Let's Listen to Star Trek: Season Three!

[Tallguy]

Oh, there's so much to enjoy in the series box set, and was so happy that more than just episode scores were added. Listening to it is as enjoyable as watching TOS.

I agree!

And the Children Shall Lead
Music Composed and Conducted by George Duning
Episode #60, Recorded 8/9/68

Drat, I'm a day late. Sorry.

Well. It's a Duning episode. It's actually quite a good score. But for me there really isn't a hook that I can grab onto to get me into this score. I've listened to it a few times in the last week. I like it more than when I started. But I haven't discovered a cue that makes me say "Hey, I'm going to go back and listen to that!" So I really don't have much to say about this one.

When I'm not thrilled about a score I'm always glad when it's defenders come forward to set me right. Have at, folks!

Next up in two weeks: Spock's Brain!

 

[Ssosmcin]

What's amazing about the box set is learning just how much music from previous seasons was actually used. Years ago, thanks to Jeff Bond's great Music of Star Trek book, it was revealed that contractually, music could not be reused form season to season and had to be re-recorded. Naturally, knowing the music pretty well, it was fairly easy to pick out when some cues were actually original scores recorded for the previous year rather than re-done music. Watching the third season recently and having poured over the CD sets repeatedly since 2012, it's apparent the Trek team were very naughty, totally ignoring the edicts. A number of 3rd season episodes used original cues from "Where No Man Has Gone Before," "What Are Little Girls Made Of?," "The Doomsday Machine," "Who Mourns for Adonias?," and "By Any Other Name." In fact, the cue "More Blocks" from BAON was used so often in the third year, I actually wound up thinking it was a season three cue. It was heard in "The Tholian Web," "Mark Gideon," "Requiem for Methuselah," and "All Our Yesterdays," if not more. It's just strange how apparently there was a union rule that not only did the Trek guys ignore, so did every other production company in town (especially the gang working for Irwin Allen, who tracked their scores relentlessly across the seasons).

To make it even crazier, I heard it was also stipulated that the tapes be destroyed at the end of the season. If that's true, damn, I'm happy these stipulations were ignored.

 

[Treadwell]

I suspect that even if the union knew they were doing this, they wouldn't care, because the re-recordings did indeed take place (and the musicians paid) as stipulated. They got what they wanted; whether the rerecordings were used (or, even, ever intended to be used), would have been almost beside the point. The point being, hire union musicians to perform for you every year.

I can picture the recording engineers thinking it almost wasn't even worth using up new tape on them, since they probably intended all along to use the originals. That's just in my head though.

 

[Balok's Head]

Very interesting thread! Now I know why on the set there are numbers of re-recorded season 1 and 2 scores intended and never used (not that I can tell) for S3.
Please continue

For some reason I agree about season 3, the show just 'felt' different by then. For some reason all my early memories of TOS are from the first two years too

 

[Tallguy]

I suspect that even if the union knew they were doing this, they wouldn't care, because the re-recordings did indeed take place (and the musicians paid) as stipulated. They got what they wanted; whether the rerecordings were used (or, even, ever intended to be used), would have been almost beside the point. The point being, hire union musicians to perform for you every year.

I can picture the recording engineers thinking it almost wasn't even worth using up new tape on them, since they probably intended all along to use the originals. That's just in my head though.

I suppose I can see that happening. But where that falls down is when they used music that was never recorded for season 3, like The Doomsday Machine, or Who Mourns for Adonais, or The Corbomite Maneuver.

 

[Tallguy]

Spock's Brain
Music Composed and Conducted by Fred Steiner
Episode #61, Recorded 8/26/68

Whoa! Spock's Brain. Poster child for "Wow, man, season three sucks!"

It's not nearly that bad. Would you rather watch Spock's Brain or: And the Children Shall Lead, Alternative Factor, Miri?

The score rocks. It really is the Return of Fred Steiner. I've always been a little disappointed at how much his season two scores re-used his season one material. But this is so solid. The score runs a really nice gamut of moods and styles. Steiner put on his Bernard Herrmann hat rather often in this score. But then I love it when he does that.

I know this is a lot of people's absolute favorite. I can finally see why.

Next up is 9/6 with Is There in Truth No Beauty? AND The Empath. That's a LOT of Duning!

