Pub Date : 2021-07-01DOI: 10.5406/americanmusic.39.2.0154
J. Kaufman
Throughout the golden age of the Walt Disney studio—and afterward, to the end of Walt’s life—the company was in a constant state of flux, never standing still for very long. Like Walt himself, the studio was forever seeking new goals, new opportunities, fresh modes of expression. Its films reflected this restless turn of mind: between the 1930s and the 1950s, the world of the Disney animated film was an enormously varied universe, encompassing a range of stories, ideas, and pictorial exploration. The musical component of the films was likewise varied, keeping pace with the visuals with a wide array of melodic styles and influences—from “Minnie’s Yoo Hoo” to “When You Wish upon a Star,” from “Turkey in the Straw” to Beethoven. Within this vast and varied landscape, we can break down some broad general subcategories. For the first twelve or fifteen years of Disney’s phenomenal success story—from the introduction of Mickey Mouse through the making of the classic early features—the musical element of the studio’s films was, by and large, original and self-contained. It wasn’t that Walt Disney was opposed to interpolating an occasional standard or contemporary hit song in his cartoons, but the Disney studio was still a small, hand-to-mouth operation. Walt and Roy quickly discovered that it was far more cost-effective to score a cartoon with original music than to pay royalties to a music publisher for an existing number. As time passed and the studio recruited new and brilliant musical talent, in particular Frank Churchill and Leigh Harline, Disney films began to
{"title":"Make Mine Pop Music: Walt Disney Films and American Popular Music, 1940–1955","authors":"J. Kaufman","doi":"10.5406/americanmusic.39.2.0154","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/americanmusic.39.2.0154","url":null,"abstract":"Throughout the golden age of the Walt Disney studio—and afterward, to the end of Walt’s life—the company was in a constant state of flux, never standing still for very long. Like Walt himself, the studio was forever seeking new goals, new opportunities, fresh modes of expression. Its films reflected this restless turn of mind: between the 1930s and the 1950s, the world of the Disney animated film was an enormously varied universe, encompassing a range of stories, ideas, and pictorial exploration. The musical component of the films was likewise varied, keeping pace with the visuals with a wide array of melodic styles and influences—from “Minnie’s Yoo Hoo” to “When You Wish upon a Star,” from “Turkey in the Straw” to Beethoven. Within this vast and varied landscape, we can break down some broad general subcategories. For the first twelve or fifteen years of Disney’s phenomenal success story—from the introduction of Mickey Mouse through the making of the classic early features—the musical element of the studio’s films was, by and large, original and self-contained. It wasn’t that Walt Disney was opposed to interpolating an occasional standard or contemporary hit song in his cartoons, but the Disney studio was still a small, hand-to-mouth operation. Walt and Roy quickly discovered that it was far more cost-effective to score a cartoon with original music than to pay royalties to a music publisher for an existing number. As time passed and the studio recruited new and brilliant musical talent, in particular Frank Churchill and Leigh Harline, Disney films began to","PeriodicalId":43462,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN MUSIC","volume":"39 1","pages":"154 - 168"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43256017","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-01DOI: 10.5406/americanmusic.39.2.0226
D. Goldmark
The ever-increasing popularity of Hollywood animation has come about not just through technological advances or the breaking down of decades-old biases about cartoons being just for kids but also through the emotionally nuanced storytelling deployed more recently by studios, in particular Pixar. Issues of nostalgia permeate practically all of Pixar’s features; their more recent films have gone further than simply reveling in the remembrance of times past (real or imagined) and have begun to explore the creation of memory and the reasons why memories fade or endure.1 Sound and music have played decisive roles in the recollections and impressions of all these films. Here I’ll consider some trends in scoring and sound design to show how the melodies of childhood—and adulthood—drive Pixar’s stories, which appeal to all ages. It’s telling that, more than eighty years after the premiere of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), the first American animated feature, composers still feel stuck in a rut with cartoon music. In an article about Cars 3 (2017), the film’s composer, Randy Newman, stated: “It’s a privilege to be able to write for an orchestra like this. . . . Sometimes I wish I could get a big romantic drama with Jessica Chastain looking into the distance for 20 or 30 seconds. But I get cars going around the track.”2 Newman is echoing the very same sentiments his colleagues in cartoons have expressed for ages, including MGM composer Scott Bradley, who was quoted seventy years ago saying, “It’s fights, fights, fights for me . . .
