The 50-piece Warner Brothers orchestra (no longer in existence, of course) was largely bored by their usual movie score assignments – either bland, or cliche-ridden.
But…
When Carl Stalling came in to do scores for Warners cartoons –
They sat up, put on their big boy shoes, and loved doing these pieces that challenged their considerable talents (Warner Brothers recruited and stole them from several major symphony orchestras).
It took them FOUR tries to get this one 8-second piece right :
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(the ticking sound at the beginning of each take was a metronome synched to the cartoons they were recording the scores for – set up by the animators so the musical backing and stings would align perfectly with the already finished animation)
Harder than hell to play, even for the best classical orchestra musicians – and they loved it!
Hell – even the titles cracked the orchestra up.
Observe the first 15 seconds of this one :
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Next week – how Carl Stalling led me to discover Raymond Scott
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Thanks for this. The music cues for the Warner cartoons of this period are so unique even someone with no musical ear can pick them out. In thinking about it they were so much better than the Disney musical backgrounds. What Disney did have was more memorable songs.
“My name is Joe Manchin , millionaire. I own a mansion and a yacht. And a Maserati.”