TNG S1 musical pieces

[Jaro Stun]

Hi folks,

rewatching TNG S1 on Bluray and in (mostly) beautiful 7.1 surround, I have noticed that in S1, TNG really had some nice soundtrack pieces in various episodes here and there.

MOstly I like the "adventurous" tunes when episode is ending and Enterprise is set to its next voyage (e.g. ending tunes in "Lonely among us" or "Too short a season").

I'm noticing it now, as it is years since I last watched S1 (it is arguably not the best).
I believe this trend continues in S2&3, but it is not so strong anymore.


Is it just me, or did TNG music abandon this trend and got much more indifferent music in later seasons?

 

[Christopher]

Oh, definitely. Rick Berman preferred incidental music to be "wallpaper" -- something that contributed to the mood and tone of a scene but didn't stand out or call attention to itself. So he insisted that his composers avoid doing anything strongly melodic. This was not just Berman's preference, by the way, but a widespread trend in the late '80s through the '90s. (Listen to Mark Snow's scores to The X-Files or early Smallville, if you can tolerate that incessant whiny droning.) Ron Jones, who alternated composer duties with Dennis McCarthy in the first three and a half seasons, resisted going the "wallpaper" route and thus was eventually let go, and from then on it was pretty much wallpaper all the way.

 

[Shatinator]

Oh, definitely. Rick Berman preferred incidental music to be "wallpaper" -- something that contributed to the mood and tone of a scene but didn't stand out or call attention to itself. So he insisted that his composers avoid doing anything strongly melodic. This was not just Berman's preference, by the way, but a widespread trend in the late '80s through the '90s. (Listen to Mark Snow's scores to The X-Files or early Smallville, if you can tolerate that incessant whiny droning.) Ron Jones, who alternated composer duties with Dennis McCarthy in the first three and a half seasons, resisted going the "wallpaper" route and thus was eventually let go, and from then on it was pretty much wallpaper all the way.

Christopher,

Are we referring to Scully listening to to Moldar's 'whiny on' to "keep on believing (cue Journey song)
or
Teenage angst and 'droning on' of Clark for Lois.



Xfiles and Smallville, very different shows; fortunately.


Personally, loved both series, for their different contributions.

To the OP's question, yes this topic of "background" music is well known in the community. I did not care for it myself, but it does have some advantages for mood and setting tone. That is "some".

 

[Christopher]

As should be evident from context, I'm referring to Mark Snow's atmospheric music for both those shows, music that I considered to be whiny and droning. Yes, they were different shows, but Snow's scoring was in the same style for both. I was very glad when Louis Febre took over as the Smallville composer in the later seasons and the show returned to a more melodic musical style.

 

[R. Star]

Yeah, Ron Jones had some excellent music and it was a shame they let him go. Just imagine watching Best of Both Worlds without that chilling music setting the atmosphere when the Borg appear on the view screen. It would've fell completely flat.

 

[davejames]

I actually didn't have a problem with most of that atmospheric music later on; it was just during the action and battle scenes that I felt the music was really lacking, and needed to be more bombastic.

That's something The X-Files never had trouble turning on when it needed to.

 

[Tosk]

Christopher, I couldn't agree more...Snow's Smallville scoring became so monotonous and droning I could barely stand it. Especially so as the score would often come through obnoxiously loud in the most inappropriate scenes.

 

[Ian Keldon]

As should be evident from context, I'm referring to Mark Snow's atmospheric music for both those shows, music that I considered to be whiny and droning. Yes, they were different shows, but Snow's scoring was in the same style for both. I was very glad when Louis Febre took over as the Smallville composer in the later seasons and the show returned to a more melodic musical style.

Best decision Snow made was going "Williams" in the final episode.

Yeah, Ron Jones had some excellent music and it was a shame they let him go. Just imagine watching Best of Both Worlds without that chilling music setting the atmosphere when the Borg appear on the view screen. It would've fell completely flat.

Absolutely. Ron Jones knew how to score around the restrictions (which is ultimately why they canned him...they couldn't control him).

Some of my favorite cuts from S1 are the two docking scenes in the Binars episode (I can never remember the sequence of 1s and 0s in the title).

One of my other favorite non BOBW cuts is the scene in Booby Trap where Picard is piloting the Enterprise out of the asteroid field.

 

[Tiberius]

Oh, definitely. Rick Berman preferred incidental music to be "wallpaper" -- something that contributed to the mood and tone of a scene but didn't stand out or call attention to itself. So he insisted that his composers avoid doing anything strongly melodic. This was not just Berman's preference, by the way, but a widespread trend in the late '80s through the '90s. (Listen to Mark Snow's scores to The X-Files or early Smallville, if you can tolerate that incessant whiny droning.) Ron Jones, who alternated composer duties with Dennis McCarthy in the first three and a half seasons, resisted going the "wallpaper" route and thus was eventually let go, and from then on it was pretty much wallpaper all the way.