 

[Tallguy]

Is There in Truth No Beauty?
Music Composed and Conducted by George Duning
Episode #62, Recorded 9/6/68

The Empath
Music Composed and Conducted by George Duning
Episode #63, Recorded 9/6/68

Holiday weekend here, so I'm a couple of days late. But happy Star Trek day, everyone! Forty-nine and still going strong! One year until the big Five Oh.

First off, why did so many of my least favorite episodes get full scores in the third season? I'm not a total season three hater, but wow these were some turkeys.

I don't have much to say about these scores. They're lovely. I'm finding Is There in Truth No Beauty? to be more involved than I've previously believed. I think the organ music in this and in The Empath to be a little gimmicky. As always I find Duning's Enterprise music a treat. They're both really strong scores. Duning definitely had his own sound.

This was the last music recorded by George Duning for Star Trek. Spock's Brain saw the exit of Fred Steiner. Gerald Fried left Star Trek with The Paradise Syndrome.

The last full score recorded for Star Trek was Plato's Stepchildren by Alexander Courage. Next up on 10/25. See you then!

 

[Ssosmcin]

Is There in Truth No Beauty?

The Empath

First off, why did so many of my least favorite episodes get full scores in the third season? I'm not a total season three hater, but wow these were some turkeys.

I can't help you because I don't consider either of them to be "turkeys." The real question isn't why bad episodes got new full scores, but why you don't like these episodes that did get full scores.



Both have amazing music, really very well done. "Beauty" is a little over the top in places, even more so than "Doomsday Machine," and it stands out as such when they enter the weird dimension. But it's all great fun and the sweet, romantic music is just great. "The Empath" has some of the best music in the series. Sweeping romance, tragedy, action and horror. This one has it all...

 

[firstresident]

Wow this is some great stuff. I never knew any of this.

Thanks.

 

[firstresident]

For example I have no idea when they recorded the third season titles or why there is a stereo version.

June 25, 1968

It seems now that anytime something was recorded with a vocal, it was done on multi-track tape, and not mono like the rest of the series. This would explain why "The City on the Edge of Forever" was recorded on 3-track tape (the episode featured the song, "Goodnight, Sweetheart"). Recording things this way would give greater flexibility to the mixer.

Season 2's main title recorded the orchestra monophonically, but there was a separate tape with a woodwind overlay and Loulie Jean Norman's vocal, so we could futz with it and make a "stereo-ish" version of that. The original mono is also presented for purists.

Season 3's main title was recorded live to 3-track. The intent of course was to mix down to mono (which was done for the series and our set) but also gave us the flexibility to present it in the stereo spread captured on the tape.

Neil

P.S. "Beyond Antares" from "Conscience of the King" was also recorded to multi-track tape, but as it was a harp on one channel and Nichelle Nichols on the other, it didn't lend itself to anything but mono.

Yeah, I gotta say, listening to all 14 or 15 CDs from the TOS box set in stereo was a real treat. totally mind blowing.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Yeah, I gotta say, listening to all 14 or 15 CDs from the TOS box set in stereo was a real treat. totally mind blowing.

In case you're not aware, other than a handful of tracks, the music was not in stereo. It's mostly in mono. But the music does sound great, La La Land did an amazing job.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Yeah, I gotta say, listening to all 14 or 15 CDs from the TOS box set in stereo was a real treat. totally mind blowing.

In case you're not aware, other than a handful of tracks, the music was not in stereo. It's mostly in mono. But the music does sound great, La La Land did an amazing job.

I think if firstresident had the set, he'd know how many discs there were, and that most of it is mono. So his statement is is a little odd. Was it meant as irony?

 

[Ssosmcin]

Not necessarily. Depends on how much of the liner notes he read, whether he owned the set or borrowed it, what kind of system he's listening on and how good his ear is. The sound is amazingly good and very impressive for mono. In fact, compared to older mono scores, this could very well pass for stereo. Not superdy-duperdy hi fi, 5.1 surround or something, but better than, say, listening to the old Max Steiner King Kong score.

 

[firstresident]

No, I was not being brain dead, HAHAHA, I was referring to the full 14 or 15 CD set that some guy from another site had taken and ran thru 3 different computer programs, and made them sound stereo. sort of like what Crescendo records had done with the "Doomsday machine" music, but this was much better sounding. Apparently this guy had worked for some recording company, and he wasn't happy with the quality of the CDs, once he had a chance to listen to them, so he started with CD 1, and it took a week of work per disk, in his spare time, but he got all of them re-recorded in stereo, and he shared them with a select few. I was just lucky to have jumped onto the site and see what he had done. It was great.

