Raymond Scott

Search engine turned up no topic exclusively about Raymond Scott, so here we are !!

If you've never heard of the guy, he was working with sequencers and synths before Moog (whom he actually helped out a bit!). Trained at Juilliard, however, he was also a full-on jazz musician before he dug into electrical engineering and recording. He's written some really famous ones, "Powerhouse" in particular:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfDqR4fqIWE

The part at 1:25 has been used in countless cartoons, such as The Simpsons.

After doing that sort of music for a while, he began building his own music machines. He started a company, Manhattan Research, to provide previously unheard-of sounds for commercials. It was the 1950s, and musical jingles were popular. As Scott himself explains it: "The air was just too crowded with musical commercials as it was, and a distinctive new sound had to be found."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SHJ6CcML80

I strongly recommend you dig around here and look at some stuff he's built -- it's quite amazing. I particularly like the light-bulb sequencer.

I'd recommend starting off with "Manhattan Research," a two-disc compilation of commercials and electronic bits. Then move on to "Soothing Sounds For Baby," which is [one of] the first ambient album.

http://raymondscott.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/09/obituaries/raymond-scott-85-a-composer-for-cartoons-and-the-stage-dies.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Scott

yes! a very idm thread. in many ways he was the american John Baker...

that's a beautiful picture of his Electronium (the bottom pic). found this quote on his wiki:

  Quote

Scott later said he "spent 11 years and close to a million dollars developing the Electronium."

Yeah, apparently Mark Mothersbaugh bought it with the intention of restoring it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otc6yRRK5WA

http://raymondscott.blogspot.com/2010/05/electronium-restoration.html

Not sure how that's going; haven't thought of it in a while !

I did a little wee with excitement when I saw this tread, thank you.

His electronic stuff is horrible but his cartoony jazz is fantastic. It always reminds me of Ren and Stimpy and Carl Stalling, of course.

  On 7/16/2011 at 7:47 PM, Squee said:

His electronic stuff is horrible but his cartoony jazz is fantastic. It always reminds me of Ren and Stimpy and Carl Stalling, of course.

awww, how could you hate this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXmZWN079JI

it's like casio autochord with portamento and more human feeling.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDxlC3EcHW8

ahahaa, wat

  On 7/16/2011 at 8:00 PM, hahathhat said:

  On 7/16/2011 at 7:47 PM, Squee said:

His electronic stuff is horrible but his cartoony jazz is fantastic. It always reminds me of Ren and Stimpy and Carl Stalling, of course.

awww, how could you hate this?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXmZWN079JI

 

it's like casio autochord with portamento and more human feeling.....

Ok, my own words just came back and slapped me across the face. I've been asked to make some electronic children's music for some guy and the above track is pretty fucking awesome. The tracks I was thinking of were the ones he did for that 'Music for Sleepy Babies' or whatever it's called. Those are quite awful.

i opened the thread and then I heard this composition on tv

mind blown by coincidence

well, the tv used the original recording of course, but I couldn't find it on youtube

Yeah, I pretty much love his jazzy compositions, haven't really checked much of the electronic stuff.

His jazzy stuff has sooo many tunes that you've heard somewhere before

example:

the melody at 0:45. Did he wrote that? He's much more of an originator than I thought.

another vid, because it's awesome and stereotypical indians that tapdance are politically correct, right?

btw, why the hell did you gave The Simpsons as an example? His music has been used by Carl Stalling millions of times in Warner Brothers cartoons. That's where we've all heard is stuff from without even knowing it.

raymond was THE man.

lightworks, vicks coughdrops, cindy electronium, sprite melonball bounce, the wing thing.....manhattan research is essential

don´t beat your wife every night

Yes, he is truly one of the godfathers of electronic music in general, no other dickweed can't deny this.

*softly bumps while manhattan project plays in background*

anyone seen this documentary on raymond scott? "deconstructing dad"

trailer:

god i love raymond scott

  On 7/16/2011 at 8:09 PM, Squee said:

  On 7/16/2011 at 8:00 PM, hahathhat said:

  On 7/16/2011 at 7:47 PM, Squee said:

His electronic stuff is horrible but his cartoony jazz is fantastic. It always reminds me of Ren and Stimpy and Carl Stalling, of course.

awww, how could you hate this?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXmZWN079JI

 

it's like casio autochord with portamento and more human feeling.....

