Posted by Kevin Arnovitz

Maybe it's this TrueHoop gig, but standing in the water aisle at Trader Joe's the other day, the strangest melody popped in my head: The NBA on CBS Theme Song from the 1980s [scroll down]. Is it an expression of nostalgia that gives me chills when I hear it, or is the arrangement sheer symphonic genius? To find out, I asked my buddy, Marc Williams, a classical music conductor who, among other things, leads a new music group, the Second Instrumental Unit.

Follow along with Marc's analysis (with the Brent Musburger link within the "CBS NBA Basketball (1982)" section):

The best way I could justify my music degrees and tens of thousands in student loans is by offering an analysis of retired NBA theme songs. Here you go:

All the seeds are planted in the first 13 seconds; the genius and craftsmanship is the way Musburger unravels it.

The Overture: There's a big slide upwards as the CBS logo gives way to the court. It's nice opening touch. The slide resolves the question mark posed by the introductory staccato brass fanfare, those first eight notes you hear. At :09, that six note brass motif (three long ascending notes, then three short exclamatory notes) is the bridge to Act One of our grand work, and Musburger's entrance.

( :13) Act One: After a short pause, we get the same material as earlier, but this time it takes on much more significance. Here, like Musburger's language, the music adds emphasis with the timpani, which seems to set off subsequent harmonic changes in the music that increase the drama. Coming out of the Clint Richardson clip (the end of Act One), the music suddenly leaps upwards in its register by introducing a soaring solo trumpet theme, punctuated by the timpani. They both crescendo toward the next major arrival point, a short interlude sets up Act Two.

(:38) Act Two has a slight harmonic difference, but is just as compelling, if not more so, in its drive. Musburger raises the stakes by introducing the protagonists of this work -- Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Moses Malone. At :52, we get the foreshadowing of the later, more extensive guitar solo. The second interlude, leading up to the dramatic high point of our work, is identical to the first.

(1:02) Act Three, our final act, begins with the aforementioned guitar solo that can be described only as so 1982. Then, a doubling in the higher register lightens up the mood after the guitar solo, leading to our six note motif from earlier. This time, the effect is greater as it is more drawn out and more articulated. We have our big finish.

Then, as the graphics give way to the fade in on the Spectrum Court, we have our epilogue.

What makes this theme work is the organicism between Musburger and the ebb and flow of the music. It feels natural; the pauses work so well at creating gravitas and an expectation of what's to come. Most of all, Musburger masterfully maintains the tension, which makes the piece.

There was nothing hip, or even contemporary about CBS's theme. In fact, it was earnest to the core. But even with the archaic, stone-age, pre-digital graphics, it felt dramatically event-ish, not cheesy. For his part, Marc isn't so impressed with the short clip of John Tesh's NBA on NBC theme (scroll farther down the page):

Where we had heavy brass and weightiness in the CBS theme, here John Tesh is able to take us to a place quickly and without fanfare or elaborate introduction. The music is driven by high strings which are inherently more acrobatic. This is 90s music with adrenaline. In its minimalism and compactness of gesture, it's much more Philip Glass than Richard Wagner.

At :17, Tesh begins to play around with your expectations. He displaces the music with a beat, creating a very syncopated pulse. Tesh, as does the CBS theme, utilizes a guitar solo, though his is more extensive. In the CBS theme, the purpose of the guitar solo was to create a contrast to the seriousness and weight of the piece. In Tesh's work, the guitar is a much more fundamental component of the structure. It contrasts the first 2/3 of the piece by dropping the register several octaves, and then through use of syncopation, harmonic progression, and upward movement, it delivers the piece with an ending as quick and abrupt as the piece began. In this respect, it's very cyclical.

Honestly, even keeping in mind that this is the abbreviated cut, Tesh's piece is more of a one-trick pony, never truly capturing the gravitas that CBS achieves. Tesh engages in a repetitive, simply constructed monologue, never playing with one of the most fundamental materials of music: Silence.

In 2002, Darren Rovell wrote about the life and death of "Roundball Rock," Tesh's theme. As you well know, ABC uses as its theme "Fast Break," an arrangement by Non-Stop Music; though for the playoffs, it favors the adoption of annual themes borrowed from the Black Eyed Peas and the Pussycat Dolls, among others.