Talk:Theme from Star Trek

message: I have removed the lyrics as copyvio per WP:LYRICS. 23skidoo 16:05, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd just like to note that your edit comment "Wikipedia policy prohibits the use of copyrighted song lyrics" is not entirely true, and fair use of the lyrics depends on the circumstances, with some guidance on the very page you quote. However, in this case, the lyrics may indeed not be notable enough to warrant an inclusion, although I doubt we'd have legal problems if including them, as I doubt Snopes has by using them on their page, especially as we have an article here written about the theme and aren't simply reposting the lyrics. Note that there's no general rule against copyrighted lyrics on Wikipedia, just advise to judge the situation before removing something in order to avoid copyright paranoia. -- Northgrove 00:26, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a distinction to be made between citing an example from lyrics (like citing a passage from a book) vs. restating the entire lyrics. Just because another website might post the entire lyrics doesn't mean they are legally safe, just that nobody has sued them yet. But I don't see any harm in citing the first line or two from the lyrics, to give the reader of "flavor" of them. Wahkeenah 13:01, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Lyrics

message: I just did some rewriting in the article, some of which is based on an excellent viedoe documentary on Courage, which I recommend highly to anyone interested in such things -- see the links to Youtube clips in the article.  This documentary is not in IMDB, which is surprising, given its quality.
However, I left one contradictory bit in, as I don't have the time at the moment to see what the correct answer is.  Did Courage agree initially to the lyrics, or were they written without his knowledge?  Or is it that he agreed to the lyrics being written and somehow missed the real intent, which was to snag half the royalties?--NapoliRoma 20:10, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Roddenberry wrote the lyrics without his knowledge, as far as I know, so he could get half of the royalties. Courage said what he did was unethical, but didn't pursue it further. Davhorn 21:14, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, kind of.  The article slightly alludes to it, but basically he didn't do any more work for Star Trek because of this.  I saw a documentary where they said that Courage was also responsible for a lot of the rest of the score, and since he didn't come back, they had to just keep reusing what they had from the episodes he worked on.  So while he never pursued the matter legally angering Courage like this cost them.  Rifter0x0000 (talk) 17:53, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: According to Inside Star Trek, there was a clause in Courage's contract allowing for Roddenberry to write lyrics to the theme, which Courage didn't notice, until it came time for the money to be split. Roddenberry claimed to have discussed it in a letter to Courage later on, but Courage obviously didn't think too much of it at the time. The IDIC nonsense sounded somewhat similar in nature. WikiuserNI (talk) 19:50, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Courage agreed to  lyrics written without his knowledge? 

message: Someone is trying to delete the ctaegory :Category:Star Trek soundtracks. Please go to the talk page, and try to keep this category in existence. Thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 14:04, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:Category:Star Trek soundtracks]] deletion discussion 

message: I'm desperate to find out which is the Alexander Courage theme and which is Jerry Goldsmith's theme. From what I've heard, Courage's theme is always played when the title appears in the movies, but I'm not sure if Jerry Golsmith theme is the marh-like, sweeping theme. Its impossible to describe it in Wikipedia without an audio sample. Somebody, please upload it, so I can finally know the difference!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Surten (talk • contribs) 03:44, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If you watch the video tribute cited in this article, you can hear what Courage wrote; the most famous Courage-written element that has been used outside of the original series theme is the four overlapping held notes (A, E, G, B) followed by a French horn fanfare. The "march-like" theme is Goldsmith's, written for the first movie and later used as the theme for ST:TNG.--NapoliRoma (talk) 07:03, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, that helps out a lot. Sorry for the spelling. --Surten (talk) 03:28, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please, some one add an audio sample!

message: I just did an edit to try to remove some redundancies and contradictions.  I'm basing this mostly on the Courage tribute video, and my main goal was to eliminate the "first it was electronic, then vocals were added" bits that contradicts his description.  What Courage himself says is that the vocals were always there, and that there were no electronics (other than organ; definitely no theremin).
What I don't know is the nuances of what else may have changed after the "Roddenberry amps up the vocal" change made apparently starting with the eleventh episode in season 1.  Based on what many people have added into the article, it sure seems like there might have been another change beginning at season 2, but I don't have any recordings of any of the episodes -- and more importantly, there are no reliable sources apparent on this.  There is one article about the CBS remastering where the author states that in the original recordings the organ is punched up starting in season three, but this same article also talks about how the vocal was added in season 2, which contradicts Courage, whom I would consider to be the canonical source, at least about the very first recordings.
There may also be more to add about the CBS remastering.  The article above says they recorded three versions.  I think I was reluctant to add that to the article, since what the article reports as the remastering team's choices seems to contradict the timeline of the changes in the original episode theme versions.  I don't know whether that's an error in reporting, or an error in what the team actually chose to do.--NapoliRoma (talk) 08:11, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Bit late, but agreed. I'm getting my information from Herb Solow and Bob Justman's book, Inside Star Trek. The vocals were there for the first season, then dropped to save money. WikiuserNI (talk) 21:54, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

