Bebe and Louis Barron facts for kids

Bebe Barron (born June 16, 1925 – died April 20, 2008) and Louis Barron (born April 23, 1920 – died November 1, 1989) were American pioneers in electronic music. They are famous for creating the first electronic music on magnetic tape in the United States. They also made the first completely electronic film score for the movie Forbidden Planet (1956).

About Bebe Barron

Bebe Barron was born Charlotte May Wind in Minneapolis on June 16, 1925. She was the only child of Ruth and Frank Wind. She studied piano at the University of Minnesota and later got a degree in political science. In Minneapolis, she also studied how to compose music. She moved to New York and continued to study music composition. In 1947, she married Louis Barron. They lived in Greenwich Village, New York. Louis gave her the nickname "Bebe." She passed away on April 20, 2008, in Los Angeles.

About Louis Barron

Louis Barron was born in Minneapolis on April 23, 1920. When he was young, Louis loved working with electrical equipment and a soldering gun. He studied music at the University of Chicago. He died on November 1, 1989, in Los Angeles.

Starting Their Electronic Journey

Louis and Bebe got married in 1947 and moved to New York City. Louis's cousin, who worked at 3M (a big company), gave them a tape recorder as a wedding gift. This was new technology that used magnetized plastic tape. With this gift, the couple started exploring `musique concrète`, which is music made from recorded sounds.

In 1950, Louis and Bebe finished Heavenly Menagerie. This was the first electronic music created on magnetic tape in the United States. Making electronic music back then was very slow and hard. They had to physically cut and paste pieces of tape together to edit and finish their sounds.

How They Made Sounds

A book from 1948 called Cybernetics by Norbert Wiener was very important to the Barrons. This book talked about how certain natural rules apply to both animals and complex electronic machines.

Louis used the ideas from this book to build special electronic circuits. He would then change these circuits to make sounds. Many of their unique sounds came from a circuit called a ring modulator. The sounds they created were often surprising and could not be made again. This was because they would push the circuits so hard that they almost burned out to get the sounds. Because the circuits didn't last long, the Barrons recorded everything they made.

Most of their sound creation was not written down like traditional music. The Barrons didn't even think of their process as `music composition` at first. They saw each sound from a circuit as an "actor" rather than a musical note. For film music, they would change each circuit's sound to match a character's actions in the movie.

After recording, they would change the sounds even more. They added effects like `reverb` (echo) and `tape delay` (repeated sounds). They also played sounds backward and changed their speed. To mix different sounds, they used at least three tape recorders. They would play sounds from two machines into a third one, recording them together. For film work, they used two 16 mm projectors linked to a tape recorder to keep everything in sync.

Louis mostly built the circuits and did the recording. Bebe was the composer. She had to listen through many hours of tape. She said it often "just sounded like dirty noise." But over time, she learned to find interesting sounds. Using `tape loops` helped them create rhythm. They mixed these sounds to make the strange and otherworldly soundscapes needed for Forbidden Planet.

Their Recording Studio

After moving to New York, the Barrons opened a recording studio at 9 West 8th Street in Greenwich Village. This studio was a hub for `avant-garde` artists, which means artists who create new and experimental things. It might have been the first electronic music studio in the United States. The Barrons used their tape recorder to record many famous people reading their work, like Henry Miller, Tennessee Williams, and Aldous Huxley. These were like early audiobooks. In 1949, Anaïs Nin recorded five stories there. These recordings were put on red `vinyl records` and sold under the Barrons' own `record label`, Contemporary Classics.

For a short time, the Barrons had a special advantage in `tape recording` equipment. They got early batches of `magnetic tape` through Louis's cousin at 3M. Because there weren't many other studios doing this, their recording business was very successful.

Louis built most of the equipment in their studio himself. One amazing piece was a huge speaker that could make very deep `bass` sounds. They also had homemade `electronic oscillators` that made different sound waves like `sawtooth`, `sine`, and `square` waves. They had a `filter`, a `spring reverberator`, and several `tape recorders`. A special `reel-to-reel` machine was custom-built for them to loop sounds and change their speed. Their successful business allowed them to buy some commercial equipment too.

The Barrons' music caught the attention of the `avant-garde` art scene. From 1952 to 1953, the famous composer John Cage used their studio for his first tape work, Williams Mix. The Barrons helped Cage record over 600 different sounds. They then arranged these sounds by splicing (cutting and joining) the tape. This four-and-a-half-minute piece took over a year to finish. Cage also worked on his Music for Magnetic Tape at their studio with other composers. It was John Cage who first told the Barrons that their creations were indeed "music."

Working on Films

The Barrons soon realized that the `avant-garde` art scene didn't pay much money. So, they looked to Hollywood, where electronic instruments like the `theremin` had already been used in movie soundtracks for years.

