Tweet Queries about organs (and organists)

I'm exposing my musical ignorance here, but lately I've begun to wonder about the differences between playing the pipe organ for accompanying movies and for church/classical settings.

In general, I've noticed that theatre organs have a sound quite distinct from those of cathedral or concert instruments. The simplest way I can describe it is that theatre organs ususally have a lighter, more ringing quality--although it may simply be the combination of stops or the size of the pipes. Obviously, organs designed to accompany pictures may have sound effects that would be superfluous in other environments, but are the stops much different in design? Do the couplers and pedals work in the same way?

What about organists themselves? To accompany a movie, one needs to have greater improvisational skill, but otherwise are the talents required for each kind of organ very different? Could someone like Diane Bish play for a movie if she wanted to (which doesn't seem all that likely), or does one have to acquire other talents to play either sort of organ?

-Harold

[silentfilm]

I can't answer most of your question, but I learned a little with my work with the North Texas Theater Organ Society. Theater organs, like the Wurlitzer that they have, have many more sounds available to them, like xylophones, whistles, drums, etc.

While I sometimes find them tiresome while watching a feature on DVD, I think that they are wonderful "live". You can really feel the music when the bass gets going.

Church (and classical "concert") organs are quite different instruments from theater organs in many ways. The church organ goes back centuries and has a particular style used in classical music -- especially Bach, but also 20th-century composers like Massaien. Interestingly, the organ is one of the few instruments where improvisation has always been part of classical training, which certainly was convenient for those crossing over to film work. Pianists and violinists had to learn improvisation on their own, which can be daunting.

The theater organ was often called a "unit orchestra," to indicate its special purpose as a replacement for an orchestra. As such, it has a more "romantic" sound than a church organ, with more tremolo available, and a much wider variety of ranks ranging from standard organ pipes to ranks that sound more like saxophones, trumpets, voices, xylophones, and a complete percussion section.

Playing silent films on church organs is more difficult, just because the palette is more limited. It can be done effectively, but it works better for some films than others. For instance, I've never heard a foxtrot or Charleston played convincingly on a concert organ.

When the decision was made to demolish the Fox Theater in San Francisco, some well-meaning but organically uninformed people suggested that its Wurlitzer be donated to the Catholic Diocese for use in the new St. Mary's Cathedral, then in the planning stages to replace the building destroyed in a 1962 fire. I think it would have been cool if they'd actually done it.

One other difference between church and theatre organs is that in a church there is often a huge reverb in the space. There's a church in NYC where Bruce Lawton and I do 3 or 4 shows a year and the space has an 8-second reverb. This affects playing, as quickly played notes become mud; the upside is that there are opportunities to hold a chord and then let it go and slowly decay and bounce around the space for dramatic effect.

Ben

The best way to learn about what makes a theatre organ a unique musical instrument is to poke around at one. While that used to be next to impossible for most people, you can now download a free virtual theatre organ for a PC, the Miditzer, at http://www.VirtualOrgan.com. The organ is fully playable with just your mouse, computer screen, and typical sound hardware. Ben Model uses the Miditzer for live performances and some of his more recent DVD work.

As to what it takes to do an effective film accompaniment, I would say it takes an understanding of film music. I've seen accomplished theatre organists do a thoroughly lackluster job with a film. Of course you have to be able to play the instrument and classical organists can stumble badly if they don't take the time to learn how theatre organs differ from their classical cousins. But accompanying films is different than performing music and musicians on any instrument need to learn about accompanying films if they are to do good work.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am the author of the Miditzer virtual organ software.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am the author of the Miditzer virtual organ software.

Any plans for Mac version???

I've heard of theater organs being recycled into church use, in general they need a lot of modification and all of the effects are scrapped first thing. The NY State Museum has a Wurlitzer that started in a Loews theater and ended up in the chapel of Dannemora Prison. I've only seen the console, but it looks like it was through a war.

I've heard of theater organs being recycled into church use, in general they need a lot of modification and all of the effects are scrapped first thing. The NY State Museum has a Wurlitzer that started in a Loews theater and ended up in the chapel of Dannemora Prison. I've only seen the console, but it looks like it was through a war.

Well that brings up an interesting idea. Keep the effects and dramatize the sermon! Oh wait, isn't that what Griffith did?

