Police Procedural

Radio and early television procedurals such as Dragnet (radio 1949; TV 1951) established the template: terse, brass-forward themes, martial/snare figures suggesting officialdom, and noir-hued harmonies. This sound drew directly from film noir and crime jazz, adapting big-band and bebop players’ vocabulary (chromatic voice-leading, blues inflections) to a more utilitarian, cue-based TV format.

As procedurals diversified (e.g., Hawaii Five-O, The Streets of San Francisco), scores embraced soul/funk rhythm sections, wah guitar, and horn riffs. Blaxploitation’s urban grit fed back into cop shows, yielding swaggering bass lines and drum grooves that could pivot from surveillance to pursuit. Orchestration still referenced noir, but rhythm drove the drama.

Shows like Miami Vice popularized electronic scoring: analog/digital synth pads, arpeggiators, gated-reverb drums, and sequenced bass created sleek, nocturnal textures for stakeouts and car chases. Themes became pop singles, and underscore leaned on minimal repeating cells and drum-machine ostinatos to sustain tension.

Franchises such as Law & Order and CSI codified a hybrid language: low strings and brass for institutional weight; ticking percussion and processed pulses for lab work and timelines; abrupt stingers and reverses for edit punctuation. Sound design (radio chatter, scanner beeps, camera shutters) blurred into the music, reflecting procedural technology.

Nordic and British procedurals (e.g., Broadchurch) favored austere, minimalist textures—felt-piano, ambient strings, distant percussion—underscoring moral ambiguity and grief. Contemporary scores mix boutique analog synths, modular pulses, and intimate chamber writing, keeping the genre’s core: clarity, momentum, and psychological tension.