Epic chases on assembly or in the middle of canyons, either with the infamous Bugs Bunny or some other general character from Looney Tunes, and the music that fuels the feel of animation? They are those of Raymond Scott’s compositions. Raymond was an ingenious composer, musician and a primitive engineer, and was also a creative, innovative, but eccentric inventor of electronic instruments and sound. The free community screening of the documentary featuring Raymond Scott, Deconstructing Dad: the Music, Machines and Mystery of Raymond Scott, was a labour of love and entirely created by Raymond Scott’s own son, Stan Warnow. Kick starting Soundasarus: Festival of Media, Music & Sound, a multi-sensory festival of experimental music, sound, visual art and creative performances, celebrating the pioneers of electronic creation. However, Soundasarus is only a small segment of the 25th annual High Performance Rodeo: Calgary’s International Festival of the Arts that is occurring from January 6-30 .
I was very much delighted to attend the free community screening of frankly a name I have never heard uttered before the screening of the documentary, but was curious as to taking the wonderful opportunity to find out. Screening took place in a new area of the Epcor Centre I had not discovered yet: the Engineered Air Theater, usually reserved for jazz performances. I strolled down the enormous spiral staircase, with a massive marble pillar in the middle and gray carpeted stair steps and floor. I was enthralled by the glimmering mirror paneled onto soft green walls and by the very warm design of the waiting area outside the theater. Entering into the studio, a surprisingly numerous amount of heavy studio lights were hung from the ceiling and shone brightly onto the low leveled main stage. I clambered up the stairs of the theatre, into the balcony, and leaned comfortably against the wooden railing, not knowing what to expect.
The movie was entirely an on and off 11 year project by Stan Warnow, an idea that begun to form after an memorial service for the late Raymond Scott. The movie essentially documents two major periods in Raymond Scott’s life, his early career composing and playing music used by commercial and cartoons, reaching his peak of popularity. Then, after tiring of manually composing music performed by humans, Raymond Scott receded creating music with musicians and started to create and is on the path of creating the first ever synthesizer of music, envisioning that machines to be able to compose music entirely by themselves. I smiled as I observed that the people associated with Raymond Scott spoke of him in a revered sense, acknowledging his ingenious and creative intellect, but could all agree that he was very much eccentric and obscure individual, as his former wife calls him “crazy.” Shy and paranoid of others stealing his inventions and ideas, Raymond Scott disliked Hollywood, as “they think everything is wonderful,” and wouldn’t treat him as a real musician.
Creating wonderful music performed by himself on the piano and his band, a six man band he called a “quintette,” Raymond Scott performed big band music for commercials and later, used by cartoons. However, Raymond disliked performing live, camera shy and nervous, performing for the sake of earning money to buy audio parts to create his dream of creating electronic music. These were some of the golden years for Raymond Scott, his music unique and extremely distinctive in his time, unable to placed in any genre. If you had watched any Warner Bros. cartoon when you were child, you would recognize, once you heard the familiar animated chase scene, the lively and fun appeal of Raymond Scott’s music. A perfectionist, he would “hear” or compose music in his head, hum it out to his band mates, have them play the tune until they got it right, and then drill it into them with continuous rehearsal. He finally retired into create music that would take commands, creating sequences and essentially the modern day ring tone. By manipulating beats, tone and tempo on different machines that represented different instruments – quite revolutionary for his time.
However, this movie is not merely a movie of Raymond Scott’s tremendous and soaring career, but of the relationship between a son and father. Mainly focused on his music and creating his electronic machinery, Raymond Scott had kept a distance from his children and his wife. Always away performing with his band, or if he was at home, did not interact with his children, and was busily occupying himself at the piano or composing music. Amateurishly filmed, but with impressive effects, the narration of Stan Warnow was warm and his love for his father was heartfelt in the words he spoke. Raymond Scott was simply a man you couldn’t hate, despite his eccentric behavior towards everyone around him, smiling only on camera when prompted by people offstage making obscene faces towards him. The genuine love Stan feels for his father is very palpable and obvious in the documentary, and despite Raymond Scott’s apparent obliviousness towards his own children, very subtlety, in his own way, did show his love back for his children, though not in regular conventional way of ever being there and involved in the lives of his children, displayed it in the little things he did for them.
I recommend for everyone to try something new, at least once in awhile. Feeling better acquainted with the man that had composed the wonderful music that I heard and associated with my favourite childhood cartoons, I still feel there is yet to be discovered and uncovered of legacy left behind by the very private and reserved man. My curiosity satisfied, I ventured into an area of music I had not considered of doing so, and had astoundingly discovered to my great joy, the richness and grandiosity of the history of music and its very expression.
Check out the great events occurring and offered by The 25th annual High Performance Rodeo of an exhilarating lineup of theatre, music dance, film, and more!
