| We live, my family and I, in a small rural town in
western Connecticut. Since we are not far from a large industrial complex in the Naugatuck
Valley, many of our friends and neighbors are business and industrial executives.
Frequently one of them will say to me "You are a good businessman: you know how to
write music, like "The Syncopated Clock," that makes money." Obviously, there is a basic misunderstanding here. My business friend
thinks a musical work is like a manufactured product and concludes that widely performed
music, like "The Syncopated Clock", is the result of technical knowledge and
skill and also the shrewd business sense to meet an already existing commercial need. In
trying to correct this misunderstanding I fund it useful to tell he following story.
A few years ago a group of ASCAP members went to Washington at the invitation of the
National Press Club to present a program at a luncheon meeting. Each composer played one
of more of his most popular numbers. When Hoagy Carmichaelšs turn came, he stepped to the
microphone. "You know," he said in his quiet Hoosier drawl, "many years ago
I got up out of bed one morning and I said to myself: I think Išll sit down and write a
piece called "Star Dust" so I wonšt have to work again for the rest of my
life."
This story, which received a hearty laugh from the National Press Club members, all of
whom are writer, usually makes my listeners pause and reflect.
I then point out that there is an essential difference between a manufactured article is
something tangible that can be seen and measured, tested in a laboratory, and researched
to see if there is an existing market for it. A musical work is something intangible and
the special quality or character the public will find attractive cannot be determined
until the public has had a chance to hear the music, and often to hear it many times.
I then further point out that if a composer were able deliberately to write music that
would be popular, all of Hoagy Carmichaelšs music would be as popular as "Star
Dust" and all my music would be played as much as "The Syncopated Clock."
Neither happens, unfortunately, to be true.
With his curiosity aroused my business friend usually asks about the history of "The
Syncopated Clock" and how it came to be used as a TV theme; and I am always glad to
tell the story.
In 1945, before there was television, I was stationed in Military Intelligence at the
Pentagon after returning from Army duty in Iceland as translator and interpreter. When
Arthur Fiedler learned that I was back in the country, he invited me to be guest conductor
of the Boston Pops Orchestra at the annual Harvard night.
Before the was I had written "Jazz Pizzicato" and "Jazz Legato" for
the Pops Concerts and Arthur Fiedler had recorded them while I was overseas. Naturally I
included these pieces on the program and set about thinking of a new number, preferably
humorous, that would make a good encore.
Suddenly the title "The Syncopated Clock" came to mind. It occurred to me that
hundreds of composers had written music imitating or suggesting clocks, but that all these
clocks were ordinary ones that beat in regular rhythm. No one had described a
"syncopated" clock and this idea seemed to present the opportunity to write
something different.
In wartime we worked a 12 hour day at the Pentagon but I managed in a few spare hours to
write the music, score it for orchestra and mail the manuscript to Symphony Hall. Mr.
Fiedler had the orchestra parts copied from the score and, making the trip to Boston on a
three-day pass, I conducted this very unmilitary music in uniform on May 28, 1945.
The most memorable thing about the performance is that Mack Stark, General Manager of
Mills Music, made a special trip from New York to hear the new pieces. Mr. Stark had
already published "Jazz Pizzicato" and "Jazz Legato" and was
eventually to become my good friend and advisor. After the concert Mr. Stark told me to
send him a copy of the score so that he could publish it right away. Because of the
wartime shortage of paper the first copies appeared in print in 1946.
Then followed four years of frustration. All over the United States professional and
amateur orchestras were playing "The Syncopated Clock" from the published
edition but no record company was interested in recording it. Mr. Stark and his staff
tried and tried but record manufacturers remained indifferent to the poor little clock.
The break came in 1950. In that year I was approached by Decca Records to record an LP of
my own music with my own orchestra. When the record was released an unusual coincidence
occurred. CBS was just starting an evening television program of old movies called The
Late Show and the producer searched through recent record releases for a theme. Among them
was "The Syncopated Clock", which caught his fancy. From the very first show CBS
was flooded with telephone inquires for the name of the theme and both CBS and I found
ourselves with a hit on our hands: theirs the show, mine the theme music.
This was over 16 years ago and as I turn on my television set I night I hear "The
Syncopated Clock" still ticking along.
Incidentally, if anyone knows how to write music that is certain to be very popular, I
should like to learn the secret, and Išm sure Hoagy Carmichael would, too. |
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