TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Instrumental Theme Tune

Go To

A Theme Tune without lyrics. Often, there is some attempt to thematically match the instrumentals to the tone of the show; a noble, orchestral theme for high drama, something brassy and mysterious for Speculative Fiction, something fast and powerful for an Adventure Series, something quirky and odd for a comedy show. Often, such a theme tune will be adapted from an obscure old symphony piece.

Far and away the most common style of Theme Tune for American drama series.

Note that some Instrumental Theme Tunes actually possess Forgotten Theme Tune Lyrics. Subtrope to Instrumentals.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • The 2004 ADV distribution of Area 88 has Mission: Fuga, a remix of Bach's Little Fugue.
  • Baccano! has "Gun's & Roses" by Paradise Lunch, a jazzy instrumental track that fits with the series' Prohibition era setting.
  • Cowboy Bebop's theme song, "Tank", has a few spoken words in the beginning, but is mostly a Charles Mingus-esque big-band jazz number.
  • Crest of the Stars and its sequels use a brass-heavy symphonic theme, as composed by the late Katsuhisa Hattori.
  • Deltora Quest (the American version only)
  • Devil May Cry: The Animated Series has "d.m.c." by rungran for its opening song, NOT to be confused with Run–D.M.C..
  • Divergence Eve has a lyric-less metal/techno/rock opening.
  • Aside from a narration courtesy of Dan Green, the opening for the 4Kids dub of F-Zero: GP Legend goes like this.
  • Emma: A Victorian Romance's opening theme, "Silhouette of a Breeze", is an orchestral piece accompanied by piano. The second season's theme is "Silhouette of a Breeze: Celt version", which is a different arrangement using Celtic instruments like the flute and harp.
  • Fushigi Yuugi has some instrumentals itself, but in a subversion: What seems like the backing track to an Image Song with lyrics is actually an entirely different song. (i.e. "Inoru You Ni Aishiteru"/"Romantic", "Ai To Iu Na No Tatakai Ni"/"Sassou To...", "I Wish"/"Music Box")
  • Gungrave's theme song, "Family".
  • Like Cowboy Bebop above, Gunsmith Cats also opens its episodes with a jazzy instrumental.
  • GUN×SWORD opens with what can only be described as a spaghetti western theme played with traditional Japanese instruments.
  • Haibane Renmei's "Free Bird", later becoming a Leitmotif.
  • The anime adaptation of Hetalia: Axis Powers has an orchestral opening theme.
  • Marvel Anime: Iron Man and Marvel Anime: Wolverine both have instrumental rock themes as opening and ending songs.
  • There are several versions of the theme song of Lupin III, both instrumental (the majority, including the original second-series one) and vocal (the second opening of the second series, and various Lupin-related jazz albums). The original 1971 series had a completely different theme, but it's not as memorable, and hasn't been used since the new one was written in 1977.
  • Najica Blitz Tactics has a jazzy/big band instrumental opening theme.
  • The OVA of Read or Die opens with an instrumental piece that sounds like a James Bond homage.
  • Robotech featured an instrumental theme by composer Ulpio Minucci, which helped distinguish the series from those of the decade and hinted at the show's ambitions.
  • The first opening of Shadows House is a classical and somewhat jazzy instrumental piece.
  • Space☆Dandy, although only for the initial broadcasts in the US, before switching to the vocal version of "Viva Namida"
  • The American release of Speed Grapher uses an instrumental opening theme ("Shutter Speed"), though the Japanese release uses Duran Duran's "Girls on Film".
  • International dubs of Stitch! use an instrumental opening theme for the first two seasons. The third season's intro contains lyrics, as do all three Japanese opening themes.
  • Street Fighter II V (the American version only)
  • Tamagotchi Friends, a webtoon adaptation of Tamagotchi! condensing the first seven episodes of the Tamagotchi! Yume Kira Dream story arc into shorts that are about four minutes long, uses an Extremely Short Intro Sequence with a song that has no audible lyrics.
  • Trigun has, essentially, a long guitar solo as a theme tune.
  • Tweeny Witches opens with an orchestral instrument theme by composer Tamiya Terashima.
  • Yona of the Dawn: An orchestral instrumental piece for its first opening.
  • The English dub of Yu-Gi-Oh! SEVENS uses an upbeat synth/rock tune for both openings.

