Lately, Music
 

Have a sample of some music I've been working on.

Warning: All of these links may not work. In that case, it means my webhost has banned hotlinking.

Edit: Yup, that is the case. Panic!

Doctor Who

"Essential 70's" Doctor Who Theme

I was talking to Danny about this, and I had some high aspirations, but this ended up as just a Derbyshire theme with loads of sound effects :P

"Essential 80's" Doctor Who Theme

For this, I tried to include as many of the elements of the 80s Doctor Who themes as I could, but it ended up as about 10% Howell, 20% McCulloch and 70% Glynn.

Other

Grey Amazon

I made the first part of this last summer, but I was never really happy with it. I recently polished it up and added a new section at the end that sounds a bit like Peter Howell's Astronauts.

Your webhost has banned hotlinking.

Still interested to hear these tracks; any chance of the links being renewed?

Wow, this was ages ago. I'll see if I can even find the tracks :P

Cheers

I can host the files here if you like. Just upload them to your FTP account and let me know the filenames you want up here.

Ok, they're all already up though :P Rat_Who70sremix.mp3, who1980.mp3 and Grey_Amazon.mp3

I suspected they were -- just needed the filenames. One moment and I'll edit this post with the proper links.

70's Mix: http://www.dannystewart.com/music/ra...ho70sremix.mp3

80's Mix: http://www.dannystewart.com/music/ra...le/who1980.mp3

Grey Amazon: http://www.dannystewart.com/music/ra...greyamazon.mp3

Thanks for these.

The '70s remix is the one that stands out; I think the bassline is novel, with it's half '60s and '70s Who sound and the added sound effects work too. It could certainly give the new McGann audio remix a run for its money.

Bit disappointed with the '80s mix though, often I find that when people remix the '80s tunes the result is a bit watered down and too light. You actually start to realise that the '80s versions had a bit more impact and meat to the bones than people sometimes give them credit for. I would have preferred more of a potpourri of the three '80s themes, but as you describe above, this is heavily Glynn influenced.

I remember eagerly anticipating Sword of Orion coming through the post, and listening to the David Arnold theme for the first time, taking in how he'd interpreted the show. I didn't know what to make of it at first, and then it grew on me after many listens. But what I loved about it, was that it was pretty much an original take on the music, with only a few homages to the past. Alistair Lock's version for Doctor Who: Unbound did the same job.

I'm still amazed that there's such a concentration on remixing and recreating the original themes from so many clearly gifted musicians, and while the results have been impressive, I really am looking forward to the day when I stop by and somebody's done their own version of the theme — from scratch! Their own sound, their own conception of Doctor Who and what the theme should be like.

I seem to remember a debate about whether such a thing is possible. All of the themes are essentially a remix of Delia's original and as such have to be at least partly influenced by it. I think a Doctor Who theme not in any way based on the original wouldn't be a Doctor Who theme.

Well, I'm not suggesting ignoring Ron Grainer's tune and doing something completely new, just to approach the theme with less deference to the musicians that have gone before. Even though it would still be recognisably Doctor Who, it would at least be a fresh take on the same piece of music.

Then aren't all the versions of the Doctor Who theme fresh pieces? Isn't Howell's a fresh piece, or is it too similar to Derbyshire's? Where do we draw the line of fresh pieces? If something's obviously supposed to be a recreation of another theme, of course. But I think a good way for the TV theme to go if it's wrestled out of Murray's hands in time is to have ideas and inspiration come in from various sources, including official themes etc. I don't think that a completely new theme would probably be very good, as almost everything that could be done has been done in some way or another in one of the themes.

Well it's clearly a vastly different version of the theme isn't it? The similarity's only in the maximum use of the equipment and techniques at each musician's disposal.

Well Murray Gold's a case in point. The first (trailer) version of the theme he did was great, because it was more his own take on the theme and used less of the Derbyshire theme in the background.

But I think it's defeatist to say that there's nothing left there to explore; going by Whomix, with its never-ending Peter Howell and Murray Gold inspired remixes, it seems to be the prevailing view, and all you get is stagnation.