Music and TOS

[Dale Sams]

If TOS is 'dated and quaint' compared to other Trek series...how come I can hum the music playing behind just about any scene if given a screenshot? And certainly if you play a little for me.*

I cant do that for ANY other Trek show EXCEPT Best of Both Worlds.

I wish there was some Trek music TOS game we could play similar to the other threads like 'name that character'.

*OK, I know the real reason is that I recorded the eps on cassettes as a kid and would listen to them, but I maintain the music is insanely superior to any other Trek TV shows, and the only possible challenger is the first few seasons of TNG (Ironic given that they were TOLD not to make distinctive music) and TNGs Face of the Enemy

 

[Methuselah Flint]

Don't forget, also, that TOS' music was re-used again and again.

Interesting thought... I wonder if we would find every piece as memorable, if every episode had had its own full individual score...?

 

[Boris Skrbic]

TOS was trying to reuse its library pieces in related situations, like the “Shore Leave” love theme being repurposed for “This Side of Paradise”, which is roughly similar to the way composers such as Bear McCreary on nBSG would come up with memorable themes for each character or setting, then interveave and develop them to fit relationships and storylines as they evolve. Sometimes less is more in terms of basic elements, but they also need to be interesting enough to notice.

I doubt that TNG with all the different composers had ongoing thematic writing of that sort: what I remember most is the early stuff that seemed a lot like TOS, only synthesized, and then what became the latter-day trope of strings playing a couple of unrelated notes during scene transitions, whether on TNG, DS9, VGR or ENT. You’d also pick up on the main theme for each show, like the DS9 theme in establishing shots of the station, but that was pretty much it.

 

[Warped9]

Other than opening theme music little to nothing is memorable of post TOS Trek music. There was some early TNG scores that could be remembered, but after that it was disposable and forgettable.

 

[Albertese]

Post TOS music was intentionally designed to be disposable and forgettable. Rick Berman wanted the music to be "wallpaper" for scenes. I haven't endured enough CBS trek to know if any of that was improved or if "wallpaper" is still the order of the day.

--Alex

 

[Noname Given]

Post TOS music was intentionally designed to be disposable and forgettable. Rick Berman wanted the music to be "wallpaper" for scenes. I haven't endured enough CBS trek to know if any of that was improved or if "wallpaper" is still the order of the day.

--Alex

I thought it improved in the third and fourth seasons of Enterprise when both Berman and Braga were more hands off about everything.

But yeah starting with the second season of TNG and the other 24th century shows for the most part (IE Yes in some of the 'bigger' episodes where was some actual action; The composers disobeyed Berman's edict and actually did put in some music that fit the scene and was more than just Sonic wallpaper), it unfortunately was Sonic wallpaper and honestly very forgettable.

TOS always came across to me as if it was scored like films of the era, and it was clear that the TOS production team realized just how important music can be to a scene. Music really helps set the tone for a scene when done well and used well.<----- That seems to be something Rick Berman never learned assuming he ever actually took any courses in film or television production.

 

[gottacook]

Of increasing interest to me lately is the music editors' use of cues originally written for episodes that had been produced early in the season but were held back in broadcast order. Examples:

• The opening-credits "Friday's Child" cue used for opening credits in "The Changeling" and closing credits in "The Apple"
• "Catspaw" and "Metamorphosis" cues used in "The Apple"
• "The Empath" cues used in "For the World Is Hollow..." and "Day of the Dove"

(Are there any season 1 examples?)

I wonder how Gerald Fried and George Duning (respectively) reacted to this excerpting of what they had conceived to accompany a different script that hadn't even aired yet. Perhaps they were sufficiently well compensated that they didn't care. Were they paid extra for this, or did their composing fees include such reuse?

I think the music editors on the series did a great job with what they had on hand for any given episode. (Many of the episodes for which new music was written also included sequences with preexisting cues.)

 

[Maurice]

TOS always came across to me as if it was scored like films of the era, and it was clear that the TOS production team realized just how important music can be to a scene.

Most shows of the era were scored that way. Heck you can hear some variations on themes we associate with TOS in works by the same composers on shows predating it (heck, a Gerald Fried motif in "Catspaw" appeared 10.5 months earlier in "The My Friend the Gorilla Affair" on The Man From U.N.C.L.E.).

 

[Methuselah Flint]

Of increasing interest to me lately is the music editors' use of cues originally written for episodes that had been produced early in the season but were held back in broadcast order. Examples:

• The opening-credits "Friday's Child" cue used for opening credits in "The Changeling" and closing credits in "The Apple"
• "Catspaw" and "Metamorphosis" cues used in "The Apple"
• "The Empath" cues used in "For the World Is Hollow..." and "Day of the Dove"

(Are there any season 1 examples?)

I wonder how Gerald Fried and George Duning (respectively) reacted to this excerpting of what they had conceived to accompany a different script that hadn't even aired yet. Perhaps they were sufficiently well compensated that they didn't care. Were they paid extra for this, or did their composing fees include such reuse?

I think the music editors on the series did a great job with what they had on hand for any given episode. (Many of the episodes for which new music was written also included sequences with preexisting cues.)

I'm just guessing now... But I expect they didn't sit and watch the broadcasts go out.

I think they were also aware music would be recycled.

In some cases, the re-use is a lot better than the original placement.

 

[gottacook]

In some cases, the re-use is a lot better than the original placement.

