Rick Berman comments on Ron Jones

[toughlittleship]

Berman: On various sites, one of them being Wikipedia, I’ve read some pretty nasty things that Ron Jones has said about me, with a general perception that his music was too good and I was not interested in good music. That is insulting and also absurd. The music on Star Trek was something that was supervised by me and by Peter Lauritson. Peter had been involved in hiring and firing conductors from the first episode of Next Generation to the last episode of Enterprise. Ron came on at one point, I forget exactly when, and he did numerous episodes for us. We got along fine. And at one point, because there were other composers we’d try out and we’d use for anywhere from one to dozens of episodes, it got to a point where neither Peter nor I were pleased with Ron’s work. As I believe I said at the time to somebody, he was doing the kind of scoring that was calling attention to itself. That doesn’t mean, as some people have interpreted it, that I wanted dull, boring music. What it means is that the music is there to enhance the scene that is going. The scene is not there to enhance the music. And Ron’s stuff was getting big and somewhat flamboyant. It was a decision that Peter and I made that was just a simple moving on to other composers. I think Ron was a perfectly good composer. I didn’t think he was in the same ballpark as Dennis McCarthy or Jay Chattaway, who we used a good deal of the time. But we decided to move on and try other composers.

http://www.startrek.com/article/rick-berman-answers-your-questions-part-1

 

[Tiberius]

Seems to me that the music berman preferred was little more than a sequence of chords one after the other. nothing with an actual tune...

 

[DS9forever]

I actually agree with with Rick Berman on Ron Jones, who is now better known for working on Family Guy. His big, brash and bold style of composing suits that show.

 

[Noname Given]

Berman is well known for the term = "sonic wallpaper" - in other words, music that just sits in the background and is barely noticeable. And honestly a LOT of the later seasons on TNG are EXACTLY like that - and imo, that style of music BLOWS (imo).

I love music that 'draws attention to itself' while still enhancing a scene and the better TOS and TNG scores did this in abundance.

 

[Christopher]

Seems to me that the music berman preferred was little more than a sequence of chords one after the other. nothing with an actual tune...

Actually it did have tunes, it's just it was usually the same tunes over and over again from episode to episode, or slight variations on them.


I think Berman has a fair point, that generally film/TV scoring is meant to complement the scene rather than dominate it. His idea of what constituted overly dominant music was fairly restrictive by a lot of our standards, but he was making his best judgment about what was appropriate for the show as a whole. And as the executive producer, it was his prerogative to go with the composers who best suited his needs and his tastes. I don't agree with his choices, but I respect his right to make them.

Although it's odd that he says "Ron came on at one point, I forget exactly when," considering that Jones was there from the second episode onward. But then, it was a long time ago, and his head is no doubt crammed with far, far more minutiae about the production decisions he had to make all day, six or seven days a week for nearly 20 years than ours are about watching the show on TV for one or two hours a week for that duration.

 

[DS9forever]

I remember reading in The Making of Deep Space Nine that Rick Berman's day was so hectic, no schedule could be created to document it. The guy took a lot of grief over the years, but you cannot say he didn't work hard for Star Trek.

 

[Trekker4747]

I remember reading in The Making of Deep Space Nine that Rick Berman's day was so hectic, no schedule could be created to document it. The guy took a lot of grief over the years, but you cannot say he didn't work hard for Star Trek.

If he had worked hard for Star Trek we wouldn't have gotten so many of years of crap (namely on Voyager and Enterprise but only because, as I understand it, Berman mostly ignored DS9.) No he worked hard to line his own wallet through the money the Star Trek name could generate, if fans hadn't gotten increasingly pissed off through Voyager's run and then Enterprise in the way both ignored their own premise, any sense of consistent "reality" within themselves then Berman would still be making money today on another series still shilling out crap.

Berman wanted things and bland as possible to make it as "sell-able" as possible. He didn't care if it was quality product just that it was product. Sort of like McDonald's, they know their food is crap and people can get a better cheeseburger in countless other places but, hey, McDonald's is everywhere and fairly cheap!

That's what Berman did to Star Trek through much of the last couple seasons of TNG and on through Enterprise, he turned Star Trek into McDonalds. And, again, this excludes DS9 which managed to pull off doing its own thing while Berman and Braga decided to do what the fuck ever episodically on Voyager.