Well that brings up an interesting idea. Keep the effects and dramatize the sermon! Oh wait, isn't that what Griffith did?

Very funny! Thanks for that...

In the interest of full disclosure, I am the author of the Miditzer virtual organ software.

Any plans for Mac version???

Michael,

There aren't right now. Theatre organists seem to be - for the most part - PC users. For the past 2 years I've committed heresy and am running Windows via Bootcamp on a dual-core Intel MacBook pro to use Miditzer. Works fine. It is not a major memory/RAM hog and if you can get your hands on a PC made in the last few years, running Windows 2000, you'll be able to at least get your feet wet with Miditzer. (Parallels for Mac has too much latency.)

Ben (who uses a portable Miditzer regularly at MoMA, and at other venues)

Thanks Ben. Frankly, I neither play nor prefer the organ for silent films and rather prefer piano, or even better, a symphony (both of which I do play ). But I also like to be aware of other possibilities as a composer. I'm still on an "old" G5 so the Intel/Boot Camp thing is not in my immediate future as far as I know. I do appreciate the information.

I'm currently up to my ...neck... in scoring The Gaucho for piano quintet (piano & String Quartet) for Nov 6 and frankly all I am using for that is Finale (no sequencing, only notation) and great union players. Weighing in at well over 95 minutes, this movie is a beast (as you probably know). But what fun! Woo hoo!!!

Later...

MM

ps- Here's a link:

http://www.oscars.org/events/gaucho/index.html

Any plans for Mac version???

No. Not that I have anything against Macs, its just that I only have PCs and PC software development tools. It's all I can do to keep the program running reasonably well on one platform. The Miditzer will run on a rather anemic PC by today's standards so it isn't out of the question for Mac users to get a 2nd or 3rd hand PC if they really want to run the Miditzer on a shoestring budget.

Thanks for the info on the platforms. Bummer for us Mac guys. I know virtually nothing about programming (and not from a lack of trying) but at least understand how one might be stronger on on platform than another. Hopefully someday I'll get a chance to try your software.

I have had the pleasure of hearing Ben perform on the miditzer several times and the result, when he has a good sound system to run it through, is startlingly good. Very appropriate, I think, for a big picture and I hope to hear him using it one of these days for PHANTOM OF THE OPERA.

One suggestion I have is that, besides the sampling used for non-organ instruments -- which Ben explained, if I understood correctly, is based on the organ samplings of those -- you might include samplings of the other actual instruments.

But certainly a small program that gets these effects is much appreciated! Thanks!

Bob

The samples played by the Miditzer are not really part of the Miditzer. The Miditzer is just a MIDI control interface that uses the same paradigm as a theatre organ. It ships with a set of "samples" that are appropriate for the organ being modeled. I put "samples" in quotes because they were not sampled from any real instrument but were synthesized on a computer by Bruce Miles! One can readily replace the default "samples" with whatever you want including samples of real instruments rather than organ pipes.

I think at least one person has tried using real instruments rather than organ samples. The difficulty with any samples used in the organ paradigm is that they have to blend when used together in a chorus. When you start with organ pipe samples you have a bit of a head start because the sounds were designed to be used in the types of combinations that organists use. I am sure that one could get some interesting results by using real instrument sounds but it would take a combination of getting samples that work in an ensemble and adjusting the technique on the organ to work with the non-organ sounds.

Creating a set of samples for use in a virtual organ is a non-trivial task that requires very good ears. It is a job I gladly leave to others.

Bob (and anyone else reading this thread)...There are also a number of samples of real organ ranks that can be downloaded and used with Miditzer, which hosts sounds as sound fonts (a computer audio format) along with or instead of the sounds that come bundled with the Miditzer app. A lot of the sounds I'm using are these samples. If I took the time, I could certainly use the Miditzer as a controller and route the MIDI messages to my Kurzweil PC2 which has excellent orchestral samples. Am still really enjoying using the theatre organ sounds (as are you).

Ben

Shortly before preparing the Florida movie theater (which no longer exist) for sound films in 1930, Max Glücksmann put organist Julio Perceval there to make a series of ten recordings.

