Lecture 3 and 4: The Silent Era

Question 1

Baroque period

Answer 1

• 1600- 1750
• key composers = Vivaldi, Handel, Bach
• development of common practice = major/minor system of music theory
• musical structures most important
• very precise,
  even tempos, consistent textures, terraced dynamics, counterpoint

Question 2

Example of Baroque music

Answer 2

• J.S. Bach
• “Brandenburg Concerto No. 6” - 3rd movement
• 1721

Question 3

Classical period

Answer 3

• 1730 - 1820
• key composers = Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven
• greater focus on melody and emotion
• melody is more clearly articulated (unlike counterpoint in Baroque)
• expanding variety of tempo, texture, and dynamics

Question 4

Example of Classical music

Answer 4

• W.A. Mozart
• “Symphony No. 40” - 1st movement
• 1788

Question 5

Romantic period

Answer 5

• 1800 - 1910
• important influence on film music
• key composers = Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Strauss
• expression of emotion was most important
• form must serve in order to illustrate emotion
• program music, through composed
• even greater range of tempo, texture, and dynamics

Question 6

Program music

Answer 6

• music that aims to illustrate a narrative or event

Question 7

Through composed

Answer 7

• composer goes wherever they want to go

Question 8

Example of Romantic music

Answer 8

• R. Wagner
• “The Magic Fire Music” from Die Walkure
• 1870
• this was on the temp track for Star Wars

Question 9

Melodramas

Answer 9

• prominent in the 19th century
• melodramas are plays with a lot of accompanying music
• deliberately over emotional (similar to soap operas)
• important precursor to the music in films

Question 10

The silent era

Answer 10

• 1895 - 1927

Question 11

The persistence of vision

Answer 11

• if you speed up still images at a rate of around 10 images a second, we begin to see continuous motion
• our brain fills in the missing gaps

Question 12

Zoopraxiscope

Answer 12

• 1879
• projects several images to present the illusion of movement
• photography starts to develop
• technology starts to work out

Question 13

Thomas Edison

Answer 13

• Kinetoscope (1891) = peephole viewer with a continuous loop of film, showed moments of life
• Kinetophone (1895) = a kinetoscope with a phonograph installed in the box
• could only be seen by one viewer

Question 14

Problem with synchronization

Answer 14

• hard to get a phonograph playing on a similar motor loop as the film motor
• mechanical problems

Question 15

First projected films

Answer 15

• the Lumiere Brothers
• Paris
• December 28th, 1895
• “The Arrival of a Train”
• showed an event, no narrative
• demonstration of technology
• from the beginning, music played when movies played

Question 16

Reasons for musical accompaniment

Answer 16

• pragmatic = mechanical noise/mechanical problems
• psychoanalytic = audience disturbed by ghost-like images, music gave life
• continuity of tradition = long history of musical accompaniment for visual presentation

Question 17

Approaches to music in the silent era

Answer 17

• originally composed = least used, becomes more common in the 1920s
• adaptations of classical music = commonly used
• arrangements of popular songs = commonly used

Question 18

Vaudeville theatres

Answer 18

• form of live variety show
• during intermissions, they started showing movies (short clips)
• movies were called “photoplays” for a while
• over the next couple of decades, movies will become more popular, causing the downfall of Vaudeville
• musical accompaniment provided by Vaudeville orchestra
• not actually done to synchronize with the film played
• Vaudeville would travel around with a small collection of musicians

Question 19

Nickelodeons

Answer 19

• 1905
• costs 5 cents to get in
• in buildings that were not built to be movie theatres
• music was accompanied
• range of talent/type music was extraordinary
• music provided by piano, player piano, small ensemble or gramophone

Question 20

Player piano

Answer 20

• piano that plays itself

- clockwork

Question 21

Growth of Nickelodeons

Answer 21

• 1907 = 3,000
• 1910 = 10,000
• popularity is growing

Question 22

George Melies

Answer 22

• early experimenter with camera effects
• A Trip to the Moon (1902)
• over 10 mins in length
• father of the fantasy film
• inventing costumes, set design, series of scenes in different locations, special effects
• each frame was hand painted
• linear narrative

Question 23

Edwin Porter

Answer 23

• The Great Train Robbery (1903)
• first narrative film to use cross cutting
• consensus was that people might not understand cross cutting, but it turned out to be understandable