"What? Why of course it doesn't make sense that they've lost 20 shuttles now or that this the umpteenth chance they've gotten to get home! You think we're making serious TV here?! This show is episodic it'll make sense within its own context and doesn't need to fit in with the whole, besides in syndication this might be shown before all of those other times so fuck it. Do whatever no matter how little sense it makes!"

That was Trek's biggest downfall, again thanks to B&B more than anyone else. Not taking it's own damn premise seriously and treating it as reality. If you watched an episode of some night-time drama and the did something completely off-the-wall that was out of line with everything that came before you'd be pretty upset. Why should Trek just because it takes place centuries in the future in space with aliens be any different?

Take the premise seriously.

 

[Avon]

ron jones music only stands out because it was good.

 

[Wingsley]

Perhaps Ron Jones was responding to a desire that many TOS/TNG crossover fans may (or may not) have articulated: musical score was a highly expressive part of TREK's "personality" or "atmosphere", which Berman wanted to tame.

TOS had a very expressive musical score, so well known because it stuck out like a sore thumb and represented the era in which it was made. The big downside to that: it was made in the 1960's, and it sounds like it. I believe Berman whether consciously or not, wanted to tame TNG's music (essentially muting it) to keep it from sounding dated in reruns.

Ironically, STARGATE SG-1 took a more TOS-style approach and flourished.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

Ron's music was fun. And the music for "The Best of Both Worlds..." That was amazing! And it complimented that episode perfectly and made it memorable. What Mr. Berman forgets is that some people associate music with exciting scenes. What would "The Empire Strikes Back" and the asteroid scene be without John Williams' brilliant score?

 

[Cyke101]

Ron's music was fun. And the music for "The Best of Both Worlds..." That was amazing! And it complimented that episode perfectly and made it memorable. What Mr. Berman forgets is that some people associate music with exciting scenes. What would "The Empire Strikes Back" and the asteroid scene be without John Williams' brilliant score?

I'm reminded of the big battle scenes in DS9's Sacrifice of Angels, and how disappointed I was at the music. It wasn't quite sweeping or fitting for the action depicted on screen. I also thought the music from the S6 finale and Scorpion were a bit too alike as well, and how all three episodes deserved better, more original music.

 

[Warped9]

Music can enhance and enliven a scene without being distracting. RJ's music did that and it was keenly missed after he left. Berman's musical wallpaper was just a bland blanket that often smothered scenes that desperately needed some added energy. It's one of the reasons I perceived TNG becoming stuffy and boring from mid season onward.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Dennis McCarthy delivered a Star Wars-like musical score for TNG: The Survivors, in my opinion to great effect. Until I checked the credits, I could not have told you with 100% certainty that this was not the same composer as for The Best of Both Worlds, part I.

Another episode that would not have been the same without Ron Jones is The Emissary.

Like 'splosions, thematic, dramatic, and mostly orchestral musical is one of the things many people expect from science fiction films. If you pooh-pooh that, then you just won't reach a significant part of your audience.

 

[TrekAlliance92]

Did the composers of Batman: The Animated Series or numerous movies make their scores to simply flout themselves? I seriously doubt it.

Ron Jones' scores, especially from the first two seasons, were amazing--with great "beauty cues" of the ship flying by, epic action cues, and even more subtle cues as well. TNG's music after he left took a huge tumble down, DS9's was a smidge better, but not by much. It wouldn't be until mid-way through Enterprise that the music started to make a comeback, but never to the level of TOS or S1-S2 TNG.

On a side note, Ron Jones' scores for the '88 Ruby-Spears Superman animated series are great too, and you can hear some similarities with his early TNG work. He also did work on DuckTales.

 

[JarodRussell]

I remember reading in The Making of Deep Space Nine that Rick Berman's day was so hectic, no schedule could be created to document it. The guy took a lot of grief over the years, but you cannot say he didn't work hard for Star Trek.

If he had worked hard for Star Trek we wouldn't have gotten so many of years of crap (namely on Voyager and Enterprise but only because, as I understand it, Berman mostly ignored DS9.) No he worked hard to line his own wallet through the money the Star Trek name could generate, if fans hadn't gotten increasingly pissed off through Voyager's run and then Enterprise in the way both ignored their own premise, any sense of consistent "reality" within themselves then Berman would still be making money today on another series still shilling out crap.

