The term is used in the context of radio programming, TV series
production, and music library cues used to score radio/TV and film
series.
In the case of radio programming, especially for automated radio
stations, it means that a company supplies a library of on-air
programming for music formats. For example, a basic "Beautiful Music"
format library may consist of 100 reels of cuts in various styles.
Each 10" reel at 7 1/2ips may have30 cuts per reel. A contract may
specify 6 - 8 new reels supplied to the stations each month.
In the case of TV series, a producer may offer a television series
direct to individual TV stations, bypassing the networks. This is
called "First-run syndication."
But the usual practice of a TV syndicator, is that after a show has
had it's "First Run" on the network, and possibly even "Daytime
re-runs" on a network, rights to distribute the show then revert to
the series' producer, who may "syndicate" it, or offer it to
individual TV stations. At that point it is said that the series "has
gone into syndication."
The noun "syndicate" in its broadest sense means an organization
formed to further some financial or other common undertaking. In the
context of broadcasting, it often implies "re-cycling" programming
for additional uses for the benefit of all involved.
In the early days of TV, when budgets for the new medium were as
experimental as the series themselves, a similar creative approach
was used to supply music scoring to low-budget producers, and to
those who produced series for "First-run syndication." Examples of
this kind of TV program would be filmed series for TV like Superman,
Racket Squad, My Little Margie, Waterfront, and many more.
British, German, and French production music libraries had been
established in Europe in the late 1930s - 1940s, which supplied music
ro radio and film companies worldwide. These libraries had names like
Chappell, Boosey & Hawkes, Paxton, Francis Day & Hunter and
KPM. These libraries were the outgrowths of publishing companies
whose earliest business was promoting sheet music.
These publishers discovered that their "Mood music" or "Cue library"
divisions were a nice spin-off of their publishing ventures. Although
European libraries did not distribute library discs to the general
public, they always gave proper credit to the composers of their
library music on the disc, and even allowed pieces which were heard
on radio to become recorded commercially if the public was inclined
to buy them.
Robert Farnon's "Jumping Bean" was a cross-over "hit" in just such a
fashion. It jumped from the exclusive venue of library track into a
commercially successful piece recorded by several orchestras on 78rpm
singles in Europe.
New York selling agents Emil Ascher and Thomas J. Valentino had the
exclusive distribution rights to license music from these European
libraries to radio, TV and film producers in the US.
But other creative approaches were emerging to try and solve the gap
between what union musician rates demanded and what TV producers
could afford in their fledgling medium. Sometimes these creative
solutions were a direct end-run around the musician's union.
Sometimes they also involved making a way to recycle cues so that NEW
uses would receive payments through a different channel.
For early TV series like the 1949 Lone Ranger, a library of cues
which had been recorded by union musicians for the radio series (1933
- ) was slightly re-arranged and re-recorded in Mexico City, in order
to supply the TV productions with music and avoid union problems.
Composer credits were authentic.
For the 1950 TV series "The Cisco Kid", composer Albert Glasser used
cues he wrote which had originally been recorded in France for a
previous series of "Cisco Kid" feature films.
In 1950 Alexander Laszlo, a Hungarian-born silent-film composer who
emmigrated from Germany, amd who had composed low-budget film scores
since coming to the New York in the 1940s. He had re-cycled cues from
these early film scores in a series of discs called "Universal
Production Aids" distrubuted by Armed Forces Radio." Laszlo also
entered the business of TV music in LA with a revised version of this
library, which he now called "Structural Music." He told clients
about his theory of plotting emotions across several axes of a graph,
and how he categorized his compositions using a numbering system
based upon these graphs and other factors.
Perhaps his approach was a sales gimmick, or perhaps he felt it had
some sound basis, it at least worked for him, since he began
supplying clients with music. Most all of the recording sessions he
produced were in Europe at the Stuttgart Radio Studio, and a few may
have been done locally as "dark (non-union) dates". But low-budget TV
syndicators could not afford to pay more, and required a one-time use
fee (often called a "needle drop" fee, or even a "blanket" license to
use as much as they wanted from the library for a series.) In return
for the relatively low use fees he charged, Laszlo got to keep any
new material he developed specifically for a TV series (like "Burns
& Allen" or "My Little Margie") and re-cycle it in his
library.
