Part of the music question has to be traced down to my own personal
tastes. The way music works in an episodic program is like this:

Once the show is edited, we sit down to "spot" the episode. This
puts me, the sound effects people, dialogue editors, post-production
supervisor, line producer, Chris Franke, and me into a room where we
watch the episode through. We note where dialogue may have to be dubbed
or enhanced; what kinds of sounds we want with, for instance, various
kinds of interiors or visual EFX...and where the mucis comes in, and where
it goes out, and what *kind* of music it should be.

Generally, I pick the in- and out-cues for the music, though often
John Copeland or Christ will jump in if they think I've missed something,
or argue if they think it shouldn't start or stop at a given point. Often,
once the cue for a given section is picked, I'll leave Chris to come up
with whatever style music he thinks is appropriate. This is about 90% of
the time. About 10% of the time, I'll have a very specific idea about
the music, and will convey this to him as best I can.

Overall, though, I've always told Chris to push it...to go absolutely
as far with the music as he wants. If it goes too far, we can always pull
it back or duck it down a little. Basically, I'm a rock-and-roll kind of
guy...I like my music loud, and I like a LOT of it. This show is often
wall-to-wall music. Chris often composes as much as 20-25 minutes of new
music per episode; most hour shows have maybe 13-16 minutes of music per
hour episode. And he is often called upon by us to do some VERY long
cues. Often, TV music is just there to cover a transition (10-20 seconds),
or establish a mood at the top or bottom of a scene, and get out (1 minute
to 1 minute-30 seconds average). We have many, MANY cues on this show
that go 2, 3, even 4 minutes. I think we actually had a 6 minute cue at
one point in one episode. Check act 3 of "Signs and Portents" and see how
much music we crammed into that act; it's almost non-stop.

I like percussion, strings, woodwinds and horns, and I'm not as big
on keyboard (synth or otherwise), and generally our music tends to reflect
this. I like music that is exciting and dynamic. Sometimes perhaps we
do a smidge too much of this, but I think it's better to err on the dynamic
side than on the snooze side.

jms

OKAY, OKAY, SO CHRIST AND THE TWO ME'S WERE IN ON THE MUSIC SPOTTING
SECTION! I ADMIT IT! ANYBODY ELSE GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT?

...sigh...I can't win.

Typos have always been the bane of my existence. I once did a humor
column for the university newspaper. Did an Easter column. Wrote,
"Celebrated Easter by running down a rabbit." Okay, not great humor, but
what do you expect in college? One problem: due to a typesetting typo,
the column comes out reading, "Celebrated Easter by running down a rabbi."

The Jewish Student Union -- in the person of five very large men
waiting for me when I arrived, all unknowing, on campus the next
morning -- was *not* amused.

sjm