The Sound Of Music

Description

Soundtracks are one of the most important elements that bring shows and movies to life. I get goosebumps when the Star Trek: Voyager – Main Title Theme plays, and let myself get inspired by various music styles while I write.

For this competition, you are asked to create a soundtrack of five songs for an episode of the most recent, or current, mission of your primary command. Be creative – you are completely free in what kind of music you choose, you can you mix and match as you please.

  • Submissions must include a link to your playlist and an explanation of your track choice in the competition text box.
  • Playlists must be 5 to 8 tracks in length. They must be created on Spotify, YouTube, or any free-to-access, no login-required music platform.
  • The track explanation is a reflective piece of writing. It should explain what part of the chapter the track belongs to, and why it was chose.

 

Criteria

  • Submissions will be judged on the explanation, not the music itself. Any choice is appropriate if justified. The explanation should be a maximum of 500 words. 
  • Submissions will be judged on your playlist's Originality, Suitability, and Narrative Cohesion.

Winners

Submissions

User ID Content Date Entry
Nathan Hawthorne 2199

YouTube Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqywUwtXH69PE5ptwBhpYr0O639NwOzQw

1 Voyager Main Theme: A good Star Trek theme to begin, and one I'm not as familiar with as TNG or DS9. Still is novel but still very much in the Star Trek realm. The only orchestral piece in the playlist it's a good opener, as the rest of the playlist deviates from what's to come quite a lot.

2. Green Day / U2: The Saints Are Coming: Recorded as a way to raise money after hurricane Katrina years ago the song is a bit dated, but that sort of effort of a government is similar to what's happening at the start of the mission. With the USS Selene and USS Falcon on rescue duty after a global earth quake on a colony in the Cardassian neutral zone. At the start everyone is optimistic and thinks they're helping.

3. Dua Lipa - Illusion: Not everything is what it seems. Though maybe this song is what it seems. Mostly picked for its title and because Dua Lipa plays the USS Selene's security chief so a song from her making an appearance isn't unusual. Why are the Cardassians really there?

4. Sloan - Everything You've Done Wrong: The New Maquis are involved but how? Are the Cardassians there to help or for them? The Federation not paying enough attention to its border colonies seems to be creating many of the problems the crews are encountering. Someone's not telling the truth, but is it the Cardassians or the colonists? Or both?

5. Nine Inch Nails - The Hand That Feeds: Angry, and vengne full. The New Maquis are using the world as a hidden base, and the Cardassians are there to prove it, can the New Maquis escape or will there be violence? Why has a colony turned on the Federation and Starfleet? A showdown between the Cardassians and the USS Falcon occurs but will violence break out?

6. The National - This Isn't Helping: It's over but are Starfleet and the Federation making things worse by helping their colonies or are they keeping them on a leash? Is this the best way to proceed and how close are we to real prolonged disaster and the end of the peace? Everyone is trying their best, but are they trying the wrong things?

 2024-10-29 20:31:36
Zarroc Thakrass 2652

Hopefully I'm understanding this right and it's 5-8 songs for just one of the story submissions in a mission? I'll use my most recent story; https://bravofleet.com/story/136113

YouTube playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkDA566Zsz0lxWqlfRInslReoV1T-JKVs&si=QSs0dIUo9IVdRB49

1: Two Steps From Hell - Big Sky. I always get visual undertones in my mind's eye of some vast landscape being traversed, or at least featured. It gives me vibes of the Tauren zone in World of Warcraft with the tribal sounding flutes. This big valley, giant mesas, large open plains. Or the 1,000 Needles zone in Classic WoW with its massive desert canyons. That large, open and barren desert with huge canyons and high cliff walls and hardly any vegetation is what I have pictured for how Pieris IV looks. So at the opening of this story when Thalissa is climbing that cliff and she pauses to appreciate the view? I chose this song because it literally really was part of the inspiration I used when I was writing and picturing it in my mind's eye. I'd chosen this particular song for this particular moment before I even realized I'd literally be assigning a song to it.

2: The Native Howl - Mercy (ft. Lzzy Hale). Mostly I like the cadence of the instrumental as it plays along, picture a bunch of western hombres riding across the land as they prepare to deal with something ahead. And the bit of lyrics "So we face the dawn with a pistol drawn and repugnance burning in our soul. And the fury at hand storms from jury to stand, as we draw near to the final toll." seem to support some kind an anticipation for an outcome. As Thalissa resumes her climb to the top of the cliff to get at the sensor, she's considering their overall path. Mostly, it was a way to kind of hurry the progression of the story along because I want to get things wrapped for our campaign next month. So the practical reason of this moment was simply to explain what else had gone on since my last story submission to move things along, and account for what crew members you do not see are simultaneously doing at this moment. But it comes with an unspoken note of anticipation if you consider her point of view as she muses over it all. Things are lining up, and some manner of confrontation with the culprits will be inevitable.

3: Clutch - Electric Worry. This just sounds like the kind of music you'd hear in those shows where a shop of mechanics are working on restoring some old muscle car to meet a deadline. Thalissa's putting her head to the grindstone and getting the job done. "Bang bang bang!" kind of accents her methodology of percussive maintenance as well at getting the maintenance hatch open. Could just as easily be playing during some fight in a trashy dive bar, and she does exchange a few heated words with the colony's engineer over the comms.

