Burt Bacharach on Composing

from the Library of Congress in Washington DC you we're in the Library of Congress it's May 9th 2012 I'm with our the honoree for the Gershwin Prize for American song my name is Mark Horowitz Burt Bacharach is here and our focus today is going to be on you as a composer the process of composing and my first question given the Gershwin Prize we know that some songwriters like Gershwin and Harold Arlen sort of kept little notebooks with them to jot down tunes as they came to them is that part of your process at all do you get ideas like that and I it's definitely in my process and it's if not on an airplane if it's not like music paper and it rarely is then it's a cocktail napkin half of a page of legal pad you know you know borrow from some money and I'll just draw a staff and and put four lines there are four threads five lines see that's a very important thing for me to to impart to aspiring musicians songwriters composers that the ability to learn how to notate music very important very key are the ideas always melodic ideas do you do sometimes write harmonic no no I'll hear the harmonic and are they but are they always for the melody or do you sometimes get an idea for an accompaniment or a VAM many of the songs that I've written many of the things that I've written you could say like a song like walk on by so what happened with walk on by is became formed it's almost like the orchestration came with it where the flugelhorns would come in where the strings would come in what the drum pattern might be that keyboard figure and walk on by that was and as I heard that played it said well I'm going to write the orchestration and I'm going to write it for two pianos and we'll get two grand pianos in the studio with the orchestra and we'll have the two keyboard players absolutely I don't think I played on that date just conductor those in the booth and I have them both play the identical hmm part just for the thickness of the texture just yeah just work because it will not be an exact like overdub it'll be like there'll be two different textures the keyboard the texture it will different from the other keyboard texture and I think that ah it's a good idea you know yes well so many of your chords are so rich and thick and surprising and there's two kinds of harmony the vertical harmony in the horizontal harmony in terms of how much of it is you think this is where I am in the song this is the melody note this is how I want to harmonize it versus do you have a harmonic outline for a whole song does is that part of well I have to I have to try to look at a vertical outlook that's why it's important for me to get away from the keyboard both in orchestrating and both in composing because I have to try to hear the whole thing as an entity rather than the kind of like enchanted by a bar that sounds really good and but where's that going to be in the overall three four bars where does it lead to where's the relief where is the where is where you can stand back and that's why a normal process will be for me to be able to get away from the keyboard and and then come back and check it out of the keyboard and go from the couch to the keyboard in and sometimes on recording dates and what I would do with musician sitting in the studio and if I was stuck something wasn't working I'd give a ten minute break to the orchestra and I go into the UM into the men's room and go into one of the stalls and close the door I mean I just sit him you know sit down there I wouldn't need that have to go to the bathroom okay I would have a place to sit and nobody would talk to me no it is him and I just run through and try to isolate it in my head what was wrong what was stopping me at a certain time nine out of ten times I'd have the answer when I'd come out yes there was a pressure there's a ten minute break I mean one could have nightmares about not getting the orchestration done in time I think there was a famous story about Quincy Jones like up in his hotel room years ago with the arrangements not done with Paul Simon in the studio with a lot of musicians the whole string section and I've had I've had many correlated dreams like this not being finished in time not having it done when you come up with the solutions do you just do play it on the piano for the musicians do you dictate it yes good good question an average session for me would be get my rhythm players whoever's on the date bring their and I don't write it out like a bass part like per se I do write certain lines where I want the base to maybe hold a note or play off of the fourth beat into the down and I think if i things like that but I'll give a certain kind of Liberty I wouldn't write a drama bar down I might say yes play across that go to the snare snare drum here but what I would do is gather them around the keyboard and play the song for them and sing it and whether I was the singer on that I wasn't the singer on the date but just let them know the song would if there was another singer would you have them listen to you singing it as well not necessarily because that's saying I would know the song before we're in the studio how many takes typically does it take to get through a number before you're comfortable with it is there any average on that I've overdone it you know me Dion's first record that Dionne Warwick