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When we talk about TV music these days, it's usually about the big, cinematic scores for shows such as "Game of Thrones" or "House of Cards." But you probably don’t realize how much work goes into scoring a half-hour, single-cam sitcom lick ABC's "The Middle."
In a post-production trailer on the Warner Brothers Ranch in Burbank — not far from the sound stages and backlots where "The Middle" is shot — the show’s co-creator, Eileen Heisler, puts the finishing touches on this season's final episode.
For seven years, the show — which stars Patricia Heaton as a mother-of-three — has found humor in the regular lives of a regular family in the Midwest. The New Yorker recently argued that the show, like Heaton's character, is "a low-hype, hardworking, unflashy team player that gets way too little credit.” The same could be said of its composer, Joey Newman.
“The sound that Joey heard for 'The Middle' was 'The Middle,'” Heisler says. “And I don’t think the music has deviated very much, at all, stylistically. I mean, it’s grown, but I think the sound of the show was right there the first time that Joey scored it.”
Initially, Newman says, he “always thought of the show’s music as kind of like Tom Petty-meets-The Cars. There’s like a quirky ’80s feel once in a while, and then it kind of goes right back to the heartland a bit.”
Heisler and Newman watch each episode together in what’s known as a spotting session. It’s Newman's first time seeing the episode, which has been cut to temp music as a reference point. Heisler explains what she wants each cue to do or sound like — from the short bumpers that transition to commercial breaks, to the long and emotional piece that will play over the final minutes.
The next day, Newman is at his studio in Culver City. He’s made some fancy pour-over coffee, and he’s sitting at a desk topped with monitors and musical keyboards. There’s no time to dawdle — this episode’s score is due in a week.
“I’ll pick up my acoustic [guitar], and then go ahead and kind of find something,” he says, explaining how he approaches scoring most scenes. “And I usually always do this to dialogue, so I can still hear what’s always happening. I like writing to picture and dialogue all the time.”
When you add up the various little cues this episode needs, it’s only about four minutes of music. But Newman says that will take him around 12 hours to write. Fortunately, the sound of the show is well established by now.
Demonstrating on his keyboard, Newman says he may start with a string pizzicato foundation. “And then I’ll probably go up to the drums. Then I may go in and I might add some of my little quirky, fun, more analogue kind of [percussion]. Once in a while I like to put in my little güiro. And then, you know, some snaps. And then, of course, right over that I’ll go up here to my organ. All of those usually make up one cue — with my guitars.”
The show’s “house band,” as Newman calls it, is a digital one — sampled instruments inside his computer. But a few days later, another key collaborator in this process comes in to bring some virtuosity — and humanity.
George Doering is a legend in the film and TV scoring community. If it can be strummed, he can play it. He’s given "The Middle" its folksy sound since day one, and he’s the only live player in the show’s score. He knocks out this episode’s 18 different cues — confidently, efficiently — in two hours. The final cue takes 30 minutes to record, as Newman has Doering layer a dozen different parts on top of each other.
After Eileen Heisler approves every cue, they go to the mixing stage where the sound effects, dialogue and score get baked together. And it all happens in one week. Another episode — and season — in the can.
“One might think, Oh, it must be hard to write the same music over and over again,” says Newman, who will be back with the rest of the "Middle" gang this fall for season eight. “It’s actually not. There’s always a challenge, no matter how you look at it.”
The season finale of ABC's "The Middle" airs on May 18.