I knew a lady, born in 1902, who used to play the piano in a cinema. She had classical training and used that experience to enhance the films she had to accompany.

She was given a private showing of the films beforehand, so she could gauge the mood and make notes of her cues to change the music. The news reels had notes of the stories with them, so she could work out the likely themes (sombre, patriotic, amusing, etc) but were mostly off the cuff.

The woman was amazing - she could play almost any tune you wanted from her vast repertoire and if she didn't know it, she could sight read perfectly. She was great for playing for the local amateur dramatics society because she could watch the stage as well as play, so directed the actors at the same time!

I've heard many pianists since, classicaly trained and not so classically, but she was better than all of them!

And that was 22 years ago, when she was 79.

LTS