composing. So that's his sketching technique. Now, let's reverse engineer the ending of Leaving Hogwarts. So this is the moment the train is starting to leave. And in terms of timing, this section is mostly quite free. The main beat that Williams has to hit for the final big statement of the theme is this long shot of the train. But apart from that, he has a lot of freedom in his timing. So we'll focus mainly on the composing of the music. Now, the sort of final message of the film is that Harry has finally found his family. And so once more, we're going to have the family theme here. So John Williams would have thought, it's time for the family theme. Let's write out that theme, and it would sound like this. So at this point, it's a strong-ish statement. We're going to have four horns playing it, mezzo forte, and that'll give a nice backbone to the piece. And then we think, well, I want to reinforce it up the octave. So we're going to put two oboes and two clarinets. And since it's magic, we're going to put in these orchestral bells too, or crotales. These have been a color in the Harry Potter score since the first scene. And the extra harmonics those bells give off have such a magical effect. If you listen again, just with those bells in, it just adds that extra bit of magical color. So there's our melody. And John Williams, being an amazing pianist, because that was his original career, probably figured out the harmony to go with it pretty quickly, you know. And this isn't the chord that he ended up with, but let's say he's playing around, he's finding the right emotional journey to build a climax. So we'll sketch that in now. So it's a descending bass line, right? He's going... And then maybe he'll follow it up by rising back up again with hope, with some strength. So it'll be... So the bass line is going... So let's write that in. So we've written this out as chords. Johannes Brahms used to compose like this too. He would start with the melody and then just a figured bass line. So he would write out his bass lines only with figures so that he knew what his harmony was. And then he could then fill out the rest of the textures as needed. But he would start with the harmony and the front line, the melody. So we've sketched out our chords. Now a nice solid support for that main melody in the horns and winds would be trombones. And when trombones are played at a sort of mezzo dynamic, they can support a harmony for a full orchestra pretty much on their own. And we can add tubas to pick up the fourth note. We have three trombones and here the tuba can come in. So we're going to have the trombones and tuba doing the harmony and we're just going to support it gently with some strings. Viola and celli, they're doing exactly the same notes, just supporting these chords. And that'll sound like this. So now we have this nice building up harmony. But of course it needs more energy than that. On its own, melody plus harmony is just too naked, too boring. It builds up nicely in terms of that chord progression but it needs more. So let's introduce a counter melody. And John Williams obviously figured out this. How do we build up excitement? Could it be as simple as a rising scale? So John Williams figures out what if this is our counter melody to build up excitement and tension. This rising scale of... Right? Such a simple way to build up excitement. So here is our counter melody. This rising scale. And because this is our bright heroic finale, it's going in all three trumpets. Trumpets for a bright sound. And a great way to support trumpets is to include a horn. So the fifth horn here is going to double the trumpets. And that goes the other way as well by the way. A single horn can be a really nice support to trumpets. But also a single trumpet can really reinforce a horn line. Plus Williams reinforces this with a viola line. This is actually viola divisi. I notice he often does this. The violas reinforce the horns or reinforce brass. I don't know if this was John Williams decision or maybe the orchestrators who turn his sketches into the final product. But I do know that it works. So this is what it sounds like now. It's building texture. It's not there yet but it is building texture. And then John Williams might think well where does this naturally go? We've gone... Well surely it wants to carry on and that will resolve back to... That is a hundred percent the natural progression right? And it leads us back to our home key of A major. So let's write it in. So there we finished our scale. And John Williams really likes writing trumpets in triads. So he actually turns these into chords just going D major, E major, D major, E major. And when trumpets are this high you know they are gonna sing loudly. So we only really need one up there because believe me it penetrates. And to reinforce this trumpet line we're gonna get some help from our four horns. This is still our four horns up here. And I love how John Williams is creative with the harmony as well. He uses great voice leading to make chords more special. So instead of just going D major, E major, D major, E major, he has the chord gradually fan out. You see it's D and A and then the chord fans out. What a lovely color. And then it fans out more. So all together it's... And then the trombones can enhance this harmony even further. Let's sketch that in. So this might look complicated but really it's sort of D major and E major but with added notes to add that extra color. And here is what it sounds like. Pretty nice. So we're getting somewhere. But then John Williams says I want to add a little more tension. And there's this moment of genius where he decided to add this bass D. That means instead of just going from E major to A major. Kind of boring. That would sound too resolved. By the way so many amateur composers do this. When I review composers work they love to resolve to the home key way too early in their music. So there's never a sense of journey. There's never a sense of really having to work to get back home. But John Williams here does something much better. Instead of going he goes... So it's not resolved but it's worked to get there. It's much more interesting than going... That would be too settled. So this way we don't quite get home yet. We can have one more big statement and we won't get home until the very final moment of the film. That's so much more satisfying than just going straight to the root tonic chord. So here we go. I've right down here in the bass instruments. This D