How John Williams Wrote Jaws

 

The Music Theory of John Williams

To understand how John Williams wrote the iconic, two-note motif for Jaws, we have to first look at where he was culling his ideas at this time in the mid 70’s. Just as Bach took from Buxtehude, Mozart took from Bach, and Beethoven took from Mozart; Williams took from a sampling of the greatest post-romantic composers in the development of his toolkit. Ever the music theorist, he catalogued, scrutinized and internalized complex musical traditions, shaping them into a compendium of consolidated styles. Through this process, he transformed music of the past into the classic score themes which define 20th-century film.

Hallmarks of a Style

In particular, Williams found his niche by remaking the early themes and harmonies of Hollywood’s heyday and by drawing from the same early 20th-century sources as were composers of the 30’s and 40’s. He seemed uniquely suited to reinvent and glorify these old structures in a way that was fresh, classic, and monumental. With modern recording techniques having advanced from the one-mic recordings of old, Williams pioneered the tracking of the orchestral sections separately to get his pristine signature sound.

A Melting Pot of Ideas

Having started his film career in jazz and in soundtrack scores as session pianist, Williams, early-on, developed a rich vocabulary. He drew from the treasure trove of public domain with his encyclopedic knowledge of the harmonic structures of the repertoire. The Star Wars score is influenced by Korngold’s King’s Row, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, as well as Holst’s The Planets. The Jaws motif also has discreet origins.

“Great Composers Steal”

That’s a direct quote from Stravinsky who admitted stealing the “Petrouchka chord” from Rimsky-Korsakov. This diabolical polychord, which is F# Major over C Major, creates immense tension in trumpets and strings in Petrouchka. Williams picks up this same polychord in Jaws but transposes it to A Major over Eb Major. The oscillation between these two is used to forecast the pounding half step theme. It appears in subtle circular figures in the strings and harp, creating a static vertigo texture, as in the first attack scene. He uses it to play up the dark mystery and horror, for instance, on a shot of a bleeding severed limb circling down into the depths. Interestingly, this polychord is part of the uniquely cold octatonic scale in use elsewhere in the score.

Forensic Musicology

Through forensic chordal analysis, I will detail what I believe Williams did to come up with his iconic, two-note Jaws theme. Like so many film and tv composers, it’s fair to say that Williams draws from the pounding strings in the dissonant polychord passage from the Rite of Spring of 1912. This passage is arguably the single most influential phrase of music in all of 20th-century film.

Stravinsky’s Epic String Passage

Let’s start with Stravinsky’s Augers of Spring polychord, which is Eb7 over E major (spelled Fb), or a dominant seventh chord and a major triad a half step apart. Voiced in the lowest range of the strings, this polychord is repeated incessantly, creating tremendous static tension. The sharp dissonance between the two chords and the accents with brass stabs turn the orchestra into a giant percussion instrument.

Crafting the Footstep of Doom

Williams’ polychord, by contrast, is Ebm7 (spelled d#) over E minor, or a minor seventh chord and a minor triad a half step apart. Though darker, this sonority is surprisingly similar to the above-mentioned chord. In addition, the voicing of the chord uses the same low distribution of notes giving the same percussive effect. In contrast to the incessant repeated note, Williams oscillates between two identical polychords a half step apart. This adds more pitches to the mix, and also more tension. The simplification of this idea is where he derives the iconic footstep theme.

Deconstructing the Climax

Now that John had his climactic music – pounding polychords which oscillate up and down by a half step – he had to extract the essence of that and spin it out over the course of a very dramatic journey one which starts with the deep and horrifying mysteries of the sea. As he stripped back the chords to their root, abandoning the upper notes of the polychord, he was left with just the oscillation: the iconic two-note bass line. His skill was in crafting those two notes into the dark and twisted lurkings of a great white shark, and ultimately, into the universal sonic symbol of impending doom.