Unity, Ambiguity, and Flexibility in Theme Music for Game Shows

This chapter will discuss the history of game show music and the current state of game show scholarship. Since such scholarship is nonexistent, the introductory chapter will serve to highlight the need for this kind of research. The closest area of study to game show music is video game music, another flexible form, and a survey of this field will show the differences between the two genres. This chapter will end with a brief overview of game shows of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, as well as a clarification as to which programs will be discussed.

The need for unity is underscored by the unpredictable nature of musical accompaniment: depending on how gameplay proceeds, the theme song will fade in and out as necessary. How does it remain recognizable, even during a secondary motive or a bridge? The answer is through repetition—filling the soundscape with characteristics of the theme song, such as distinctive motives, to drive constant association with the show. This chapter explores techniques used to create such repetition, including motivic transformation and the vamp, in several prominent game shows of the era, including Card Sharks, Concentration, Family Feud, Match Game, Password Plus, and The Price Is Right.

Accompanying music often needs to be cut short or reconfigured depending on the length of elements of gameplay; how does it do so without being noticeable so as not to create a jarring disruption of the listener’s perception? In fact, the music is already disrupted in an intentional manner in order to pre-empt any sudden perceptual fissures due to cut-offs or odd starting locations. This chapter discusses ways in which this effect is achieved, including metrical and hypermetrical idiosyncrasies, formal ambiguity, and harmonic disorientation. Shows featured in this chapter include Card Sharks, I’ve Got a Secret, Jeopardy!, Match Game, Password Plus, Press Your Luck, The Price Is Right, and Wheel of Fortune.

Recent years have shown renewed interest in classic game shows, and, unlike earlier revivals, these new productions attempt to recreate the music of their counterparts of yesteryear. However, the music does not display the kind of formal and metrical ambiguity present in the original compositions; instead, it is significantly recomposed or rearranged to provide a higher degree of sameness and closure. This phenomenon occurs in the modern revivals of Card Sharks, Match Game, Press Your Luck, and The $100,000 Pyramid. Meanwhile, two long-running game shows, Jeopardy! and The Price Is Right, have kept their theme songs but provided periodic updates, and both Family Feud and Wheel of Fortune departed from their original theme songs, only to return later.

This project is an important contribution to filling the significant gap in music theory scholarship: the field of television music is a burgeoning one, and, given their decades-long omnipresence, game shows form an integral part of this area. Unlike the meticulously timed and edited theme songs and cues of sitcoms, dramas, and soap operas, the music for game shows is executed on the fly in a live-to-tape production scenario. There are therefore multiple different outcomes depending on the needs of the episode on any given day: a day with, for instance, eight measures of vamp and four measures of title music might see that ratio reversed the next day, or the closing credits could be presented either abridged or not, necessitating a different length of musical accompaniment. In any case, the decisions governing music for game shows spring from the shows themselves and from associated actions, much as a pit orchestra would repeat a passage if the dialogue lasted longer than necessary.