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

Know about the book -

Unity, Ambiguity, and Flexibility in Theme Music for Game Shows is written by Christopher Gage and published by Springer Nature. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 3031468066 (ISBN 10) and 9783031468063 (ISBN 13).

With flashing lights, bright colors, and big money, game shows have been an integral part of American culture since the days of radio. While the music that accompanies game shows is charming and catchy, it presents two unique, opposing challenges: first, it must exhibit unity in its construction so that, at any point and for any length of time, it is a tuneful, recognizable signifier of the show to which it belongs; at the same time, it must also possess the ability to be started and stopped according to the needs of gameplay without seeming truncated. This book argues that game show music, in particular from 1960 to 1990, deploys a variety of shared techniques in order to manage these two goals, including theme-derived vamps; saturation of motivic material; and harmonic, rhythmic, and formal ambiguity. Together, these techniques make game show themes exciting, memorable, and perfectly suited to their role.