

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."
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.'"
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."
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."
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."
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."
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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