Of all of those tunes, I was able to rescue only one of those version five years ago after begging and begging to people of Todotango, even though they didn't actually have those records but they got it through cortesy, in this case, of collector Bruno Cespi.

There are still a few tango collectors in Buenos Aires and other places, but some of them are still harboring their recordings pretending that they have more financial value than a historical one.

Yet, I love those people and I miss them.

And, yes, I can put that recording online. Odeon is never going to reprint it.

This is a good topic--I have been to both venues church/theatre for silent films. Right now there seems to be a renewed interest in silent films. Many churches are using them for fundraisers and social events, too. If played right, silent films can be well presented with a good church organ in the hands of an experienced accompanist. I own and maintain two theatre organs--one in a theatre, one in my home theatre, and of course theatre pipe organs win hands down for authentic accompaniment.

The more exposure to silent films and pipe organs, the increased market for them in public places due to the public's awareness of a new market created.

BTW--the grand SF Fox Wurlitzer was restored some years ago and now plays in LA's El Capitan Theatre.

Thanks Ben. Frankly, I neither play nor prefer the organ for silent films and rather prefer piano, or even better, a symphony (both of which I do play ).

Taking nothing away from your own work, Michael, of which I'm fond--especially loved your recent score for "The Gaucho" . . .

But, it is interesting to me that that theater organ has fallen into such disfavor as an instrument for scoring silents, as it was by far the most common instrument for accompanimnet in the silent era.

Orchestras for acompaniment were really only in the biggest theaters--and even then they didn't always play the picture. They were mainly there for the vaudeville acts on the bill. Gaylord Carter recalled that the orchestra at the Million Dollar Theater in downtown Los Angeles (a first-run deluxe house where he became organist in 1926, only played the first twenty minutes of the evening show. Gaylord took over for the rest of the picture and played the matiness and late shows solo.

Orchestras were really only practical where it was possible to have some rehearsal time--which meant that they were often limited to theaters in which pictures would play for more than a week or so.

Solo piano was almost never used in theaters after the nickelodeon era, and was probably rare even then. Small combos like Rodney's Mont Alto Orchestra were relatively common in the 1910s--but the more musicians you add the more critical the rehearsal time--even when you're re-using stock pieces from picture to picture (as is evident in the recorded Vitaphone and Movietone scores from the late silent era, where the same themes are used for film after film.

Often when there were orchestras in the Teens they'd simply play generic music that may or may not fit the picture. One of the famous stories is of Cecil B. DeMille complaining to Thomas Tally ca. 1915 that the music the theater orchestra was playing did not fit the fil, Tally supposedl told DeMille: "The people don't come here to see your picture, they come to hear my music." Needless to say, Tally did not premiere many (like none) DeMille films after that.

Studios did attempt to provide full scores for films--and it is still posible to find printed scores from ca. 1915 when there were attempts by Triangle and Paramount to provide scores for all their releases--but it just wasn't profitable or practicle for any but the biggest pictures and the practice was soon dropped in favor of the cue sheet which offered only suggestions of what might be appropriate--and which were often disregarded or heavily modified by musicians in the theaters.

The Hope-Jones Unit Orchestra--what came to be known as the Mighty WurliTzer--was developed ca. 1914, and it was quickly emulated by Kimball, Barton and Aeolean-Skinner. Thousands were built and installed in movie theaters over the next fifteen years. Smaller theaters would sometimes have a Fotoplayer--an instrument rather like a platypus--part piano, part organ, part "toy counter" and part player piano-organ with double piano roll mechanisms that used special roles to accomodate the organ component and allowed for transitions from one tune to another. Joe Rinaudo has done a number of Fotoplayer scores for silent film releases in recent years.

But perhaps because I was able to see Gaylord Carter, Chauncey Haines, Ann Leaf, Del Castillo, Bob Vaughan, Bob Mitchell and others who actually played in the silent era as I first got interested in silents in the 1960s, I've always had a fondness for the theater organ.

Of course, despite the oft-repeated strain that "the movies were never silent," that is just plain not true. Often smaller theaters would run the first show of the day silent because there wasn't enough patronage at 11:00 a.m. to make musical accompaniment pay.

When you're in a theater the sound of the organ can be a great experience with a physical presence- you feel the sound as much as hear it. On a DVD soundtrack that effect is lost.