Question 24

Cross cutting

Answer 24

• showed plot lines that were taken place in different times or locations

Question 25

1905 - 1910

Answer 25

• narrative films become most important element
• film become longer, plots become more complex
• change in musical aesthetic from entertaining the audience to playing the picture
• filmmakers want to standardize the music

Question 26

1910 - 1920

Answer 26

• film industry matures
• becomes a big business and makes a lot of money
• studios start to appear to make motion pictures
• films become longer, more sophisticated

Question 27

Movie palaces

Answer 27

• 1912
• made for the sole purpose to show movies
• far more grandiose than theatres today, incredibly ornate

Question 28

Larger orchestras

Answer 28

• 1910 - 1920
• 70-90 person orchestras
• showed up every night to play movies

Question 29

Theatre organs

Answer 29

• 1910 - 1920
• theatre organ becomes very popular
• can be used as a complement to the orchestra, or solo
• can vary the quality of its sound due to stops
• some organs even had built in sections for sound effects
• Wurlitzer = largest organ maker in the US

Question 30

Rise of Hollywood

Answer 30

• film industry was previously scattered all over North America
• Thomas Edison = until 1910, he was trying to establish a monopoly
• taking out patents on every piece of film industry that he could
• place in Southern California decided they would not enforce Edison’s illegal patents
• people started moving to Hollywood

Question 31

Film industries in Europe (1910 - 1920)

Answer 31

• in 1914, WWI stops filmmaking in Europe
• Europe spent the next 20 years trying to recover, then WWII broke out
• French film industry was more advanced than the US, but it falls behind

Question 32

First attempt at standardizing musical accompaniment

Answer 32

• 1909
• Edison Film Company releases “musical suggestions” with each film
• these were the first “cue sheets” with general scene-by-scene suggestions

Question 33

Max Winkler

Answer 33

• 1912
• Carl Fischer Music
• suggests specific pieces of music, with timings
• films would be shipped with the cue sheets, might also include music
• still can’t standardize the instruments or the quality of music
• problems with parts getting lost or damaged
• musicians might not be good enough, or they would dismiss the choices

Question 34

Resource books

Answer 34

• Sam Fox Moving Picture Music (Vol 1, 1913) J.S. Zamenik
• selling sets of books that had hundreds of simplified bits of music coded by mood
• hurry music
• didn’t necessarily standardize music performance because people had different resource books, but there was the same type of music

Question 35

Hurry music

Answer 35

• term comes from melodramas

- music performed during a chase scene or race to the rescue

Question 36

Trade papers

Answer 36

• Motion Picture World, Moving Picture World
• as film becomes a big business, magazines were aimed at the world of film
• some magazines aimed at fans, but some at those in the film industry
• eg. articles on cinematography, costuming, music

Question 37

Trade paper music conventions

Answer 37

• continuous
• reproducing source music
• song-title references / popular music is bad taste
• use of theme transformation (1910)
• romantic / classical / baroque era was considered the best taste

Question 38

Changes to music by the mid 1920s

Answer 38

• no real change
• vast range of performing forces and skills
• missing cue sheets and scores
• issues of control

Question 39

Birth of a Nation - Controversy

Answer 39

• stunning achievement for film complexity, narrative and story work
• it is outrageously racist, was banned in many Northern cities, or edited in many cities
• deals with events surrounding the American Civil War, but the KKK are the heroes
• told from the perspective of South, slavery should not have been abolished

Question 40

Birth of a Nation - Music Composition

Answer 40

• March 1915
• composer/adaptor = Joseph Carl Breil
• director = D.W. Griffith (Hollywood’s first great director)
• Carli Elinor = a music fitter, compiled pre-existing music
• Breil, American born, European trained musician and composer
• assembles a continuous score ⅔ similar to Elinor, but ⅓ original material
• there a variety of versions

Question 41

Birth of a Nation - Version 1

Answer 41

• arranged by Breil
• folk song = Dixie, associated with the southern United States, positive, uplifting, presented as a march
• performed by by a competent, mid-size orchestra
• music makes sense throughout most of the scene, except for the ending

Question 42

Birth of Nation - Version 2

Answer 42

• small orchestra, smaller sound
• they play a march through the march sequence
• but, the music changes when we see the family going back to the house
• where you see the film would have a major impact on how you perceived the film