{"title":"Music, Memory, Pixar","authors":"D. Goldmark","doi":"10.5406/americanmusic.39.2.0226","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/americanmusic.39.2.0226","url":null,"abstract":"The ever-increasing popularity of Hollywood animation has come about not just through technological advances or the breaking down of decades-old biases about cartoons being just for kids but also through the emotionally nuanced storytelling deployed more recently by studios, in particular Pixar. Issues of nostalgia permeate practically all of Pixar’s features; their more recent films have gone further than simply reveling in the remembrance of times past (real or imagined) and have begun to explore the creation of memory and the reasons why memories fade or endure.1 Sound and music have played decisive roles in the recollections and impressions of all these films. Here I’ll consider some trends in scoring and sound design to show how the melodies of childhood—and adulthood—drive Pixar’s stories, which appeal to all ages. It’s telling that, more than eighty years after the premiere of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), the first American animated feature, composers still feel stuck in a rut with cartoon music. In an article about Cars 3 (2017), the film’s composer, Randy Newman, stated: “It’s a privilege to be able to write for an orchestra like this. . . . Sometimes I wish I could get a big romantic drama with Jessica Chastain looking into the distance for 20 or 30 seconds. But I get cars going around the track.”2 Newman is echoing the very same sentiments his colleagues in cartoons have expressed for ages, including MGM composer Scott Bradley, who was quoted seventy years ago saying, “It’s fights, fights, fights for me . . .","PeriodicalId":43462,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN MUSIC","volume":"39 1","pages":"226 - 236"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48374770","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-01DOI: 10.5406/americanmusic.39.2.0182
Ryan Bunch
I saw The Little Mermaid (1989) when I was fourteen. With its spectacular animation and exhilarating musical numbers, it was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Watching Ariel sing about her longing for a better place to a soaring melody while floating in the water with her hair expressively swirling around her face reached deep into my own feelings of difference in the midst of an inexpressibly queer adolescence. The Little Mermaid ushered in the Disney Renaissance (ca. 1989–99), a period of revival in Disney animated features whose popularity was driven largely by musical theater and stories of youth. These films followed an effective formula: adolescent protagonists, feeling trapped and misunderstood, sing of their desire to escape in stirring musical numbers of the type described as soaring, usually with music by Alan Menken. Musicals of the Disney Renaissance affirm and validate young people’s agency, desires, and rights to a dream using musical theater conventions that give them voice and animation that lets them take flight. Disney adolescents feel their emotions so strongly that, when they sing about them, they begin to float, fly, and defy gravity. From Ariel’s underwater choreography to Quasimodo’s acrobatics among the spires of Notre Dame, animated musical numbers vivify the singers’ growing personal power, imagining extraordinary aspirational corporealities (figure 1).
{"title":"Soaring into Song: Youth and Yearning in Animated Musicals of the Disney Renaissance","authors":"Ryan Bunch","doi":"10.5406/americanmusic.39.2.0182","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/americanmusic.39.2.0182","url":null,"abstract":"I saw The Little Mermaid (1989) when I was fourteen. With its spectacular animation and exhilarating musical numbers, it was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Watching Ariel sing about her longing for a better place to a soaring melody while floating in the water with her hair expressively swirling around her face reached deep into my own feelings of difference in the midst of an inexpressibly queer adolescence. The Little Mermaid ushered in the Disney Renaissance (ca. 1989–99), a period of revival in Disney animated features whose popularity was driven largely by musical theater and stories of youth. These films followed an effective formula: adolescent protagonists, feeling trapped and misunderstood, sing of their desire to escape in stirring musical numbers of the type described as soaring, usually with music by Alan Menken. Musicals of the Disney Renaissance