Yeah, what was up with that? Worst decision ever.

 

[Ian Keldon]

^Only one of the first in a long line, unfortunately...

 

[Tosk]

Best decision Snow made was going "Williams" in the final episode.

Snow stopped scoring Smallville in season 6.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, what was up with that? Worst decision ever.

As I said, it was a widespread preference of television producers in the late '80s and '90s to favor atmospheric music over melodic, theme-driven music. Tastes change over time. There may have been a perception that strongly thematic music was old-fashioned, or that it drew too much attention to itself and away from the story. Whatever the reason, it wasn't just Berman who held that view. You'd be hard-pressed to find any '90s US live-action shows whose music was richly melodic or leitmotif-driven. If you wanted music of that style in that decade, you had to turn to animation, such as Shirley Walker's scores for Batman: TAS and other DC Animated Universe shows.

 

[Tosk]

You'd be hard-pressed to find any '90s US live-action shows whose music was richly melodic or leitmotif-driven.

The Flash! Primarily scored by the aforementioned (and wonderful) Shirley Walker.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, that was one of the exceptions. In fact, it was exclusively scored by Walker, and it's what got her the job on B:TAS. (That plus the fact that she was the conductor for Danny Elfman's score on the '89 Batman.)

 

[qbie]

One of my other favorite non BOBW cuts is the scene in Booby Trap where Picard is piloting the Enterprise out of the asteroid field.

Which was originally used in Where Silence Has Lease, he originally wrote a different piece for Booby Trap (you can find it on YouTube) but it was rejected. The original music was much more similar to the music in the rest of the episode.

If you really do love the music, try to get hold of a copy of The Ron Jones Project, pretty much a full collection of all the music he wrote for TNG, along with alternate and unused cues.

q

 

[Mott the barber]

As should be evident from context, I'm referring to Mark Snow's atmospheric music for both those shows, music that I considered to be whiny and droning. Yes, they were different shows, but Snow's scoring was in the same style for both. I was very glad when Louis Febre took over as the Smallville composer in the later seasons and the show returned to a more melodic musical style.

Best decision Snow made was going "Williams" in the final episode.

Yeah, Ron Jones had some excellent music and it was a shame they let him go. Just imagine watching Best of Both Worlds without that chilling music setting the atmosphere when the Borg appear on the view screen. It would've fell completely flat.

Absolutely. Ron Jones knew how to score around the restrictions (which is ultimately why they canned him...they couldn't control him).

Some of my favorite cuts from S1 are the two docking scenes in the Binars episode (I can never remember the sequence of 1s and 0s in the title).

One of my other favorite non BOBW cuts is the scene in Booby Trap where Picard is piloting the Enterprise out of the asteroid field.

Agreed on "Booby Trap." I actually mentioned that very scene a few months back in another thread. The music through that episode was truly excellent!

Edit: Didn't see qbie's post. Didn't realize that was also used in WSHL.

 

[Solarbaby]

A lot of people rave about TNGs music. The first season is very memorable as I had the soundtrack when it first came out. I recently watched Chain of Command and I remember listening to the music as it swells at the end of a dramatic cliff hanger type act and it really is sounding awful and dated.It just kind of droned out and sounded like the same piece over and over.

 

[tomalak301]

A lot of people rave about TNGs music. The first season is very memorable as I had the soundtrack when it first came out. I recently watched Chain of Command and I remember listening to the music as it swells at the end of a dramatic cliff hanger type act and it really is sounding awful and dated.It just kind of droned out and sounded like the same piece over and over.

I have the same reaction to DS9's music for the most part. If there is one thing I don't like about Star Trek, especially in Later TNG and DS9, it was the abandonment of creativity in terms of good music. It ended up sounding dreary and mundane and lacking any soul. It was actually quite annoying some times.

 

[Christopher]

I don't think it's fair to say they abandoned creativity. I'm sure all the composers were trying their best to be creative within the narrow constraints that the producers placed upon them.

 

[jb1234]

Which was originally used in Where Silence Has Lease, he originally wrote a different piece for Booby Trap (you can find it on YouTube)

but it was rejected. The original music was much more similar to the music in the rest of the episode.

The tracked piece in Booby Trap sounded completely new to me because in its original use, it was mixed so quietly that it made virtually no impact. This happened more and more to Jones' music as the series went on. If they couldn't get him to change the cue (or if there was no more time), they'd just turn it down in the mix.

(Witness the climax to Night Terrors. The music is barely audible and the chorus is mostly dialed out but on the soundtrack, it's glorious).