Thoughts on Soundtracks & Background Music

[Scott Kellogg]

Good Morning Folks,

Just an odd thought I've been thinking about in the last few days.

My enjoyment of a movie or TV Show or Movie seems to have a very closely linked to how good the music is.

I look at my favorites and they've all got good musical scores.

"Star Trek" (TOS) had a really good series of scores. The Animated version had a decent one too.
"Jonny Quest" had an excellent score, as did "Star Wars."

A good musical score can even make an iffy show fun as John Williams did with "Lost in Space". "Starblazers" was pretty iffy with WWII battleships in space, but the music made it fun!

"Battlestar Galactica" and "Buck Rogers" both had pretty darn good music, and it made up for a lot.
Even John Williams scores to "Gilligan's Island" were good goofy fun music. And of course Henry Mancini's scores covered everything from comedy in the "Pink Panther" to action with "Peter Gunn" and horror with "This Island Earth."

Even a kooky show like the 1960s "Batman" is fun with a good music.
Take that away, and it would just be a bunch of weirdoes wearing funky costumes.

Contrast that with good films with... poor music. "Forbidden Planet" is a great movie, but the electronic beeping is annoying.
I can't tell if it's supposed to be music or sound effects. If Bernard Herrmann had done that score with something like what he'd done for "The Day the Earth Stood Still", it would have been amazing!

"Babylon 5" was a great show, but it had completely forgettable music. "Dr. Who" (when I watched it) suffered from dull music too.

Recently, I tried (again) to watch Star Trek Deep Space 9. And while there was lots of dramatic action, I couldn't get into it.
I didn't listen for the music, but I didn't remember it either.

My wife didn't seem to think that the acting was any more wooden than usual for Science Fiction, but I felt unmoved, and the acting didn't seem as good to me.

It occurs to me that the purpose of music in a show is to get your emotions primed.
If you're listening to a sad story, and If all you've got is sad dialog, that's all you have to move your emotions. And it'll take some darn good acting to make you feel it.

Now if you have sad music pushing your emotions in the right direction, you're already feeling sad, so the dialog can guide you along. With your emotions already leaning that way, an actor doesn't have to be that good to make you feel sad.

These days, it seems like all we get for music is one guy holding a note on a synthesizer for 5 minutes with a bit of slow vibrato to make it feel "Menacing." And that's just Bores me.

But listen to Barry Gray's "Thunderbird March" and we're talking Excitement!
5-4-3-2-1! And Off we Go! Zoom!

You want a sharp contrast? Look at Space: 1999 Season One (Barry Gray) and Season Two (someone forgettable) and it's very obvious that the music has a big contribution.

What do you think?

Scott Kellogg

 

[1001001]

This is not a TOS topic.

Moving to TV&M

 

[Qonundrum]

Good Morning Folks,

Just an odd thought I've been thinking about in the last few days.

My enjoyment of a movie or TV Show or Movie seems to have a very closely linked to how good the music is.

It can help, but music - either orchestral/multi-instrument or even single drawl tones - I find preferable when it enhances scenes where appropriate, and not overused, overproduced, or try to be in place of the plot or acting. Note that I also include laugh tracks as being music, just of a different sort that still get used for the same reason: Scene/story enhancement...

I look at my favorites and they've all got good musical scores.

"Star Trek" (TOS) had a really good series of scores. The Animated version had a decent one too.
"Jonny Quest" had an excellent score, as did "Star Wars."

Johnny Williams is one of quite a few composers that could look at a scene and imagine how to figure out how to compose music that fits the scene so amazingly. Jerry Goldsmith is another, as is Ron Jones. A lot of TNG tracks definitely buoyed episodes, though in a couple scenes some scores did go too far above and try to be it... (Not to mention the infamous scene from "Booby Trap", which was excised - when hearing it on the CD collection, it was easy to hear why (way too bombastic) and the track was ahead of its time.)

A good musical score can even make an iffy show fun as John Williams did with "Lost in Space". "Starblazers" was pretty iffy with WWII battleships in space, but the music made it fun!

Williams' season 3 opening is precisely what the show needed. A shame the episodes started out good but went back into camp mode... his Superman score is definitive, too. (Fun note of irreverent irrelevance: I'm reading and responding in order and I tend not to read ahead...)

"Battlestar Galactica" and "Buck Rogers" both had pretty darn good music, and it made up for a lot.
Even John Williams scores to "Gilligan's Island" were good goofy fun music. And of course Henry Mancini's scores covered everything from comedy in the "Pink Panther" to action with "Peter Gunn" and horror with "This Island Earth."

Didn't know he did Gilligan's Island either. Definitely far more a genius...

Even a kooky show like the 1960s "Batman" is fun with a good music.
Take that away, and it would just be a bunch of weirdoes wearing funky costumes.

Pretty much. A show without music definitely has to work harder to sell the tone, though Adam West was more than perfectly cast. He did a Nestle Quik commercial before Batman too...

Contrast that with good films with... poor music. "Forbidden Planet" is a great movie, but the electronic beeping is annoying.
I can't tell if it's supposed to be music or sound effects. If Bernard Herrmann had done that score with something like what he'd done for "The Day the Earth Stood Still", it would have been amazing!

From the audience in the 1950s, new to the genre, what might they think? Would they hear and perceive both music and effects identically? Could the sound effects be used in tandem with the music deliberately? It'd be fun to be a fly on the wall to see firsthand, at the time. I've yet to see the movie, but I know some episodes of sci-fi tv shows where the music and effects are too similar so I can't not relate to your point...