affirm and validate young people’s agency, desires, and rights to a dream using musical theater conventions that give them voice and animation that lets them take flight. Disney adolescents feel their emotions so strongly that, when they sing about them, they begin to float, fly, and defy gravity. From Ariel’s underwater choreography to Quasimodo’s acrobatics among the spires of Notre Dame, animated musical numbers vivify the singers’ growing personal power, imagining extraordinary aspirational corporealities (figure 1).","PeriodicalId":43462,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN MUSIC","volume":" 24","pages":"182 - 195"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41316874","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-01DOI: 10.5406/americanmusic.39.2.0212
Alex Bádue, Rebecca S. Schorsch
When the ninth edition of Forbidden Broadway—a revue that satirizes Broadway musicals by parodying show tunes—opened in 1996, it commented on Disney’s recent arrival on Broadway. To the music of Beauty and the Beast’s (1994) “Be Our Guest,” spoofs of Lumière and the Beast sang, “Broadway, while you’re fading, we will be invading. . . . Now you’re fated to be animated. You’re so stressed, I suggest you recoup and take a rest.”1 These lyrics accentuate Disney’s impact on Broadway musical theater, which for more than a decade had been undergoing aesthetic challenges with the arrival of British megamusicals Cats (1983), Les Misérables (1987), Phantom of the Opera (1988), and Miss Saigon (1991).2 The arrival and solid presence of the British megamusical in the 1980s and early 1990s initially contested Broadway aesthetics. In this article, we argue that when Disney Theatrical Productions (DTP) started its activities in New York City’s theater district, it relied on these new aesthetics to leave its own stamp on the American musical, effecting changes that
{"title":"Animated Broadway: Disney and Musical Theater in the 1990s and Early 2000s","authors":"Alex Bádue, Rebecca S. Schorsch","doi":"10.5406/americanmusic.39.2.0212","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/americanmusic.39.2.0212","url":null,"abstract":"When the ninth edition of Forbidden Broadway—a revue that satirizes Broadway musicals by parodying show tunes—opened in 1996, it commented on Disney’s recent arrival on Broadway. To the music of Beauty and the Beast’s (1994) “Be Our Guest,” spoofs of Lumière and the Beast sang, “Broadway, while you’re fading, we will be invading. . . . Now you’re fated to be animated. You’re so stressed, I suggest you recoup and take a rest.”1 These lyrics accentuate Disney’s impact on Broadway musical theater, which for more than a decade had been undergoing aesthetic challenges with the arrival of British megamusicals Cats (1983), Les Misérables (1987), Phantom of the Opera (1988), and Miss Saigon (1991).2 The arrival and solid presence of the British megamusical in the 1980s and early 1990s initially contested Broadway aesthetics. In this article, we argue that when Disney Theatrical Productions (DTP) started its activities in New York City’s theater district, it relied on these new aesthetics to leave its own stamp on the American musical, effecting changes that","PeriodicalId":43462,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN MUSIC","volume":"39 1","pages":"212 - 225"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49250371","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-01DOI: 10.5406/americanmusic.39.2.0196
Lisa Scoggin
Disney’s Mulan (1998), set in “ancient” northern China, ostensibly focuses on the role of gender—specifically, pushing against normative expectations of women’s behavior.1 But alongside that lies the topos of the Other: the Chinese as Other to the West, the Huns as Other to the Chinese, and the character of Mulan as Other on numerous levels. While part of that topos comes from Disney’s obvious attempt to create a Disney “princess” who is capable of strategic thinking and action, another part stems from the studio’s wish to house the old Chinese tale upon which the movie is based in something that would still be palatable to Western audiences. While several scholars, including Annalee Ward, Lan Dong, and Lisa Brocklebank, have examined the Other in Mulan in terms of cultural and philosophical differences, very little scholarship has considered the role that music plays in this construction. This article will rectify this gap, at least in part, examining not only some of the songs but also the orchestral music and how they serve to both support and belie what is on the screen and in the setting.
