On this week's Radio Motherboard, How The X Files Theme Song Was Made. Listen here and subscribe on iTunes.Hollywood, California, 1992. Mark Snow was in his garage studio tinkering with some ideas. He was already a pro at TV scores—dramas, procedurals, comedies—when a producer recommended him to Chris Carter, a veteran of Disney TV movies who needed music for his new TV pilot, an unlikely paranormal procedural called The X Files. As he sat at his keyboard one day, stumped in his search for the right theme music, Snow put his elbow on the keys. He had accidentally engaged a delay effect. A spooky electronic echo darted out of the monitors. That's a start, he thought.
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His wife Glynn was walking past the garage, and stuck her head in. "Ah, that's interesting.""She's a very good whistler, so I said, 'Why don't you whistle along? It'll give it a little extra zest.'"He recorded her, mixed it with the synths, and called Carter to let him know he was ready to play him a few versions of a new 40-second piece.The original version of the opening sequence with Snow's theme music, used in the 2015 productionCarter listens and "he says, 'Well, that's good. Alright. Let's go with that.' No big deal, no fanfare. Nobody knew what was coming next."What came next, among other things, was a new era for television music. Snow's spooky and avant-garde synth work covered most of The X Files' 50-minute episodes, with a rich cinematic flair that would influence the TV that followed. "Oftentimes," Carter told NPR, "what scares you most on The X-Files is not what you see—it's what you hear.""I said, 'Why don't you whistle along? It'll give it a little extra zest.'"
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