Sheet Music?

[JimZipCode]

It's been a few years since we all grabbed the miraculous boxed-set of the TOS music.

Has there been any release of sheet music for Star Trek scores? Esp the great ones by Sol Kaplan & Gerald Fried; but also the ones by Fred Steiner et al? Would love to be able to noodle at some of these themes on the piano, understand the harmonies etc.

 

[22 Stars]

I have a box filled with Trek sheet music let me see what I can find.

 

[JimZipCode]

Thanks!

Here's something interesting I stumbled across by Googling, a dissertation for a Phd in Musicology:History at Michigan:

Music, Race, and Gender in the Original Series of Star Trek
by Jessica Leah Getman
2015
https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/113404/jgetman_1.pdf​

The dissertation has a number of score excerpts with commentary. She has a note on sources:

The Sibley Music Library of the Eastman School of Music holds the collection of Alexander Courage, the first composer for Star Trek and the writer of its iconic main theme. The Harold B. Lee Special Collections Library at Brigham Young University holds the collections of composers Fred Steiner and Jerry Fielding. The American Heritage Collection at the University of Wyoming holds score sketches by composers Gerald Fried and Sol Kaplan. The University of Southern California Cinematic Arts Library holds the scores of George Duning, and the Performing Arts Special Collections Library at the University of California, Los Angeles, houses the copious collection of Star Trek creator, writer, and producer Gene Roddenberry. I was also given access by CBS to a portion of their Star Trek music library in a visit to their Los Angeles offices in 2014. Through the materials found at these archives—and through additional material provided by the American Federation of Musicians Local 47, BMI, and the personal collection of Jeff Bond—I have access to sketch and full scores, cue sheets, intra-show communications, musician and composer contracts, and in-depth personal interviews with the series’ musical team.​

I interacted with a user named Gottacook several years ago on some forum, I think it was AVClub, who had browsed the Duning Trek scores at USC. He(?) was a big admirer of Duning.

The videos on Shem von Schroeck's Youtube channel have extensive excertps from the scores – and transcribed for piano!

Point being, the material exists. Don't think it's ever been published, though.

 

[JimZipCode]

I interacted with a user named Gottacook several years ago on some forum, I think it was AVClub, who had browsed the Duning Trek scores at USC. He(?) was a big admirer of Duning.

Gottacook is here!

https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/star-trek-music.293092/#post-12379300​

I'm pretty sure my interactions with him(?) were at AV Club, in the comments on Zack Handlen's TOS reviews. But same user is here.

 

[Phaser Two]

It's been a few years since we all grabbed the miraculous boxed-set of the TOS music.

Has there been any release of sheet music for Star Trek scores? Esp the great ones by Sol Kaplan & Gerald Fried; but also the ones by Fred Steiner et al? Would love to be able to noodle at some of these themes on the piano, understand the harmonies etc.

Great thread! I long ago figured out Spock's theme on bass as well as several other cues (like the little running/fight music using low bass notes on the piano - used when Kirk disables Mirror Sulu in sickbay, for example), but I would LOVE to see some scores. And I'm getting the Lala Land set, finally, next month or so for my birthday.

 

[alensatemybuick1]

Pretty sure some original sheet music was included in the June 1983 Library of Congress Quarterly article Steiner wrote (his own and that from other Trek composers), but I don't have my copy handy to confirm how much.

I'm no musician, but even I tried plcking out (by ear) the Spock theme on a friend's bass guitar some years back. It mustn't be too hard to play, since he recognized it.

 

[gottacook]

I still haven't had a chance to look for the letter I received from Duning in 1980 (reply to my inquiry/fan letter) but will post it here when I find it; not much free time since ascending to Captain. Thanks for the link to the dissertation. As a longtime piano (and harpsichord) player, I think creating piano reductions of the original series music would be a difficult task that might not always produce a rewarding result. So many memorable cues depend on percussion or a string section or brass, although there's the occasional cue in which piano is front and center, including several written for "Catspaw" and, I think, "Friday's Child"... Perhaps a four-hands version (at one or two pianos) would be the way to go?

(I stopped commenting on AV Club went they went Kinja. Evidently I'm not the only one.)

 

[TLOZ Lover]

I had sheet music for the TOS theme song back in the 70s. Can't remember if I saw it in a music store or if someone gave it to me. If I still have it, it must be buried in a box somewhere!