to C sharp. And on top of that this is the first time that the bass instruments have entered in ages. Pretty much the whole cue. And so he'll put the tuba right down low and he adds the double bass which has been notably absent for most of the cue. And the contrabassoon too which really adds rich low harmonics. So all low bass instruments are reinforcing this amazing moment. He saves that bass so that they can really make an impact at just the right moment. So we can finish our melody now. Obviously we've reached the home key in that climax and we've got to have one final last statement of the big family theme. So we want real strength for the last statement. So we've put it in four horns plus a trumpet. Just one trumpet to reinforce those horns. See? We'll double that with pretty much all of the woodwind too. And then the cello is also a nice strong instrument to help reinforce that melody. Sounds pretty good right? And we know our bass line now so we can add that in double bass, tuba, contrabassoon again. Our nice low bass instruments. So there's my bass line nice and simple. And remember trombones are pretty great at holding down harmony on their own when needed. So most of the chords will go in the trombones with a bit of help from the fifth and sixth horn. So there we go. All I've done is got the bass line, the chords and the melody. Nice and simple so far. And that sounds like this. So that already sounds pretty strong but it's not John Williams tier yet. So we figured out our melody. We've got our harmony. We've even found a counter melody with that rising scale from earlier. This one here. But it's not enough, at least not for John Williams. There are two more stages we might go through to make this piece exceptional. First, the build-up. John Williams must have known that it needed rhythmic energy. This is nice but it wants more excitement. And one surefire way to add excitement is to increase the rhythmic energy. So here we're going to do that with the violins. Maybe John imagined eighth notes, you know. Not enough rhythmic energy. We want more excitement. Maybe 16th notes. Doesn't quite work for me. What about triplets? Yes! Suddenly that really builds excitement. So maybe he thought through these different rhythmic energies and when he hit triplets he thought that's it. That's the one we're going to do. And so he adds these arpeggiated triplets. So we've written out these arpeggiated triplets just to add energy and they sound on their own like this. And then he probably experimented a lot with the possibilities. He could have carried on with triplets into the final two bars of this build-up but maybe he wanted this feeling of pulling back. Like pulling back the strings. Slowing down almost like a forced rubato into the final climax. So in these final two bars before the final big theme. So he pulls it back into eighth notes. So it has this effect of being triplets. And so the rhythm helps to pull that climax right back until the final chord. But not only that they also add harmonic energy because he's adding in these Lydian fourths. The Harry Potter score is full of Lydian fourths. So on this D major chord he adds a cheeky G sharp. And then on our E major chord he adds another raised fourth. This amazing A sharp. Right? And not only is this not only is that some Lydian color but it's also almost like a leading note. It's just desperate to resolve upwards. And so it's that last little bit of tension he needs to push it over the edge as we get a bit of rubato to slow us into the climax. That last bit of tension that really adds to the effect of the whole thing. And continuing on the climax is already pretty good without the violins. But now that we have the violins at our disposal for me he adds a line which is really the heart and soul of the climax. Here's the violin line on its own. So simple these octaves but they just add this heart and soul to the whole thing. I don't know how he came up with it. It's simple but that's just his genius. But finally there's something still missing. Textural seasoning. And this is something John Williams does so well. And this is really part of his genius. Knowing that it just wants something more. So this is like the salt, the pepper, the spices you put on top of your food. They're not essential for the structural backbone of the music. You know they're not essential for the backbone of the dish. But they're the final zest that brings it to life. They add that magic, that color that makes you say wow. So if everything we've done so far, the melody, the harmony, the counter melody, the rhythmic excitement, let's say you know that's the protein, the veg, the sauce, then these final bits are the seasoning that really brings out that dish. So here I've just wanted to add that textural seasoning with harp and celeste. And they alone will sound like this. Now it might not sound like much but it just adds that extra magic to the full texture. I love this celeste line here. It just adds this little je ne sais quoi. And for the very final climax right before this big double bar A major entry, we'll add in a timpani roll which I've already written down here. This timpani will be going D C sharp and then we'll have a suspended cymbal as well just to add that extra textural magic that makes the climax work. Plus I almost forgot a harp glissando going right into the final climax. So altogether it just adds that extra magic that sounds like this. So we've outlined a process where maybe we could put together music like John Williams. Melody and harmony and then counter melody, adding rhythmic energy and harmonic excitement and then adding this sparkling seasoning to make the whole thing come to life. Now I've got something coming up you might want to join if you found this helpful. Coming really soon I'm running a five-day composing event that's completely free. We're going to write Hollywood style music together. You'll learn a lot, you'll try new things out and you'll create something real alongside other people doing the same. Each day we'll focus on building a different part of the piece and using a different instrument group for that using real techniques which are being used by film composers today. There's going to be a community and it's also going to be gamified and this is completely free because it's me testing some new teaching ideas, learning what works and then maybe building something bigger and cooler in the future. So if that sounds like fun the link is below and I'd love to see you there.