- Joined
- Feb 1, 2007
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- Scott D. Atwell
I thought it might be enjoyable to discuss the music of Star Trek (any of the series or films).
Although I like most of the music used in Trek (e.g. the trombones that often accompany Klingon segments in TNG, the gorgeous brass underpinnings that surround Data and Picard while they are on the Scimitar in Nemesis, listening to the opening of one of the movements from a Brahms sextet in the TNG episode Sarek, or the ambitious polyphony performed by Jack, Patrick, Serena, and Lauren in Chrysalis), I would have to say that I am partial to the music used on TOS (not necessarily the opening music, but the stock vocabulary used throughout the run of the series). It's wonderful, ethereal and other-worldly, and at times, definitely occcupies a different 'sound world.' When listening to it, I rarely (if ever) believe I am on earth. It somehow has the capacity to 'transport' me to another time and place, which for me makes it all the more believable that I am on one of those strange, new worlds.
Segments I am particularly fond of are the pizzicato string work done during the opening scene while on Deneva in Operation-- Annihilate! (this is the same music heard in This Side of Paradise right after Kirk says 'Gentleman, we're debating in a vaccum ... let's go get some answers'); the passage which accompanies Nona when she is healing Kirk in A Private Little War (also heard when Szabo is conducting the seance in Wolf in the Fold, and after Spock is sprayed by the plants in This Side of Paradise, and--I think--during one of the segments in Return of the Archons); and the wonderful closing music as Charlie is taken away by the Thasians in Charlie X (also heard when the away team beams over to the Botany Bay in Space Seed, except that in Space Seed the transporter sound effect accompanies the segment--and the overlap of the transporter beam effect and the music with definite pitch is gorgeous; I don't think it occurs elsewhere in all of TOS). (N.B.: It is interesting to note that the segment when they first beam over to the Botany Bay in Space Seed is very nearly the same progression that is heard in the VOY episode Time and Again, when the away team is examining the subspace fractures first experienced by Paris earlier in the episode. When I first heard the passage in Time and Again, I got out my DVD of the TOS and VOY episodes in order to compare the two. The similarity is haunting. At first, I thought I was hearing TOS stock music, but after repeated listenings, I realized that the harmonic successions in the two scores were not identical. It is quite astonishing, to say the least.)
These excerpts are part of the wonderful, imaginative stock vocabulary used througout much of TOS. You can hear the aforementioned segments in several shows, and during many different scenes, not all of which are mentioned here. What are your favorite segments of music in Trek?
Although I like most of the music used in Trek (e.g. the trombones that often accompany Klingon segments in TNG, the gorgeous brass underpinnings that surround Data and Picard while they are on the Scimitar in Nemesis, listening to the opening of one of the movements from a Brahms sextet in the TNG episode Sarek, or the ambitious polyphony performed by Jack, Patrick, Serena, and Lauren in Chrysalis), I would have to say that I am partial to the music used on TOS (not necessarily the opening music, but the stock vocabulary used throughout the run of the series). It's wonderful, ethereal and other-worldly, and at times, definitely occcupies a different 'sound world.' When listening to it, I rarely (if ever) believe I am on earth. It somehow has the capacity to 'transport' me to another time and place, which for me makes it all the more believable that I am on one of those strange, new worlds.
Segments I am particularly fond of are the pizzicato string work done during the opening scene while on Deneva in Operation-- Annihilate! (this is the same music heard in This Side of Paradise right after Kirk says 'Gentleman, we're debating in a vaccum ... let's go get some answers'); the passage which accompanies Nona when she is healing Kirk in A Private Little War (also heard when Szabo is conducting the seance in Wolf in the Fold, and after Spock is sprayed by the plants in This Side of Paradise, and--I think--during one of the segments in Return of the Archons); and the wonderful closing music as Charlie is taken away by the Thasians in Charlie X (also heard when the away team beams over to the Botany Bay in Space Seed, except that in Space Seed the transporter sound effect accompanies the segment--and the overlap of the transporter beam effect and the music with definite pitch is gorgeous; I don't think it occurs elsewhere in all of TOS). (N.B.: It is interesting to note that the segment when they first beam over to the Botany Bay in Space Seed is very nearly the same progression that is heard in the VOY episode Time and Again, when the away team is examining the subspace fractures first experienced by Paris earlier in the episode. When I first heard the passage in Time and Again, I got out my DVD of the TOS and VOY episodes in order to compare the two. The similarity is haunting. At first, I thought I was hearing TOS stock music, but after repeated listenings, I realized that the harmonic successions in the two scores were not identical. It is quite astonishing, to say the least.)
These excerpts are part of the wonderful, imaginative stock vocabulary used througout much of TOS. You can hear the aforementioned segments in several shows, and during many different scenes, not all of which are mentioned here. What are your favorite segments of music in Trek?