4: House of the Rising Sun - The Animals (Cover by Eileen Mirabal). Just seems like every time something bad happens, this song is playing. For the moment when Thalissa realizes she screwed up by taking the spent core prematurely, and nothing is in the receptacle to absorb the coming surge? I picture that all going down in some kind of freefall slow motion while this plays in the background and she knows she's fucked. From kicking the hatch shut, to the surge blasting it back open, and the arc of energy whipping out to lash her arm. All of it in dreadful slow motion while this plays. And then facing the consequences of now completing the job with an agonizing injury. This is just a good facing the music song.

5: The Main Squeeze - "Comfortably Numb" (Pink Floyd). Cover of Pink Floyd's song that is literally about being high off your ass. It perfectly encapsulates the strong dosage that Kiran injects Thalissa with to calm her down and deal with the intense pain of the injury. She's floating off on cloud nine as they head back to the colony.

 2024-10-25 02:56:40
Solaris McLaren 2854

Playlist:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_opvneWtJN_HmPOLhXflVnv-R5hJwyAQ&si=pvmPSHMLRWSpmAy2

For this story: https://bravofleet.com/story/135282/

Track 1 sets the whole scene right from the beginning with Hina crawling through the deserted ship on her way to repair some tech, and really it would also just underscore the entire scene. A dark and scary derelict ship, with nothing but empty darkness to keep her company. Track 2 is the song Hina hums to herself as she starts to work, a song her mother used to sing to her when she was young, used to keep her mind off her current situation. Track 3 starts right around she hears the voice for a second time and sees the dark figure crawling toward her. She now more confused and frightened, just wanting to finish her work and leave. Track 4 starts as shes beginning to leave and is stopped by the feeling of a hand on her ankle, building up until she finally looks behind her and doesnt see anything there but her discarded tool. Track 5 immediately starts and she grabs the tool and scrambles out of the maintenance space.

 2024-10-21 09:37:35
Alaric Constantine 1651

These 5 tracks are matched to the 5 stories of the USS Truckee's mission "New CO, Who Dis?"
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3MLZNRbvU5LiPubqvxiIRR?si=tcr_RFb_QYKQV-BOBmiGiw

Track 1: Slims, by Neil Cowley Trio - This track, like the opening story of the USS Truckee's first mission, has a pretty melancholy mood. I think it reflects Captain Beardsly's mood here nicely. He is alone, in the Alaskan Wilderness, and about to embark on another journey of loneliness - command. The song does have some more hopeful refrains, and Captain Beardsly is indeed pleased with receiving his own ship, though he has no one to really share his success with.

Track 2: Don't You Know, by Jan Hammer Group - This is an upbeat, groovy little track. Captain Beardsly had his moment of reflection on Earth, but now that he's onboard his new ship, it's go time. Greeted by his old friend, his spirits are high. Beardsly wants to set a light tone with his new crew, setting the foundation for working together vice being the aloof leader. This lyrics of the track are simple, delivering a message of caring, which is what Beardsly wants his crew to see.

Track 3: Felicidade, by Vince Guaraldi Trio - This melody to this track is a fairly simple groove. It has an interesting, slightly mysterious feel to it. LT Rakes is doing what she loves, working on machinery, but it's tedious, because nothing new is happening; she has nothing interesting to do. This has lasted for days. The melody of this track ALMOST goes on long enough to become tedious. Imagine it for hours. Fortunately for the listener, and for LT Rakes, the melody/monotony is interrupted by some improvisation. The ship is suddenly breaking from schedule to take on a dynamic mission. When the USS Truckee reaches its destination safely, the track's melody returns. The story closes with a simple dialogue between captains, making plans but not yet executing.

Track 4: One Percent, by GoGo Penguin - This track starts off with a quiet, building tension. The USS Truckee has laid a trap, and the crew is nervously waiting to see if their enemy will take the bait. The track starts to build as the enemy appears and engages the USS Truckee. The track continues into a fast-paced, sort of desperate feel, as the USS Truckee enters combat unsteadily. Battle is tense, as the untested crew of the untested starship lays it on the line to stop the pirates. The track quiets down briefly, just as the battle ends. Before you can catch your breath, the tension returns as the "friendly" Cardassians return with their demands. Ending in a disjointed chaos, the track reflects the feelings of Captain Beardsly as his bridge crew who barely had time to process the battle was done before their allies came in and simply claimed their prize.

Track 5: Blackbird, by Jeff Beck, and Suspension, by Jeff Beck - I paired these two songs with the closing story of the mission. The first track rolls right into the next. In the opening of the story, Beardsly reflects on the mission he's writing a report for. While he effectively stopped the bad guy, he broke the rules of his actual mission. Like the blackbird mimicking the guitar, it was musical, but not quite the same lyrical riffs. Suspension is a thoughtful piece, lending itself to reflection. Beardsly considers his future, both as a captain, and as a mentor/partner to his new XO. He hopes for success, but will have to wait and see, despite their brief discussion. Suspension doesn't let up with its questioning mood, and fades out, leaving the listener waiting for the answer.

 2024-10-18 06:53:26

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