 

[JimZipCode]

Pretty sure some original sheet music was included in the June 1983 Library of Congress Quarterly article Steiner wrote (his own and that from other Trek composers), but I don't have my copy handy to confirm how much.

I forgot about that piece! I just looked it up on JSTOR. It's readable for free (registration required).

A couple pages of Courage's intro to the theme are reprinted. Also a scoring schedule (similar to the sheet in Jeff Bond's book). Otherwise it's all text. (Steiner's text! I'm not trying to disparage it. But no other sheet music.)

 

[JimZipCode]

(I stopped commenting on AV Club went they went Kinja. Evidently I'm not the only one.)

No indeed! Kinja sux. And it seems to have prompted a shift in the commentariat.

By the way, I've long owed you a thanks. I enjoyed our interactions on the AV Club comments: and I think you are the person who let me know that this place existed. So, I wouldn't have stumbled over here if not for you. Thanks! (Other posters here may not be so pleased with you for performing this service. )

As a longtime piano (and harpsichord) player, I think creating piano reductions of the original series music would be a difficult task that might not always produce a rewarding result. So many memorable cues depend on percussion or a string section or brass...

Y'know, that would have been my thought too. Esp thinking of a score like Amok Time. But have you seen this video on Shem von Schroeck's Youtube channel?

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

That's a DAMN persuasive reduction! What if the reductions were all (or mostly) of that quality? You wouldn't listen to them instead of the orchestra recordings; but for learning the music intimately and playing around with it, they would be amazing.

The arrangements Schroeck plays in that vid are unpublished. They're his own from studying the recordings – it's possible he's a genius – so it's not something we can buy or download.

 

[alensatemybuick1]

I forgot about that piece! I just looked it up on JSTOR. It's readable for free (registration required).

A couple pages of Courage's intro to the theme are reprinted. Also a scoring schedule (similar to the sheet in Jeff Bond's book). Otherwise it's all text. (Steiner's text! I'm not trying to disparage it. But no other sheet music.)

I may have access to JSTOR via work, not sure. I know that Steiner wrote an expanded version of that article (but I have never seen it, so can't say if there was any sheet music):

Fred Steiner, “Music for Star Trek: Scoring a Television Show in the Sixties,” in Wonderful Inventions: Motion Pictures, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound at the Library of Congress, ed. Iris Newsom (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1985), 287–310.​

While looking for the above reference, I stumbled upon the following, which has a great deal of TOS sheet music from various episodes / composers:

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/113404/jgetman_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

REST DELETED AFTER REALIZING THE ARTICLE WAS ALREADY POSTED ABOVE (DUH).

 

[Phaser Two]

Pretty sure some original sheet music was included in the June 1983 Library of Congress Quarterly article Steiner wrote (his own and that from other Trek composers), but I don't have my copy handy to confirm how much.

I'm no musician, but even I tried plcking out (by ear) the Spock theme on a friend's bass guitar some years back. It mustn't be too hard to play, since he recognized it.

Nope, definitely not too difficult. Sounds great, though.

 

[BeatleJWOL]

Don't forget this dissertation on the music of The Motion Picture, complete with some score extractions:

www.filmscoremonthly.com/features/STTMPThesis.pdf

 

[plynch]

I'm reading the 2015 dissertation. It is going to show how musical cues reinforced white hetero hegemony, says the author.

But

Haven't the "too cerebral" and anti-woman-first-officer positions of NBC execs towards the Cage been debunked on this BBS? And Plato's Step having first interracial kiss is also not accurate, right?

Maybe I'm wrong. These are both relayed as fact in the paper, and I'm only a few pages in.

 

[gottacook]

I've skimmed through the 2015 dissertation. Having been a music graduate student myself (although I received a performance degree and not the kind that requires a thesis), I suspect that it goes off on these particular tangents because Getman's committee wanted her to explore these topics, not necessarily because she was planning to do so originally.

For example: It didn't take me long to suspect that the bibliography would include Susan McClary's Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality - and it does. McClary is a fabulous teacher (I had her for a Baroque Performance Practice class) but I don't have much affinity for these theoretical writings of hers, which received a lot of attention and helped her get a MacArthur award. It was probably de rigueur for the dissertation to consider such views.