Berman wanted things and bland as possible to make it as "sell-able" as possible. He didn't care if it was quality product just that it was product. Sort of like McDonald's, they know their food is crap and people can get a better cheeseburger in countless other places but, hey, McDonald's is everywhere and fairly cheap!

That's what Berman did to Star Trek through much of the last couple seasons of TNG and on through Enterprise, he turned Star Trek into McDonalds. And, again, this excludes DS9 which managed to pull off doing its own thing while Berman and Braga decided to do what the fuck ever episodically on Voyager.

"What? Why of course it doesn't make sense that they've lost 20 shuttles now or that this the umpteenth chance they've gotten to get home! You think we're making serious TV here?! This show is episodic it'll make sense within its own context and doesn't need to fit in with the whole, besides in syndication this might be shown before all of those other times so fuck it. Do whatever no matter how little sense it makes!"

That was Trek's biggest downfall, again thanks to B&B more than anyone else. Not taking it's own damn premise seriously and treating it as reality. If you watched an episode of some night-time drama and the did something completely off-the-wall that was out of line with everything that came before you'd be pretty upset. Why should Trek just because it takes place centuries in the future in space with aliens be any different?

Take the premise seriously.

If you replace Berman with Paramount in this rant, you might be a bit closer to the truth.

 

[CaptainStoner]

That doesn’t mean, as some people have interpreted it, that I wanted dull, boring music.

Yes it does, Rick.

What it means is that the music is there to enhance the scene that is going. The scene is not there to enhance the music.

False duality, as others have pointed out repeatedly. I don't hear a lot of people saying the theme from "Darmok" steals the scene. It perfectly enhances it. So you can have music that is melodic or rhythmic, and doesn't harm the scene.
I'm not a Rick Berman hater but he is completely wrong on this. He didn't appreciate Ron Jones creatively, and still doesn't. And I think he fundamentally doesn't "get" the role of music in film. He parrots a textbook answer that sounds correct, after all, the whole production is an ensemble work - but I don't think he gets it at all.

 

[JRS]

Music can enhance and enliven a scene without being distracting. RJ's music did that and it was keenly missed after he left.

I agree
Ron Jones made excellent score for exsample to episodes like The Emissary, Booby Trap , The Defector, The High Ground..and so on. Each of them has nicely unique score that enhanced the events of the story

 

[JarodRussell]

That doesn’t mean, as some people have interpreted it, that I wanted dull, boring music.

Yes it does, Rick.

What it means is that the music is there to enhance the scene that is going. The scene is not there to enhance the music.

False duality, as others have pointed out repeatedly. I don't hear a lot of people saying the theme from "Darmok" steals the scene. It perfectly enhances it. So you can have music that is melodic or rhythmic, and doesn't harm the scene.
I'm not a Rick Berman hater but he is completely wrong on this. He didn't appreciate Ron Jones creatively, and still doesn't. And I think he fundamentally doesn't "get" the role of music in film. He parrots a textbook answer that sounds correct, after all, the whole production is an ensemble work - but I don't think he gets it at all.

He isn't wrong, he just has his own opinion about it.

 

[TheGodBen]

That doesn’t mean, as some people have interpreted it, that I wanted dull, boring music. What it means is that the music is there to enhance the scene that is going. The scene is not there to enhance the music. And Ron’s stuff was getting big and somewhat flamboyant.

Do you know what I think overpowered episodes more than the score? Pointless action scenes in the later half of Voyager and Enterprise. Obstinate and idiotic aliens that would attack the hero-ship so that consoles would explode on the bridge, that sort of crap used to hurt otherwise interesting episodes. There are far greater sins in television production than overpowering musical scores and I would have substantially more respect for you, Rick, if you had stood up against those than I do for opposing this comparatively trivial issue.

Ron's music was fun. And the music for "The Best of Both Worlds..." That was amazing! And it complimented that episode perfectly and made it memorable. What Mr. Berman forgets is that some people associate music with exciting scenes. What would "The Empire Strikes Back" and the asteroid scene be without John Williams' brilliant score?

Imagine a world where George Lucas or Irvin Kershner told John Williams to cut the Imperial March for drawing too much attentional to itself. The world would have lost one of its most memorable pieces of film music, and that's not a world I want to live in. Just like I don't want to live in a world without Ron Jones' outstanding score for All Good Things but, unfortunately, I do.

 

[Atticus]

I can't think of a single Ron Jones episode where I've thought "that music is really overpowering this scene and distracting me from the narrative."