This book is at the opposite end of the spectrum, so to speak, from the previously-mentioned source.  In this book, Williamson and the other authors discuss music from an expertise on the art itself.  There is no mention of digital music, sampling, file-sharing, or other similar topics to be found anywhere in the book.  In their places are excerpts from sheet music and examples of lyrics.  They offer their expert commentary on subjects ranging from Chopin to Snoop Dogg, from Dante to the Beatles, and each is approached with the same level of intellect and scholarship.  Multiple chapters cover the creation of music from scratch – as told from the songwriter’s point of view, and it is this unique perspective that offers a new form of insight into the practice of digital sampling.

Another important factor in this work is the chapter entitled “Mimesis, Gesture, and Parody in Musical Word-Setting.”  This chapter not only explores the implications that a parody has on an original work but sets the framework for parody with an historical narrative about its origins.  At first, this seemed to be irrelevant to the topic of digital sampling and copyright law, but after further inspection, it became apparent that this knowledge is very important to the understanding of parody and its stance in copyright law. 

Words and Music discusses at length many different styles and genres of modern music, primarily “gangsta,” or hardcore, rap.  This genre is a unique example because not only is it arguably the heaviest on lyrical content out of all kinds of music, but also because it is notorious for its sampling practices and is quite possibly the realm in which the most copyright infringement cases take place.  Reading a scholarly assessment on such genres is especially helpful for this topic seeing as it provides a critical, but not condemning eye on the subject.  This is all-to-rare in today’s academic and scholarly publications, and to have a source such as this is very useful in the terms of this research paper. 

John Williams composed the music that adds so much feeling and emphasis to the already extraordinary film created by George Lucas. Williams did not begin his career in film. Initially, he worked in television and, later, transitioned to become a pianist for films. John Williams has collaborated with some of the biggest names in Hollywood to create some of the most meaningful soundtracks that exist today. In a succession of events, George Lucas asked Williams to score his Star Wars film, earning him the third of five Academy Awards to date. Williams' close collaboration with Lucas and another important director, Steven Spielberg, has given him the opportunity to compose the scores for some of the most important and successful films in the past few decades. Without John William's contribution to films such as Star Wars and Jaws, we would certainly be viewing- and remembering - these films in a very different way. The musical component which Williams contributes adds suspense, happiness, sorrow, and a myriad of other emotions, where appropriate, to enhance a film's message and impact. The musical score ingeniously adds another dimension and completes the film's settings and action to bring a uniqueness that might otherwise be lacking.

Williams's music comes from the classical tradition, based on the style of late Romantics. At times, the music has modernistic overtones, but mostly it is "just wholesome music full of good memorable tunes with fanfares and fun marches." Williams is thought to be astoundingly capable of constructing "a tune and sound which perfectly complements the mood of a film."

 

John Williams is a diverse composer who has not only worked in film, but has also conducted orchestras and been commissioned to score events such as the Olympics. Williams is perhaps America's most well known and respected contemporary composer and, as such, his musical contribution to Star Wars is significant. The film is wildly popular because of the successful visual and aural components that merge to create the Star Wars phenomenon. This article puts appropriate emphasis on Williams' role in the film (and also lists his role in several other films).