Dune Music

[Emperor Harkonnen]

I was woundering what music there is inspired by Dune? I understand Iron Maiden has a song, don't remember the name though..

And I found a couple of songs on my computer, among others; Chanis Eyes, Wake Up, Cryogenia, Sign of The Worm etc. Are those from a game? and who made them?

[MrFlibble]

This is the Spice Opera soundtrack, by Stephane Picq and Philip Ulrich. Basically remastered high-quality tracks from Cryo's Dune. I think there's some info on Dune in popular culture on Wikipedia which mentions music inspired by Dune.

[Andrew]

http://www.frankklepacki.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Klepacki

Made lots of Dune music for the games.

[Emperor Harkonnen]

Thanks... Also I remembered that David Arkenstone made the Harkonnen music, I liked that the most!  ;D What about you guys? Which music? Or acctually the scores in CoD miniseries was the best!

[Timenn]

The Iron Maiden song you were referring to is "To Tame a Land".

They initially wanted to name it "Dune", but Frank Herbert blocked that because he wasn't exactly a big fan of rock. Well, nobody's perfect. ;D

[Emperor Harkonnen]

Sure but why could they have the Dune stuff in the song then? They mention Kwisatz haderach there. Isn't that copyrighted  :P

It is not like it is a general therm, it is something FH made up

[Andrew]

Frank Herbert also made up some underwater device in his first novel The Dragon in the Sea. He did not patent it though.

Mentioning words in a song is not that bad, but naming a title after it could cause more confusion for consumers to differentiate the music from the novel.

[gunner154]

If I'm not wrong, Frank Herbert had particular issues with Metal and not Rock. Pretty sad, either way it goes.

[Egeides]

Frank Herbert also made up some underwater device in his first novel The Dragon in the Sea.

And did it make sounds? :P

No one mentioned Toto, who did music for Lynch's film. I once was surprised to hear that music from someone's radio, so they did some orchestral version of it or something.

[gunner154]

I wonder if anybody tried adding audible music to songs in the books, like Gurney's tunes ;) That would be nice, if somebody could do them well!

[MrFlibble]

Someone should then construct a baliset in the first place ;)

[gunner154]

Good idea, but surely there are instruments that can emulate it, more or less?

[Vanguard3000]

In the extended version of Lynch's Dune, there's a scene where Gurney is playing the Baliset, which is in reality a modified Chapman Stick (or, just "Stick").  The song itself was performed by the Stick's creator, Emmett Chapman.  It's like an electric guitar, except the strings are tapped rather than strummed.  You can see the scene

.

[Egeides]

I wonder if anybody tried adding audible music to songs in the books, like Gurney's tunes ;) That would be nice, if somebody could do them well!

Like with Christmas cards, with a tune playing when you turn a page? :D

[gunner154]

Now that's cool. Lynch's Gurney must have been an Eddie Van Halen follower ;)

[MrFlibble]

We could speculate about how the Imperial troubadours were influenced by the medieval troubadour culture on one hand, and by every other trend in music since then on the other ::)

[gunner154]

They could have sounded like Rock music. I'm sure that would be fabulous, though without Herbert's blessings...

[driftingcloud]

I have an album on vinyl of a German pressing (on CTI Records, 1977) called "Dune" by a David Matthews (assuming this isn't the same Dave Matthews of the Dave Matthews Band). The first side is all Dune inspired, the second side includes "Space Oddity", "Silent Running", "Princess Leia's Theme", and "Main Theme from Star Wars". I haven't listened to it in a long time, but I don't remember being very impressed with it.

Just listening to it again. It's elevator music. I almost typed "bad elevator music", but this might actually be "good" elevator music, if such a thing existed. But that still wouldn't be speaking to highly of it. Oh, and it has 70s synthesizers and guitars.

[gunner154]

It has to be real bad to have 70s synths and guitars and yet be good enough only for elevator music.

[Dunenewt]

I know Fat Boy Slim mentioned Dune in one of his tracks, something about walking irregularly to avoid sandworms.

[MrFlibble]

I've read somewhere here in another thread that that song is called "Weapon of Choice", but honestly, I haven't heard it myself.

[Andrew]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_69_/_Weapon_of_Choice

[Dunenewt]

The Ordos music in Emperor is pretty good, made by someone called Jared Mendelson I think.  I know he worked with Frank Klepacki on the Tiberium Sun music too.

[gunner154]

Well, the Ordos themes come across like extremely futuristic-sounding science fiction stuff. They almost border on techno. It's sadly quite hard for me to say they're really inspired by Dune. Too gizmo-like for me.

[MrFlibble]

I actually like the way Ordos turned from just "greedy guys" to "inhuman" in the series. They are beyond morality of any kind, calculating and scheming all the way. Jarrid Mendelson's Ordos soundtrack emphasizes that pretty well. I believe that Ordos, although an "invented" House, still fit into Dune picture somehow. There's a lot of Dune characters that rise above human passions and lose some of their humanity. Somehow I tend to associate the Ordos in Emperor with the Tleilaxu from the last two Dune books.