Goodall Does Good(all)

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Posted by on 6th November 2012, 19:56

It’s nice when a composer of a TV show releases varying arrangements of their themes. What’s that? Howard Goodall’s done exactly that? Well, bugger me so he has!

Yes, Howard “he’s just so bloody” Goodall has released piano arrangements of his own music from Dwarf on iTunes, namely the ‘Main Theme’ and ‘Tongue Tied’ which you can download for the modest price of 79p each.

We’re not strangers to hearing the themes rearranged within the show, the main theme is essentially used for all the fly-bys and many other main cues used in the show, but “Tongue Tied” is an unusual one. It’s featured twice before we even get to ‘Parallel Universe‘, where it’s mainly remembered from, being used as lounge music for ‘Better Than Life‘ as well as for the Ganymede Holiday Inn in ‘Stasis Leak‘. Maybe the Cat subconsciously put words to a song he’s heard quite often already…

However, the two arrangements sounds absolutely lovely, and since they’re not built to picture, they can take their time to do their thing and don’t contain the usual hurriedness you get from released score-centric music, and Howard has added new little bridging sections here and there which keep it sounding fresh. Not bad for music that was originally written 24-25 years ago is it? As an aside, I’ve got to say, I’m really happy that Howard is still involved with Red Dwarf, it’s the one thing that has kept the universe sounding familiar after all the chops and changes that have occurred over the years.

I do wish that Howard or GNP decide to do a limited release of the cues in score-form in some sort of book-like object that I can hold in my hand-like hands and play on my piano-like keyboard down the line, ta.

44 comments on “Goodall Does Good(all)”

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  • >Maybe the Cat subconsciously put words to a song he’s heard quite often already…

    This theory, I like this theory.

  • Oh, Howard Goodall how I love thee. His music for everything he does is wonderful, but particularly with Dwarf. Thanks for the info, Danny.

  • I’ve found his score this series does sometimes sound like a Murray Gold (Doctor Who) type of thing. Hopefully he can produce something special for the final episode.

  • I love listening to the cues before the live Dwarfcasts. In fact, I bet I’ll get a bit misty-eyed on Thursday, as the Observation Dome music starts up for the sixth and final time…

  • I loved putting them together. Although ‘Pride of Place’ wasn’t a Goodall, it’s just a beautiful piece of music…

  • “The item you have requested is not currently available in the U.S. store.” :(

    Ah well. It’s not like I have a computer that I could have downloaded them onto anyway! Would’ve been nice to hear them, though. Everybody who can buy them, please do.

    >I do wish that Howard or GNP decide to do a limited release of the cues in score-form in some sort of book-like object that I can hold in my hand-like hands and play on my piano-like keyboard down the line, ta.

    THIS!!! Some of my older students love Red Dwarf and we want arrangements! I have thought seriously about commissioning Goodall for some, but he’d probably have to charge an arm and a leg to make it worth his time, if he would even do it at all with all the other projects probably on his plate. But these piano arrangements, surely he might publish them as sheet music singles if the audio versions sell well?

    If I can think of a way to word this *very* politely in 140 characters or less, that’s a good reason to join Twitter at last.

  • Just got this from Howard on Twitter:

    @DjOuroboros YES, sheet music coming soon from @FaberMusic @fabermusic_mfn Thanks for your interest Danny!

    YAY!

  • Oh HELL yes! Cheers Ridley.

    I’ve been to 3 concerts featuring video game music and they’ve all been spectacular! Went to the Final Fantasy one this weekend gone at Royal Albert Hall and it was absolutely fucking stunning!

  • Goodall’s doing a video game special this Saturday if anyone’s interested.

    That’s awesome! Good to see some appreciation of some of the great work found in videogames.

    Metal Gear Solid 2 theme always gets me pumped when the game starts up. Same with the Uncharted theme.

  • Hooray for sheet music! It’s lovely when the last news you get before bed and the first news in the morning are both good news.

  • “I’ve been to 3 concerts featuring video game music and they’ve all been spectacular! Went to the Final Fantasy one this weekend gone at Royal Albert Hall and it was absolutely fucking stunning!”

    I can unashamedly say that I love the zone music from the Sonic the Hedgehog Mega Drive games! The Chemical Plant and Death Egg music is very catchy!

    Hmm. Never confessed that to anyone before…

  • I can unashamedly say that I love the zone music from the Sonic the Hedgehog Mega Drive games! The Chemical Plant and Death Egg music is very catchy!

