Episode five of the Twelfth Doctor Fan Audios, "A History of Sadness," can be heard on YouTube. It was written by James Blanchard, directed by Elizabeth Smith, and scored by myself, Dillon O'Hara, and Studio Gallifrey.
e05 = episode five. s01 = scene one. m01 = music one. These liner notes were originally written for Patreon, and the soundtrack is available for members of my Patreon, so if you'd like to hear the music, please become a member. Some, but not all, tracks will be released later in the year as part of an ongoing series of TDFA soundtrack releases.
e05 s01 m01 “Sisyphus”
I scored two TARDIS scenes this episode, and for them I used a palette of exclusively analog synths.
e05 s01 m02 “First Night Disturbance”
The closed hi-hat was mixed a little too loud in this one, I think. Lots of Ella’s theme – written by Loafers – here and indeed across the score. The descending four-note motif here is by Jack Guidera.
e05 s01 m03 “Fabric”
A simple piece – maybe too simple. I think it demonstrates my weakness in working with an all-analog synth palette.
e05 s06 m01 “Spaceship & Aftermath”
For the scenes aboard Chronos station, I scored with a palette of FM synths plus a drumkit. The stereo-panning noise crashes here were a better idea in my head than they turned out here, I think – it’s an idea I’ll revisit. I’m much happier with my FM synth work here than the analog synth. FM synths are a larger part of me, musically, than analog synths are. Some of my favorite vgm is stuff written for the Sega Genesis and for Japanese microcomputers of the 80s and 90s. (Yuzo Koshiro's score for The Scheme was something I listened to while working on this. Anybody's guess whether any of it made it in or not.)
I’ve been writing orchestral music for a long time, so leaping into it like this was fun. Even though that’s my composing background, and indeed comprises most of what I listen to, I tried to use the synths ‘idiomatically’, to do things with them that I wouldn’t do with an orchestra, to not fall into the trap of writing what amounts to orchestral music played by thin synth imitations. Or least not fall very far down it anyway.
This track, in a spirit sense, was co-composed by Studio Gallifrey, one of the TDFA composition crew. I didn’t use her material directly, but some of what I did write was inspired by what she did put together. Thank you, Studio Gallifrey.
2:09 introduces a theme that I used several times throughout the episode. This theme doesn’t have any leitmotivic meaning. I just liked it.
e05 s06 m02 “Saturn”
More of the what for want of a better term you could call the ‘Saturn theme.’
e05 s06 m03 “Grace Ghost Flyby”
This marks my first usage of Grace’s theme, also written by Loafers, and it's another great theme by them.
e05 s08 m01 “Ella & the Doctor Argue”
A return to the analog synth palette. A lot of Ella’s theme.
e05 s08 m02 “To Greece”
This where I fell into the trap of trying to write orchestral music for synths.
e05 s09 m01 “Travelers Encounter Bandit”
And for Greece, another change of palette: strings section, harp, two flutes, two clarinets, a lyre, and a tambourine. This opens with an extensive series of variations on the Saturn theme, here in a context devoid of Saturn, before moving into unique material.
e05 s09 m02 “Olympians”
A fanfare for strings, and pseudo-fugal stuff, which is something I occasionally resort to when stuck for anything else to do. Also my first proper use of Murray Gold’s theme for the Doctor – not just the ostinato but the held chords.
e05 s09 m03 “Kronos”
Eerier stuff for the monologue relating the Doctor to Kronos.
e05 s11 m01 “Meeting Grace”
Loafers’ theme for Grace, here in especially warm mode. There’s some fun alternation of 3-4 with 4-4 in this.
e05 s11 m02 “Experiment A”
A flashback – so to depict this musically I mixed some of the FM palette with the Greek palette. Doubling real instruments with synths sometimes produces interesting results.
e05 s11 m03 “I Saw the Grass”
And so, having broken the constraint of keeping to a given palette for a location, there was no going back, and electric piano carries a lot of harmonic information. The electric piano has a stereo pan on it – it sounds like it’s going in a circle, and when it’s both in-front and in-center there’s less reverb on it. It was accidental, but really cool.
e05 s11 m04 “The Other Survivor”
And back to flashback, opening with a very vgm-esque ostinato pattern.
e05 s11 m05 “Tried to Help”
The idea here with the rising synths doubling strings was an attempt, albeit somewhat less successfully, to do what the synths did in “Saturn”.
e05 s13 m01 “A Theory”
Synth pizzicatos double actual pizzicatos at the beginning, and a synth timpani acts to double the basses, but this track largely keeps to the Greek palette. We open with Jack Guidera’s four-note motif, which acts as an ostinato for much of the piece, but the first melodic material is a variation of Loafers’ Grace theme. 0:51-60 is an oblique variation of the Saturn theme that moves into Ella’s theme. I think the tempo of this is slightly too fast, listening, but it works in context. 1:32 is still Ella’s theme – it’s what I think of as the B-melody. The celli at 1:47 are playing the bassline from “Fabric.” 2:02 with the electric piano is the C-phrase of Ella’s theme.
e05 s13 m02 “You Can Heal”
The D-melody of Ella’s theme. Very emotional stuff – it opens in a very classic-film-music sort of way.
e05 s13 m03 “Weight (Two Meanings)”
More of the Doctor’s theme – both ostinatos and the chords – with variations. I wrote some melodies to go above it. At 0:58, Ella’s theme – not my variation, but Loafers’ original ‘Brash’ version, the first time I’ve used it. The chromatic motion in it is really cool and gives it a unique flavor. Like with “People Are Disappearing” from the previous episode, this piece bases itself around an ostinato and returns to it relentlessly.
e05 s16 m01 “Graceful Departure”
My final outing with Grace’s theme. Roughly half this track is a re-orchestration of part of “Meeting Grace,” as I thought it would bring a pleasant circularity to things.
e05 s19 m01 “Ella’s Mum”
Neither TARDIS, Chronos Station, nor Greece: for this, the symphony orchestra and a couple of subtle synths. My initial thought for this scene was simply to score the happiness that Ella must feel at seeing her mother. But of course, happiness isn’t the only thing she’s feeling. Emotions are more complicated than that, and so, inevitably, this track emerged as a more emotionally complex thing.
The initial melodic material is a unique theme, a family theme for Ella’s mum and brother, because that part of the scene has past Ella. It’s only when the Ella that we’ve thus far traveled with appears that Ella’s theme appears. I again think the tempo may be a touch too quick for the material, but it works in context.
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