{"title":"The Foreign and the Other in the Music of Mulan (1998)","authors":"Lisa Scoggin","doi":"10.5406/americanmusic.39.2.0196","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/americanmusic.39.2.0196","url":null,"abstract":"Disney’s Mulan (1998), set in “ancient” northern China, ostensibly focuses on the role of gender—specifically, pushing against normative expectations of women’s behavior.1 But alongside that lies the topos of the Other: the Chinese as Other to the West, the Huns as Other to the Chinese, and the character of Mulan as Other on numerous levels. While part of that topos comes from Disney’s obvious attempt to create a Disney “princess” who is capable of strategic thinking and action, another part stems from the studio’s wish to house the old Chinese tale upon which the movie is based in something that would still be palatable to Western audiences. While several scholars, including Annalee Ward, Lan Dong, and Lisa Brocklebank, have examined the Other in Mulan in terms of cultural and philosophical differences, very little scholarship has considered the role that music plays in this construction. This article will rectify this gap, at least in part, examining not only some of the songs but also the orchestral music and how they serve to both support and belie what is on the screen and in the setting.","PeriodicalId":43462,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN MUSIC","volume":"39 1","pages":"196 - 211"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45820400","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-01DOI: 10.5406/americanmusic.39.2.0252
N. Rao
{"title":"Polycultural Synthesis in the Music of Chou Wen-chung ed. by Mary I. Arlin and Mark A. Radice (review)","authors":"N. Rao","doi":"10.5406/americanmusic.39.2.0252","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/americanmusic.39.2.0252","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43462,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN MUSIC","volume":"39 1","pages":"252 - 258"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45297713","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-01DOI: 10.5406/americanmusic.39.2.0258
Anthony J. Bushard
{"title":"Unsettled Scores: Politics, Hollywood, and the Film Music of Aaron Copland & Hanns Eisler by Sally Bick (review)","authors":"Anthony J. Bushard","doi":"10.5406/americanmusic.39.2.0258","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/americanmusic.39.2.0258","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43462,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN MUSIC","volume":"39 1","pages":"258 - 262"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44702225","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-05DOI: 10.5406/AMERICANMUSIC.39.1.0066
Ryan J. Lambe
September 2017. A queer open mic in Oakland, California. A voice from the front shouts, “Welcome . . . your girl . . . Sanaa!” A queer Black femme takes the stage. The audience of twentyfive LGBTQ folks, women, and people of color clap hands, stomp feet, whistle, and yell. We sit in black folding chairs we set up an hour before. A floor lamp in the back casts light onto Sanaa’s face. In a husky voice, Sanaa says, “I just wanna talk to you for a minute, no biggie, no thang.” Sanaa prepares us for their rant—an improvisatory speech. Weeks ago, Sanaa sang a song a cappella about their fear of singing in public. Tonight, Sanaa rants. “Trigger warning: depression, anxiety . . . accountability . . .” We laugh at the flippant trigger warning. Our laughs interrupt them before they add, “. . . and not being okay.” We make noises of understanding. “You know, I be around here, I love you all day long.” Sanaa’s voice brightens. They shake their head and close their eyes. Applause affirming love and validation answers Sanaa. They quip, “Yeah, I’m the first to hoot and holler for all your queer asses. I’m the first to give a hug.” More applause, longer and louder. “But . . .” Sanaa straightens. Their hand chops through the playful facade with each syllable “. . . a bitch has not been okay! I am not okay.” Sanaa’s eyes pierce the narrow gap in front of the first row.
{"title":"\"We Provide a Place to Not Be Okay\": Emotional Labor in Performance and Queer Amateur Music Spaces","authors":"Ryan J. Lambe","doi":"10.5406/AMERICANMUSIC.39.1.0066","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/AMERICANMUSIC.39.1.0066","url":null,"abstract":"September 2017. A queer open mic in Oakland, California. A voice from the front shouts, “Welcome . . . your girl . . . Sanaa!” A queer Black femme takes the stage. The audience of twentyfive LGBTQ folks, women, and people of color clap hands, stomp feet, whistle, and yell. We sit in black folding chairs we set up an hour before. A floor lamp in the back casts light onto Sanaa’s face. In a husky voice, Sanaa says, “I just wanna talk to you for a minute, no biggie, no thang.” Sanaa prepares us for their rant—an improvisatory speech. Weeks ago, Sanaa sang a song a cappella about their fear of singing in public. Tonight, Sanaa rants. “Trigger warning: depression, anxiety . . . accountability . . .” We laugh at the flippant trigger warning. Our laughs interrupt them before they add, “. . . and not being okay.” We make noises of understanding. “You know, I be around here, I love you all day long.” Sanaa’s voice brightens. They shake their head and close their eyes. Applause affirming love and validation answers Sanaa. They quip, “Yeah, I’m the first to hoot and holler for all your queer asses. I’m the first to give a hug.” More applause, longer and louder. “But . . .” Sanaa straightens. Their hand chops through the playful facade with each syllable “. . . a bitch has not been okay! I am not okay.” Sanaa’s eyes pierce the narrow gap in front of the first row.","PeriodicalId":43462,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN MUSIC","volume":"39 1","pages":"66 - 88"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45913328","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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