As for errors of fact, they're frequent, despite much valuable information being brought together in one place. For example, on page 32 she takes IMDB's say-so that Roddenberry was a "producer" on Star Trek V, and on page 39 she has "David Raxton [sic, David Raskin]" (it's actually Raksin). These took less than two minutes to find and I'm sure there are plenty of other mistakes. But what are you gonna do?

 

[plynch]

I like to read about our culture, and my understanding of the liberal arts is that you must create new knowledge through your dissertation or writings that get you tenure. Once it would have been a Marxist lens, now it's "queer theory." Whatever, I actually look forward to her thoughts on women's cues in TOS. I already knew of using orientalist themes to signify the othernes of aliens. Which doesn't seem so wrong since an alien is by definition different, right? Again, whatever, my caring quotient is depleted.

 

[JimZipCode]

Page 225 of the thesis has the sheet music for Fried's Vulcan theme (most often heard in bass guitar or cello in the series). Not so difficult (couple people in this thread already said that they were able to pick it out by ear), but still, that's pretty neat.

 

[Phaser Two]

Page 225 of the thesis has the sheet music for Fried's Vulcan theme (most often heard in bass guitar or cello in the series). Not so difficult (couple people in this thread already said that they were able to pick it out by ear), but still, that's pretty neat.

Very neat! I've been reading the thesis off and on since the link was posted here but hadn't gotten that far yet. The transcription looks right to me, and before now, I neither understood that it was played on a six-string bass (which are very rare today) as opposed to a four-string, nor that it was performed by Barney Kessel!! He was a very famous jazz guitarist who passed away about 10-12 years ago.

The thesis itself is very good, incidentally. I haven't really focused on her race/gender conclusions as much as the musicology, and she does a terrific job with the latter.

 

[J.T.B.]

Very neat! I've been reading the thesis off and on since the link was posted here but hadn't gotten that far yet. The transcription looks right to me, and before now, I neither understood that it was played on a six-string bass (which are very rare today) as opposed to a four-string, nor that it was performed by Barney Kessel!! He was a very famous jazz guitarist who passed away about 10-12 years ago.

Wow, cool. I knew Kessel was on the session from the material in the La La Land set; he's listed as guitar, which makes sense as it was a bass guitar. I had no idea it was a 6-string. The Danectro 6-string bass was pretty well-known around LA sessions in the '60s. They didn't have the big heavy-gauge strings like we normally think of with a standard 4-string bass guitar.

I have no idea what model was used for that recording, but check out the tone here:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

 

[iliescu]

Thanks!

Here's something interesting I stumbled across by Googling, a dissertation for a Phd in Musicology:History at Michigan:

Music, Race, and Gender in the Original Series of Star Trek
by Jessica Leah Getman
2015
https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/113404/jgetman_1.pdf​

The dissertation has a number of score excerpts with commentary. She has a note on sources:

The Sibley Music Library of the Eastman School of Music holds the collection of Alexander Courage, the first composer for Star Trek and the writer of its iconic main theme. The Harold B. Lee Special Collections Library at Brigham Young University holds the collections of composers Fred Steiner and Jerry Fielding. The American Heritage Collection at the University of Wyoming holds score sketches by composers Gerald Fried and Sol Kaplan. The University of Southern California Cinematic Arts Library holds the scores of George Duning, and the Performing Arts Special Collections Library at the University of California, Los Angeles, houses the copious collection of Star Trek creator, writer, and producer Gene Roddenberry. I was also given access by CBS to a portion of their Star Trek music library in a visit to their Los Angeles offices in 2014. Through the materials found at these archives—and through additional material provided by the American Federation of Musicians Local 47, BMI, and the personal collection of Jeff Bond—I have access to sketch and full scores, cue sheets, intra-show communications, musician and composer contracts, and in-depth personal interviews with the series’ musical team.​

I interacted with a user named Gottacook several years ago on some forum, I think it was AVClub, who had browsed the Duning Trek scores at USC. He(?) was a big admirer of Duning.

The videos on Shem von Schroeck's Youtube channel have extensive excertps from the scores – and transcribed for piano!

Point being, the material exists. Don't think it's ever been published, though.

That written and given the link...seen as,

Beautiful Star Trek sheet music indeed, hope it is either for Piano or Keyboard, Clarinet, Accoustic Guitar, or Guitar.