Scoring Star Trek 15: Composer Jerry Fielding Ep 42 "The Trouble With Tribbles"

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  • Опубліковано 14 січ 2025

КОМЕНТАРІ • 64

  • @kurtb8474
    @kurtb8474 Рік тому +8

    I'm 64 and I've watched Star Trek thousands of times since I was a boy. It is so interesting to see the music that has become so familiar to me dissected this way. Thanks for the work you put into these videos!

  • @RichardEKranz
    @RichardEKranz Рік тому +3

    Very interesting. Thank you.

  • @willkomnath2560
    @willkomnath2560 Рік тому +1

    Bravo on transcribing that fight cue!

  • @michaelfruchter732
    @michaelfruchter732 Рік тому +3

    Excellent
    Dave
    Thank You
    Really Enjoyed your video
    Thank You

    • @davidpage9355
      @davidpage9355  Рік тому +1

      Aw, thanks. My wife has the patience of a saint.. LoL!

  • @davidraiklen4521
    @davidraiklen4521 Рік тому +3

    David, thanks for an excellent episode on Jerry, tracking, 60s fx, and simulated bagpipes! Great transcriptions. Appreciate the Tribble.

  • @michaelhall2709
    @michaelhall2709 Рік тому +2

    Just one more example of how Bob Justman was the true unsung MVP of TOS. His ear for pairing the right composer to the episodic subject matter was just remarkable.
    As to Fielding, your background information on his standing up to HUAC puts him in my pantheon of heroes. We’ll just go ahead and forgive him the theme for “Hogan’s Heroes.”

    • @davidpage9355
      @davidpage9355  Рік тому

      Agreed (except maybe on "Hogan's Heroes".. I loved that show and theme! I guess it's just a subjective thing.. 😏🖖)

  • @Regulus000
    @Regulus000 Рік тому

    Watching this video was the highlight of my day. Thank you, David!

  • @1rotbed
    @1rotbed Рік тому +6

    Best episode so far. The tribble fite scene is my favorite of all cues and how it ends comedically at the fade to commercial is perfection.

    • @davidpage9355
      @davidpage9355  Рік тому

      Truly! And Cyrano Jones is a lush. The guy can't stop drinking.

  • @timvarnadore2892
    @timvarnadore2892 Рік тому +3

    Thank YOU! My wife and I are clarinet, oboe and sax players and absolutely love mr Fieldings work on this. I was about 70-80% sure that the tribble trombone part was just sped up, but there was a little something in me thinking: "Could it be a piccolo Trombone??!" We were also wondering if actual sheet music existed, but could never find anything. One tip - in the "Scotty" theme, the part that you have as an oboe part is actually English Horn (more of a tenor Oboe). That is actually my favorite instrument to play. Thanks again! This is awesome!

    • @davidpage9355
      @davidpage9355  Рік тому

      Glad you enjoyed this and thanks for comments! And yes - busted! I meant to go back and fix that part but ... even Musescore was trying to tell me with the red notes for the notes the oboe can't play. LoL! Oh well..

    • @timvarnadore2892
      @timvarnadore2892 Рік тому

      @@davidpage9355 Just for giggles - I have actual tribbles from the show. My best friend in High School was an extra in the movie "Empire of the Ants". There were a couple of Star Trek famous people in that movie (Joan Collins and "Gary Seven"). My buddy John was able to get in touch with some ST people and was able to get some ST paraphernalia - including Tribbles. He gave me 4 that he was able to get. My wife blew one up trying to get it clean.....

  • @tudgedelta
    @tudgedelta Рік тому +3

    Great video! I loved finding out about the use of the trombones for the tribble motif! The bit at the end really did sound like Gillian's Island - and I thought I heard that in some of Gerald Fried's ST work! Thanks for sharing!

    • @davidpage9355
      @davidpage9355  Рік тому

      Well first, thanks for watching to the end of a 28+ minute video! Indeed Fried's fingerprints are all over Gilligan's Island, so is this one successful comedy composer (Fielding) giving a nod to another (Fried)? Eh, maybe.

  • @barneshomestead1240
    @barneshomestead1240 Рік тому +4

    Wonderful! Glad to see your latest work!

    • @davidpage9355
      @davidpage9355  Рік тому +1

      I appreciate that! This one took a while.

  • @DavidWilson_mfx
    @DavidWilson_mfx Рік тому +2

    Now I have to go watch this for the 212th time!🖖

  • @DanielWilson-kj3po
    @DanielWilson-kj3po Рік тому +1

    Not one of my favourite scores from TOS but I love how you break it down and reveal the tribble sound on trombone. Well done David!