Several companies in the US were in the business which catered to
these low-budget TV syndicators. The next year after Laszlo started
Structural Music, David Chudnow began a music service and library in
1951 called "Mutel" (which stood for "Music For Television".) He was
also using the practice of syndication for his music. He would give
the owners of music cues, including Alexander Laszlo, the opportunity
to include their music in his library, most likely for a
flat-fee.
If the cue was not in very widespread use, the owner of the music may
agree to this syndication. In order to collect ASCAP and BMI
royalties for the new uses created by Mutel, they gave new names to
the cues, and even gave credit to new composers, who may have been a
music editor that spliced the cue differently, or a pseudonym, or
even a fictitious name created by the publisher just for the purpose
of collecting royalties.
Sometimes (as in the case of Racket Squad, and Rin-Tin-Tin) a theme
might be re-edited into several pieces. Enterprising David Chudnow,
even sub-licensed parts of his library to Capitol records as the
Capitol "Q" Series (1953), and edited the original Mutel cues into
even more tracks, with yet even more names. Joseph Mullendore's
catchy Mutel march tune "March of the Rams" was spliced into two
different themes for license to Captiol "Q" -- Theme No. 46 and Mood
No. 50.
One of these edited tracks from the Capitol "Q" library--called
"Theme No. 46 (Sports -- March) " was used weekly on ABC netowrk's
"Game of the Week" football broadcasts. It became so popular that it
was published for marching band under the name "Game of the Week
March."
Another edit of Mutel's "March of the Rams" was called "Mood No. 50
(Sports - march)". It was used in combination with a bugle call
("assembly") as the main title for "Rin-Tin-Tin."
A motif by William Lava originally used in the cue "Presenting the
Doctor" from a 1940 film called "The Courageous Dr. Christian", was
purchased by Raoul Kraushaar's Omar Music, and after a modest change
of a few notes, retitled "Secret of the Silent Hills". It became the
theme song for the early seasons of the "Lassie" TV Show. A later cue
by Les Baxter with a whistled melody became the "Lassie" theme for
later seasons.
Raoul Kraushaar was a composer, who started a similar service
initially supplying series including "Lassie" under the name "Omar
Music Service." He went on to supply other programs including "Abbott
and Costello" too.
David Gordon, a music publisher who also worked as a scoring service
under the name "Gordon Music" re-cylced themes and published them,
sometimes even commissioning marching band arrangements in the style
of a traditional publisher. Since David Chudnow and Raoul Kraushaar
were not traditional pubilshers, they often worked with Gordon Music
to supply sheet music or band arrangements of their themes when
demanded by the public.
All three of these syndicators or music services--Chudnow's Mutel,
Kraushaar's Omar Music Service, and Gordon Music Company, drew from
the same pool of LA composers who had experience in B-pictures for
Republic Studios and Hal Roach and other studios. These included
William Lava, Joseph Mullendore, the ubiquitous Alexander Laszlo,
Herb Taylor , Les Baxter, and others.
MUTEL had begun using compositions supplied by composers William
Loose and Bill Cookerly. MUTEL supplanted these original pieces
recorded overseas, with cuts from the above pool of composers which
they re-cyclced. There was also a music editor named Leon Klatzkin
who was originally at Hal Roach Studios and who hired MUTEL to
provide cues for productions he worked on there.
As described above, although it may seem duplicitous to the
uniformed, the same piece of music may be given several titles during
its lifetime, and even may be credited to several composers--for
reasons of collecting performing rights royalties from ASCAP and BMI,
and other income from the exploitation of the piece from NEW
uses.
The phrase "NEW uses" is the key to understanding why this happens.
Mutel, Kraushaar, and Gordon were gambling on the new medium of TV to
generate NEW uses for music that was laying dormant as an older film
cue, and on pieces which they commissioned as an investment in their
new enterprise. They investment gamble was putting up the "buyout"
money as an untested stake in the future of TV business, and so they
wanted a hefty return on their investment, beyond the usual
publishing rights for which a traditional publisher would ask.