text: There seems to be some evidence that the "electronic" sounding version of the theme (no vocal) came out of the scoring session of August 19, 1966 for "The Man Trap" (Bond, Jeff, 1999, The Music of Star Trek, p. 33), and the sound, often assumed to be a theremin, is possibly an electric violin (Bond, 1999, p. 15). Unfortunately, a lot of the evidence cited for competing claims (re. vocal or no vocal, etc.) is reliant upon the memories of those involved, whether it be Alexander Courage himself, or Herb Solow and Bob Justman--and these memories don't always match the evidence of the finished masters. The masters, as used, reveal that there are four (or eight, if you count opening and closing themes separately) different versions of theme used on "Star Trek" (not counting the original pilot). Some (or all) of these must be different recordings, rather than re-mixes, due to the measurable variations in tempo and phrasing. What is needed to verify the exact instrumentation used, along with recording dates, is the studio documentation of the time, such as musicians' union attendance/payment sheets (these should also reveal the recording method used--e.g. quarter-inch full-track or 2-track, half-inch 3- or 4-track--and thus whether re-mixing subsequent to the session was even possible). 
Futurepast63 (talk) 14:11, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm surprised that there are so many recording of the theme, given that the show seemed to always be on a tight budget, and otherwise relied heavily on reusing the same cues many times over.  Not so surprised that I don't believe it didn't happen, mind you, but it does seem like a strange thing for them to put so much effort into.  I suppose I should look for the Bond book sometime.--NapoliRoma (talk) 15:30, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I am afraid removing those "redundancies and contradictions" merely introduced more errors. There are undeniably more versions than mentioned in the current article, season two and three used different mixes that included Norman's vocalizations. Basing the article solely on Courage's memories is somewhat problematic; when asked about his season two contributions, he couldn't remember his archival recordings, for example. I think the article should reflect that there are conflicting depictions of the theme's history. Jeff Bond's The Music of Star Trek and the recently published complete soundtrack box of TOS should be helpful. As soon as I get around to it, I'll make the necessary edits.--DVD-junkie | talk | 15:33, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Versions 

message: So here's yet another Courage interview (which I've added to the article, too)—in this one he sheds significantly more light on what the instrument-that-is-not-a-theremin actually is, starting at 2:08.  Here's the key bit:
...there was a fellow in town named Jack Cookerly who had been playing with various kinds of strange things on guitars, and this was just the absolute bare beginning of the synthesizer.   We had a Yamaha something or other, which was a very early primitive Japanese synthesizer...
--NapoliRoma (talk) 03:57, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  More on Jack Cookerly's organ 

message: Color me curious,
Anyone know why the instrumental theme appears on the home releases during the first season, when on the original run it was the only season graced with the vocal version?  If anyone has any idea why this is so, it would make a good addition to the article.
Seanmercy (talk) 15:01, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: According to the book Inside Star Trek, Seanmercy is correct. The first season was broadcast with Norman's vocals over the theme. As she was hired under a Screen Actor's Guild agreement, she was entitled to rerun fees. To save money for the second season, her vocals were dropped. WikiuserNI (talk) 21:47, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Placement of theme on home (DVD, BluRay etc) releases 

message: Past edits eradicated some important facts, while adding some inaccuracies. I've tried to fix it.--Dvd-junkie (talk) 20:41, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  History 

message: I removed this reference, because it's inaccurate. It's hard to explain not being musical, but there is a "middle eight" to the theme which is heard on TV and other recordings that is not present in the new movie. The best thing I can compare it to is the Doctor Who theme. There is a middle eight "second verse" which is often left out of arrangements made for TV, resulting in a repeat over and over of the theme's "chorus". It can be heard at the end of the 2005 episodes of Doctor Who, but with the 2006 episodes onward the "middle eight" "verse" has been restored. It's the same thing with the 2009 film's version of the Trek theme - the basic core melody is repeated over and over but the break between is omitted.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.146.81.123 (talk) 16:03, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Complete theme" in 2009 film 

message: In S04E12 of "The Big Bang Theory" Sheldon Cooper plays the star trek theme on a theremin. This may be relevant insofar as this will add to the theremin myth that is discussed somewhere else in this thread. --93.192.104.142 (talk) 13:28, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Other recordings and uses

message: I have just obtained La-La Land Records' 15-CD limited edition of nearly all the TOS music. The liner notes seem well researched and unambiguous. When I have time (hopefully within the next week) I will use them, along with a few other sources, to carefully revise this article's statements of when certain versions were used and what the instrumentation was for each (electric violin, cello, voice, not-theremin, etc.). I'll also post a summary here which will potentially limit any unfounded re-revisions. Anyone have any advice, caveats, etc?--ChasFink (talk) 16:36, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of versions and instrumentation. 

message: This is highly suspect. There's no serious factual documentation to support the assertion that Star Trek's 2nd pilot order was anything more than uncommon rather than unheard of, let alone the only one paid for by a network, despite the veracity of this claim which play "telephone" with quotes and memoirs. See this article for many examples of 2nd pilots (link). And there's no way to prove that any network did not pay for a 2nd pilot prior to this, despite any claims to the contrary.  
Furthermore, this entire reference has nothing to do with the subject of the theme other than the theme not being used on it, so I suggest it be removed entirely.MrNeutronSF (talk) 05:44, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  First 2nd pilot paid for by network? Probably False 

message: The article starts out by saying that the theme was originally called "Where No Man Has Gone Before." That may well be true, but there is a second Alexander Courage composition with that name. It appears on the 1967 LP "Leonard Nimoy Presents Mr. Spock's Music from Outer Space," and it is an instrumental elaboration of the fanfare that opens the theme as broadcast. You can hear it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvB9z5UYMGI   2600:4040:5D30:4800:A93A:FA12:8C3A:8015 (talk) 00:02, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another "Where No Man Has Gone Before"