 

Ok, my own words just came back and slapped me across the face. I've been asked to make some electronic children's music for some guy and the above track is pretty fucking awesome. The tracks I was thinking of were the ones he did for that 'Music for Sleepy Babies' or whatever it's called. Those are quite awful.

awful? you seriously need to go rexamine Raymond scott right fucking now

he was the parallel innovator to Stockhausen in the completely opposite way

one was a raving pretentious megalomaniacal visionary in the classical avant guard establishment and the other was a humble dude making shit in a shed make to TV jingles which were considered a mere novelty back then

Scott's music seems far more relevant now than the dated experimental show of Stockhausen imho

he invented electronic ambient. Not Eno!

i follow a faux raymond scott twitter persona and yesterday he told me that he invented silent music before John Cage a decade earlier.

i get a tiny bit erect every-time i imagine this quote coming true

""Perhaps within the next hundred years, science will perfect a process of thought transference from composer to listener. The composer will sit alone on the concert stage and merely 'think' his idealized conception of his music. Instead of recordings of actual music sound, recordings will carry the brainwaves of the composer directly to the mind of the listener." —Raymond Scott, 1949

my only experience in an Isolation tank where i actually had something resembling a psychedelic trip, it was very similar to hat Raymond describes about the future of music. I'm a little embarrassed to say that in my iso tank addled state my 'idealized' form of music that i aurally hallucinated sounded like Infected Mushroom Classical era vs Autechre Draft period

fuck me, raymond scott is wonderful. i haven't heard much outside of manhattan research and soothing sounds for babies, but he's definitely mindblowing....i'm already repeating what others in this thread have said lol. wonderful incidentals, excellent early electronic experimentation, his self-built machinery (while i suppose is necessary to make music like that so early in the 20th century) also reminds me of mad scientists like daphne oram. (the latter of which has a feature in this month's wire! HM)

  On 7/26/2011 at 7:50 PM, iep said:

*softly bumps while manhattan project plays in background*

 

anyone seen this documentary on raymond scott? "deconstructing dad"

 

trailer:

:emotawesomepm9: :emotawesomepm9:

  On 7/26/2011 at 7:50 PM, iep said:

..

 

anyone seen this documentary on raymond scott? "deconstructing dad"

 

trailer:

yes, anyone?

anywhere?

  On 7/28/2011 at 3:05 PM, tidbit said:

  On 7/26/2011 at 7:50 PM, iep said:

..

 

anyone seen this documentary on raymond scott? "deconstructing dad"

 

trailer:

 

yes, anyone?

 

anywhere?

oh shit KG has it

don't forget organ music was pretty huge back then

r scott is the og daddy

but,,,,,,

raymond scott,kid baltan and tom dessevelt were contemporaries

the difference being that scott was building these huge machines in his mansion and was the first to commision a young robert moog to build a massif modular

and the dutch guys were using gear built by other folks

http://books.google.com/books?id=jt8DAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA126&dq=raymond%20scott&lr=lang_en&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=1925&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1965&num=30&as_brr=1&rview=1&pg=PA126#v=onepage&q=raymond%20scott&f=false

http://raymondscott.com/em.html

http://beatpatrol.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/jeff-e-winner-irwin-d-chusid-circle-machines-and-sequencers-the-untold-history-of-raymond-scotts-pioneering-instruments/

  On 7/28/2011 at 10:46 PM, yikes said:

r scott is the og daddy

 

but,,,,,,

 

raymond scott,kid baltan and tom dessevelt were contemporaries

the difference being that scott was building these huge machines in his mansion and was the first to commision a young robert moog to build a massif modular

and the dutch guys were using gear built by other folks

 

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=jt8DAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA126&dq=raymond%20scott&lr=lang_en&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=1925&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1965&num=30&as_brr=1&rview=1&pg=PA126#v=onepage&q=raymond%20scott&f=false

 

http://raymondscott.com/em.html

http://beatpatrol.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/jeff-e-winner-irwin-d-chusid-circle-machines-and-sequencers-the-untold-history-of-raymond-scotts-pioneering-instruments/

weren't the dutch dudes working at phillips research laboratories, which explained the access to hardware?

wait, i'm not actually sure what your point is. raymond scott is cool? he isn't as cool as the dutch? wat