Incidental TV music - for the non-fans

[Maurice]

Yeah, agreed. In the past, I find that a lot of TV shows tended to rely on having stock music ready-to-go (TOS, for example, did this a lot), slapping it on top of scenes regardless of whether or not it fit. Today, I find that composers tend to be a lot more nuanced....

That's not entirely fair to the composers of those older shows. The contracts with the music unions at that time allowed for re-use of musical cues within certain limitations, so on a TV show with a limited budget of course you used your stock cues, just as you would a stock shot. As years wore on the contracts changed and this practice of "tracking" more or less went bye bye. If the rules still allowed it, you'd still be hearing music recycled. The composers in the past were not un-nuanced, it's just difficult to know what the pieces were originally written for.

 

[Canadave]

Yeah, agreed. In the past, I find that a lot of TV shows tended to rely on having stock music ready-to-go (TOS, for example, did this a lot), slapping it on top of scenes regardless of whether or not it fit. Today, I find that composers tend to be a lot more nuanced....

That's not entirely fair to the composers of those older shows. The contracts with the music unions at that time allowed for re-use of musical cues within certain limitations, so on a TV show with a limited budget of course you used your stock cues, just as you would a stock shot. As years wore on the contracts changed and this practice of "tracking" more or less went bye bye. If the rules still allowed it, you'd still be hearing music recycled. The composers in the past were not un-nuanced, it's just difficult to know what the pieces were originally written for.

Oh, it's no fault of the composers, I entirely understand why producers would do it. It just detracts from the score a lot when stock pieces are used, regardless of how good the music is. Courage was a very good composer, but his scores tended to feel overwraught because they weren't done on a per-episode basis. Again, not his fault, but it really takes away from the quality of the score.

 

[mimic]

The main guy in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" is a television composer who pretty much views it as a way to pay the bills rather than as a creative endeavor. A lot of tv scores are like the one the character does, I think - used for setting a mood in a scene and little more.

Really the only shows that I have noticed the music have been BSG and Doctor Who. Murray Gold's stuff can be a bit much at times; he's not big on being subtle. Bear's scores easily rival some of the best film scores.