  • @Ubik1999
    @Ubik1999 2 місяці тому

    Never in a million years would I have guessed that the Tribble motif was played by trombones! It’s amazing how much there is still to learn from this old series. “Trek” seemed to have brought out a lot of creativity in its composers.

  • @sxmnful
    @sxmnful 7 місяців тому +1

    Would love to see one of these for The Naked Time episode, with the Alexander Courage amazing score.

    • @davidpage9355
      @davidpage9355  7 місяців тому

      Good call! I want to get back to season one in more detail. Naked Time was so ground breaking!

  • @swmartin1960
    @swmartin1960 Рік тому +1

    Great work, as always! Your posts are a treat, in fact a feast. As a teenager watch reruns I memorized the music cues and played them to myself (in my head) over and over. They helped get me through some tough years.
    One of my favourite ST cues debuted as part of Fielding’s part-score of Tribbles, but I missed it in the post (I’m not complaining, though). It’s the cue that comes in the final act just after Kirk announces the unresolved questions about the poisoned tribbles in the grain. Koloth says to Kirk (who has just announced), “Before you go on, may I make one request: can you get those [tribbles] out of here?” Now the cue starts, with a slower variant on the Scotty theme and reaches its climax when Jones points to Korax and these very reedy and bassy notes play as the Scotty variant resolves. The same cue is used in “Patterns of Force” when Kirk introduces himself to Abrom (the underground leader). I’m not sure why but the brooding of those (bass clarinets) always says “resolution is at hand.”
    Thanks again for deepening my appreciation of that music I’ve loved for fifty-plus years.

  • @ichikaba
    @ichikaba Рік тому +4

    Very well-researched and interesting series!

  • @barneshomestead1240
    @barneshomestead1240 Рік тому +6

    I loved how they did a recreation on Star Trek Deep Space Nine entitled Trials & Tribbelations

    • @davidpage9355
      @davidpage9355  Рік тому +1

      🖖

    • @kurtb8474
      @kurtb8474 Рік тому +1

      I worked at an NBC affiliate when that episode was originally broadcast. Our station was sent an advanced tape of the episode and a feature on how they used cutting-edge technology of the day to mesh the DS9 characters into the original TOS footage. It was truly amazing at the time. Then I watched the new Beatles song video they just put out and it was leaps and bounds even more amazing.

    • @davidpage9355
      @davidpage9355  Рік тому

      @@kurtb8474 I have to admit I got a bit misty watching a new Beatles release, and how they flew George and John into it. Just amazing, and I love the song. Good on the remaining Lads. 👍

    • @dressinggownsessions7296
      @dressinggownsessions7296 Рік тому +1

      @@kurtb8474 "Trials And Tribble-ations" is basically Star Trek's version of "Back To The Future II". And that's fine by me!

  • @jonathankirsch2121
    @jonathankirsch2121 Рік тому +2

    Thank you so much David for another incredible episode! You teach me so many things about star trek I never knew, and you make me enjoy my favorite show even more 😀 please keep doing these! Cheers mate

  • @fleebie
    @fleebie Рік тому +2

    Well done as usual

    • @davidpage9355
      @davidpage9355  Рік тому +1

      Thanks for watching, as usual 🖖

    • @fleebie
      @fleebie Рік тому

      I look forward to these. @@davidpage9355

  • @captainyossarian388
    @captainyossarian388 Рік тому +6

    Thanks for this video. It was a real travesty of justice what he and others were put through during the HUAC hearings.
    My favorite track for this episode is the one for the fight scene, just a great tune.
    His subsequent score for Spectre of the Gun is the highlight (the only one?) of that episode.

    • @davidpage9355
      @davidpage9355  Рік тому +1

      I've always enjoyed "Spectre..." maybe because I grew up in Arizona, and Tombstone was part of the Old West lore. I liked the partial sets, the red sky, the great character actors. And Fielding's score of course. It will be fun to dig into that, but it's going to be a while. Thanks for watching.

    • @sandal_thong
      @sandal_thong Рік тому

      I've been wondering how much of McCarthyism was really about stopping or delaying what today we might call "progressive ideas" like civil rights, women's rights, union rights, homosexual rights, etc. rather than "fighting communism?" Perhaps if America taught about fascist tactics in Civics classes in high schools of the 1940s then people in the 1950s might have been on guard and knew how to respond to such efforts in the 1950s?
      But considering today we don't seem to know how to deal with attacks on democracy, history curricula, and people considered authorities like doctors, public health authorities, professors, teachers, librarians, etc. we need to bring back Civics and teach that.

  • @HeathcliffBlair
    @HeathcliffBlair Рік тому +1

    Lovely video, and some nice transcriptions! Thanks. 🙂 P.S. Fielding used the double speed trombone technique earlier in his Advise And Consent score, and later to much more sinister effect in Straw Dogs, plus a few other TV scores. Very cool sound.

