This Week’s Caught in the Wild

“Hey, Scotty! This thing just space-beeped at me!”

Our eagle-eared readers have done it again! Here are more discoveries about things we’ve discussed here at The Sound and the Foley.

RED-TAILED HAWK

Mandydax says, “I was just starting Mythbusters and there’s that sound in the opening credits just before Adam says ‘It’s SCIENTIFIC!’ They do a quick close up of his face with his hat brim pulled down and ‘screeeeee!'”

Wow, I’ll need to try to dig that one up! Some cursory searching online reveals that a) Mythbusters has a ton of different opening sequences, and b) none of them are the one you found. Looks like it’s time for me to go watch a whole bunch of Mythbusters. Oh, the humanity!

PACHELBEL’S CANON

Mark Savary writes, “Pretty sure it was also used in Cosmos. The first place I remember hearing it, I think.”

Well spotted! According to the Wikipedia page for Cosmos, the soundtrack recordings did indeed include Pachelbel’s Canon, performed by famed flute player James Galway.

Roho writes, “One of my favorite, disco-y implementations of it, ‘Go West’ by the Pet Shop Boys.”

WHOA.

Technically, “Go West” is a song by the Village People, which was later covered by the Pet Shop Boys. Both use the Pachelbel Canon ground bass.

Roho also writes, “Also, possibly the most epic national anthem ever.”

I completely agree. The Soviets sure knew how to write theme music.

The Soviet anthem’s music was written by Alexander Alexandrov,
professor at the Moscow State Conservatory and founder of the Alexandrov Ensemble.

Here’s a video of the anthem, with English subtitles. (Since the video plays off YouTube, you might see an ad beforehand, which is funny because of the communism thing. AMERICA!)

Of course, movie nerd that I am, I cannot resist posting this here:

Doug Shaw writes, “If you can’t find a copy of Michigan Amazin’ Blue’s ‘Taco Bell Canon’ let me know and I will send you an .mp3.  It is wonderful.” (Lemmo Pew also writes, “Mmmm… ‘Taco Bell Canon’…”)

GREAT JUMPING GODZILLA, HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS BEFORE?

SPACE BEEPS / QUINDAR TONES

W Donohue writes, “Not to go too far afield, but most of the Enterprise bridge ambiance was inspired by naval bridge sounds, especially sonar pings. See this page for WMV files of actual sonar pings.

Yeah, I’ll agree with that. The fleet in Star Trek definitely makes many, many references to naval sounds, procedures, and customs. Many overlap. Also, I need to write about sonar pings separately. (Onto the to-do list with you, sonar pings!)

Also, I realize now that I completely missed the most direct and glaringly obvious Quindar tone reference in Star Trek:

Yeah, that’s the beep that happens when anyone starts to use a communicator.

Sskipstress writes, “The beginning of that Star Trek clip reminds me more of the recordings of radio waves. Here’s a page of more Trek sounds than I have the patience to listen to.

Those NASA clips sound like digital whales! Whales in space were definitely a Trek thing!

And finally, Lollygirlie simply sends this link.

Dated may 15th, the article linked above is about the new communication capabilities of the International Space Station. “April 12 marked the first time in the history of the International Space Station that two researchers talked to two crew members for two different science investigations — the result of a new capability that allows for additional space-to-ground (S/G) voice channels. The new voice channels, called S/G3 and S/G4, use Ku-band for both two-way voice and data transmission, as well as video and high-speed data to Earth.”

In other words, up until the last couple weeks, we’ve still been operating with the same one-channel challenges that were managed by Quindar tones back in the 1960s. Wow!

2 comments

    1. i have been looking for the sound of the Indycars from the 70’s that had the 180 degree exhaust. The exhaust was directed out to a tuned horn that was on the side of engine cowl. Now that I think about it, maybe it was called 90 degree exhaust/

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