Introduction to Writing Music for Television

As a musician targeting original compositions to Music Libraries I love how this book is designed- to help composers actually write targeted material for TV. It reads like a fun college course for Music Majors who are in the midst of Theory and Form and Analysis classes- only not quite as in depth. The author illustrates what are likely some of the most important concepts to move you forward in your writing skills. Most books I have read in this field do not do this, as they assume you already have that figured out. Already I am incorporating some fresh sophisticated ideas into my music, such as more modal scale sequences and better voicing in my instrumentation as well as giving more attention to mood and drama without "hitting the listener over the head" with it. Since music for TV is not the star of the show, there is an emphasis on improving skills in writing subtly for under dialogue and action. I think this must be a major challenge for many beginning composers, including me! The viewpoint of the author, I believe is primarily for "writing to picture" but I am not doing that, rather pitching cues for random selection by music supervisors working on various media projects worldwide. The book still has great value for me. I am taking it slow getting thru the book so I can thoroughly absorb and enjoy the material. Great book, Michael Kruk!

I was suspicious of this near-A4 book when it arrived. The print and paper quality are fine but the layout looks amateurish: narrow margins and over-large body fontsize to reduce the number of words per line on a page-width chosen to fit some larger-sized diagrams. I doubted the author. Once I started to read, however, I started to smile for here was someone who wrote well and was clearly at pains to share useful information of very practical benefit to the reader (presumably a student of the subject or anyone aspiring to the profession). The author comes across as a thoroughly nice, genuine fellow, keen to share and expertly confident enough not to need to cloud things in overly academic terms. Refreshing and useful! It taught me that you can’t judge a book by its narrow margins and inflated bodyfont size! Plus the guidelines are solid and tasty, too. I guess, also, I don’t need my glasses to read most of it :) P.S. A suggestion for again: increase the margin size, reduce the textbody’s fontsize and use 2 columns for the bodytext 😂👍.

I have been learning to write cues for music libraries for a little over two years. I am starting g to get some placements, but I know there is a lot to be learned, so I am always hungry for new ideas and ways to approach what I do. I find this book to be filled with interesting takes on ways to think about and play the music I am writing. I was an audio engineer at a large performing arts venue for a number of years. I learned a lot about creative thought and that process through osmosis. I think I understand stuff, but do I? I find what I need to embrace these days, is whats inside this book. Simple melodies…simple harmonies….. simple theories…. thats where it starts…with simple. The audio examples included here, along with notation provided, are the means to see that there can be more than one relationship between instruments, movement and structure. When they are moved about, and played with, they make each genre and the way one approaches them quite different. You can see how each piece works the way it does. Scales and progressions are suggested to probe other places to take things in a way thats easy to see and understand…. a great book for beginners, middlers and anyone whose is approaching writing cues with trepidation. If you’ve already been doing this for awhile, I found the authors compositions to be quite enjoyable, and watching his melody twists and arrangement shifts gave me a lot to think about. The movement and theory are quite easy to embrace. I found it myself tinkering with several new ideas for my compositions. This book is great way to see how much more is just below the surface, with concepts that I for one took for granted and overlooked. There is a ton of stuff here that can be held up to the light and studied. There is a lot of information in this book, and I am going through it all, SLOWLY… I will write again after a deeper dip. But by all means, check it out.

This book 'Writing Music for Television' is a great place to start if, like myself, you are new to this subject and looking for an overview of the composers role and skill set required for this particular genre. There are some great insights via quotations from renowned composers. The chapters are well laid out and make for a good flow and easy reading. The examples are well notated and together with the accompanying downloadable audio tracks serve as valuable illustrations of the subject being discussed. It's not a dense book by any stretch and can be read in a weekend easily. All in all a great insiders introduction into the creation of music for TV, without getting bogged down with pages of fine detail. I enjoyed reading it very much and would recommend it to any student without hesitation.

Get this book. It is the most helpful guide I have found to learn about writing music for TV, and more. There are many insights, and excellent real world examples - you will learn so much. Many of the examples will be familiar to you from TV shows in popular culture, and it will help your work click into place. You will want to apply and practice the techniques to your music from what you learn in this book.