    I concur wholeheartedly! Death Egg in particular is probably the catchiest music in gaming history.

  • I can unashamedly say that I love the zone music from the Sonic the Hedgehog Mega Drive games! The Chemical Plant and Death Egg music is very catchy!

    I concur wholeheartedly! Death Egg in particular is probably the catchiest music in gaming history.

    Death Egg from Sonic 2 or Sonic & Knuckles?

  • Both good, but Death Egg from Sonic & Knuckles is the one I was thinking of! I think it makes the gameplay much more exciting and atmospheric. Also love the music to the Mystic Cave Zone, particularly that opening bit.

  • You can hear my dumb-ass voice throughout this… Tis just Sonic 1 but it’s worth it!

  • I realised I had been listening to that for 6 minutes before realising it should’ve stopped by then…

    Nice that Video Game Music is becoming a genre of it’s own and being recognised!

  • Yeah, exactly. It’s an essential part of the game, I think. Can’t imagine playing Chemical Plant Zone with any other music. It just makes me want to go faster when I’m playing. So nice to hear an orchestra do it, too.

    Forgot how immensely enjoyable the music for Final Zone and Marble Zone is too.

  • About the Goodall tracks: just downloaded them. Aren’t they bloody lovely? I could listen to that man play piano all day (well, until 9pm anyway).

  • Happy 20th Birthday for 24th November Sonic 2! Still the best selling Sonic game.

    DJYuzoboy on youtube does some awesome Sonic music remixes.

    *Also does anyone else find the new youtube set up shit? Now they are forcing you to unhide your page if you want to still comment etc. Fuckers.

  • I think the best game music I heard was the Donkey Kong Country series on the SNES. So atmospheric and memorable; they are still stuck in my head all these years later.

  • I think the best game music I heard was the Donkey Kong Country series on the SNES. So atmospheric and memorable; they are still stuck in my head all these years later.

    I mentally reinsert the sound effects when listening to the soundtrack. I love, love, love DKC2.

  • I’ve been replaying Donkey Kong Country Returns on the Wii as of late, which recycles much of the DKC soundtrack. Great music.

  • DKCR is a great game marred by a shitty control system. There’s a fair amount of shoehorned waggle that is counter-intuitive and makes playing the game a real chore. If you can run the game in an emulator, with the waggle emulated via button-press, it’s much less frustrating.

    I can’t wait for the inevitable 3DS (or 3DS2, or whatever) port with the waggle stripped out .

  • I think this is a good thread to mention something ive found. On beauty and the geek australia, they use the triumpfant sounding music used when lister apears in front of the sun just b4 he enters the ramscoop and at least 1 other time.

  • Yeah, would make sense that not everything in this series would have been Goodall-origin. good spot. Again, it’s one of those tracks that would have been unlikely for Howard to have put together in the time they had.

    The music used in Back to Earth was EVERYWHERE shortly afterwards, or maybe that is just Baader-Meinhof kicking in…

    I’ve just had a thought whether it was a deliberate decision not to put the cues on the DVD because unless it was library music, which can’t go on, they were simply re-recordings of older tracks that have previously been on other releases, and therefore would be just taking up space that would be used to make the quality of the remaining stuff better.

    The only pieces I can think of off the top off my head are the ‘Going For the Phone’ music and the Rimmer Song Reprise when Howard dies. I dont know if I would have been happy or disappointed at just these two tracks being on the DVD. The Red Dwarf VIII cues looked so bare with just the two tracks on there… and they were the same song just different versions.

  • I do wish they’d have included them, but for purely selfish reasons.

    Once in a while I hear library music from BtE or VIII used as filler between news stories on the radio.

  • If they’d only put the music from the final scene in The Beginning, I’d be pretty happy. I really want to hear it isolated.

  • If they’d only put the music from the final scene in The Beginning, I’d be pretty happy. I really want to hear it isolated.

    Me too. I’ve watched that sequence several times purely for the music.

  • I’ve watched that sequence several times purely for the music.

    Me too. The whole scene – especially the shots of the missiles – just benefit so much from it.

  • Oo, nice. I remember an interview with Howard in the Smegazine years ago, which gave details of how to get hold of a copy of the Red Dwarf sheet music. I wrote, but never heard a thing.

  • HOORAY! Soon as it’s available, I’m ordering it through my local sheet music store. They need the patronage.

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