Needs more oven...

Rey is one of the most exciting new film characters in decades, so of course, John Williams reserved a special new theme for her. Whenever a composer ‘attaches’ a theme to a person or object (or, occasionally, a feeling) they are borrowing an idea from the great German composer Richard Wagner, who created leitmotifs to signify various characters in his Music Dramas. The Hungarian composer Bela Bartok once used a semitone clash every time blood was mentioned in his one-act opera, Bluebeard’s Castle. John Williams has created some of the most memorable movie leitmotifs in history   -   Darth Vader, Yoda, Indiana Jones, Hedwig the owl, the shark in Jaws, etc all have their own themes.

Take a look at the contour of Rey’s theme   -

The opening melody is reasonably jagged, with the first four intervals being an ascending minor 3rd, descending minor 6th, followed by two ascending 4ths. Does Williams use this to indicate the huge changes about to affect Rey’s life? Young composers should note that the 2nd phrase restores balance by making use of a smooth contour immediately after the unpredictable opening.

Look again at the 3rd, 4th and 5th notes in the opening phrase   -

Even though this is a perfect 4th followed by a perfect 4th, the distance travelled is a minor 7th, one of John Williams’ favourite intervals. Because the low ‘E’ and high ‘D’ are both on strong beats (beats 3 and 1) and because the ‘A’ between them is a brief quaver, the sound of the minor 7th comes through quite clearly within the phrase. What is really ‘daring’ in this case is that most composers would follow an ascending 7th with a descending 2nd or 3rd (again, for balance), but Williams continues the ascent to the high ‘E’, ensuring that the tension is not resolved until the next phrase. Many amateur composers avoid using a 7th altogether! Where else has Williams used this unusual interval?

 Harmonically, John Williams gives listeners a subtle hint as to Rey’s force powers by ‘borrowing’ a chord progression from his own “Force Theme” (originally titled “Binary Sunset”). Basic Western harmony teaches us that a minor key will have a minor chord iv, but composers will sometimes use the major form of the subdominant (eg ‘borrowing’ from the major key) because of its emotional impact. In the key of A minor, chord iv (the subdominant) would normally be D minor, but Williams alters this to become D major. In its simplest form, the harmony in the opening of Rey’s Theme can be set out as follows   -

Compare that to the opening of the “Force Theme” (shown here in A minor for ease of comparison)   -

 Notice how closely the two skeletal frameworks relate to each other? This is not a coincidence, and it is certainly not the sign of a lazy composer... it is evidence of the genius that is John Williams.

I wanted to fill the huge space on the wall of my music classroom, so I came up with this little project...

Find a cardboard box company that sells long, thin boxes (they ship unusual objects in them, like skateboards and maps). These become the white keys (I used house paint).

(I stuck them up with velcro strips, because the walls had a carpet-like material on them)

Ask a foam-rubber company to cut you some foam keys   -   these will become the black keys.

Use some black contact to cover the foam-rubber...

Double-sided tape fixes the black keys to the white ones, and with the help of a ladder...