don't make me over it was probably 28 or 29 takes you know but that we had it for I keep going for let's get it can we top what we got and the challenge always is and it's a great kind of it's not a game the challenge is to have everybody meet at the hundred percent mark in other words the singer will give that performance the magical performance the drummer will play better than he's played on any of it everybody will have connected in this I love the recording process where everybody is in the studio at the same time because rather than making a track I have no never comfortable with that making a track having the singer come in because I like having just save the drummer or the keyboard player react to what the singer has just been singing if when you do all these takes is it ever true that if you get when you go back and listen that the first take actually turns out to be even if there are flaws the most exciting or the latter because of Garth of God and there are some some days have done that were that was just crossing chromatic Innes to Texas retakes never won beyond like a the run Isley album that I did with him where I try to reinvent a lot of these songs that had been done in a different way and we took two two rooms at Capitol Records studio a and B and join them together put strings in more hey we did Alfie on the first egg and that was that Ian really yeah and because there was it put him in a room not baffle them off put him where he's almost part of the orchestra but that's him clue Ron Isley okay okay put Ron Isley out in the room and that's him exceptional studio because you can do that studio I think Sinatra used to record in did you have a mentor for the studio work for how to work with musicians and produce and all that it's something you just learned I thought you learned that I think you learn that that do you learn orchestration from I mean I remember Henry Mancini and I buckle orchestration that had reference discs so you want to see how he scored six bars of Pink Panther you could see his actual score and you could then see it you know all written in concert key and hear it and there's a little man but but that's beyond that because I used to I used to look at some arrangements that and it's also seeing what you can you and I started mark and I didn't have a clue really I said well we got nine violins on the day that's great so Egypt violin must be playing its own part see that's real just dense on my part ah no you have nine violins and you don't want to have nine different parts you do want to have them hopefully more than 9 because 9 is it a little light for but with a great engineer and I did a lot my throne Ramone and tell them um was it was a violinist so I didn't know them a prodigy and so he could get a string sound that was unbelievable when he was when he was recording when he was an engineer I wanted to go back a little bit of more about the composition process on the one hand you talked about how it sort of comes greatly fully formed in your mind but you've also talked about I think alpha you said it took you three weeks to write is that used is each is it a new version each time or do you how do you refine and change until you is it is it nope I note saying I this one is too obvious and I want to go nope I know you want to go the whole vertical picture and see where it's going and that you know that was an important very important lyric and that was basically setting house lyric because I had to conform to what this movie was about so if the assignment come in the movies coming out when you guys you guys write a song for Alfie the title song and if I had gone to a panel and just kind of fooled around and came up with a melody yarn that wouldn't work I mean a you know I'm a big believer in in many situations the words have to come first and they have to be said I just did a show with Steven Sater that opened the Old Globe and San Diego at the end of last year and he's wonderful lyricist - and he writes very musically he writes I mean where things fall it's never like the second verse you have to ask for well you see got too many too many syllables I'm like no he was right on verse after verse without knowing any money he just knew and but there again it's a different way to write it would take me to a different place setting when Alfea I knew how important that song could be vanilla powerful that movie was I was not thrilled with their choice of artists didn't have control of that and they chose cher to sing it with sunny producing a Sonny Bono at gold star Records and were you at the recording session at all or I came in late with as married to Angie Dickinson at the time and we came in from a Dodger game and I wasn't sure what I was hearing when I walked in it sounded like I felt back to record because somebody kind of function that way and that was the studio that Phil Spector always used I moved the wall of sound three guitar players a couple of percussion players it had no resemblance to what Althea was about you know and I course covered it immediately with Dia yeah you mentioned I know talking with how that you've worked all all different ways sometimes the lyric first sometimes the melody first and sometimes more of a collaboration when you do get a melody first and you're setting it I've seen some composers you can see they'll have the lyric