Women of Science Fiction: Bebe Barron

Bebe Barron (1925-2008) and her husband Louis’ pioneering work in electronic music helped lay the foundation for the sound of sci-fi. Their blips, buzzes, gurgles and groans in Forbidden Planet (1956) made up the first ever entirely electronic score for a feature film. 

For Further Reading: 

• The Barrons: Forgotten Pioneers of Electronic Music : NPR
• Unearthing Louis and Bebe Barron’s Hidden Tapes | California Festival
• Bebe Barron, 82, Pioneer of Electronic Scores, Is Dead - The New York Times
• The First Electronic Filmscore-Forbidden Planet: A Conversation with Bebe Barron - Effectrode 

This month, we’re talking about Women of Science Fiction. These women inspire us to imagine impossible worlds, alien creatures, and fantastical inventions, revealing our deepest fears... and hopes for the future.

History classes can get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. When we were students, we couldn’t help wondering... where were all the ladies at? Why were so many incredible stories missing from the typical curriculum? Enter, Womanica. On this Wonder Media Network podcast we explore the lives of inspiring women in history you may not know about, but definitely should.

Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more.  Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures. 

Womanica was created by Liz Kaplan and Jenny Kaplan, executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, and produced by Grace Lynch, Maddy Foley, Brittany Martinez, Edie Allard, Lindsey Kratochwill, Adesuwa Agbonile, Carmen Borca-Carrillo, Taylor Williamson, Sara Schleede, Paloma Moreno Jimenez, and Abbey Delk. Special thanks to Shira Atkins. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello from Wonder Media Network. I'm Jenny Kaplan and this
is Willmanica. This month, we're talking about women of science fiction.
These women inspire us to imagine impossible worlds, alien creatures,
and fantastical inventions, revealing our deepest fears and hopes for
the future. Electronic moans and blips and beeps, buzzing tones

(00:26):
and other worldly echoes. These are the sounds of science
fiction scores, but less than a century ago, they weren't
so commonplace. Today, we're talking about the woman who, alongside
her husband, pioneered the electronic sound of sci fi we
know today. Please welcome. Bb barn Phebe was born Charlotte

(00:52):
May Wind in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on June sixteenth, nineteen twenty five.
After she finished high school, she got a degree in
music at the University of Minnesota. In nineteen forty seven,
she moved to New York City and continued to pursue
an education in music composition. During this period, she met
and married Louis Barron, a fellow musician who was interested

(01:13):
in electronics. He gave her the nickname BIEB. The couple's
creative partnership began with an unusual wedding gift a tape recorder.
By the late nineteen forties, these machines were still pretty rare.
Boebe and Louis became fascinated with the new fangled device.
They loved to record conversations with friends and parties in
Greenwich Village avant garde scene, and they got creative with

(01:36):
manipulating the tapes, slowing them downs, beating them up, reversing them,
and playing audio backwards. Then Louis read a book by
MIT mathematician Norbert Weener about cybernetics, that's the science of
control and communications in both machines and living things. The
book inspired Louis to build home made electronic circuits with

(01:58):
vacuum tubes. Then the couple got to experimenting. When they
activated a circuit, it would come to life, displaying a
unique pitch and rhythm. BB and Louie would then record
those weird noises and loop the sounds or create echo effects.
When Bib talked about their process, she made it sound
like their circuits were living organisms. In a later interview,

(02:19):
she explained that they never really controlled their circuit's pitches.
She said, quote, each circuit we built had life spans
of their own. I just can't stress that enough, because
that was always amazing to me, and once they died,
we could never revive them. This was a time before synthesizers.
The peculiar beats and buzzes the barren circuits produced were

(02:40):
unlike anything people had heard before. Their New York apartment
became their studio, with piles of equipment and electronics, bib
and Louis spent hours and hours honing this totally new
way of making and combining sounds. It was Bbe's job
to sort through all the recordings, all those raw tapes
of odd sounds. She called it a terrible job. BB

(03:05):
and Louie's pioneering electronic sounds also caught the attention of
other artists. They worked on a year long project with
composer John Cage, culminating in an innovative electroacoustic work entitled
William's Mix. BB and Louie also scored several experimental short films.
Their big break really came in nineteen fifty five. They

(03:26):
wanted a chance to pitch their strange sonic brand to
MGM executive producer Dori Sherry, so they chased him down
at his wife's art exhibition and asked him to listen
to their stuff. Impressed and intrigued, he decided to hire
Louis and Bbe to work on an upcoming film with MGM.
That movie, Forbidden Planet, became a foundational work of science

(03:47):
fiction in Hollywood. It follows the tale of a spaceship
crew that journeys from Earth to a strange planet to
investigate Whyat's people have gone radio silent. There are eerie landscapes,
a hyperadvanced robot, and a hair raising alien monster. B
B and Louie's unearthly electronic score and sound effects complimented

(04:07):
them perfectly. It was the first entirely electronic score used
for a feature film in Hollywood history. A seemingly random
ensemble of beeps and groans came together to convey the
core emotions of the story. BHEB in particular, had a
special skill for translating the sound of their circuits into
human feelings like fear and love. For the frightful Monster's

(04:30):
death scene, they used the sound of their best circuit
going dark Forever. BHIEB said, you can just hear it
going through the agonies of death and winding down. When
Forbidden Planet was released in nineteen fifty six. Critics and
audiences praised BB and Louis's work. One critic lauded the
quote sounds which make the flesh creep with tension and

(04:51):
the goose pimples jump with joy. But a dispute with
the Musicians Union, who didn't like the idea of a
film scored without instruments, forced the couple to be credited
for electronic tonalities instead of a score. They were also
left off the film's Academy Award nominations. BB and Louie
never scored a feature film again. The couple divorced in

(05:12):
nineteen seventy but continued to compose together. Bib said the
long hours their work required were quote the thing that
ended our marriage. So I want to issue a warning,
be careful when you collaborate. In nineteen eighty four, BB
helped found the Society for Electroacoustic Music in the United States.
Years later, the organization presented her and Louis with a

(05:34):
Lifetime Achievement Award. Louis died in nineteen eighty nine. For
a while, BB stopped composing, but in the year two
thousand she released one final project on her own. The
work was called mixed emotions. Bib said it felt like
a continuation of the electronic scoring she and Louie did
on Forbidden Planet decades earlier. BB passed away on April twentieth,

(05:58):
two thousand and eight. She was eighty two years old.
All month, we're talking about women of science fiction. For
more information, find us on Facebook and Instagram at Wamanica
Podcast special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and
co creator. Talk to you tomorrow.