    • @davidpage9355
      @davidpage9355  Рік тому

      Nice. Yea, I knew about Straw Dogs (only because it was mentioned in the TOS soundtrack collectors set) but not about Advise.. So he already had it down coming into the studio, sounds like. What do you think he used for the tremolo backing instrument? Maybe a Clavinette through a guitar amp with tremolo? That was used a lot!

  • @fredklein3829
    @fredklein3829 Рік тому +2

    Fascinating and entertaining as always. That tribble at the very end seems to have a calming effect on your nervous system.

  • @jayphilby795
    @jayphilby795 Рік тому +3

    Absolutely amazing. It's incredible to hear the process of creating music scores. For a composer who is able to hear the music in their mind before putting it to paper is still mindboggling. Wondrous indeed. Fielding's music encompasses such a huge variety of diverse compositions that it borders on super human endeavors.
    Triumphanttribblizations!

    • @davidpage9355
      @davidpage9355  Рік тому +1

      😆Nice word! And agreed - these people operated on a different plane or level of creativity. Amazing. Thanks for checking it out!

  • @williamcurry4868
    @williamcurry4868 Рік тому +1

    Wow. For so long I’d thought they were using a string instrument rather than a brass trombone for the Tribble theme . It’s great to see some of the behind the scenes sounds here.

  • @admiral_ross
    @admiral_ross Рік тому +4

    I am by no means a musician but I love this series. In my humble opinion the best and most memorable music from any iteration of Star Trek is from the original series. My favorite flyby or Enterprise fanfare music comes as the Enterprise leaves K7 near the end of the episode. Thank you for your insights even though I have absolutely no technical knowledge of what you’re talking about 😊 I love the original music so much, it brings back many fond and wonderful memories.

    • @davidpage9355
      @davidpage9355  Рік тому +2

      I'm just glad to find that others have the same level of admiration of this great music. It was in a class by itself. That famous fly-by cue you mentioned was composed by George Duning for his "Metamorphosis" score, and tracked (reused) here.. and many other places. In fact, I think it's the very opening music heard in the season 2 opener "Amok Time"! Appreciate your comments.

    • @michaelhall2709
      @michaelhall2709 Рік тому +1

      One of my favorite cues as well, that just seems to embody the wonder and optimism of this fictional universe.

  • @semuhphor
    @semuhphor 2 місяці тому

    hi .. very enjoyable. Nice detective work Mr. Hill. (Get the reference?)

  • @dressinggownsessions7296
    @dressinggownsessions7296 4 місяці тому +1

    I thought I'd revisit this one, as I received volume 6 of the soundtrack (which includes this episode) last week and have gone through it.
    Firstly, I think I'm getting there with identifying Jerry Fielding's musical fingerprint - and if anyone reading this is struggling as I did for so many years, it helps a lot if you watch/listen to his other episode first. It's easier to watch The Trouble With Tribbles with its partial score and look for comical cues that sound like anything out of Spectre Of The Gun than it is to watch Spectre Of The Gun and identify anything from that episode as resembling only the comical cues.
    The other thing about that volume is Jeff Bond's notes in the booklet confirm we were both right about why the two unused cues were unused - the CD includes both of them btw, these volumes have included a number of cues that never got used, I thought I could be an obsessive completist but this is above and beyond!
    One final remark, is that in my younger days, one cue you didn't talk about here, "Come On Spock" was one I kept misremembering and believing to have been written for Patterns Of Force. I learned the difference some years back but even now I still find myself thinking it wouldn't be out of place in the episode, and figure I ought to check if it was tracked into that one at all.

  • @swmartin1960
    @swmartin1960 Рік тому +1

    Oh: I wanted to ask about other recordings of Star Trek background music. I love listening to more modern recordings (though they are rare). I can hear the crispness of the highs and the depth of the lows much better than the lo-fi originals recorded for television. But they are not the same, and I get annoyed at interpretative differences - especially differences in tempo. I would love to see an exploration of some attempts to reproduce this music. The CDs (that cost the earth) … what is the quality of those?
    Anyway, blessings to you, David.

  • @cm1701a
    @cm1701a 6 місяців тому

    One can hear the Tribble motif in Premmingers Advise and Consent (as well as other prototype Trek music)

    • @cm1701a
      @cm1701a 6 місяців тому +1

      About 1 hr 44 mins into the film. High pitched trombone effect unmistakable

  • @cbspock1701
    @cbspock1701 Рік тому +3

    It was a good choice to not use that Muzak cue. Very interesting investigation into the trombone used to make the tribble theme

  • @CaptainHarris-ip2kg
    @CaptainHarris-ip2kg 4 місяці тому

    "Why, they [the tribbles] like you Mister Page."

