Radio Drama Soundtrack

Having listened to a variety of radio dramas I found that one thing they all had in common, with the exception of war of the worlds and a few of the audio books, was a recurring soundtrack which originally preceded the drama along with a voice over, introducing the play’s title, writer and the majority of the cast members. The same soundtrack would then be played throughout the drama, sometimes as an undertone to monologues or more often as a useful indication to the listener that the scene was about to change. Realising that the soundtracks helped to set the mood of the radio drama as well as providing an ordered structure it was decided that we should include a soundtrack to the radio drama, especially since the first half consisted of quickly changing scenes, which might confuse the listener if we did not provide breaks of something more than silence between then dialogue.  

Since we decided on a science fiction drama with comical aspects it was thought the soundtrack should have a solemnity to it in order to juxtapose the surface of the genre we had chosen and to highlight the more serious undertone of our plot. One of our ideas was that the building was a living, reproduction of a planet suffering from the abandonment and abuse of the biological life forms which had once lived there, and keeping with this theme the first idea was simply a heartbeat, as this is a clear indication of life but when played at the right speed and volume it can incite fear in the consumer, something which was felt would help grab their attention.  However this idea was eventually discarded because having listened to a number of radio dramas it was felt that a heartbeat differed too much from the customary jovial, soothing or disturbing melodies that were played through other dramas.

Spirit of Albion by Damh The Bard

The Wheel by Damh The Bard

Two soundtracks which was considered were the Spirit of Albion and The Wheel by Damh the Bard as we felt that it would help to illustrate the point we were trying to make of global warming as its focus on the land, nature and it's glory would almost become an ideal that the characters, and the building in particular, were trying to reach for. Due to the pagan feel of his music however we felt that ultimately they would be too unsuitable for a science fiction drama set in space and we discarded this idea for that reason. Listening to the Damh the Bard it was also decided that for the purposes of our drama we wanted to keep the soundtrack instrumental, so as not to distract from or be confused with the voices of the characters, particular since we wanted the soundtrack to play as a backdrop to the narration.

Hope Springs by Roy Todd

Deciding against openly jovial music and singing for the soundtrack we decided to look into instrumental music and came across Roy Todd’s beautiful and emmotional piano music where we looked at ‘Hope Springs’ among other compositions. We had chosen to look into instrumental music as we thought it would be far more effective in setting an undertone for our radio drama and because we believed it would be better in keeping with our theme, our thinking was further enhanced with listening to ‘Hope Springs’. After much debate however we set the music aside, believing it to sound, as the title had suggested far too hopeful for the mood of either sadness or simple peace that we wanted to achieve.