Fourscore

Fourscore

"Fourscore" was the signature tune used by Channel 4 in the United Kingdom for 14 years, from 1982 to 1996. It was composed by Lord David Dundas. Excluding test transmissions prior to launch, the complete 4 minute long piece was played in full only three times on the channel, once at its launch at 16:45 on November 2 1982, and then again twice when the channel expanded its schedule to include afternoon programming. Various short excerpts from the piece, which were the various orchestrations of the same four note melody, in the key of F Major, were used to accompany the channel ident used between programmes. For each time the music was used for the ident, Dundas received a royalty of £3.50, which totalled approximately £1000 per week. At the time, the sequence of four notes was the shortest musical piece to be copyrighted.

A related piece with the same four-note theme, "Fourscore II", was used by the channel to accompany stills in the event of technical faults, and was played during commercial breaks (and thus was only heard by viewers if their regional ITV franchise had not sold enough advertising to fill the timeslot. This was fairly common occurrence during the first few months of Channel 4's existence due to an industrial dispute which meant that no advertisements featuring Equity members could be broadcast).

The two pieces were issued on a single by Polydor Records, credited to The Airwave Orchestra.

References

* cite web
url=http://musicthing.blogspot.com/2005/05/tiny-music-makers-pt-5-channel-4.html
work=TINY MUSIC MAKERS
title=Pt 5: The Channel 4 Jingle
accessdate=2005-12-05
* cite web
url=http://www.transdiffusion.org/emc/seefour/back.php
author=David Hastings
work=EMC Seefour
title=Back to 1982
accessdate=2005-12-05


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  • Fourscore — Four score (f[=o]r sk[=o]r ), a. [Four + core, n.] Four times twenty; eighty. [1913 Webster] …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • Fourscore — Four score , n. The product of four times twenty; eighty units or objects. [1913 Webster] …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • fourscore — “eighty,” mid 13c., “formerly current as an ordinary numeral” [OED], from FOUR (Cf. four) + SCORE (Cf. score) …   Etymology dictionary

  • fourscore — [fôr′skôr′] adj., n. [ME] four times twenty; eighty …   English World dictionary

  • fourscore — noun Eighty Even those that were numbered of them, were eight thousand and five hundred and fourscore. Numbers 4:48 …   Wiktionary

  • fourscore — Synonyms and related words: L, Sexagesima, boxcar, boxcars, dozen, duodecimo, eighty, eleven, fifteen, fifty, five and twenty, fortnight, forty, four and twenty, fourscore and ten, fourteen, half a hundred, long dozen, ninety, nonagenarian,… …   Moby Thesaurus

  • fourscore — adjective Date: 13th century being four times twenty ; eighty …   New Collegiate Dictionary

  • fourscore — /fawr skawr , fohr skohr /, adj. four times twenty; eighty. [1200 50; ME; see FOUR, SCORE] * * * …   Universalium

  • fourscore — RG. 382 …   Oldest English Words

  • fourscore — adj. four times twenty, eighty …   English contemporary dictionary

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