------------------------------
The Old-Time Radio Digest!
Volume 2003 : Issue 29
A Part of the [removed]!
ISSN: 1533-9289
Today's Topics:
Struts and Frets; On Music and Sound [ Charlie Summers <charlie@[removed] ]
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 17:11:10 -0500
From: Charlie Summers <charlie@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Struts and Frets; On Music and Sound
STRUTS AND FRETS
by Harry Bartell
++++
On Music and Sound
The radio actor didn't have the luxury of long rehearsal time or unlimited
takes, but he had two advantages that an actor in film couldn't duplicate:
live sound and music. Sometimes they were quite limited, especially in music
where the Hammond Organ constituted the orchestra. Still, musicians like
Milton Charles, Ivan Ditmars, Gaylord Carter were able to bring a strong
sense of dramatic color to a dead studio. The organ "sting", a sharp accent
at a very dramatic moment became a must in action drama or soaps and it was
easy for these musicians to write or even improvise background music for
narration or mood scenes.
On the bigger shows, especially those playing to a live studio audience, the
effect can well be described as grand. They were led by outstanding
composer-conductors. I know I'm leaving out some big names but these come to
mind: Johnny Green, Gordon Jenkins, Carmen Dragon, Lynn Murray, Leith
Stevens, Bernard Hermann, Jeff Alexander, Sandy Courage, and Cy Feuer. Feuer
went on to become a producer of gigantic hit shows in New York. These fellows
would write music for introductions, underscoring and bridges for orchestras
comprising as many as 15 musicians. That meant different music for each show
and a different show every week.
Gunsmoke had another kind of musical group, Rex Koury chose to use a smaller
orchestra that would stay close to a western sound and yet have the ability
to make real crescendo curtains. Some of the musicians were on network staff,
for example Lud Gluskin and Wilbur Hatch at CBS. Lud would never be described
as the smiley type. Underneath it all I think he was really a dedicated man
with an appreciation of talent, but he always gave the impression that he
expected to run into an argument and was ready for it. He had a famous
altercation with Al Jolson, which wasn't difficult. I have heard two versions
of the tag line and you can take your choice. There was a sharp disagreement
about the music on a Jolson show and Jolson started yelling at Lud. He yelled
back. Jolson said, "Don't tell me how to do this! I've got a million dollars
from performing. What have you got?" And Lud said,"A million dollars." In the
other version Lud said, "I've got a friend."
Wilbur Hatch, who later did the music for I Love Lucy also did the music for
a summer show I did at CBS for two or three years, the only time I did radio
in costume -- of sorts. It was called Fiesta and featured Olga San Juan with
a male singer; Bob Graham and later Johnny Desmond. The show had a definite
touch of Yellow Bantam but the music was great. Bill's wife and mine were
both expecting babies and the ETA was two days apart. His date the 17th, mine
the 19th. The girls arrived right on schedule but they switched dates and
they have been lifelong friends.
It isn't easy to describe how working with music behind you makes such a
difference. With a singer it is rather obvious. The orchestra follows him and
reinforces his pitch location. The actor has more of a tendency to pick up
the mood and sometimes the phrasing of the music which was written with each
point of the dialogue in mind. It is helping to describe the scene or story
he is narrating. The director might also break the narration for musical
accents and then continue. Where a scene is underscored it might emphasize or
even change a reading although the reaction is subconscious. In a way there
is a similarity to the use of music as a mood setter in the old silent films
where they had a small group on the set to help the actors.
The creation of sound effects is an art which has never been given proper
credit even by fans of radio. Listen to an audio book read in a silent studio
and the same material read with sound added. The difference is remarkable. My
memories of most things at NBC are not so clear but the work of Bud Tollefson
and Wayne Kenworthy on Dragnet was outstanding. You know it was as legitimate
and accurate as possible if it was on a Jack Webb show. Floyd Caton and Monty
Fraser paired on the shows that Jack Johnstone directed.
At CBS the names go on and on: Ray Erlenborn, Gene Twombley, Ray Kemper, Tom
Handley, Bill James (whom I first worked with on Sherlock Holmes when he was
assisting Art Fulton at Mutual) Cliff Thorsness, Billy Gould, Dave Light (he
did the cat on Shipment of Mute Fate) and others. Like most of the sound men
they usually worked in pairs, one doing live effects and the other at the
turntable for recorded sound. On some occasions if sound patterns were
unusually complex there might be three men working. Cliff was a master at
simulating sounds live. Ray Kemper and Tom Handley had their own method of
making gunshots sound authentic. They fired guns of different types and
calibers out in the field or vacant rooms and recorded them. Live shots would
blow the needle right off the meter if done in the studio but when recorded
they could be monitored and still sound right. This was never a problem in
films. Those big .44s were loaded with _ loads. On the set they went "pop."
When dubbed later they sounded like "BOOM!" Even the _ loads could fire
wadding a considerable distance and that is why the gun was never supposed to
be aimed directly at the actor. It is hard not to at first. I know because
although I warned him in rehearsal, a young actor fired directly at me in the
take and I was hit in the neck. Fortunately they did not have to break out
the tetanus shots.
Working at a microphone, the actor was within line-of-sight with the director
who was nearly always in the control booth. Sound equipment might very well
be back of the actor or located out of direct vision. The connection and
interplay between actor and sound then became almost a matter of instinct.
The actor's voice and timing would necessarily change indicating movement or
other effort. The sound man, wearing earphones could detect these changes and
accompany them with the right effects. Also, it is almost impossible to
portray movement vocally without a small physical sample of that movement at
the same time. It might be a shift of the shoulders or even silent steps in
place to indicate walking. The sound man sees these and matches his patterns.
I can't recall any instance on Dragnet when there was a great deal of levity
in the sound effects department. On some of the other shows, the rehearsals
didn't always match the scripts exactly. Collectors seem to have made a hot
item of some of the Gunsmoke rehearsals. I'm afraid some of the laughter in
the background is mine.
- ------------------
Harry Bartell maintains that his major accomplishment as a professional actor
for forty years was to survive with his mind, morale and marriage intact.
Born in 1913 in New Orleans, he grew up in Houston and graduated Phi Beta
Kappa from Rice University in 1933. After a stint at Harvard Business School
and a couple of years forced labor in a department store he moved to
Hollywood and stayed there for the next fifty-one years. Three seasons at the
Pasadena Playhouse led to work in 185 radio series and 77 TV series plus a
dozen or so properly forgettable motion pictures.
This article will be archived at:
[removed]
--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2003 Issue #29
********************************************
Copyright [removed] Communications, York, PA; All Rights Reserved,
including republication in any form.
If you enjoy this list, please consider financially supporting it:
[removed]
For Help: [removed]@[removed]
To Unsubscribe: [removed]@[removed]
To Subscribe: [removed]@[removed]
or see [removed]
For Help with the Archive Server, send the command ARCHIVE HELP
in the SUBJECT of a message to [removed]@[removed]
To contact the listmaster, mail to listmaster@[removed]
To Send Mail to the list, simply send to [removed]@[removed]