Music from SF

Hey there folks, welcome to the first in a series of articles that I'll be writing for Octocon.com, exploring the connections between science fiction and music. This is the first of a planned three article series, with each part covering a slightly different aspect of the relationship: to begin with, “Music from SF” will cover the soundtracks and themes of science fiction films and TV shows; “Music in SF”, the second article, will examine the music that exists within science fiction settings; and finally “Music as SF” will be about music that tells science fiction stories.

This of course, could change entirely as I write it. I'll also be touching on these same topics in horror and fantasy worlds, and I'd love to get feedback and suggestions from readers.

We've already gotten some great suggestions on our twitter page, including a link to the excellent blog Sci-Fi Songs (thanks to @JohnAnealio for the link!).  Their top-rated song, the excellent Cylon #6, brings me nicely to my starting point: the music in the TV show Battlestar Galactica. 

Now, I'll admit that I'm a massive fan of the re-imagined series (I've never seen the original), but that aside, I think that the show's music is easily among the best of any TV scores that I have heard in a long time. The show's composer, Bear McCreary, has drawn on a massive range of influences in sculpting the themes and songs they use. He uses some classical techniques- several of the characters have their own “leitmotifs”, or recurring musical themes that appear in connection to specific characters (leitmotifs were originally invented by Romantic composer Richard Wagner). It's very easy to do this in an awkward, unwieldy way, but McCreary does a great job of merging and developing motifs in interesting ways. As well as using this classical technique, he introduces material from a variety of traditional sources; and in many pieces he draws on Celtic folk, and he uses instruments ranging from Javanese gamelans to Highlands bagpipes. There's also at least one occurrence of major influence from rock music, but at the risk of spoiling it, I'll say no more. Anyone who's gotten to that point should know what I'm talking about.

The music of Battlestar Galactica has been very successful. The soundtrack albums have sold extremely well, and specific concerts have been organized featuring the “Battlestar Galactica Orchestra”. There's already a huge amount of information about the soundtrack for this show, and much praise for McCreary, out there on the internet, so I'll leave you with a link to Mr. McCreary's website.

Now, onto the next theme:

There are probably people alive who have never seen Star Wars, but the Imperial March, along with almost everything else in the original trilogy, is an enduring and familiar part of the pop-culture conciousness.

The music of Star Wars is another great example of the use of leitmotifs. The Imperial March is the most iconic of these. Its use in the original trilogy (first appearing in Episode V I believe) is symbolic of Darth Vader and the evil Empire in general, whereas its use in the prequel trilogy is even more powerful; the audience knows what's coming, and not only can we see Anakin slowly become corrupted into Darth Vader, we can hear his music decay as well.

The famous opening crawl, endlessly parodied ever since, has the main Star Wars theme playing over it. The “Duel of Fates” from Episode One, even though it's only ten years old, has already wormed its way into our minds, being used in everything from sports ads to computer games. Virtually every piece of music in the six movies has some level of common recognition outside the series itself. What's really satisfying about the soundtrack, though, is how the themes recur in subtly mutated forms, but manage to still sound fresh each time. The composer, John Williams, is one of the best film composers alive, and his work on this series is only part of the work he's done on science fiction movies, having also worked on E.T., Superman, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the Jurassic Park series, Artificial Intelligence, Minority Report and War of the Worlds, (film-buff readers will be noticing a Steven Spielberg theme here). I don't think there's any way I can do justice to the man's work in this article, so I'll leave it for now, say 'If you don't know this music, go watch the films right now and listen hard to the soundtrack', and move on to some lighter examples of science-fiction soundtracks. 

An animated space-western with a jazz soundtrack isn't the most obvious of concepts, and it would have been very easy to do badly. But somehow, Cowboy Bebop really works. Perhaps it's the tragic story, or the fascinating setting, but largely, it's the jazz. This is really a great show, and packed full of excellent music, under the direction of composer Yoko Kanno and her band, The Seatbelts. The series has a fixation on American jazz of the fifties, with the mostly Japanese band expertly capturing the feel of bebop and cool jazz. The show has in fact spawned several soundtrack albums covering the TV show and the movie, and a few remix albums. The opening theme sets the mood pretty well:

Even the titles of each episode (which are referred to as 'sessions') contain musical references, whether it's to genres as in Session 7: Heavy Metal Queen, or songs as in Session 6: Sympathy for the Devil and  Session 15: My Funny Valentine. 

Another two themes that have solidified their place in our collective unconscious are the openings to The X-Files and The Twilight Zone. These are another two that are well-known outside their original contexts, often used in other TV shows in tribute or parody, or just to signify to the audience “something weird happens here”. The original Star Trek series' theme music, is also widely recognized, and it was heavily incorporated into the title music for The Next Generation. Where the original show's theme tune was gleefully optimistic, very much in fitting with the decade of its production, the orchestral scores for the three 1990's series are more reserved and triumphant, played on large orchestras. The theme for the fifth series, Star Trek: Enterprise, was a departure from the usual orchestral, instrumental style, and instead used a rock-style ballad. This was poorly received by fans, as was the series itself.

In a stark contrast, the theme music of Doctor Who has remained largely unchanged across all its incarnations. While a few different arrangements have been issued since the series' début back in 1963, the basic tune remains unaltered. The original 1963 theme tune was also among the first television themes to be entirely electronically composed. The current version of the show's theme music, arranged by the series' composer Murray Gold, directly samples the original 1963 theme, as well as using orchestral instruments first introduced in the 1996 movie. The show's popularity led many different groups, including Pink Floyd, the KLF and Orbital, to use the theme music as an inspiration or basis for works of their own. And of course, it would be bad form for me not to include Bill Bailey's take on the music of Doctor Who:

That's it for this first instalment! Please feel free to comment and leave your own thoughts. There's no way the entire field of science fiction theme music could be covered adequately in just this short piece, but with enough reader feedback I'd love to return to this topic. Next article will be “Music in SF”, looking at the styles of music and the role that music plays in various science fiction stories.