Congrats, Børge!

Today marks the 88th birthday of Børge Ring, whom I am proud to call my mentor. He lives in a rural part of Holland, but though he feels slowed down by age, his mind is as sharp as always. He sent me following as follow-up on my mentioning of Steamboat Willie's timing:

      « As Hans justly states: A tempo of 2-16 aka 4-8 is the simplest and most manageable of tempos.
David Hand timed his Disney shorts by metronome and beat. He gave this advice: "If you make changes in your timing - making an action slower or faster - never add or subtract anything less than a whole beat. That way you stay within the pattern and you do not bring the musician into weird difficulties."

      Dave was not intimately conversant with music techniques and his musician Bert Lewis gave him this rule of thumb; "Write your timing in bars of 4 beats. Always put strong accents on 1 or on 3 in the bar. Then you will never get me into trouble."
I contended that a musical accent can have much more sock when placed on 2 or 4 in the bar - as often used in jazz. Dave answered that "You can do anything as long as it makes sense musically."

      During the making of the short ON ICE Goofy exchanges whacks with an obstinate fish. Walt Disney suggested to director Sharpsteen that Ben give the sound effects the rhythmic pattern of (what he called) a "Dixieland Ending" [the old "Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits"]:

Dab dabbedy dab dab uhm dab dab.
1   2       3   4   1   2   3

      The result on the finished film is amusing to listen to. Sharpsteen seems to have sweated and the piece of sound film must have contained a great number of splices, old and new. »

Børge mentions Dave Hand telling to never add or delete less than a whole beat, which means a measure can have e.g. one or three beats, even though it originally has two beats (if it's a 2-12 as in the example from The Pointer that I show here). This always posed an interesting challenge to the musician...