In the early 1950s, the Barrons worked with various filmmakers. They provided music and `sound effect`s for `art film`s and `experimental cinema`. They scored three short films by Ian Hugo, which were based on his wife Anaïs Nin's writings. Two important films were Bells of Atlantis (1952) and Jazz of Lights (1954). The Barrons also helped Maya Deren with the audio for The Very Eye of Night (1959). Another film, Bridges-Go-Round (1958) by Shirley Clarke, had two different soundtracks. One was by the Barrons, and the other by jazz musician Teo Macero. Showing both versions of the same four-minute film helped people see how different music could change how they felt about a movie.

In 1956, the Barrons created the very first electronic score for a commercial film: Forbidden Planet, released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. They met Dore Schary, MGM's executive producer, at an art show in 1955. He hired them soon after, when the movie was almost finished.

Forbidden Planet's Unique Sounds

The soundtrack for Forbidden Planet (1956) is known today as the first completely electronic score for a film. Its eerie and mysterious sounds were unlike anything audiences had ever heard. Music historians often point out how revolutionary this soundtrack was for the development of electronic music.

On the album cover for the Forbidden Planet soundtrack, Louis and Bebe explained their work: "We create electronic circuits that act like simple living things. For Forbidden Planet, we made special circuits for different themes, instead of using regular sound makers. Each circuit had its own way of acting and its own 'voice.' We loved it when people said the sounds in Forbidden Planet reminded them of their dreams."

The film's producers first wanted to hire another composer. The Barrons were only supposed to make about twenty minutes of `sound effect`s. But after hearing their first sample, the producers gave the Barrons the rest of the film's sound, which was an hour and ten minutes. The studio wanted them to move to Hollywood, but the Barrons stayed in their New York studio.

The movie's music and sound effects amazed the audience. During a preview, when the sounds of the spaceship landing filled the theater, the audience started clapping! Later, the Barrons' audio was released by GNP Crescendo records.

However, not everyone was happy with the score. Louis and Bebe were not members of the American Federation of Musicians (the musicians' union). The original movie credit was supposed to say "Electronic Music by Louis and Bebe Barron." But a lawyer from the union changed it at the last minute. To avoid upsetting the union, the word "music" was removed. The Barrons were credited with "Electronic Tonalities." Because they weren't in the union, the film could not be considered for an Oscar in the soundtrack category.

Later Years and Legacy

The Barrons didn't know what to call their creations at first. It was John Cage, who worked with them, who convinced them it was "music."

The Musicians' Union forced MGM to call the Forbidden Planet score "electronic tonalities," not "music." The union was worried about musicians losing jobs to electronic sounds. Because of this, the Barrons never scored another Hollywood film. As years passed, the Barrons didn't try to keep up with new technology. They were happy to make music the way they always had. Today, `modern digital technology` can imitate the rich sounds of their old `analog circuits`. Bebe's last work was Mixed Emotions in 2000. It sounded very much like their earlier work.

In 1962, the Barrons moved to Los Angeles. Even though they divorced in 1970, they kept composing together until Louis died in 1989. Bebe Barron was a founding member and the first Secretary of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States. They gave her a lifetime achievement award in 1997.

In 2000, Bebe was asked to create new music at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She used the latest sound technology there to gather sounds. From October to November 2000, she composed her final work, Mixed Emotions, in Jane Brockman's studio. The sounds from UCSB were put into a `Macintosh computer` and arranged to create the piece.

Bebe Barron remarried in 1975. Louis died in 1989, and Bebe died on April 20, 2008.

Famous Quote

• "Barrons' music sounds like a molecule that has stubbed its toes." — From the Diary of Anais Nin, Volume 7 (1966-1974).

Their Works

• Heavenly Menagerie (1951–52) Tape
• Bells of Atlantis (1952) Film score
• For an Electronic Nervous System (1954) Tape
• Miramagic (1954) Film score
• Forbidden Planet (1956) Videotape; Laserdisc MGM/UA Home Video, 1991; 2-DVD Warner edition, 2006
• Jazz of Lights (1956) Film score
• Bridges-Go-Round (1958) one of two alternative soundtracks, the other composed by Teo Macero
• Crystal Growing (1959) Film score
• Music of Tomorrow (1960) Tape
• The Computer Age (1968) Film score
• Time Machine (1970) on Music from the Soundtrack of 'Destination Moon' and Other Themes, Cinema Records LP-8005
• Space Boy (1971) Tape; revised and used for film of same name, 1973
• What's The Big Hurry? (1974) Driver's education film
• More Than Human (1974) Film score
• The Circe Circuit (1982) Tape
• Elegy for a Dying Planet (1982) Tape
• New Age Synthesis II on Totally Wired (1986) Pennsylvania Public Radio Associates Cassette Series
• What's the Big Hurry? (date unknown)
• Mixed Emotions by Bebe Barron (2000) CD