Stupid Music Rant

[the.fee.fairy]

Argh! Why is it that all modern documentaries have to have a constant stream of stupid music?

I'm watching the very nice Wartime Kitchen and Garden at the moment. Don't know what year. Looks like late 70s/early 80s. It's nice. Every time they show you something useful, there's no music over them so you can hear what they're saying clearly.

It's good to have some silence in programmes, why can't the maker's realise this? Background music is distracting!!

[Odsox]

I found that Sky in particular had program ending credits music so loud that you couldn't hear the announcer who was presumably telling us what was an next. You hear somebody talking but no way could you hear what was being said.
Then I got my audio system installed properly and found that in Dolby 5.1 which nearly all TV stations transmit in, the credit music is on the back speakers only and the announcer is on the front speakers only.
Dead easy to hear what's being said, but only if you have Dolby 5.1.

[the.fee.fairy]

I don't mind the credit music being loud, it's the incessant stream of music during the programme. Why? Why can't we just have silent bits?

It's like they're trying to make documentaries more dramatic by using mood music. A documentary, usually, is not a dramatic thing, it's factual. I want to know the facts, not that i should be thinking that this particular thing is more exciting than the last thing.

[Maykal]

US documentaries have been doing it for years. Many shows made by or for the big documentary channels (NG, Discovery, et all) are recorded with different narration tracks, using an English narrator for the show's UK broadcast and and US one for US broadcast. As a result, what seems like an English documentary might actually be US-produced and therefore displays their production values, which generally means it runs like a 60-minute film trailer with constant dramatic background music and 'after the break we'll...' segments.

[the.fee.fairy]

It's irritating!

I'm watching the rest of Edwardian Farm now (watched half of it yesterday) and it's so loud! I've turned the volume down, but it's the sheer amount of noise coming out. Voices, voiceovers, stupid music.

I feel like i concentrated and learnt more from the wartime kitchen and garden than the Edwardian farm. That's because when they're telling you something the music shuts up!

It's like a constant soundtrack.

[MKG]

???????

Interesting - that's not how I remember it, Fee.

I assume you watched this in China?

Mike

[the.fee.fairy]

Yep. I've finished watching it now. I watch whatever my local DVD shop happens to have in.

It's quieter than other documentaries (I'm watching Raising the Dead now...which has the constant background music) but still had too much music for my liking.

Raising the Dead (the one where they get the skeletons from different fighting men) has the 'mood music' - low always bloody there!