Pay As Much Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain As Possible

The man, in this particular case, is Emmy Award-winning Bear McCreary. And he’s the musical mastermind behind a whole slew of TV shows whose names you’ll surely recognize, even if you don’t recognize Bear’s name. (Yet.) His impressive telivisiography shows off not just his mind-boggling work ethic — Seriously. Writing music for TV is insane — but an impressive range of styles and emotions.

The reason he’s on my mind at the moment is my recent stumbling across his wonderful “Wander My Friends,” created during his time on “Battlestar Galactica.” It’s a pretty Irish-sounding track — OK, fine. WAY Irish. — but the miniseries’ overall musical mood and tone has a vaguely Eastern flavor to it. And that makes it the perfect marriage of McCreary’s two heritages: Irish and Armenian.

His recent work on “Da Vinci’s Demons” won him his first of multiple (and-there-will-be-more) Emmies, and sounds like a strange cross between Hans Zimmer and Philip Glass. His “Outlander” score is very Irish-Folk/driven (though the opening theme — the Skye Boat Song, sung by his wife, Raya Yarborough — isn’t Bear’s, technically). And his “Walking Dead” work is moody and unsettling (and also light on “themes,” much like the intentional theme-less-ness of “BSG.”) And “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” is a cool combo of sort-of-spy/Bourne-ish stylin’s and larger, more bombastic Marvel tones. My jury’s still out on “Black Sails,” mostly because I’m still trying to wrap my head/ears around that strange hurdy gurdy stuff. Overall, though, it seems like a good fit for the show’s weird period-modern vibe (which, admittedly, I haven’t actually seen yet for myself so I’m mostly going on promotional material and trailers and such and sort of making things up here as I type but just be quite and maybe no one will notice).

The thing I like best about him, though, is his willingness to let us TV viewers/musically-obsessed peek in behind the creative curtain. By way of example, here (and here and here and here and here) is a five-part series on the themes (and/or lack of themes) in his “BSG” work. It’s awesome.

I get asked pretty frequently about the use (or lack thereof) of “themes” in Battlestar Galactica. The word “theme” was something that the producers wanted to avoid as they re-launched Galactica, I think because they felt that strong, orchestral fanfare had been done to death in science fiction. Beyond that conceptual premise, the reality is that orchestral bombast in the score would ruin the carefully constructed sense of realism in the writing and production.

However, a musical theme is more malleable and subtle than many people realize. Star Wars and Star Trek have defined “theme” for more than a generation. In reality, many of those “themes” are full-fledged songs, with a unique A-section, B-secton and coda. A theme can be much simpler and more minimal, consisting of the smallest amount of musical information necessary to form identity. This is the model I’ve based Battlestar on. Think Close Encounters instead of Star Wars.

And here’s what he has to say about my favorite from earlier, “Wander My Friends.”

Ironically, the most obvious and unusual theme in Battlestar Galactica is also the most traditional in the Star Wars sense (It even has a B-section which I’ve not shown, since it is used so rarely!).

Originally introduced during Hand of God, and even set to lyrics in Gaelic, this tune has come back occasionally for heartfelt moments between Bill and Lee Adama. It ranges from the full-blown arrangement of Wander My Friends (with choir and Celtic ensemble, in Hand of God) to the short wisp of an Irish whistle playing the first phrase as Lee says farewell to his comatose father (in Resistance).

Great stuff. Oh, and there’s this. Which isn’t the thing that made me love his work…

…but it could have been.

Attribution(s): “BearEmmy” photo courtesy of Getty Images, which allows the use of certain images “as long as the photo is not used for commercial purposes (meaning in an advertisement or in any way intended to sell a product, raise money, or promote or endorse something);” “McCreary Headshot 2009” by Bearmccreary is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons.