Oct 4, 2026 · 55 min · 12 segments
Over the course of the 9 episode Skywalker Saga, John Williams created a comprehensive, wide ranging symphonic masterpiece, brilliantly conceived and meticulously constructed. To do a deeper dive…
Jonathan GoodmanHost
And that's actually, that's super interesting because there's a lot of that discussion in the book, right? Because I guess as a baseline, before John Williams came along, film music, I guess, in the academic community was frowned upon, right? So how did he change that and evolve it to become more acceptable or understood as a more serious type of artist?
I haven't encountered much pushback to my work or if I have, I it's been behind closed doors.
But it's true that for a long time, there was this kind of snobbery and elitism from mostly classical music purists towards the genre of film music saying, oh, it's unoriginal or it's incapable of standing on his own because of course it's wedded to a film and totally dependent on it.
And that's all well and good to say, but people will listen to what they want and absorb and become passionate about what they want.
For as long as there's a music movie music, there've been people who seek it out in some way or another in sheet music or soundtrack albums and increasingly concert performances and playing in your own home or at a recital learning.
And Superman theme as a beginning trumpet player, you know, stuff just, it, it begins to pervade the culture.
No single person who brought film music into respectable society, but he does play an outsized role.
When he was handed the reins of the Boston Pops, he was able to program a lot of film music, his own and other people's, and raise the profile of it as an art form and really present it at the peak of professional virtuosity.
The nature of his music, which is more closely related to these, these safe genres of orchestral music, opera and tone poems and symphonies.
In some ways that's a danger because of course it's then going to be compared to those very safe genres.
But on the other hand, if you don't care so much about these hierarchies, what you enjoy about symphonies and operas and tone poems is probably also going to translate to what you enjoy about film music.
And then the academic part of the equation, probably the last thing to change because we're very resistant to that, but And gosh, again, it's about interest of people who grew up with this stuff, who want to learn about it, who want to play it, who want to learn about film scoring, especially that's something that's changed.
It's rare to find a music department now that doesn't have some kind of course on film or multimedia or screen music or video game music, all these different genres and formats, which in addition to being useful if you want to pursue a career in that realm.
I teach a big class on John Williams and it's for non-majors, it's for people who've never played an instrument necessarily.
And that's actually, that's super interesting because there's a lot of that discussion in the book, right? Because I guess as a baseline, before John Williams came along, film music, I guess, in the academic community was frowned upon, right? So how did he change that and evolve it to become more acceptable or understood as a more serious type of artist?
I haven't encountered much pushback to my work or if I have, I it's been behind closed doors.
But it's true that for a long time, there was this kind of snobbery and elitism from mostly classical music purists towards the genre of film music saying, oh, it's unoriginal or it's incapable of standing on his own because of course it's wedded to a film and totally dependent on it.
And that's all well and good to say, but people will listen to what they want and absorb and become passionate about what they want.
For as long as there's a music movie music, there've been people who seek it out in some way or another in sheet music or soundtrack albums and increasingly concert performances and playing in your own home or at a recital learning.
And Superman theme as a beginning trumpet player, you know, stuff just, it, it begins to pervade the culture.
No single person who brought film music into respectable society, but he does play an outsized role.
When he was handed the reins of the Boston Pops, he was able to program a lot of film music, his own and other people's, and raise the profile of it as an art form and really present it at the peak of professional virtuosity.
The nature of his music, which is more closely related to these, these safe genres of orchestral music, opera and tone poems and symphonies.
In some ways that's a danger because of course it's then going to be compared to those very safe genres.
But on the other hand, if you don't care so much about these hierarchies, what you enjoy about symphonies and operas and tone poems is probably also going to translate to what you enjoy about film music.
And then the academic part of the equation, probably the last thing to change because we're very resistant to that, but And gosh, again, it's about interest of people who grew up with this stuff, who want to learn about it, who want to play it, who want to learn about film scoring, especially that's something that's changed.
It's rare to find a music department now that doesn't have some kind of course on film or multimedia or screen music or video game music, all these different genres and formats, which in addition to being useful if you want to pursue a career in that realm.
I teach a big class on John Williams and it's for non-majors, it's for people who've never played an instrument necessarily.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.