A side note: The 1950s were probably more experimental and trendsetting or attempted trendsetting than relying on established/traditional standards. Far more so for "A Trip to the Moon" from 1902 (Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès), a silent film that couldn't rely on today's niceties but someone of that era saw and liked it. It'd be fun to comparing 1950s media to 40s and 60s and try to see it from the mindset of someone who had no knowledge and get an inkling, as well as reading making-of literature after that, and not everyone's going to care about minutiae after a certain point and not always in the same ways. Imagine today's kiddies trying to sit through half-century and older media... actually, youtube shows do rather a lot of that already... to varying degrees, and to varying degrees of success. Or otherwise. Then go read the reader comments and see a universe of response types based on their perception of the video jockey host - from supportive to constructive criticism to varying levels of comparatively unsavory conditions beneath. Or a mixture of responses, just like the video itself. And people thought outer space was a big place.

"Babylon 5" was a great show, but it had completely forgettable music. "Dr. Who" (when I watched it) suffered from dull music too.

I don't recall B5's scores... or if they helped the stories or otherwise.

For DW, it depends on the era. Late-80s Doctor Who drowned viewers in it. The 60s had almost none, relying more on plot mystique doing the convincing. The 70s started great, if not experimental at times, but became dull... the early 80s reinvigorated it, but gave it more emphasis compared to earlier eras. 2005-onward has made the late-80s mute by comparison. The fans who like the extra use of music might cling to it - either all or some, is it possible for a truly blanket response? (Not really; I've found scores from all eras to enjoy and the early-1980s onward also had scores that also work on their own if listened independently of the story they're supporting...) As with all forms of art, it's still subjective to the individuals in the audience and what they're looking for. Which is part of the fun.

Recently, I tried (again) to watch Star Trek Deep Space 9. And while there was lots of dramatic action, I couldn't get into it.
I didn't listen for the music, but I didn't remember it either.

Season 5 TNG onward, and its spinoffs, often had what I believe was termed "wallpaper music". It's very hit or miss. DS9 had a few invigorating scores, but a lot of the 90s was just too flat and bizarre, especially when the stories couldn't hold their own (IMHO, YMMV).

My wife didn't seem to think that the acting was any more wooden than usual for Science Fiction, but I felt unmoved, and the acting didn't seem as good to me.

It occurs to me that the purpose of music in a show is to get your emotions primed.
If you're listening to a sad story, and If all you've got is sad dialog, that's all you have to move your emotions. And it'll take some darn good acting to make you feel it.

The actors do have to take the dialogue with utter sincerity to keep suspension of disbelief. The story itself also has to hold up. Music does make it a lot easier to sooth over some edges, but the flip side is when it gets too loud or bombastic and forcing the issue, as if it's dictating how you must act - regardless of how good the composition and orchestra/instrument combinations are.

Never mind audio mixing, which is bizarre considering how more often the voice dialogue is drowned out by loud music volume (not tone/content) nowadays when shows and movies made 50 years ago had a much harder job in mixing things due to the comparatively primitive nature of the equipment - not that there weren't ever problems from older stories...

Now if you have sad music pushing your emotions in the right direction, you're already feeling sad, so the dialog can guide you along. With your emotions already leaning that way, an actor doesn't have to be that good to make you feel sad.

True. All of these elements of plot, acting, direction, music, etc, all work in symbiosis - or ideally would.

These days, it seems like all we get for music is one guy holding a note on a synthesizer for 5 minutes with a bit of slow vibrato to make it feel "Menacing." And that's just Bores me.

^^this

But listen to Barry Gray's "Thunderbird March" and we're talking Excitement!
5-4-3-2-1! And Off we Go! Zoom!

Or Lost in Space season 3... without the exposition. But Thunderbirds' exposition definitely did not dampen the experience, which is the other fun part since everyone loves to say "exposition is bad, show don't tell" - when sometimes telling is the only option... which goes back to that balance the show makers are trying to achieve. Which is sad when, going back to LiS, the episode format revamp started great but when the episode started to dive into campiness and/or being a lame Star Trek ripoff (e.g. the episode where they land the space pod onto a planet populated by identical blob things that want to learn how earth beings can be so different and can magically clone themselves into the family where they finally look something like the statues outside their domicile's entrance...), the theme stopped being a good setup for the follow-through.

You want a sharp contrast? Look at Space: 1999 Season One (Barry Gray) and Season Two (someone forgettable) and it's very obvious that the music has a big contribution.

Season 1's music was a lot less bombastic, and certainly helped the overall presence and tone (no pun intended.) The relative situation of the episode and characterizations and understanding enough of that still had the greatest amount of work... but the music was the icing on the cake.

Season 2 was trying waaaaaay too hard to replace "the talky episodes"(tm) with "action Action ACTION!!!!!!!" and is generally more bombastic and hollow (and unintentionally funny) than most shows of the time.

 

[Starbreaker]

Most music is just designed to move the show along and fill in some quiet spaces. I think it's pretty rare that score music is actually supposed to be hearda anymore. I remember listening to the Lost soundtrack on repeat but that was almost 20 years ago.

 

[Scott Kellogg]

For the folks who wondered if John Williams did the score for Gilligan's Island:
Enjoy:

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[Kilana2]

Jerry Goldsmith with a very Trek like piece...

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