Researching Scott Bradley

[Craig Hopkinson]

A little obscure, however; Im wondering if any forum member(s) could offer suggestions of websites to visit to gather information for analysis of music by Scott Bradley. In particular, the underscoring of classic 'Tom & Jerry' cartoons in the 1950's?

Cheers.

[Ray Kemp]

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/scott+bradley

Hey! Craig
I was six when he retired

[Craig Hopkinson]

Cheers Ray..I'll check it out.
I was watching some vintage cartoons with my 5 year old daughter just yesterday. I was amazed! What a master! There was no dialogue at all just the visuals and the music...it was perfectly in sync...so I thought Im having some of that as a learning curve!

[Scott W. Hallgren]

http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/articles/2000/15_Nov---Thirties_Fla...

... scroll down to "5/27/1939 Daily News Music"

Another link you might find of interest is "A TECHNICAL AND HISTORICAL
OVERVIEW OF SOUNDTRACK PRODUCTION PROCEDURE IN AMERICAN ANIMATED
FILM", which discuses Bradley as well as other animation composers.
This article has the interesting tidbit, among others, that "Bradley
tried to avoid the use of sound effects whenever possible, in an
attempt to fill their place musically."

http://shoko.calarts.edu/~librlart/music/cartoon/CartoonMusicPaper....

An article titled, "Bum Da Daaa, DaDa Da Dun Daaaa: The Early
Animation Composer" notes of Bradley,

"Over at MGM Scott Bradley had a both enviable and unenviable task:
compose music for the animated shorts being produced there. This was
enviable because of the popularity, both commercial and critical, of
the MGM cartoon stars. Unenviable because after all, Tom and Jerry
films are chase films. Perhaps each has a different setting, but at
their core…. Bradley saw this challenge and rather than 'cartoon up'
his work he took a more serious approach. An orchestra composer by
day, Bradley used much of the same orchestral overtones in his music
for MGM which provided a certain serious, cynical counterpoint to all
of the action on the screen."

http://www.digitalmediafx.com/Features/animationcomposer.html

He was tormented by the though that he would only be regarded as a 'cartoon composer'.
But he stands alone for getting such incredible mileage out of 30 or less pieces (!) per show....

Hope that's a good start.... he also did all of the Droppy stuff & I love it!!! - S

[Craig Hopkinson]

Thank you for a very informative post. I will get down to it and follow every link.

I understand Scott Bradley was a student of Schoenberg, and this is so evident in his orchestration technique: Klangfarben and polymetric structures abound. I am fascinated by the way Bradley dictated the tempo of a scene (mes en scene) on a micro level and with such diversity of orchestral colour.

Im now looking for a reference score of his work. Hopefully the links you have posted here will meander to further info sites and links :)

Cheers.

[Glenn Simonelli]

Try this: http://www.amazon.com/Tex-Avery-Music-Original-Soundtracks/dp/B0013...

Or just search their music section for "Tex Avery Original Soundtracks"

Glenn Simonelli

[Scott W. Hallgren]

Sadly, I think I remember reading that the only place you can see them is in either the USC or UCLA music library, as part of a reference collection.

[Craig Hopkinson]

Cheers Glenn. The more links the better.