I agree with that. Among the many episodes that used "Empath" cues after that episode was broadcast, I found their use most affecting during the last act of "Requiem for Methuselah" - especially the very end, with the distant gong struck seconds before Spock says "Forget." Again, kudos to the series' music editors who chose where, when, and how to reuse (almost all of) the many wonderful cues written for the show.

 

[Methuselah Flint]

I agree with that. Among the many episodes that used "Empath" cues after that episode was broadcast, I found their use most affecting during the last act of "Requiem for Methuselah" - especially the very end, with the distant gong struck seconds before Spock says "Forget." Again, kudos to the series' music editors who chose where, when, and how to reuse (almost all of) the many wonderful cues written for the show.

Yes, Requiem is a favourite of mine, and The Empath and Elaan of Troyius are both used effectively here.

I also think some of the Enterprise Incident and Spock's Brain cues are put to good use later in season three.

I certainly think the Galatic Barrier music is used better in Zetar than Where No Man... To me, that's the best example of a re-use being better than the original. The editors must have had some thinking to do on that episode, and realised that early cue would be fitting to represent the Zetarians. The repetitive chromatic scale, coupled with the right set of instruments, sets up the sheer horror of the lights better than the Galatic Barrier, in my opinion.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I wonder how Gerald Fried and George Duning (respectively) reacted to this excerpting of what they had conceived to accompany a different script that hadn't even aired yet.

Gerald Fried did not like having his score cues tracked into later episodes. He tried to write "as specifically as possible" to make it harder to re-use his stuff. By contrast, Fred Steiner was on board with it, and he purposely structured some cues to make them more adaptable, for instance by using repeating figures that were amenable to different scene lengths. I don't know how George Duning felt about tracking his themes into further episodes.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Don't forget, also, that TOS' music was re-used again and again.

Interesting thought... I wonder if we would find every piece as memorable, if every episode had had its own full individual score...?

Well, let's think about it. I Spy had an original score for every episode of all three seasons. While Earle Hagan had a few culture specific motifs, for the most part, it was all original. Other than the stuff I have on CD, I can't hum it. Star Trek, Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Space:1999, I Dream of Jeannie and so on all had the standard "handful of original music the rest stock" that got ingrained into my brain. Other shows, like The Fugitive, had no scores written for specific episodes. Pete Rugolo wrote a library of music based on themes and potential general situations. The rest of it was stock music from the CBS library, Twilight Zone, Stoney Burke and The Outer Limits. Yet it all stuck in the heard because there was tremendous reuse.

Even if Berman era Trek had the same up front music as TOS, it would have been a new score every episode, so much less reuse unless the composers leaned on themes (Dennis McCarthy did that with V and his earlier TNG work). Once Generations came out, bold music was let back into the weekly shows.

 

[Hofner]

Like others, I found the music in post TOS tv series to be very unnoticeable.

But there is one exception that stuck out to me and I find it kind of unusual that it does.

In the TNG s1 episode "Conspiracy" when the Enterprise D finds the debris of Captain Keel's ship the Horatio, the music really stuck out to me as being well done in adding a lot to the shock and somberness of finding Keel's ship destroyed. In fact, I remember thinking then, 'now they're finally having some memorable music', but it didn't last.

Hah, it almost seems like the music was trying to distract from something I always wondered about thet scene.

Unless I missed something, I never understood how the remains of Keel's ship came to be along the E-D's path after leaving the rendezvous at Dytallix B.
Apparently, the Horatio warped far enough ahead along the E-D's course so they didn't pick up it's destruction but later come upon the remains.

I guess I'm supposed to assume Picard hung around at Dytallix B for some time after the other three ships left and the Horatio happened to be going roughly in the same direction as the E-D.

Talking about '60s tv series music, I liked the music from "Lost In Space". I certainly notice early in its run, the show used some of Bernard Herrmann's music from "The Day The Earth Stood Still".

I liked the music on "The Fugitive" and was surprised to find out except for the Fugitive theme and variations on it, the music was not original, sometimes it really fit the drama of scenes.

One standout for me is in an early Fugitive ep, "The Witch", a favorite of mine, was the scene near the end when the girl is begging some men not to hurt Kimble because they think he tried to molest her. I found the music to be extremely effective in such a tense scene and also the letdown music when the girl finally confesses that she lied, it's one of my all time favorite scenes of "The Fugitive".

And then some years later, I'm watching a Twilight Zone episode from before The Fugitive and it had the same music. Not just another iteration of it but the same recording that was later reused for the Fugitive. They certainly knew how to write music to fit different types of dramatic scenes that could be reused effectively.

Robert

 

[PCz911]

Gerald Fried did not like having his score cues tracked into later episodes. He tried to write "as specifically as possible" to make it harder to re-use his stuff. By contrast, Fred Steiner was on board with it, and he purposely structured some cues to make them more adaptable, for instance by using repeating figures that were amenable to different scene lengths. I don't know how George Duning felt about tracking his themes into further episodes.

I wonder if Fred liked it because he got residuals and Gerald didn’t since he wanted to be hired again?

 

[Ssosmcin]

In the post TOS series, some scores did stand out for me. Ron Jones had some really great and noticable music - the very reason he got fired. His refusal to stop writing interesting music cost him his job and probably a solid career. Then again, it's not like Dennis McCarthy and Jay Chattaway are getting high profile gigs since Enterprise got cancelled. Anyway, the other composers did some really great stuff. Mostly in the later shows, DS9 and Voyager in particular had great music. Voyager surprised me with how good some of their scores were. Year of hell, Equinox, Workforce and the bliserting Dark Frontier...I'm very happy to have them on album.