Music for Traveller

[domingojs23]

My two great loves in high school were Traveller and New Wave, back in the early 80's. A Flock of Seagulls is my Traveller soundtrack. Their song "Wishing" and its video to me best captures the mood of adventure aboard a Free Trader or Scoutship. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS9RPyznAPg&feature=related

Green Court's "Moonflight" from 1998/99 is a great Traveller-esque trance tune. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwhJ_YpO4Zk

 

[Vargr]

I found stuff by X Japan and several of the Gundam soundtracks to be quite inspiting when coming up with ideas for Traveller.

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

I like to put all my Ozric Tentacles CDs on shuffle. Great stuff, perfect background music and very atmospheric, incorporating electronica, dub, world music, and just plain shredding every once in a while. Captures the vibe I try for in my games very well.

Heck!!! I used to play bass in a band in the early '90's and we got asked to support them on a UK tour... sadly the two lead guitarists had to do their "A" Levels, so that didn't happen. Had to go back to playing in the lesbian rock bands (don't ask, it's not that exciting).

 

[alex_greene]

Kinda wondering what accompyments players have for Traveller

Journey of The Sorcerer, by The Eagles. It might sound incredibly familiar to some of you, and it should: Journey of The Sorcerer is also known more famously as the theme tune to Douglas Adams' The Hitch Hiker's Guide to The Galaxy.

Heaven and Hell, by Vangelis (the theme tune of Carl Sagan's Cosmos), and also Vangelis' music for Blade Runner.

Back when the only flavour of Traveller had no bloody A, B or C, but only a G, a D and a W, I also used to use Ultravox' instrumental track Astradyne for the sequences of entering and leaving Jump space. To this day, when I hear that track I think of that ol' PC - commandeered Annic Nova taking her one last Jump into the void from my last game, somewhere in Lanth subsector, and I get a lump in my throat.

 

[Prime_Evil]

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the Lord Weird Slough Feg - a folk metal band who produced a concept album inspired by Traveller back in 2003. Their work may not be ideal to use as background music for gaming, but it's not bad -- especially if you're in the mood for something heavy. Plus they get bonus points for naming their band after a character from Sláine!

Look at the lyrics to High Passage / Low Passage:

I am a space pirate, you know my name
Asteroid mining is a dangerous game
Imperial navy can't keep up my pace
Chasing a rock into Zhodani space

You heard about me in the frontier wars
Psionic menace carrying alien spores
A living legend in the asteroid mines
Outvoting tarrifs and imperial fines
One-thousand credits is my humble price
Whether it's nickel, iron, stone or ice
Only the wayfaring patron would dare
A merchant cruiser, a skyway corsair

It's not a mineral that I seek here
High passage, low passage
Any way I'm outta here
I was born in colonies
On fringe worlds of the galaxy
Meanwhile in Zhodani space
Imperial flagships follow me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiHpfugCboI&fmt24

Or how about the lyrics to Traders and Gunboats:

Down and out on the Solomani Rim
Now the Spinward marches don't look so grim

(Chorus)
I hear the X-boats on my trail
Engines always on the run

I'm mercenary, live in hyper-drive
Traders and Gunboats keeping me alive
On route to Pscias always on the run
Busted in the Sword-Worlds with a loaded Gauss-Gun

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOQF6RDRIe0

And then there's the song Asteroid Belts...

Plotting a course by the Gas Giant's Sun
Outdated star-charts, provisions and guns
Locked in the Library Data by night
Approaching jump-3 second engines ignite

Blinded and firing in uncharted space
Querion subsector star-maps erased

Enter the mining belt's vagabond trade
Coreward to Spinward both navies invade
Scattered directional asteroids fly
Shattering meteors, war-heads collide

Sandcasters broken, shields won't sustain
Waking on impact, a cold desert plane

Heck, they've even written a Vagr Theme! And an instrumental entitled "The Spinward Marches":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM7DJqiYonw

 

[Gravmonkey]

Anybody seen the movie "Moon" with Sam Rockwell? Good music in that one. Cold, somber, sinister and piano, hehe

 

[Klaus Kipling]

Hey, the Mass Effect 2 soundtrack is pretty useful. Darker than the first one, but perhaps more heroic also.

I'm doing for Traveller what I've done for DnD. For that I've created an iTunes playlist for combat (fighting), spooky (dungeon's etc), and relaxed (back in town), using the soundtracks from Oblivion, Dragon Age, Conan the Barbarian, and Baldur's Gate.

For Traveller, I'm making lists for fighting, lowlife, alien worlds or space derelicts, and highlife. For this, I'll be using Halo 1, 2, and 3, Mass Effect 1 and 2, BSG (all series), Sarah Conner Chronicles. Here I've got literally hours of music for every occasion. Might get the new Star Tek ost just in case there's summat useful there, too.

