Board Thread:The Reference Desk/@comment-24.247.115.223-20130121231327/@comment-188432-20130122053223

Of course, within the confines of a forum post, I can rustle you up my opinions of his musical predilections.

The First Doctor of course faked playing the lyre in The Romans. The issue of whether he liked lyre music is quite beside the point of the story, though, so it's probably not safe to say much about his musical tastes. We know he didn't have the same reaction to The Beatles as Ian, though. Thank goodness.

Two, of course, famously played the recorder, but only for a period of time that was much briefer than is commonly assumed. In fact, he really only had the recorder for his first few stories. By about The Macra Terror, he dropped the recorder and his musical side altogether. The Three Doctors and various Doctor Who annuals brought back the recorder — but neither were accurately portraying the vast majority of the Second Doctor's televised appearances.

Three was constantly humming something, especially while driving. It was kinda what Pertwee did in those moments where a companion wasn't in shot with him. Although he mostly confined himself to classical or traditional music (read: stuff that was out of copyright), he did at least once show a fondness for modern music. Immediately prior to Jo Grant's arrival in Terror of the Autons, he's clearly heard singing "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" by. To my mind, though, it's unclear that this is the Third Doctor actually expressing a preference so much as Pertwee setting up a little joke. Immediately after singing this, smoke appears on set. "On fire" — get it? Yeah, it's not exactly subtle humour.

If Three hummed traditional melodies, Four whistled them. Before JNT got in there and sucked the fun out of Doctor Who, Four whistled the "Colonel Bogey March" in three different serials in the Hinchcliffe and Williams' eras.

The Celery Dude was the least overtly musical incarnation since the first. I can't think of an expression of interest in music at any time on television. But we do know he could read music and play the harp to some level of proficiency, since we see him do it in The Five Doctors.

We know that Sixie knew who Count Basie was, and implied that Basie was in some way a superlative musician. (The Gift) Does this mean he liked Count Basie?  I dunno.  He also has some ability to play music, as "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" is what he uses as a key to unlock [[the TARDIS when its exterior is in the form of an organ.  Does this mean he likes Bach?  Well, I dunno.  But would you make your musical key something you hated''?  See, speculation.  That's why I'm writing this here rather than in a regular article.

We do know, thanks to Big Finish, that he definitely likes Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. That's rather the point of AUDIO: My Own Private Wolfgang. we also know — again thanks to writer Robert Shearman — that he learned how to waltz and foxtrot, which would be pretty hard to do if you hated those styles of music. (PROSE: Teach Yourself Ballroom Dancing)

Seven was absolutely a jazz fan, particularly of the "smooth-blowing" style of Courtney Pine. We know, cause he says it directly in Silver Nemesis — "this is my favourite kind of jazz". His love of jazz is finally confirmed in the 1996 tele-film, where we hear him playing a jazz singer right before he dies. However, he also must know Giacomo Puccini, since he recognises it on the operating table. Hard to know whether he likes Puccini, but his successor certainly does. It's kinda integral to the plot of the TVM that Eight loves Puccini and Madame Butterfly. It gives him a point of commonality with Grace.

Nine is a Sinatra fan, apparently — or maybe a Guys and Doll fan — since he launches into "Luck Be a Lady" shortly after entering Rose's flat in Rose. He also has some native music ability, since we see him playing an alien instrument of some kind in Dalek. As far as I know, this is the only occurrence of any incarnation playing a non-human instrument in a televised story.

As stated above, I think we can also safely assume that Ten loved Ian Dury and the Blockheads, thanks to the opening scene of Tooth and Claw. (In fact, this is kinda consistent with Silver Nemesis since "" has an extensive saxophone solo section that could be described as "smooth blowing".

We also know that Ten fancied himself a classical composer, because of Music of the Spheres, which implies he must have had some sort of favourites among other composers. We know he likes opera from the comic story Opera of Doom!. It's also possible to infer that he likes the soundtrack of The Lion King, since he subconsciously quotes from it in The Christmas Invasion. We could theoretically extrapolate that he loves the songs of The Muppet Movie, since it's hard to imagine how he could love that film without also loving the music.

We also know a little about Ten's dislikes. He hates David Hasselhoff, according to the book Autonomy.

The Eleventh Doctor has made all sorts of claims about the people with whom he's played music. We see him rapping in Pond Life. He says he played a recorder while jamming with Charlie Parker, the triangle during the recording of "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle", and the piano with Franz Schubert. He also squeezed in a duet with Frank Sinatra in 1952 and somehow arranged for Stevie Wonder to show up in 19th century London. If he and River are to be believed, then, he appears to have a wide range of musical tastes — not to mention the widest range of actual musical ability of any of the Doctors. Of course, it's an explicit plot point of the Eleventh Doctor that the Doctor lies.

If you want more, I suggest you take a stroll through category:music from the real world, category:musicians from the real world, category:songs from the real world, category:instrumental compositions from the real world and category:musical groups from the real world.