Was the Star Wars theme born free?

In this relatively fertile spring on the blog, once again we find one post leading to another. In our last episode, we considered the famous Roger Williams arrangement of the jazz standard Autumn Leaves, focusing on the seemingly unacknowledged debt Williams owes to Chopin. 

That little project has led me down a few Roger Williams rabbit holes. I guess I'm fascinated by the success of these "popular pianists" who, though surely trained in the classical style, found big careers by playing "easy listening" arrangements of mostly well-known melodies, often with piano set against lush orchestra. The arrangements certainly borrow some flash from the techniques of more "serious" classical and jazz artists, but are contained in simple structures which don't demand so much from the listener. One imagines such records would work well for a certain kind of middle-aged, middlebrow party back in the 50s-70s. The kind of party Benjamin Braddock's parents might have hosted. 

Roger Williams parlayed this into a very long and successful career, somewhat on the margins of the industry (not likely to be featured in Gramophone, Downbeat, or Rolling Stone), performing on TV shows and for the kinds of...um...mature audiences who apparently want to sit and hear their favorite records come comfortably to life with some fun banter along the way.

Speaking of which, on "May the Fourth" Day this year (also featured on this blog), the "Roger Williams Music" page on Facebook posted the following short video (and presumably have posted it for many years).

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In the video, Williams purports to demonstrate that the famous theme of Star Wars (which came along at a time during which his own star was surely fading while the star of another Williams was rising) is simply the once famous theme of Born Free (one of "Mr. Piano's" biggest hits) turned upside down. Roger Williams claims to read the John Williams tune from a handwritten page, dramatically turns it 180 degrees, and then plays Born Free. Q.E.D. By this process, he is thus born free to play his big tune, and he has a fun little joke for those pesky Star Wars nerds right before he starts. (You'll have to watch it for yourself - I don't want to give EVERYTHING away.)

The problem is that - well, it isn't true. Although the two themes do share some notable features and could be considered distant cousins, he totally cheats! Actually, although what I intend to do here could certainly be considered buzzkilling for the Roger Williams Faithful (let me know if you see one coming after me in a scooter), I think exploring the connections shows something even more interesting about how melodic motifs work. 

Remember that Williams turns the page in a way that should result in the notes being played both backwards and with the intervals inverted - what went up should go down and vice versa.

Here's the Star Wars tune as Roger W. plays it, adding in an extra note (the second "5") so that the rhythm also exactly matches that of the Born Free tune without anything being reversed or inverted. 

In fact, the only thing that is actually upside down is the first interval which goes up from scale degree 1 to 5 in the former and down from 1 to 5 in the latter. (One is striving, reaching up to the stars! One is relaxed and free, ambling its way downhill.) In Star Wars, we next step down to a triplet while Born Free steps up to a similar triplet. Really, the biggest difference is how John Williams then heroically leaps up a seventh to the final two notes whereas Born Free follows the downward pull of gravity. But the endings are more similar than they may appear as each emphasizes the tonic triad (scale degrees 1-3-5) with solid triadic quarter notes descending from the downbeat. (And although John Williams does leap up a seventh, the motion is by step from scale degree 2 to 1.)

But I'll admit that when I first saw this demonstration, my ears were half-persuaded, even if I felt skeptical. First of all, the last two notes of Star Wars are the first two notes of Born Free, so even though that note pair is not reversed in order, it feels like we've flipped things backwards...maybe. Then we step up rather than down to the triplet, although the triplets are otherwise the same shape...they are neither backwards nor inverted. Then, whereas Star Wars leaps way up to the final note pair, Born Free steps down in a way that also feels like a kind of inversion...even though each final pair goes downward. 

So, given that we naturally hear little parts of a tune (motives or motivic fragments) as chunks, there is a sense in which multiple little chunks go in opposite ways. There is no doubt that the tunes have a lot in common, although that leap of a seventh really does give John Williams' tune a charge that stands out. And yes, of course Roger Williams knew this. He's mostly using the power of suggestion and some charisma to make an audience feel smart while they are gently being hoodwinked, but it's all in good fun.

You may compare various versions of these ideas here. Note that inverting a melody is not as simple as it seems because one can decide to keep the notes in the same key (in this case, no accidentals) - and thus adjust some half-steps - or do a literal inversion which makes the music seem to move into a different key altogether. For simplicity, I chose the former.

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And why did I take the time to do this? I guess it's just that - as mentioned in my "Music = Math" post which led me to mashup Chopin and Dr. Dre - I love the way these kinds of musical questions about iconic themes can be reduced pretty clearly to notes and numbers. And I love moving notes and numbers around on a page. And it is interesting that two such different themes have so much in common. (See Bernstein's lecture on The Infinite Variety of Music. And for another look at a relative of the Star Wars theme, see this blog post.)

If you're writing a melody, it's a reminder that maybe instead of going down 2-1, a leap up a seventh from 2-1 can blend resolution (2 wants to go to 1) with drama and intrigue. This actually came up in a brief post-postscript to this post when I looked at how Fauré' uses this technique in his own musical postscript to a lovely song. (By complete coincidence, that post also began with a reference to the Star Wars franchise!)

Finally, once I'd mostly finished this post, I did a little search and see that someone on a Star Wars music blog beat me to most of this more than ten years ago. But he didn't have a video demonstration or nearly as many painful puns.... (And speaking of puns, note that if John Williams had indeed stolen his tune, then it would not have been born free; he would owe royalties to the true father, James Bond composer John Barry.)

P.S. If you like thinking about inversions and retrogrades and other ways musical ideas can be transformed mathematically, you might also enjoy this post.