in front of them and they sort of mark out where they think the measure bars should be or the accents should be so even before they look at a tune they're sort of getting a rhythm is that part of your process at all yeah it's in - just in your head it's in my head you know promises promises was another situation where the lyrics really had to come basically first because they had to come off of a Neil Simon script so they had to be as seamless as possible so better to work with a lyric see that shocks me because I a sump ssin would have been I mean that's one of the songs that has the most sort of meter changes in it and I would have thought that would have been the case for when the music came first and that the when it's the lyric first it would be sort of a more traditional song but it's fascinating to me that it wasn't that way well look if you look looking Alfie you'll see that I don't know it's it is it a 12-bar phrase xi bar phrase something it's not an 8 bar phrase ci starting in the music business I went through periods where I am I wrote songs with how about Hilliard or couple of other writers and and we we gave him to record companies in A&R Rangers and so-and-so would record a song you know I got I remember one instance of having a song that I thought was maybe really good song there are three bar phrase and I was told that if you make it a four bar phrase I'll give you Joe Stafford to record or I'll give you that was Joe Williams it would be a great singer with the Basie band well got me there right maybe maybe I'm wrong maybe they don't hear is a 3 bar phrase but it was supposed to be a three bar phrase it wasn't about and then it became a four bar phrase it got ruined you know and there's an example of I got very excited Sinatra was doing I heard he was doing wives and lovers with the Basie band and Quincy was doing pretty Genesis doing and then I heard the record you sure he was in for it's a it's a it's an out-and-out waltz wives and lovers it isn't three four it's not in for Quincy what happened why why why is it like in for and he said um he's been playing free maybe that self maybe it's not it you're the variation in the structure the the length of measures and the the time for the timing of them was part of that because of your training with Martin knew and Cowell and me oh do because you sort of came from that classical background that you felt freer you think than other songwriters it's certainly helped I mean it certainly helped to be aware of the extreme extent of some of the music that I was exposed to it it was John Cage a new Harrison listen to their concert so you do feel influenced by other composers that way well I certainly there's a stockpile of musical knowledge that you get use you assimilate and I mean I never was much for the plain vanilla three-chord song you know I was too sophisticated and I mean that in a different way too sophisticated musically maybe so it's you know I got a I tend to put the ninth in recorded now you know that changes as I right now is something very basic about going I mean I just did an orchestration because in Australia I wrote an orchestration on I hadn't done in a long time for one of my singers I just don't know what to do with myself and which is a really good good song that I'd kind of forgotten and maybe one of the reasons I forgot about sort of was because it really does start I just don't know what to do with myself so it's basically a C chord going to an F chord going back to a C chord and though I tried to play with let me see if I can go for pure C and then go to an F but let's put the second in in the right hand and it turned along and then there are courts that could be very lush later and then second four bars it's a minor seventh and minor ninth a b-flat major seventh and buttock those opening bars are structurally belong to C major pure vanilla F pure and just based on the title of the song it seems like a perfect illustration of the title okay that's good that's good it's a good song and you know hadn't been doing it in in concert and did it I did it one time with Elvis Costello but that was a different arrangement I wrote this arrangement for because I knew we were dealing with Symphony Orchestra's down in Australia so I know I could get the violins up in the atmosphere you seem to have a penchant for for high string lines for people singing with high in there Tessa Torres is there something well particularly particularly singers uh and that's why you know I've gravitated to more two of the female voice is there more emotion that comes on I'm trying to think who gave me what I'd want you know Gene Pitney was great trying to think of a male artist that I had success with Gene Pitney was great Tom Jones tom is great but you know there are different voices then Luther Vandross you know and Isaac Hayes C I guess I was always gravitating towards the urban I mean that's why the thing the album though it was kind of a cult a little album with Ron Isley so special because he gave me everything that I could possibly and he did it where those were the vocals right there with a million musicians playing at the same time BAM so many of the singers who perform with you they may have wonderful range is an amazing pitch and all that but they seem to be there's a light breathy quality to them you don't especially the