I love music in TV shows – do you?

I like many of the theme tunes from TV shows and find them quite infectious. As Lee says, they certainly get inside your head.I like the theme tunes for a lot of programmes we never ever watch, or haven’t seen for years, and I can still recall them. I even like the synthetic BBC News intro “music”, and the “Countdown” count down tune [which is reminiscent of the “Beat the Clock” music from “Sunday Night at the London Palladium” [before your time Lee!]. In dramas and films, I wish there was a Red Button-type sub-title facility for checking the sources of tunes and melodies playing in the background – with movies they appear in the credits but they are usually so fast-running or compressed [or obliterated] by a next programme announcement that I can’t catch them. I suppose my all-time favourite was the theme tune from Steptoe & Son . . . clop, clop, clopty-clop, . . . and so on. I also liked the music payed while the Test Card was showing during the daytimes and I think I still have a CD somewhere with many of the tracks on it.

I have to say I get frustrated by background music in TV shows. I get as annoyed by it as with narration or laughter tracks. I think it’s often used as a lazy device to manipulate our emotions when the writers aren’t good enough to achieve that through their script. Narration is a lazy way to show what a character is thinking, or to explain what’s happening, when the acting or script isn’t working hard enough to do that. And laughter tracks are trying to make you laugh at things that aren’t funny.

That’s not to say music can’t be used very well. It’s greatest strength is when it’s not overused in TV or films. If it can act as a counterpoint to the silence in films, where there hasn’t previously been music, then it can be very powerful. Films that get it right – Master & Commander (no music for an hour), Castaway (sound design is amazing), and who can’t help but enjoy the soundtrack to Drive (it’s basically a long music video).

Sorry Lee!

“I love music in TV shows – do you?” No!
Generally drama should stand on its own feet, with a decent script and quality filming, with, when appropriate, good music sparingly used if, and when, it genuinely adds to the story or atmosphere. Much drama on TV is of such a low standard that it probably needs something in the background to cover its deficiencies. Soaps seem the epitomy of this – endless streams of unreal situations where half-decent pop music might provide the entertainment. But then, I’m an engineer with a practical approach to life, and a stiff upper lip.
You can see a play live at the theatre that is thoroughly enjoyable without a musical note in sight.
I enjoy factual programmes, but even these seem to have to have obligatory, and nondescript, background music that often takes over. I remember a recent Countryfile – a well-made programme – that had the commentary drowned out at times by pointless musical noise.
Cinema films rarely seem capable of existing without scores. There are very memorable ones – Lawrence of Arabia was a superb film, made even more so by Maurice Jarre’s score – remember the introduction was a just black screen whilst the overture played? And would Apocalypse Now be the same without helicopters charging to Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries? But then, this was real music by proper composers!
For many programmes (and indeed for shop Muzak) I’d highly recommend a piece entitled 4′ 33″ by the late John Cage.

Background music is there to enhance the storyline, arousing ones emotions by enabling you to experience and ‘feel’ the sadness of the tragedy or the elation of the victory or the excitement of the adventure or the joy of the romance of the subject characters, adding soul to the whole event.

A film without music to me would be like the coffee without the cream or the stew without the salt.