RIP -> Bebe Barron
sigh... another great one gone...
d
----------------------
Begin forwarded message:
From: Tom Rhea
Date: 2008 April 27 8:45:11 PM EDT (CA)
Subject: Re: [EMF World] Bebe Barron
Thanks Folks,
I appreciate the remembrances. I, too will miss Bebe. I videotape
interviewed Bebe some years ago, and she told me that the AFM
actually "blackballed" Louis and her from doing further work "in
town." This was done by threatening the major studios with the
possibility of boycotting their orchestral film scores. It was my
understanding that the choice to call their score for Forbidden
Planet "Electronic Tonalities" was theirs, in order to circumvent
direct comparisons to the idea of a "music" score. The Union knew
all too well what the potential competition was . . . AFM had
"suggested" to Leopold Stokowski in the mid-thirties that he abandon
his ideas for a "Syntronic Orchestra" made up of instruments due to
Ivan Eremeef, working at labs for WCAU radio in Philadelphia. The UK
Union tried to make Moog synthesists a "bitter pill" by making
producers pay additional "sideman" payment per each different sound
produced! (What about the Hammon Organ, with all those
combinations?!!) There were many other ill advised rear-guard
actions such as these. I am curious as to what others know about
this . . . This, by the way, is not "sour grapes," I was a member of
AFM for some 20 years . . .
Tom Rhea.
On Apr 27, 2008, at 6:07 PM, Joel Chadabe wrote:
Hello all,
With great sadness, we note the death of Bebe Barron on April 20 in
Los Angeles. Joan La Barbara joins me in this homage.
I remember Bebe as a woman of extraordinary charm, presence, and
sensitivity, with whom I enjoyed conversations on many occasions
during the 1990s. As happens too often, I regret not having known
her better and not having had the opportunity to ask all of the
questions that I would have liked to ask. Her modest manner belied
that fact that she was one of the earliest pioneers in what I call
the great opening up of music to all sounds.
Bebe married Louis Barron in New York in 1948. It was just about at
that time that tape recorders began to appear in the market, and
using a tape recorder that they were given as a wedding present,
Bebe and Louis Barron co-founded an electronic sound studio. Louis
experimented with circuitry. Bebe was more the composer and the
file master, keeping track of their immense and continually growing
library of sounds. Their early work included sound for Bells of
Atlantis, which appeared in 1952. And they became well known for
composing the entirely electronic score for the sci-fi film
Forbidden Planet, which appeared in 1956. In fact, Forbidden Planet
was the first film to chart the unfamiliar territory of an all-
electronic score, and the Barrons paid an explorer's price. The
American Federation of Musicians prevented them from receivng music
credit for the sound track and their names were omitted from the
film's nomination for an Oscar.
Perhaps less well known, however, their hearts were in the avant
garde, and they worked with John Cage, David Tudor, and Earle Brown
in the Project for Music for Magnetic Tape. Specifically, they
recorded and prepared approximately 600 sounds in providing the
initial materials for Cage's Williams Mix, the first composition to
be completed in the Project.
Although divorced in 1970, Bebe and Louis Barron continued to
collaborate until Louis' death in 1989. Bebe then stopped composing
until 1999, when she was invited to create a new work at the
University of California/Santa Barbara, where she had access to
state-of-the-art technology. She finished the composition in 2000.
She named it Mixed Emotions.
- Joel Chadabe
As a teenager, my friends, who were amateur filmmakers, and I
studied Forbidden Planet devotedly, transcribing the script and
learning the great lines the way subsequent generations fixated on
Rocky Horror and Monty Python - it was our secret code language.
And the music, which I think is clearly one of the great filmscores
of all time, had a great impact on my later work. I probably
listened to that soundtrack more than I did to classical works
around that time. In some ways, my current working process of
recording lots of material, then spending months isolating tiny
fragments, labeling them with identities so that I could select
them and place them into my sound fields, and finally layering them
into what I now call my sonic atmospheres, is very much like what
Bebe did in the early years, organizing and categorizing the miles
of tapes and then manipulating them in various ways.
I met Bebe on a number of occasions when I lived in LA during the
late '70's and early '80's, and enjoyed her intelligence, her
supporting words about my compositions, and her gentle humor. Most
of our encounters happened at or around the Monday Evening Concerts
at the LA County Museum. The New Music crowd was somewhat small in
LA at that time, so most of us got to know each other. I learned
only years later that she, and Louis, had contributed to John
Cage's Williams Mix and that Cage encouraged the Barrons to
consider their work as music, something the Musicians' Union
evidently did not permit them to do in the credits for their major
film score.
As I watched and listened to Forbidden Planet again over the past
few days, it was like encountering an old, familiar friend. And the
music was just as fresh and exciting as when I first heard it. Bon
voyage, Bebe, I shall remember you with warmth and gratitude for
your pioneering spirit and those luscious sounds! And I honor your
courage as a woman composer, especially in the field of electronic
music - an arduous task that you performed brilliantly.
