Right! Payphones are going the way of the phonograph, customer service, and journalism. Pretty soon they'll just be relics of the 20th Century.
TOS music
- Thread starter Not Herbert
- Start date
Right! Payphones are going the way of the phonograph, customer service, and journalism. Pretty soon they'll just be relics of the 20th Century.
Frankly, as much as I like much of it, I think Star Trek's music is another place where people see exceptionalism where it's not really there. I recently happened to run into The Man From U.N.C.L.E. episode "The My Friend, the Gorilla Affair", which aired a full nine months before "Amok Time" and which features some verrrrry familiar Amok-Timey music by Gerald Fried. The fact is, a lot of shows of the period were scored equally well if not nearly identically.
Re-using musical ideas and even orchestratiosn was common with composers then, specifically ones working a lot. In the year he did both those shows, he was scoring U.N.C.L.E., "Gilligan's Island", "Mr. Terrific", It's About Time", and miscellaneous episodes of other series.
But it's simply not true all old TV series then were scored equally well. For starters: not every series had original music; and even then while some one-season series with many episodes were made, sometimes a budget would only allow for select original scores. Further more there were a good deal of composers working out there with different styles, as well as stylistic changes over four decades.
I'm into old TV series scoring.
But it's simply not true all old TV series then were scored equally well. For starters: not every series had original music; and even then while some one-season series with many episodes were made, sometimes a budget would only allow for select original scores. Further more there were a good deal of composers working out there with different styles, as well as stylistic changes over four decades.
I'm into old TV series scoring.
Trek was scored particularly well, at least when new scores were created for specific episodes. The score for the Cage is brilliant, and the score for Doomsday Machine plays like a feature. All the other scores were very well crafted as well (I Mudd is mediocre so let's not count that one.) The library cues were very good, so good in fact that are are specific library cues that I used to think where composed to picture because the work so well. For example, Sandy Courage's cue used in "Return To Tomorrow" for the "risk is our business" speech is actually a library cue. It uses his "Kirk" motif from WNMHGB, basically a major triad arpeggiated up from the third and landing on a tritone up from the tonic. (sorry about the geeky music theory description) The rest of that score is George Duning's music.
In the early '70s, new AFM contracts made it necessary to score every episode of a dramatic, 1-hour series. Because of the costs involved, smaller orchestras became the norm. Even so, there are many examples of well crafted TV scores in the 1970s. Columbo episodes stand out as good examples.
In the early '70s, new AFM contracts made it necessary to score every episode of a dramatic, 1-hour series. Because of the costs involved, smaller orchestras became the norm. Even so, there are many examples of well crafted TV scores in the 1970s. Columbo episodes stand out as good examples.
"Return to Tomorrow" is a partial score, with some tracked elements and new music by Duning. The "risk is our business" scene starts with tracked music from "Metamorphosis" (a cue titled "You've Got It") before segueing into "Kirk's Philosophy" which was composed for the episode. There is no Courage library music during the speech.
Neil
Thanks for halting my brain aneurysm, Neil.
We all know that Star Trek TOS music is original and unique in the annals of television scoring.
OK, fine. Patterns of Force sounds like The Andy Griffith Show.
I'll have to go watch that scene again, but I seem to remember a Courage cue as the speech hits its climax. Other than the Enterprise motif, composers didn't use the motives of other Trek composers, but I recall that cue had Courage's WNMHGB Kirk motif.
"You've Got It" begins 36 seconds into this video. "Kirk's Philosophy" starts at 1:06.
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toG6aSQFF7Y[/yt]
Neil
Ah. you're right! I was mixing it up with a different cue which I cannot find right now, but it's a Courage thing usually called "Captain's Theme" or something like that. I gotta go find the CD, I think from season 2 library cues.
Indeed, the one from Risk Is Our Business is Duning.
Indeed, the one from Risk Is Our Business is Duning.
Perhaps a Steiner cue from another episode. I doubt if Duning had heard, or seen, any Steiner Trek scores.
I'll have to watch the episode next week and try to locate any Steiner cues.
I found it! Wrong speech, it was Omega Glory that has the Courage library cue I was thinking of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGO-SldLrNA
Cue starts around :46 or so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGO-SldLrNA
Cue starts around :46 or so.
Don't take my word for it -- read Jeff Bond's liner notes.
Duning absolutely quotes Steiner in the "Return to Tomorrow" score. Listen to "Henoch" (S2, D4, T25) and you'll hear Steiner's Romulan/Mirror theme.
Neil
Going from memory here, but I think Steiner was the only other composer who used Courage's Captain's Theme. OTOTH, Steiner only used the Star Trek theme something like four times total (and that's counting "Thematic Bridge" twice - once in Mirror Mirror and once in Elaan of Troyius). Duning, as noted, used Steiner's "Blackship Theme" in Return to Tomorrow. Everyone else used the Star Trek Fanfare at least once per episode. Well, Jerry Fielding missed it in his partial episode, The Trouble with Tribbles but he did use it in Specter of the Gun. The only composers to use the main theme to Star Trek (as opposed to the fanfare) were Joseph Mullendore and Wilbur Hatch in season one.
I THINK that covers cross use of other composer's themes, yeah?
Oh, and Courage wrote for season two. Take that, Mr. Cushman!
I THINK that covers cross use of other composer's themes, yeah?
Oh, and Courage wrote for season two. Take that, Mr. Cushman!
I know that Courage was credited along with Steiner on "Space Orbit" from "Charlie X," as well as the finales for that ep and "Mudd's Women."
Did Steiner receive credit on the Duning pieces noted above, or was that only a quote?
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I can't think of a TV series that ever credited the composer who created a theme or themes that were later quoted in the score to anoteyhr episode.
Google is my friend. I thought that I saw the credit on my copy of Star Trek: The Original Series Soundtrack Collection 2, but it was more likely from Sountrack Collector:
And, yes, Steiner is credited on Duning's pieces:
That's a soundtrack listing, I said TV series.
