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Out of many reasons I'm sorry to see the Eleventh Doctor go,* one of the main ones is that I hardcore love his "GERONIMO LETS GO ADVENTURING BECAUSE I'M AWESOME" theme - Murray Gold's "I Am The Doctor."
There are several reasons I love this piece. One, it's really fun to drive to. For similar reasons, it's also just... impossible to sit still listening to it. It's one of those pieces that kinda picks you up and runs away with you giggling.
The other reason? [music nerd time] Other than some transitional sections, it's in 7/8. Murray Gold, you have my attention and quite possibly my undying affection, I'm not sure yet. I do love me a weird time signature though, and septuple meter is a fun one.
A weird thing about it though, especially when hearing it by itself (not underscoring a Who episode in other words) I always had the nagging sense that it was reminding me of something else. Worse, it was something that I knew I'd also liked a lot that maybe I'd heard a loooooong time ago? Never quite got a handle on what it was though.
Of course tonight, at total random, what it was that it reminded me of popped into my head unbidden and fully formed, like damned Athene in reverse. Which is actually sort of appropriate because what had been dancing on the edge of my memory was the opening to Yanni: Live at the Acropolis.
...see what I mean? Those two pieces could be siblings. Not to mention "Santorini" is also written in 7/8.
It makes sense that both pieces are twigging the same region of my brain. Or rather that "I Am The Doctor" is poking me in the deeply buried place where "Santorini" became lodged after a couple of years of Live At the Acropolis being the PBS go-to pledge drive staple back when I was about 13, and my mother subsequently playing the CD around the house A LOT. Not that I minded too much, I actually rather liked that album. Pretty sure I have a copy somewhere (or did I steal Mom's?), though I haven't listened to it in decades.
In related news, I've actually found myself enjoying the retooled iTunes radio quite a bit (and enjoyed it quite a bit more after figuring out how to stop the annoying THWIP! noise from happening before every track). What sort of led to this post was that I found a "station" called Soundtrack and Theme Orchestra Radio and goodness knows if there's one thing I love, its movie scores. Been rather surprised by what that station is coughing up between the obligatory selections from Williams, Elfman, Zimmer, Shore, and Goldsmith: The first Transformers movie might not have been the greatest thing in the world, but the score was apparently quite underrated to the point where I'm considering picking it up. I also have to wonder if there's a handbook to scoring movies, as the same tropes crop up over and over - soaring strings, low brass and bass for menacing evil, snares for anything military, high brass fanfare followed by timpani for big dramatic finishes, to name a few. I could write an entire dissertation on John Williams' work all by itself - that man has a French horn fetish so hardcore he can't be near a brass section unsupervised. And I think we've all heard the joke about Danny Elfman's scores for Tim Burton movies essentially summarized by "lala lala lala lala diddly diddly diddly diddly bwomp bwomp bwomp bwomp." (It's not that bad... okay, yeah it is, lol. But I love his stuff anyway.)
...I'm sure I was going somewhere with that, lol. But it's late, so of course I've lost my point. Ehh, bedtime.
* other than the fact that he's essentially "my" Doctor - I came into Doctor Who at the beginning of his run, backtracked to 9 after the first series of 11 and have been jumping around the classic episodes at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cell23's whim.
There are several reasons I love this piece. One, it's really fun to drive to. For similar reasons, it's also just... impossible to sit still listening to it. It's one of those pieces that kinda picks you up and runs away with you giggling.
The other reason? [music nerd time] Other than some transitional sections, it's in 7/8. Murray Gold, you have my attention and quite possibly my undying affection, I'm not sure yet. I do love me a weird time signature though, and septuple meter is a fun one.
A weird thing about it though, especially when hearing it by itself (not underscoring a Who episode in other words) I always had the nagging sense that it was reminding me of something else. Worse, it was something that I knew I'd also liked a lot that maybe I'd heard a loooooong time ago? Never quite got a handle on what it was though.
Of course tonight, at total random, what it was that it reminded me of popped into my head unbidden and fully formed, like damned Athene in reverse. Which is actually sort of appropriate because what had been dancing on the edge of my memory was the opening to Yanni: Live at the Acropolis.
...see what I mean? Those two pieces could be siblings. Not to mention "Santorini" is also written in 7/8.
It makes sense that both pieces are twigging the same region of my brain. Or rather that "I Am The Doctor" is poking me in the deeply buried place where "Santorini" became lodged after a couple of years of Live At the Acropolis being the PBS go-to pledge drive staple back when I was about 13, and my mother subsequently playing the CD around the house A LOT. Not that I minded too much, I actually rather liked that album. Pretty sure I have a copy somewhere (or did I steal Mom's?), though I haven't listened to it in decades.
In related news, I've actually found myself enjoying the retooled iTunes radio quite a bit (and enjoyed it quite a bit more after figuring out how to stop the annoying THWIP! noise from happening before every track). What sort of led to this post was that I found a "station" called Soundtrack and Theme Orchestra Radio and goodness knows if there's one thing I love, its movie scores. Been rather surprised by what that station is coughing up between the obligatory selections from Williams, Elfman, Zimmer, Shore, and Goldsmith: The first Transformers movie might not have been the greatest thing in the world, but the score was apparently quite underrated to the point where I'm considering picking it up. I also have to wonder if there's a handbook to scoring movies, as the same tropes crop up over and over - soaring strings, low brass and bass for menacing evil, snares for anything military, high brass fanfare followed by timpani for big dramatic finishes, to name a few. I could write an entire dissertation on John Williams' work all by itself - that man has a French horn fetish so hardcore he can't be near a brass section unsupervised. And I think we've all heard the joke about Danny Elfman's scores for Tim Burton movies essentially summarized by "lala lala lala lala diddly diddly diddly diddly bwomp bwomp bwomp bwomp." (It's not that bad... okay, yeah it is, lol. But I love his stuff anyway.)
...I'm sure I was going somewhere with that, lol. But it's late, so of course I've lost my point. Ehh, bedtime.
* other than the fact that he's essentially "my" Doctor - I came into Doctor Who at the beginning of his run, backtracked to 9 after the first series of 11 and have been jumping around the classic episodes at
cell23's whim.