    Asian Animation 
  • The theme song for Akis does not have vocals.
  • The theme song for Andy Pirki does not have any vocals.
  • Cupid's Chocolates does not have vocals in its theme song for the first season. The second season's opening does have lyrics, however.
  • Fun Alliance: One "Yee-haw!" notwithstanding, there are no real lyrics in the series' theme song.
  • The very Turkish-sounding theme song of King Shakir has no lyrics.
  • The short nature of Lamput episodes (15 seconds in the first season, two minutes and five minutes for later seasons) doesn't leave too much time for vocals in what little it has of a theme song, as the intro was made to be about three seconds long.
  • The Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Around the World in 20 Days opening has no singing.
  • The theme for Stitch & Ai doesn't have any vocals save for a brief moment of male singers saying "Woo!" in the background and a couple(?) female singers lightly singing "Ah!" at the very end.
  • Tobot Galaxy Detectives: The opening and closing theme tune for the series is played on a rock and roll guitar.

    Eastern European Animation 
  • Fantasy Patrol has this in season 1. Season 2 has a completely different tune with lyrics.
  • Hungarian Folk Tales has a short tune played on flute and cello accompanying its title sequence.

    Films — Live-Action 

    Live-Action TV 

    Music 
  • Most orchestral pieces for operas or musicals or thematic music. And some pieces for children.
    • Peter and the Wolf
    • Beethoven's Sixth Symphony - The Pastoral
    • Grieg's Incidental music for Peer Gynt.
    • A Child's Guide to the Orchestra.
  • Several radio countdown shows, including Ur-Example American Top 40 and its spin-off American Country Countdown, tend to use instrumentals when opening a show, saving vocalizations for Ad Bumpers. Subverted in that some shows like Rick Dees' Weekly Top 40 use the bumpers as the theme music.

    Podcasts 
  • Though Welcome to Night Vale features plenty of eerie background music and a new guest song during the "weather" section, it always opens with The Ballad of Fiedler and Mundt by Disparition.

    Sports 
  • Sport "series" on television will sometimes have short themes, usually memorable riffs from songs.
    • Formula One (when on the BBC) it's Fleetwood Mac's The Chain.
    • When NBC had the rights to the NBA, the opening tune was "Roundball Rock" by John Tesh. Tesh jokes that he came up with the tune while on the road and called his answering machine to record a vocal version before he forgot.
    • ABC repurposed part of the theme from The Delta Force for their Indianapolis 500 coverage in the 1990s through 2001..

    Theatre 
  • Victor Herbert's The Red Mill is one of the few musicals to have an instrumental theme running through the show.

