{"id":19535,"date":"2022-10-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-03T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/?post_type=purple_issue&p=19535"},"modified":"2022-10-06T11:41:17","modified_gmt":"2022-10-06T09:41:17","slug":"the-listening-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/2022\/10\/04\/the-listening-service\/","title":{"rendered":"The Listening Service"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

THE LISTENING SERVICE<\/strong> <\/h4>\n\n

Sounds of our lives<\/h2>\n\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n

Often dismissed as not \u2018real\u2019 music, television theme tunes are in fact succinct snippets of musical magic, capable of capturing a time and mood, says Tom Service <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

\n\n
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ILLUSTRATION: MARIA CORTE MAIDAGAN<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

They\u2019re the pieces of music, miniature mandalas of memory and meaning, that we\u2019ve all heard as much as any sounds in our lives. They make existential bridges between a real world of grinding mundanity to places of drama, fantasy and escapism. <\/p>\n\n

I mean, of course, TV themes: the most familiar, nostalgic and takenfor-granted \u2013 and now dangerously neglected \u2013 form of compositional creativity in the musical world. <\/p>\n\n

Their taken-for-granted status is a condition of their success. If the shows they frame are really popular, TV themes are hardly heard as music at all: in soap operas, they are instant sonic portals to Ramsay Street, the Queen Vic or the Rovers Return. <\/p>\n\n

Eric Spear\u2019s music for Coronation <\/em>Street <\/em>is the single most-played theme tune on terrestrial telly. Its 22 seconds of exquisitely distilled nostalgia lead us gently into the drama of Corrie\u2019s characters in 10,000-and-counting episodes since 1960. Spear remembered that his brief for the tune was a mass of competing ideas: \u2018They wanted something melodic, but not too much so. They wanted something rhythmic, but it mustn\u2019t be jazz. They wanted something exciting, but it mustn\u2019t be too thrilling.\u2019 Somehow, Spear fulfilled that impossible-sounding commission in music that\u2019s both upbeat and melancholic, with that cornet languidly soloing over a laid-back jazz band. For those of us who grew up with it, Spear\u2019s music is the sound of a nation gathering round the communal tellybox. <\/p>\n\n

Spear\u2019s pioneering artform has had any number of virtuosic successors in British TV, from Denis King\u2019s suavely seductive Lovejoy <\/em>to Simon May\u2019s onceheard, never-forgotten tune for Howards\u2019 <\/em>Way, <\/em>and Carl Davis\u2019s cod-classical concerto for Pride <\/em>and <\/em>Prejudice. <\/em><\/p>\n\n

The taken-for-granted status of TV themes is a condition of their success <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

My favourite is Anne Dudley\u2019s music for ITV\u2019s Jeeves <\/em>and <\/em>Wooster, <\/em>in which the unforgettable art deco dance-band earworm she composed for the theme tune is used throughout the shows as a leitmotif, becoming everything from a parody of Wagner to Vaughan Williams. <\/p>\n\n

And in the streaming era, TV themes have entered another golden age, from the epically serious medievaliana of Ramin Djawadi\u2019s <\/span>Game <\/em>of <\/em>Thrones <\/em>to the sounds of narcissistic dissolution that Nicholas Britell created for the fetid family drama of <\/span>Succession.<\/em><\/p>\n\n

But there\u2019s a threat to this everdeveloping artform: the \u2018Skip Intro\u2019 button on streaming services like Netf lix. It\u2019s estimated that 136 million intros are skipped every day around the world. For Britell, that\u2019s a TV-theme tragedy, since those millions of introskippers are missing out on the essential atmosphere-creation of theme tunes and their title sequences. <\/p>\n\n

I think Britell is right: let\u2019s all do our bit to recognise the creativity of TV composers and allow the brilliance of their theme tunes to burrow into our consiousnesses. Don\u2019t skip the intros! <\/p>\n\n

\n\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n

Tom Service explores how music works in The Listening Service <\/em>on Sundays at 5pm<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE LISTENING SERVICE Sounds of our lives Often dismissed as not \u2018real\u2019 music, television theme tunes are in fact succinct snippets of musical magic, capable of capturing a time and mood, says Tom Service They\u2019re the pieces of music, miniature mandalas of memory and meaning, that we\u2019ve all heard as much as any sounds in 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LISTENING SERVICE Sounds of our lives Often dismissed as not \u2018real\u2019 music, television theme tunes are in fact succinct snippets of musical magic, capable of capturing a time and mood, says Tom Service They\u2019re the pieces of music, miniature mandalas of memory and meaning, that we\u2019ve all heard as much as any sounds 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