In almost every Warner Brothers cartoon featuring a machine, an
assembly line, or some technological item, there is a piece of
classical music that accompanies it.  It sounds to me like something
from the 20s or 30s, Copland-ish, but I've never been able to pin a
name or a composer on it.  The music, as well as I can render it in
ASCII, goes like this:

Da-dum da-dum dum dum, da-da da-da dumdum, 
da-dum da-dum dum dum, da-da-daaa dum . . .

And so on.  What piece of music is this and who wrote it?

With thanks,

Gary

The song is called "Powerhouse." It was written, performed, and first
recorded by Raymond Scott in 1936. You can find interesting
information about the composer here:

Raymond Scott FAQ
http://raymondscott.com/FAQ.htm 

Here are audio clips of two sections from the song, as provided on
Scott's site:

http://raymondscott.com/Powerhse.wav

http://raymondscott.com/PH.wav

I tried a variety of keywords to search for this information,
including "warner brothers," "cartoon music," and "machine music." The
search keyword combination that paid off was this one:

Google Web Search: "music" + "cartoon"  + "assembly line"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=music+cartoon+%22assembly+line

Thanks for asking an interesting question. If anything I've said is
unclear, or if any of the links are nonfuctional, I'll be glad to
provide further assistance if you request clarification before rating
my answer.

Best wishes,
pinkfreud

---

Clarification of Answer by pinkfreud-ga on 31 Oct 2002 12:54 PST

Gary,

Thank you very much for the five-star rating and the five dollar tip!
This was one of the most interesting questions I've researched so far,
since it was a subject that I'd wondered about and had never gotten
around to investigating (the lack of a "round tuit" has hampered many
a mental inquiry, as I'm sure you've discovered!)

In case you're interested in more info about music in Warner Brothers
cartoons, here's an enjoyable article that I found earlier during my
searches:

http://www.awn.com/mag/issue2.1/articles/goldmark2.1.html

~Pink

An excellent and thorough answer: well-documented, polite, and
complete.  I am pleased beyond words!

If you're interested in the music for Warner Bros. Cartoons in
general, you might want to look into the Carl Stalling CDs, which I
have and love.  Stalling wrote much of the music used in the Warner
Bros. Cartoons.

The Carl Stalling Project Vol. 1 (thru Amazon)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000002LJE/qid=1036121239/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/103-4593811-5063809?v=glance&n=507846

The Carl Stalling Project Vol. 2 (thru Amazon)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000002MN3/qid=1036121239/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_2/103-4593811-5063809?v=glance&n=507846

NPR 100: Warner Brothers Music
http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn/segment_display.cfm?segID=114630

luciaphile-ga