    Video Games 
  • Most old video games did not have the power to include lyrics with their songs, so they have instrumental themes instead. Several series that started during this area, like The Legend of Zelda, continue to go without vocal themes even in the modern age.
  • Kahoot!: The lobby theme only has computer instruments and no vocals.
  • The intro to Cortex Command, using mostly old-style sound effects.
  • The intro to Tales of the Abyss is instrumental in English due to unwillingness to dub the song. This was avoided in later Tales games (thus far Tales of Vesperia and Tales of Graces) by having the artists in question speak both English and Japanese.
  • The theme from Battlefield in all its incarnations. The 2142 version in particular.
  • The Elder Scrolls: Arena through Oblivion have this, though the series' Recurring Riff (the "Elder Scrolls theme") was only introduced in Morrowind when Bethesda brought in Jeremy Soule as composer.
    • Averted in Skyrim. The story goes that one day director Todd Howard called up Soule and said, "I hear the Elder Scrolls theme as sung by a barbarian choir." Soule basically shrugged and did what he was told; the result was "Dragonborn".
  • Neverwinter Nights 2 and its expansions.
  • Kingdom Hearts has Sanctuary/Passion and Simple and Clean/Hikari, but ignoring those the main theme tune of the series would be the Recurring Riff Dearly Beloved(KH1,KH2,Birth by Sleep,re:Coded,Chain of Memories,3D,358/2 Days take your pick), which is normally just piano and some strings playing a fairly simple melody during the menu screen and particularly Heart Is an Awesome Power moments. And boy is it amazing.
  • The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC has an opening theme simply called "Trails in the Sky that acts as a medley of various themes with a heavy emphasis on the "Whereabouts of Light" and the nameless, Recurring Riff that accompanies particularly emotional or epic scenes. Later games in the series, along with the Evolution remake of FC, use lyrical themes based on tracks in their games.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog first received a vocal theme for Sonic CD, and 3D games have consistently had them since Sonic Adventure. However, there are a few oddities:
    • Sonic Unleashed is the most unique example because it has two completely different main themes, a vocal one "Endless Possibility" and and instrumental one, "The World Adventure". The latter would be more recurring and mixed into the melodies, similar to other vocal themes, while the former was reserved for the credits and final battle. In games since Unleashed, "The World Adventure" is usually the representative theme of the game due to "Endless Possibility" being Screwed by the Lawyers, with only Generations being the exception.
    • According to Takashi Iizuka in a guidebook on Sonic Forces, Sonic Generations was set to have a vocal theme, but it was vetoed by Sega of America due to them being disliked by Western reviewers. As such, it and the next game, Sonic Lost World would lack vocal themes. Instead, Generations would repurpose the classic main theme of the first two Sonic games, while Lost World would use a new instrumental theme, "Wonder World".
  • The Splatoon series is an interesting case, where many of the games' songs do have lyrics, including its Bootstrapped Theme "Splattack!", but they're all sung in unintelligible Conlang. The in-universe band SashiMori (introduced in Splatoon 2) does sample human vocals for their songs, but they're chopped up beyond all recognition.
  • Neptunia Riders VS Dogoos: Unlike previous games, which have lyrics in their intros, this game has no vocals in its theme song, instead playing what seems to be synthetic pop action music throughout its duration.

    Web Animation 
  • AstroLOLogy and its signature theme tune of whistling. The Japanese dub has its own additional opening and ending themes.
  • Bonus Stage
  • Bowser's Koopalings
  • CAPTAIN YAJIMA, aside from a Narrator introducing the show's title.
  • Carl
  • CartoonMania uses an instrumental theme song, as creator Matthew Littlemore admitted that he just simply couldn't think up any good lyrics for the opening.
  • Donkey Kong Island
  • The G0ATFAC3 Corner used one of these, titled "Let's Play!", for Season One. The series would swap to a vocal theme tune for Seasons Two and Three.
  • Gobblety Tobblety: The opening theme is a wordless piece consisting of a few different instrument sections.
  • Over The Hills
  • It would be easier to make a list of Object Shows that do not have instrumental theme songs. Even the more popular shows like Battle for Dream Island and Inanimate Insanity are guilty of this. note 
  • Talking Tom And Friends

    Webcomics 

    Web Videos 
  • The Nostalgia Critic (an instrumental of "The Review Must Go On")
  • The Oddity Archive theme song from episode 6 onwards, "Pavanned", does not contain any spoken lyrics.
  • SinceThe Guild centers on an MMORPG guild, and the opening sequence shows drawings of everyone's in-game avatars, the title theme is an instrumental modeled after video game music.

    Western Animation 

Top

The Simpsons Intro

This is the first adaptation of the long running Simpsons Intro, which has been altered many times since. It was first seen in the show’s second episode ‘Bart the Genius’.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (6 votes)

Example of:

Main / InstrumentalThemeTune

Media sources:

Report