    • @davidpage9355
      @davidpage9355  4 місяці тому +1

      Ha ha! Not being a Klingon has its advantages. Thanks for checking it out.

  • @dressinggownsessions7296
    @dressinggownsessions7296 Рік тому +3

    I wasn't expecting to have much to say on this one - then again I was also not expecting this to be the longest video you've done! I guess the fact that it was only a partial score with not that much reuse meant you were able to look in even greater detail. Come to think of it, as we progress through the series, we're getting to the point where you won't be able to do so much in the way of Killer Cues as most of the season 3 music wasn't heard again that much (apart from Fred Steiner of course, and a little bit of George Duning). To compensate for that, the factor of unused cues is an interesting new feature - although I can see why both of those cues weren't used. The Muzak Maker is a little too comedic for what is more of a serious scene for the most part, and The Scherzo Maker is a little bit too "B-movie sci-fi" for Trek.
    I'm finding it interesting the way Fielding's name intersects with so many of the other Trek composers. You talked about him and George Duning both working with Kay Keyser, then mention him being blacklisted (which also happened to Sol Kaplan), and then your clip of Hogan's Heroes also shows Fred Steiner's name on the same episode credit. And then at the end you liken the final cue to Gilligan's Island - I've never seen that show but I remember you saying that Gerald Fried composed for it. That's all the main composers apart from Alexander Courage!
    When you got onto the trombone, I was half expecting you to say there was an alto trombone or some such "simple" answer - although changing recording speed is a device I am familiar with. The trombone already had a very respectable history in Trek, Sol Kaplan in particular made good use of it in both his scores.
    Scotty getting his own theme here is a privilege he shares only with Kirk (basically the Enterprise theme on a smaller scale), and Spock (that memorable cue from "Amok Time"), as far as I'm aware McCoy never had one, which is one of many reasons that James Doohan should have been promoted to the opening credits of season 3 as he was in every episode there (and only absent from three in season 2!). The end part of that theme I think was used as a general comic cue elsewhere in the season as punctuation to that "frustrated sigh" moment, but I think the only time it was reused in full was in "By Any Other Name" for one of Scotty's most memorable moments in the whole series!
    - Liam.

    • @davidpage9355
      @davidpage9355  Рік тому

      Great observations as always, thanks Liam. The circle of talent in those days was. perhaps, deep but not wide. If some didn't know one or two of the others, at least they were familiar with their work.
      This time around, due to the volume of content, I tried to condense the Killer Cues into the transcription videos. I hope it wasn't too much to take in at one time.

    • @dressinggownsessions7296
      @dressinggownsessions7296 Рік тому

      @@davidpage9355I wasn't complaining! I found it interesting as ever. The slowed down recording of the trombone part reminded me of how The Beatles would experiment in the studio, particularly after they stopped touring.
      I can appreciate the work you put into transcribing that "Big Fite" cue, as right after watching the clip I was using the same software to transcribe one of my own songs that I wrote a while back. That programme really does more justice in reproducing the sounds of some instruments than others. Brass in particular never quite sounds right on it.
      And let's acknowledge the fact that you've now done something on ALL the composers of incidental music for the series. And by incidental music I'm not counting here Ivan Ditmars' Brahms paraphrase, Wilbur Hatch's uncredited presidential fanfare, or any actual songs sung in the show, I'm classing those as different because the characters themselves actually heard those (I'm now imagining Kirk on board the Constellation hearing Sol Kaplan's wonderful climactic cue from the end of the episode, I get the feeling he wouldn't enjoy it!).
      Although I'm curious as to whether you'll be including any of those in your future videos (as well as the animated series and the movies), I don't know what your dividing line is.
      I am certainly looking forward to when you get round to "Spectre Of The Gun" - I'm hoping to finally get Fielding's musical fingerprints in my mind. It's easy enough to recognise Fred Steiner's when he did so many episodes, or Gerald Fried's when he established himself as the go-to composer for alien cultures. But with Fielding only doing two episodes, and their styles being so radically different from both each other and standard Trek fare, it's tough to get my head around it.

  • @sandal_thong
    @sandal_thong Рік тому +1

    Well, considering "The Trouble with Tribbles" is probably the most-liked episode if you include everyone, then perhaps this analysis will bring attention to your channel during searches. The episode, "The City on the Edge of Forever," is likely the most critically-acclaimed episode, and you've looked at that already. What would be the third most popular episode of the original series? "The Doomsday Machine?" Certainly that one has an excellent original musical score, as you've shown.