If there is a contract in which a composer (or other owner) of a
piece of music gives up a portion or all of his rights in the piece
of music, then another mechanism for identifying the piece at that
point in time may need to be established. Such a mechanism would be a
new title. This is to avoid confusion with earlier uses, for which
the composer may still collect royalties. If a music service
generates new uses, it wants to collect royalties for the NEW uses.
Of couse nothing prevents the OLD uses from generating royalties to
the composer--for example, if a B-picture is seen on TV again, or
given a foreign re-run.
Since ASCAP and BMI pay performance royalties to both composer and
publisher, MUTEL, Gordon and others, wanted to get a return on their
"buyout" investment by collecting the composer's share of royalties
on these NEW uses as well as the publisher. So they had to invent or
assign a name to the piece as a composer for this purpose.
In the case of Mutel, editor Leon Klatzkin who often cut the Mutel
cues into different sequences was given the honor. Consequently his
name appears as composer of "Superman", "Racket Squad", and other
series.
In the case of publisher David Gordon, he used variations of names
from his family as fictitious composer names.
In the case of Omar Music packager Raoul Kraushaar, he used his own
name.
Some people may think that the practices of these music syndicators
were underhanded or even outright fraudulent. Having been a composer,
I can see that many composers just have to keep looking for ways to
keep making a living. So it might seem like these syndicators are
like vultures preying on the innocent composer. But there are two
sides to every story.
No composer went into these deals with their eyes closed. I believe a
few of the composers who agreed to a "buyout" of rights, and signed
such contracts, may have seen certain of their cues become popular
with other titles and names attached. They may have regretted their
decision to license their music to a packager in these particular
cases. But these cases were probably the exception rather than the
rule.
The investment of the music packager/syndicator was a very risky
investment in the early days of TV, and so I understand how the use
of fictitious names and titles was a way to maximize their return on
this risky investment. It's hard to believe that anyone involved in
these deals was signing a contract which did not stipulate the rights
of the packager to do these things. It stretches credulity to believe
any packager would just "steal" a cue and assign a name and collect
royalties, hoping the original composer or owner would not hear it on
TV. It's absurd to think a packager would risk the legal consequences
of his entire business for a couple of royalty checks.
Of course, there are those of us who have pondered why "Racket Squad"
appeared to have two themes, when only one piece was used...or how
the "Death Valley Days" theme which was recycled via Mutel and
Capitol "Q" ended up used as the theme for the syndicated series "Sky
King" during some seasons.
The "Superman" theme is still one of those cases, where we may never
find out the original composer. Undoubtedly Klatzkin edited the sound
montage behind the famous opening "Look--up in the sky. It's a bird!
It's a plane! It's Superman!" Does that mean Klatzkin did or didn't
actually compose the two cues--a "flying theme" and a "march theme"
which have been listed as his composition under the names "Superman,
Main & End" and "Superman Trailer."
It's fun to dig and speculate. Editor/author and Superman TV series
expert, Paul Mandell of Brooklyn, NY has been trying to unravel these
mysteries for some years now. He has spent considerable resources in
his quest, even going so far as Europe to track it down. We wish him
well in his mission. In liner notes from a CD he co-produced in 2000
for Varese-Sarabande of music from "The Adventures of Superman",
Mandell wrote he suspected one of the orchestrators who worked for
cue supplier Jack Shaindlin of Cinemusic fame may have been the
original ghost-writer of the "Superman" THEME. But new theories may
supplant the old when it comes to pinning down ghost writers. And it
is Klatzkin's name on the copyright and publisher contracts, so
perhaps it doesn't matter...ghosts will be ghosts and should probably
stay that way...
As Paul Mandell has found out from talking to some of the MUTEL
staffers, memories fade, and the precise facts of nearly 50 years ago
may tend to blur together. Perhaps it is just as well the rest of us
don't become consumed by these issues too much. It might tend to blur
our own enjoyment of the music and memories themselves.
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