- Joan La Barbara
--
Joel Chadabe, President
Electronic Music Foundation
mailto:joel@emf.org
http://www.emf.org
#
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d
----------------------
Begin forwarded message:
From: Tom Rhea
Date: 2008 April 27 8:45:11 PM EDT (CA)
Subject: Re: [EMF World] Bebe Barron
Thanks Folks,
I appreciate the remembrances. I, too will miss Bebe. I videotape
interviewed Bebe some years ago, and she told me that the AFM
actually "blackballed" Louis and her from doing further work "in
town." This was done by threatening the major studios with the
possibility of boycotting their orchestral film scores. It was my
understanding that the choice to call their score for Forbidden
Planet "Electronic Tonalities" was theirs, in order to circumvent
direct comparisons to the idea of a "music" score. The Union knew
all too well what the potential competition was . . . AFM had
"suggested" to Leopold Stokowski in the mid-thirties that he abandon
his ideas for a "Syntronic Orchestra" made up of instruments due to
Ivan Eremeef, working at labs for WCAU radio in Philadelphia. The UK
Union tried to make Moog synthesists a "bitter pill" by making
producers pay additional "sideman" payment per each different sound
produced! (What about the Hammon Organ, with all those
combinations?!!) There were many other ill advised rear-guard
actions such as these. I am curious as to what others know about
this . . . This, by the way, is not "sour grapes," I was a member of
AFM for some 20 years . . .
Tom Rhea.
On Apr 27, 2008, at 6:07 PM, Joel Chadabe wrote:
Hello all,
With great sadness, we note the death of Bebe Barron on April 20 in
Los Angeles. Joan La Barbara joins me in this homage.
I remember Bebe as a woman of extraordinary charm, presence, and
sensitivity, with whom I enjoyed conversations on many occasions
during the 1990s. As happens too often, I regret not having known
her better and not having had the opportunity to ask all of the
questions that I would have liked to ask. Her modest manner belied
that fact that she was one of the earliest pioneers in what I call
the great opening up of music to all sounds.
Bebe married Louis Barron in New York in 1948. It was just about at
that time that tape recorders began to appear in the market, and
using a tape recorder that they were given as a wedding present,
Bebe and Louis Barron co-founded an electronic sound studio. Louis
experimented with circuitry. Bebe was more the composer and the
file master, keeping track of their immense and continually growing
library of sounds. Their early work included sound for Bells of
Atlantis, which appeared in 1952. And they became well known for
composing the entirely electronic score for the sci-fi film
Forbidden Planet, which appeared in 1956. In fact, Forbidden Planet
was the first film to chart the unfamiliar territory of an all-
electronic score, and the Barrons paid an explorer's price. The
American Federation of Musicians prevented them from receivng music
credit for the sound track and their names were omitted from the
film's nomination for an Oscar.
Perhaps less well known, however, their hearts were in the avant
garde, and they worked with John Cage, David Tudor, and Earle Brown
in the Project for Music for Magnetic Tape. Specifically, they
recorded and prepared approximately 600 sounds in providing the
initial materials for Cage's Williams Mix, the first composition to
be completed in the Project.
Although divorced in 1970, Bebe and Louis Barron continued to
collaborate until Louis' death in 1989. Bebe then stopped composing
until 1999, when she was invited to create a new work at the
University of California/Santa Barbara, where she had access to
state-of-the-art technology. She finished the composition in 2000.
She named it Mixed Emotions.
- Joel Chadabe
As a teenager, my friends, who were amateur filmmakers, and I
studied Forbidden Planet devotedly, transcribing the script and
learning the great lines the way subsequent generations fixated on
Rocky Horror and Monty Python - it was our secret code language.
And the music, which I think is clearly one of the great filmscores
of all time, had a great impact on my later work. I probably
listened to that soundtrack more than I did to classical works
around that time. In some ways, my current working process of
recording lots of material, then spending months isolating tiny
fragments, labeling them with identities so that I could select
them and place them into my sound fields, and finally layering them
into what I now call my sonic atmospheres, is very much like what
Bebe did in the early years, organizing and categorizing the miles
of tapes and then manipulating them in various ways.
I met Bebe on a number of occasions when I lived in LA during the
late '70's and early '80's, and enjoyed her intelligence, her
supporting words about my compositions, and her gentle humor. Most
of our encounters happened at or around the Monday Evening Concerts
at the LA County Museum. The New Music crowd was somewhat small in
LA at that time, so most of us got to know each other. I learned
only years later that she, and Louis, had contributed to John
Cage's Williams Mix and that Cage encouraged the Barrons to
consider their work as music, something the Musicians' Union
evidently did not permit them to do in the credits for their major
film score.
As I watched and listened to Forbidden Planet again over the past
few days, it was like encountering an old, familiar friend. And the
music was just as fresh and exciting as when I first heard it. Bon
voyage, Bebe, I shall remember you with warmth and gratitude for
your pioneering spirit and those luscious sounds! And I honor your
courage as a woman composer, especially in the field of electronic
music - an arduous task that you performed brilliantly.
- Joan La Barbara
--
Joel Chadabe, President
Electronic Music Foundation
mailto:joel@emf.org
http://www.emf.org
#
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This message is conveyed through the EMF World listserv. To
unsubscribe to this listserv, click on the following link or copy
it into your browser:
http://www.emf.org/emfsubsemail.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This message is conveyed through the EMF World listserv. To
unsubscribe to this listserv, click on the following link or copy it
into your browser:
http://www.emf.org/emfsubsemail.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Sanlist mailing list
Sanlist@lists.sonicartsnetwork.org
http://lists.sonicartsnetwork.org/listinfo.cgi/sanlist-sonicartsnetwork.org
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