 

[Indysolo]

"Thank you, Mister Scott. I'll try not to take that personally."

Neil

 

[firstresident]

No, Neil, no offense taken. HAHAHA. Actually, it was totally accidental. I was googling some soundtrack stuff, and I found some tracks from "Voyage to the bottom of the sea" that were referred to as "24 bit Mono to stereo conversion" or something like that, and up pops the Star Trek TOS stuff. I was totally amazed.

 

[Tallguy]

Hi All!

Well, I'm a day late. Life. Sorry.

Plato's Stepchildren
Music Composed and Conducted by Alexander Courage
Episode #67, Recorded 10/25/68

This is it! After this will be the songs recorded for Way to Eden and the source pieces recorded for Requiem for Methuselah and The Savage Curtain. This is the last full score of Star Trek recorded.

Fittingly it's Mr. Courage at the helm. Listening to scores like this I sometimes wonder what a fourth season of Star Trek would have sounded like. To be sure there is some good even great stuff here. But all of it is very much in line with Courage's bag of tricks. There are strong hints of Where No Man Has Gone Before throughout and not just because of his frequent (and appreciated) use of his Captain's Theme. The Aristocrats has that "Courage Love Theme" sound to it. That sound is as much a part of Star Trek as Theiss' creative use of gravity.

I did discover that I like Brain Bout quite a lot. And how can you not love The Little Visitor? If you're a Firefly fan then I'm sure you know the story of how Greg Edmonson compused the funeral music from The Message. He was writing his goodbye to Firefly. I don't know if Courage gave it much thought, but this is a fine track to close out Star Trek.

This is a score that I can get into more if I hit a track or two at a time rather than trying to digest the whole thing at a go. And I like it way better than The Man Trap.

I listened to the vocals once. I'm done now.

This will probably never be one of my go to scores. (I did used to say that about Spock's Brain. I've changed my mind.) I appreciate having it, because there is almost no way this score would have been released other than as a set like the TOS box.

This is the kind of score that I'm always interested to hear from someone who says it's their favorite.

Oh, also recorded this day was Courage's music for Whom Gods Destroy. RIP Yvonne Craig.

I'll post on the recording dates for the next three sessions. 11/20, 1/15, and finally 1/24. (Egads, I have to listen to Way to Eden!) But this is really the last hurrah.

Thanks for reading for the last three years! And thanks to everyone involved in both the original recordings and the glorious impossibility that is the TOS box!

 

[Tallguy]

Today is the day they recorded all the songs for Way to Eden in 1968.

I don't know what the world would be like if Star Trek ever had vocals that I liked. OTOH, Charles Napier had a terrific voice.

Too bad the Good Ole Boys never really got to sing.

 

[GNDN18]

Oh, we got both kinds. We got Country and Western.

 

[Not Herbert]

Wilbur Hatch conducting had a different sound from Courage. (Just as Steiner did.) He sounds a little more like "classic 50's television" to me. (I love his first season library cues.) Vina's Dance here sounds like something from a Crosby and Hope Road picture. I like how he conducted Fried's combative pieces as well.

Courage's early scores are the most interesting re-recorded library cues to me because they were recorded without Jack Cookerly's "magic box". They sound very different from the originals. The Talosian motifs might sound a little less other-worldly. But in some cases they sound more solid and grounded. Monster Illusion sounds really cool with its new instrumentation. I actually like Man Trap much better without its synthesizers.

A couple of comments here.
1-The Courage cues from The Cage that where re-recorded for later library cues were indeed done without Cookerly but also, the Heckelphone parts were replaced by bassoon. So that dark, reedy Heckelphone vibe is missing.

Also, Man Trap had no synth but did have Hammond Organ and electric violin.

I didn't realise that Bill Hatch conducted some of the sessions. Also, keep in mind that Paramount stage M (scoring stage) may not have always been available. The could have recorded in different studios. I'll shoot Jerry Fried an email, but I doubt he'll remember a scoring session from 1968. A few other Trek musicians are still around. Gene Cipriano, or "Cip" as he's known, is still very active. I worked with him in LA this past May.He played on "Spectre of the Gun" in season 3. Also, Sheridon Stokes (flute) played on many TOS score throughout all the seasons and is still very active today. I don't know him but we're facebook friends.