Music used for Silent Movies

Subject: RE: Music used for Silent Movies
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 17 Jul 04 - 09:51 PM

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Subject: RE: Music used for Silent Movies
From: JennieG
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 01:21 AM

Joy,

I remember the movie - the subject (Lyle Penn) spent several years in my home town of Tamworth many years before I was even thought of. It was an interesting slice of Oz history.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: Music used for Silent Movies
From: RangerSteve
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 09:23 AM

There's a company called New World Records that put out an LP called "The Mighty Wurlitzer". The record consisted of silent movie music, including the original score for "Phantom of the Opera". I don't know if they still offer that recording. They specialized in all aspects of American music. Originally, you couldn't buy their recordings, they only provided them to radio stations and libraries, but you can purchase them at Amazon these days. Most libraries, if they still have LP's, have some New World recordings in their collections.

Charlie Chaplin composed his own music for his movies, and a few years ago some of it was released on a new recording, but I don't have any information about it.

Subject: RE: Music used for Silent Movies
From: mcgrathof altcar
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 08:30 AM

When I was at Music College we were handed some photocopies of some sheet music that was issued by film (movie) companies.

It contained 3 or 4 pages of music with about 12 seperate pieces of music. These pieces had titles like "Hurry Music" "Fire Music" (I remember this used a heavy right hand chord tremelo!) "Chinese Music" "Romantic Music." etc.

I remember it was written by someone whose surname began with Z.

Subject: RE: Music used for Silent Movies
From: Joybell
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 08:17 AM

Has anyone else seen the great little Australian movie called "The Picture Show Man"? It's all about a man who has a traveling picture show. It's set in rural Australia in the days of silent movies. John Meillon and John Ewart play the main parts. Ewart is the piano player. Worth a look if you can find it. Joy

Subject: RE: Music used for Silent Movies
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 08:07 AM

Here you'll find a large collection of Rags in MIDI format which would often suit the mood of general action scenes in silent movies, but not chase scenes, being tied to railroad tracks, or scenes of great pathos.

In the distant past I have seen 'Classical' music collections on the Web that have been tagged as candidates for silent movie use. As I recall one particular composer was very popular, but neither my memory nor my knowledge are very useful on that subject.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Music used for Silent Movies
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 03:51 AM

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

Subject: RE: Music used for Silent Movies
From: GUEST,freda
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 12:24 AM

My father used to play the violin for the silent movies in his hometown of Coleraine, a country town in Victoria, Australia.

Subject: Music used for Silent Movies
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 12:21 AM

Certain Classical and Popular pieces of the day were often used to accompany Silent Movies. Back in the 1970's I once had an LP with some of the more popular ones. What tunes were used (and for what type of scenes)? I think it may be useful for some songs to know where the lyrics are too - some of them may already be here in the DT.

I'll start off with one I remember

She's only a Bird in a Gilded Cage - Romantic Scenes.

Robin