New Star Trek Style Theme

Hey Everyone

Attatched is the link for my new Star Trek style theme. It's very short, very simple, and very melodic. I'd like to know everyones opinions.

Enjoy!

Johnwilliamsfan

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/songInfo.cfm?bandID=639078&songID=5893004

Well, it's definitely what you said it would be :huh:

All I can say is that it could be a little more... majestic? :toothygrin:

Well, it sounds like Dennis McCarthy, however, to my ear, that's not a "Star Trek" sound. That's just a "DeepSpace:9" sound. McCarthy was, in my opinion, the weakest of all the composers to contribute musically to the Star Trek universe.

While the fragment of theme that you present has potential, it does not go anywhere. It's too limited harmonically. This is in large part due to the pedal you use throughout. It would be considerably more interesting if after presentation of the main motif it actually did something other than repeat. Moving into wider a harmonic area would also add greatly to the interest. There is a HINT of wanting to move into more interesting harmonic territory, but you just drop it right back into the tonic. That's a shame. So the over-all impression is of 2-chord music. What I mean by this is that most of it is a see-saw back and forth between two chords. Unfortunately, one of those chords is almost always the tonic.

Yes, I agree with Cowboy here, your harmonic progression is rather repetitive. I like to think the pinnacle of Star Trek music was the original, by A. Courage. It's bossa nova beat was propelled by very interesting chords, and a harmonic progression that really echoed the idea of travel, like the premise of the show. It did this by moving around key areas and never giving a sense of stasis, which is what I believe yours does give us. The melody is very nice, however. I would only suggest you accompany it with more expansive, colorful chords!

And a contrasting B section would help too! ;) But nice work so far!

Hey everyone.

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I can see the similarities between my piece and Dennis McCarthy, I can also see how the harmonic progression is repetitive and even bland. I really apprieciate the comments. The reference to Courage's bossa nova theme has really helped me see which direction I should be moving in. Besides the original Star Trek theme by A. Courage, I consider some of the best Star Trek themes to be The Undiscovered Country by Cliff Eidelman and of course the original motion picture theme (also from The Next Generation.)

Well, thank you for your time and comments. I will try and improve the piece and put it up later for futher critique.

Your Mutually Musical Friend

Jared Kraft ( a.k.a. Johnwilliamsfan)

I recommend listening to the Voyager theme, for which Jerry Goldsmith won an Emmy award.

The theme is so beautifully constructed and balanced between an A and a B element, with a lovely harmonic shift in the middle section. It's not overly complex, has a grandeur to it that so few television themes achieve. It reminds a little of the opening sequence of StarTrek: The Final Frontier, another beautiful Goldsmith score.

Yes, I am a huge fanboy of Goldsmith and Voyager (I've seen every season many times.) Somehow that one slipped through my favorites list. : ) I agree, that theme holds up wonderfully in the midst of the others. Once again, thank you for giving advice!

Johnwilliamsfan

Lest this be lost in the criticism of your piece, I think you have material here that has very good potential. Please don't abandon it. It's a very difficult thing to rip up a score and re-use the material from it, but sometimes it's well worth the effort.

My suggestion would be to write out your main theme as a single line, and then work on developing it linearly. Examine potential highpoints and lowpoints in the melody, see where snippets of material can be repeated and modified to create a coherant theme.

Can I ask about techniques you used in this piece?

It's just that I'm doing A2 Music and one of my assignments is to write a film score, and this year, the task involved space type music including, and i quote "a broad expansive theme with an element of the mysterious".

I'm thinking along the lines of a horn/trumpet slow-ish melody with some kind of timps and strings, is there anyway that you could help me? What software did you use to create this?

Many thanks,

DomTre

Hey DomTre

That's cool that your writing a film score this year. As far as techniques for the piece: I started with the melody and placed the orchestration around the harmonic progression. I usually do that with all of my pieces. If you have a strong melody, the orchestration can move around the keys you are using quite easily.

The program I'm using is Finale 2006 with GPO.

Hope this helps!

Johnwilliamsfan

PS

I'm doing a re-write of this piece right now, so look for updates!

Yes, I'm just at the moment trying to come up with a melody. But we have to do two compositions this year so I'm doing the other (a swing band piece) to concentrate on at the moment.

I have Sibelius 4/5 and i'll be sure to check the updates!!

Thank you.

Very pleasing to the ear, wonderful chords, but as people as said, is static, doesnt move, and for this specific story you NEED movement and expansiveness. But, sounds really good so far.