THE ROLE OF MUSIC IN CARTOONS (DISNEY)
By: Ilham Diddouch Dahmani 4th A Cartoons
Cartoons are visual and sound sequences obtained by hand-drawing pictures, we can also refer to cartoons as a TV series or film, that are carried adding “movement” to these drawings. Quirino Cristiani was an Italian cartoonist and animation director (Argentina) and he was the creator of the first two animated feature films and first feature animation sound in the world . HISTORY
The history of Cartoon Music Primarily centers around the work of composer Carl Stalling, who served as the musical director at the famed Warner Bros animation studios for two Decades. Stalling's work broke ‘the rules” by following the visual trajectory of the on-screen action instead of the accepted rules of composition. Carl Stallling
(November 10, 1891, Lexington, Missouri - November 29, 1972, Los Angeles, California) was an American composer and arranger of cartoons. He’s known for his association with the Looney Tunes series produced by Warner Bros, where he worked, creating music weekly for twenty years. Stalling began his career playing piano and organ when silent movies were issued. Then, he met Walt Disney , who was producing the animated shorts in Kansas City region . Stalling composed several short films for Walt Disney, but after some problems, he left the company as the same time as the animator Ub Iwerks did.They joined together and in 1936, when Iwerks was hired by Leon Schlesinger , who was hired to produce for Warner Brothers animated shorts, Stalling followed him to become a composer cartoon full-time musicians with access to Warner Brothers. He remained at Warner Brothers until his retirement in 1958. Carl Stalling’s compositions
From that time till nowadays
In 1989 In the United States debuts The Little Mermaid. After two decades in darkness, the Disney factory starts a revolution and starts the golden age of animation. The adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen was a turning point in the filmography of the study, and was for many reasons: changes in the drawing, writers, directors ... One of the most important elements,was the music. The soundtrack was signed by a composer named Alan Menken and the lyrics were by Howard Ashman. Well, we could say that these two characters started a revolution on their own, because their music and songs, in addition to winning numerous awards, they reached to the generation of the nineties From that time till nowadays 1.2
Alan Menken's name here is one of the main characters. This composer,has won 8 Oscars, and he created the music for “The Little Mermaid”, “Beauty and the Beast”, “Aladdin”, “Pocahontas”, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and “Hercules”. After the Golden Age,, Alan Menken worked with a much lower musical animation script but, in 2010 we discovered Alan again in his top form with the film “Tangled”. From that time till nowadays 1.3
Alan Menken was very important, however we have to mention other composers that worked for Disney company like: - Hans Zimmer, who won an Oscar for the soundtrack of “The Lion King”. - Jerry Goldsmith for the music in “Mulan”. - Mark Mancina and Phil Collins, who did a more than an excellent job with the music and songs of Tarzan and Brother Bear - James Newton Howard signed three great compositions for Dinosaur, Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet. -There are other melody composers like: Danny Elfman, John Powell,Henry Jackman... Disney soundtracks and their composers MY OPINION
I think that music is the most important factor for cartoons appart from image because it helps us a LOT to understand what’s happening and beacuse it transmits different emotions and as you can see some of them are still in our minds from our childhood.