female singers you don't have tend to work with belters and big voices is that similar to the the high range that that's there's something in that sound that you're have a preference for yeah I'm not I'm not big on working with the diva singers naming no names you know that kind of go into great vocal tricks and things like that that's a different kind of vocal trick then you get from Aretha everything I'll give you a lick that to you today oh man you know impeccable so many of your songs have Melissa Melissa m'as are those do they evolved in the studio or that's in the song from the very beginning good neither yeah oh the Dion song walk on by the way the buy goes sort of at the end of phrases you know it's not just a straight tone they're the you know the OneNote travels well travels through and it holds them with it - piano figure that comes in walk on vine and then you got that line that's going which is a - piano listen playing a little bit of a dissonant thing and which is kind of a sense of urgency it's a interesting song when you really look at welcome by there is no bridge there was no chorus really but all with from the very beginning of the that whole welcomed by and the sort of the extensions was always it wasn't something that she sort of evolved with you in the studio okay when you compose for film not not the songs for films but just instrumental music and you're not limited by the the range of a human voice does that change how you write do you do you feel free or in a different way do you approach it differently I think it's music you see in for me markets been like first film I scored with what's new pussycat and it was a terrifying experience because I didn't have much time got the picture late had never seen a rough cut in my life and she was very very helpful how was she helpful because she'd seen rough cuts okay and she could change reels this is before we had DVDs you know and she could change not in terms of giving you musical ideas or some no okay but would help me through it and you know maybe get involved with the motion vector and that's why one of the reasons why I've done and not that many I have to really kind of love it be hooked on it and also pay pay a lot of attention to knowing it ah I've seen the movie 220 times by the time I get on a scoring stage so I don't need the streamers I listen to the dialogue I know where the music is supposed to be out I memorized the whole thing I won't conduct with a click track and never did it I never did Butch Cassidy with a click track I mean I just knew every line I knew you know with Butch Cassidy which was just this amazing experience because it was an amazing movie and that'll spoil you for a movie that might come your way afterwards that you look at you said can I see this 200 times do you agree just based on reading the scripts no no I mean I knew the run I knew Goldman was great writer Paul Newman Redford Georgia Hill was the director George Roy hill when I went in to have a meeting with him at 20th Century Fox when you walk in to a director's office and he's at the piano playing Bach really you say oh this is really good and isn't it really bad this is somebody who knows music and and also it could be he could be tough on your music so um he was great you know he he knew exactly what he wanted some directors to get very nervous with a film because they they're concerned and with the music to save the film and more music is better than less music and or what that does is make it more difficult you know nothing's going to save the film if it isn't there and George Wright he'll just said I've got these major sections in this movie and that's where I want music and I want the music to be important and that's all I want that's where I want the music and I have to say that's courage on his part because I know that when I was working on the bicycle scene and watching her that I guess the point I was trying to say before and I got sidetracked I didn't get the theme on what's new pussycat until I kept watching Peter Sellers character over and over and this other craziness and off-center and the behavior in the wildness of dr. Fassbender and you know and you know and then this thing worked but if I take a music notes and going on my remembrance and recall of what that don't felt like as it is the standard usually with music composers or used to be anyway they take notes film out music out at the scene it's in what happens dialogue then no I never would have gotten that had I not lived with Peter Sellers and his character I didn't scene with her slight interest and Casino Royale I kept watching her over and over which was something extraordinary to watch and so look a love was born that way but it was a very sensual theme I scored it for a small rhythm section a very sexy sax player with a very loose kind of bossa feel inhale added next in the look of love and back to George Roy hill and you know Butch Cassidy that was a big risk you know for me I saw that bicycle scene and I had a melodic fragment that was working and very often what I do work is when I'm writing I'll put down the lyrics now I think Paul Simon does the same thing and he dumps them later but when he's writing he's putting words that sound good on such a such a note I've done things where I write on trumpet parts like the record date words it's different