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Walt's Thoughts

 

Walt and Music

Four distinguished musicians who worked closely with Walt - composers Buddy Baker and Richard Sherman, and singers Mary Costa ('Princess Aurora') and Ilene Woods ('Cinderella') - discuss Walt's intuitive sense of music. This interactive panel, which commemorates the sad passing of Buddy Baker, is taken from the upcoming DVD release of "Walt: The Man Behind the Myth," to be released by Buena Vista Home Video. Click on either "Audio" or "Video" to hear the speaker on the panel. If you choose a video clip, use the "Back" button on your browser to return to this panel page.


Just ask the panel a question:

Did Walt have a sensitivity for music?

Audio Video

Buddy Baker: "He didn't speak in musical terms with us. He was a - he had a sense of when it should be a symphonic sound or a dance band sound or a little cute cartoony sound, but he couldn't tell you musically, or at least he didn't tell me musically."

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How would Walt talk to you about music?

Audio Video

Richard Sherman: "Well, there was a kind of a magic language that he had. He imbued you with a sense of what he needed. And he'd always give an example of what it was. But mostly it was the way he talked about the subject. You just sort of, if you were a musician it would just come out of you. 'I know what he wants, I know what he wants.'"

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Did Walt have an intuition for what kind of music to use?

Audio Video

Buddy Baker: "He was uncanny, really. He was - he always knew what was right. I knew Walt knew a - you know, a little bit about music, but it wasn't enough to tell everybody what to do, but he sort of sensed when it needed to be a big symphonic treatment or when it should be cute and light. He was very aware of that and never failed."

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How did he convey to you what he wanted?

Audio Video

Richard Sherman: "It was a kind of an unspoken language that he transmitted to the writers and to the composers and to the artists. You'd get the sense, the flow of what he wanted. He was the best storyteller I've ever, ever seen. I mean, he could just be every single character without even trying. His face would just screw up into the different, the villains and the heroes. And the amazement that would be on someone's face. He could do everybody and he was remarkable at that. And so he transmitted the beats; he transmitted the feel of the music without even being a musician. He didn't have to be a musician; he was musical."

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How would Walt work with you, a singer?

Audio Video

Mary Costa: "For me, he was so musical, he was so musical. He couldn't have done the voice of Mickey Mouse without knowing how to just clip off the end of phrases and to think things in his mind so that they would be very funny. He had an innate sense of timing."

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Is it true that you were the first to dub in harmony?

Audio Video

Ilene Woods: "He came in at the end of the day when we'd recorded that song and he listened to it with his head down again and he looked up and he said, 'Ilene, can you sing harmony with yourself?' and I said, 'Gee, Mr. Disney, I don't know. I can't even hum and whistle at the same time. But what did you have in mind?' And he said, 'I can see it.'"

"And at this time, Patti Page had not done that voice layering record that she did where she did harmony with herself. So, Walt was the first one to come up with this idea and he said, 'I can see it.' And he turned around to the engineer and he said, 'You know what I mean,' he said. 'We'll put the earphones on her and she'll sing second-part harmony and,' he said, 'I can see her scrubbing the floor and another bubble comes up and she sings third-part harmony and so on and so on.' And the engineer sat there and he said, 'Well, if you say so Walt, we can do it.' And we did it. And when we first heard it played back, it was really beautiful, because you know sisters' voices blend well together but when the same person is doing all the parts the blend is unbelievable."

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What did Walt mean by "painting with your voice"?

Audio Video

Mary Costa: "He said, 'You have your special set of colors, everyone has a set of colors. And that's what you create with. I want you to pull from those colors, drop it to your vocal chords,' and if he couldn't think of vocal chords he'd say apparatus or that thing, that thing. 'And paint with your voice.'"

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