 

[domingojs23]

Thanks to "Grandfathergeek" for posting this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cISwRCgn1I4

It's his portfolio of Traveller art, with "Days are Numbers" by the Alan Parsons Project as the background music. Another wonderful Traveller anthem !

 

[Richard]

I guess many of us will have done what I did and made mix CDs (OK, tapes, I'm that old!) and playlists for atmosphere. As GM I demand the right to select the sounds and come over all dictatorial about it. Perks of the job and all that.

A selection from our 'Space Dog' (The Ship's name, from an adventurous Tori Amos track I'm very fond of) soundtrack selection includes Vangelis, Vernon Elliot's Clangers album (A must!), Brian Eno (Apollo Atmospheres is compulsory listening surely?), Giorgi Ligetti, Beethoven, Holst, Hawkwind, Genesis, Rush, Van Der Graaf Generator, Strauss- both flavours, Tangerine Dream/Klaus Schulze, Orb, Pink Floyd, Kraftwerk, Magma, Kate Bush, Boards of Canada, Gong, Anekdoten, Jean Michel Jarre, Anthony Phillips keyboard pieces, Susumu Yokota, Pure Reason Revolution, Jan Garbarek, Steve Hackett, Osric Tentacles, Rammstein, Flaming Lips, Sigur Ros, Einsturzende Neubaten, Hitchhiker's Guide Soundtrack and classic TV and movie themes - Blake's Seven, Dr.Who, the stunning Forbidden Planet soundtrack album by Louis and Bebe Barron, various John Williams and Ennio Morricone themes, Battlestar Galactica...

In fact, Space Trucking, the interstellar freight company our heroes have been working for for all these years is named after a Deep Purple song. Prog rock seems to have been invented for this very purpose! In game our Comms officer is a kind of Cosmic blogging DJ specialising in Old Earth youth music. I have serious avant-garde polyphonic atonal tempo shifting ambient strangeness as the default continual airplay music pervading the Imperium. The kind of thing your granny used to love being unable to tap her feet or hum along to. Ye ancient simplistic olde terran rock sounds are being adopted by young wannabee rebellious types throughout the galaxy.

Our heroes even had a scenario chapperoning Meson Scream, lead singer of Imperial rock legends Spinal Mount (Tap allusions intentional! 'The ancients...no one knows where they came from or what they were doing...') through the marches. Our AC/DC loving Comms officer saw out the end of the scenario in rehab after becoming a drug addict!

P.S. Lord High Munchkin; going back to play bass in the Lesbian rock band 'wasn't that exciting!?.' As requested I won't ask but don't knock the rock n' roll lifestyle cred brownie points!

 

[alex_greene]

Everyone imagines the world of the future to be all rock, all metal, all urban hip hop, all the damned time.

Far from it.

Music for Traveller has to have a sweeping, epic quality. Sometimes, a haunting one; sometimes, wistful and sad, or majestic and upbeat, aimed straight at making the pulse quicken, the soul soar with elation.

I recommend some of the following:-

- Prophecy Theme, Brian Eno;
- Dune Theme, Toto;

and the following, all by the composer Philip Glass:

- Pruit-Igoe: if you have seen Watchmen, this is the music that accompanies Dr Manhattan at the time of his transformation.

- Mishima, Opening Theme: heavy on tubular bells, it's iconic and unmistakable.

- Cloudscape.

 

[GypsyComet]

Far from it.

Music for Traveller has to have a sweeping, epic quality. Sometimes, a haunting one; sometimes, wistful and sad, or majestic and upbeat, aimed straight at making the pulse quicken, the soul soar with elation.

There was quite a bit of ambient electronica mentioned, actually.

I'd add the Halo 3 OST to the moody list (alongside the already mentioned EVE Online tracks), as well as the several classical pieces that were included in the soundtrack to Carl Sagan's "Cosmos".

For reasons that should be obvious, "Blue Danube" is associated with orbital station approaches for a lot of older Traveller players.

The "Nirvash Type Zero" theme from Eureka 7 (anime) is a "fleet launch" anthem if ever I've heard one.

 

[andyl]

I don't do in-game music - although sometimes may play a track at the start of the game to get people to focus.

I am planning to start a new game next month and will use "Space Is Deep" by Hawkwind at the start.

Having said that some of the bands mentioned are good ones (I'm a big fan of early Ozrics for instance). Some other good instrumental (or mainly instrumental) stuff is Subarachnoid Space, ST 37 (especially "William S Burroughs Memorial Drum Loops"), Quarkspace, F/i, Omnia Opera and some Farflung. You could of course pick out some Hawkwind to fit in too - "Altair", "Berlin Axis", "Wastelands", "Rites Of Netherworld" would all fit certain types of game.

 

[zero]

Lexx has rather fitting background music (as in its not distracting and has no vocals, yet has great "mood").

Also as said before, there is Dune (maybe a little distracting, but Toto are awesome :wink: ) and Firefly (for those backwater worlds ).