than than playing an eighth note and a quarter note and another eighth note do you share it with musicians yeah they have to read it and they look at you know exactly on their parts until absolutely huh you can kind of guy that comes in its gonna attitude you know and see was this supposed to mean you know what what hey then sing the part you know you play it like you're singing stay with me is different than Thai uh you'll play it different there are no accidents there are no marks there no lines there there's nothing that can replace an actual sing the part on your trumpet I know the lyric means nothing it's not part of a lyric it's just part of your part so um I kept hearing hearing the time of raindrops keep falling on my head which was different than what he'd asked for original wait you didn't know that he said write something is the bicycle sequence but I thought he said grand themes is what he wanted and yeah yeah here was a grand thing okay you didn't say it's gonna be a song there but I had the title it was a perfect place to have what a line that we crossed actually then have filled out the rest of the native story out of white raindrops you follow my head that works I mean there in Bolivia and they're screwed do you know they're yeah they're gonna get it I mean they're gonna lose in the end but at the moment yeah you know it's kind of carefully thing and he took our chance here's something it took place of Bolivia and it's turn of the century and it's a sort of like a cowboy picture and we're writing something that works for it certainly works for the time in place of this movie was taking place and Yeti the clam top 40 radio and I know that we got he liked it said let's go with who we get at Ray Stevenson traced even with Ray Stevenson ferry wouldn't been very appropriate we flew flew him out 20th century flew him out I got him saw the movie and heard the song he hated the movie and hated the song and got on a plane and left to read who knows I guess when you did promises promises as far as I know it was your first musical was that a different process did it surprise you did you have to use different muscles than you used before lyrics off first practically how why was it the u.s. Sondheim who to get as an Orchestrator for it well that's always been the legend I'm not sure how I found Jonathan Tunick at Jonathan done or was it the other way around your what you were the first Broadway musical he did and the story goes that you'd asked son I'm to suggest somebody I didn't know anything huh so I may have asked him it may have been the conductor who's going to conduct the show who recommended Jonathan and then Jonathan went on and did all of a sudden I'm stuck he's a wonderful Orchestrator can wonderful to work with when you work with other orchestrators how do you how much information do you give them about what you want what you're hearing where you let's see what they come up with first or Jonathan is very cute easy because we just work together in some lovers Thank You Man and let sit for hours at the keyboard looking at the music and I'm basically tell him what I want then he has freedom to go he says I'm the only only composer of it hi he's ever done that with whether others don't orchestrate or I don't think Stephen does but I'm too much of a control freak but I hear a line and I I'm good just taking a pencil and saying out this is out this is do you hear arrangements what other people do of your songs and you're particularly pleasantly surprised that you say I'll even though it's different from what you had done you think it the liberties they took are interesting or good when in last night's concert when one of your numbers was done with a reggae beat that was the how do you respond to things like that I left Stevie a nest a my favorite song to do with the reggae would make it easier yourself know he could be doing something powerful emotional song what about earlier songs when record is a different thing in concert when you change it and I've got a record that was sent to me by Philadelphia disc jockey by a group called The Devil's that recorded on Chess Records where they recorded it was called the hits of Dionne Warwick that my name wasn't even mentioned but they were all our songs health of my soul and your Creator insurance and they were soulful and the change chords and the joy but it all kind of okay when it's really in good taste you know and and the song in itself has been a step see that you have a new song somebody goes and records it and changes it so in the first time that song is used it's it's been altered like Brook Benton did the first record of house not home and I said that's wrong man he's getting this guys getting paid to sing it for them by film company it's too good a song I mean you know I say rookie the chair is still up not a chair is still a chair and then even when there's no one sitting there because I've been thirds yeah you know data tubes off hey man listen uh you know I read music but I don't want to spoil myself well you know give me a break it's back to the same thing you're on an airplane be able to write learn solfege learn how to notate how to read a piece of music do you see an evolution in your compositional process or the some composers seem to get simpler as they get older that they don't need as much they become sort of less is more and others become more wildly experimental and are sort of pushing the envelope do you see anything like that in your own work or you know I think it varies it goes I mean I think the album I did with Elvis Costello painted for memory with those songs that we wrote together that very special and they're very different and I could look at the score for some lovers than I've done the Steven Sater which we're talking about now the next step would be regional theater possibly here in Washington this is long way to get the Broadway or offer away but is it a different way of writing music I don't like to make things complicated for people okay I remember with promises promises Jerry Orbach after three months you know and came to see the show in New York and Terry OFAC had the lead needs and kind of anguish everything god am I gonna sing this or promises promises I'm a through hardly catch my breath you know and I think you know he's right I don't like to make it difficult and hard for people I don't one exhaust you of the song be careful of that I am very careful about that one dynamics and orchestration - you know I don't want you know I am my own judge not that audience out there that may get to judge the work it's kind of passed by me it's gotta live by me and if I'm questioning it by the third or fourth day it's like you know you look in here songs that are great for them three four days a week here candy you don't hear them anymore promises promises belonged to have this kind of energy the guy is angry he is through I mean he's been shafted in that office and because people have been promising him things and he does have promises promises I will through with promises promises now you know and it was hard to do it night after night with a change in tempo too because you know unless you're working with a track or preliminary click track to at least start at the tempo you think that is the right tempo my shift which I like I'm very much in favor of that with some lovers that we just did I like the idea that the conductor worked with the click track because we knew what the tempo after fooling with it was the best tempo and at least have it as a preliminary click you know he's hearing it in his headset ok the click is turned off when the music starts but at least we started in the depth promises promises Dion recorded it landed the record with her she floats through it with the greatest ease kind of fluid fluent I was make it difficult on I'm right I didn't mean to suggest that nobody you know don't make it difficult on an audience I know so as far as changing my songs you know I didn't want I was not crazy about the record I made on say a little prayer with Dion and those in tempo tempo yoga tempo and nose and a reef this record is far better sorry no there's no doubt about a leathery this wreck it seems like one of the extraordinary things about your work is in every way how it constantly shifts the colors shift the thickness of the texture shift the the instrumentation the the dynamics it my sense is it sort of gives a liveness to the things and keeps a certain amount of surprise go is there a conscious thing about that is it something are you thinking about the audience's point of view then or don't think about the audience don't think about the audience about what's working for you so you're the audience yeah Scott has my room gotta gotta have my blessing and I gotta be okay man I gotta go through the nights where I can't sleep because I keep hearing a damn song in my head it's good and bad one is that you don't get much sleep and the other is that it's like a jukebox in your head that's good when you're working like that and what with your question this the color surprises the colors okay right yeah yeah genomics yes boy so it's like if you got a young singer and you brought a young singer tunisie I should be really great could you do can you write a song like I don't make me over could you do that um and I could did for Dionne kind of redo something like that nah couldn't do that I wouldn't have to do that and you move on the minute you stay stationary you get that stagnant that's why me they haven't done it here since I've been here in Washington even at home if I'm not writing anything let's just let me get that piano just you sometimes play just for pleasure get keep in touch with my music get in touch I think our time is thank you for for your time today thank you for all the joys your works given millions of us and I'm most appreciative of that you know I must appreciated and the last thing I'll say is you know by writing this music and being able to have this music the joy that it gives me to then go out and perform it and being able to do that and be able to conduct uh Symphony Orchestra and do my music and maybe make people feel good feel something you know something in the heart or take their mind or something it's been bothering them that's a big plus to know that what's going to happen back pay for is somebody suggests about go onstage you know nice being here with you it's our pleasure my pleasure is brains you know have will experience take this has been a presentation of the Library of Congress visit us at loc.gov

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Length: 48min 13sec (2893 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 30 2013