Thanks Ben. Frankly, I neither play nor prefer the organ for silent films and rather prefer piano, or even better, a symphony (both of which I do play ).

Orchestras for acompaniment were really only in the biggest theaters--and even then they didn't always play the picture. They were mainly there for the vaudeville acts on the bill. Gaylord Carter recalled that the orchestra at the Million Dollar Theater in downtown Los Angeles (a first-run deluxe house where he became organist in 1926, only played the first twenty minutes of the evening show. Gaylord took over for the rest of the picture and played the matiness and late shows solo.

Well, that wasn't true everywhere, of course. Twenty minutes is an awfully short time to hire an orchestra for, so I'd view that comment with a little skepticism unless there's more than an organist's recollection to back it up. I've more often seen orchestras listed as being hired for two to four hours a night, and the organist playing before, after, and during a dinner break. But what you want to remember is that orchestras played in the best theaters at the best times, so the number of people who saw silent films with orchestras is higher than you'd calculate based on the number of theaters that used orchestras, and the number of hours they played.

Orchestras were really only practical where it was possible to have some rehearsal time--which meant that they were often limited to theaters in which pictures would play for more than a week or so.

Remember that the opening night was often considered a dress-rehearsal. "We'll have it right by Friday." As long as there's someone to get the pieces of paper in the right order, the first night's show would be adequate for rehearsal. The musicians in question were... HAD to be... excellent sight readers. I recently took our score for THE GENERAL to Mississauga Ontario to perform with a group I'd never met before. We had one rehearsal from 2 to 4 pm, then played the show that night. It went remarkably well. It's not a perfect example since the orchestra did have the music a week before we got together, but with an orchestra that was USED to playing this way, and probably knew half the music because they'd played it in other films earlier in the year, it would have been even easier, and within about a month, I expect it would be routine.

Solo piano was almost never used in theaters after the nickelodeon era, and was probably rare even then.

I find that hard to believe. In small towns, piano and piano-with-drums were common throughout the era, partly because it's cheap and flexible. If you have the only theater in town, why spend a lot of money on an orchestra or theater organ? The audience has no alternative, and it works well enough. The orchestra and theater organ were like the Spanish Rococco decor and stars in the ceiling -- it gives your theater a competitive advantage over the cheaper older theaters. Besides, the theater organ takes some training to play, while darn-near every teen-age girl in town has been taught to play the piano. (Witness Phyllis Haver being hired as a silent film pianist by sitting down and playing at a theater where the previous pianist had quit.) I've met far more people whose grandmothers played piano in silent film theaters than people whose ancestors played orchestra instruments or theater organ.

Small combos like Rodney's Mont Alto Orchestra were relatively common in the 1910s--but the more musicians you add the more critical the rehearsal time--even when you're re-using stock pieces from picture to picture (as is evident in the recorded Vitaphone and Movietone scores from the late silent era, where the same themes are used for film after film.

Actually, reusing pieces makes things a lot easier, because we all know them already. Ask a jazz combo whether they'd rather play two hours of classic standards or two hours of new original compositions! We re-use stuff all the time. Because a lot of it's very good writing, and when you're doing a brand new score with 90 minutes of music, it helps if it includes a few pieces that you already know as mental resting places. Our love theme for The Kid Brother is excellent -- so good that we also use it in The Wishing Ring and Quality Street. So far I've never heard anyone complain, partly because we haven't played those three films in the same place. Audiences at the time accepted music reuse much more readily than today's audiences. At small theaters where the pianist had a limited repertoire, audiences got used to the music selection and expected the same small number of pieces for villains, lovers, chases. Think how many people find comfort listening to oldies radio stations nowadays, even though they hear the same songs week after week.

Often when there were orchestras in the Teens they'd simply play generic music that may or may not fit the picture. One of the famous stories is of Cecil B. DeMille complaining to Thomas Tally ca. 1915 that the music the theater orchestra was playing did not fit the fil, Tally supposedl told DeMille: "The people don't come here to see your picture, they come to hear my music." Needless to say, Tally did not premiere many (like none) DeMille films after that.

Though as I've said before, the only known survey of what audiences looked for in a theater [from a Fresno statistics class, quoted in Koszarski's book "An Evening's Entertainment"] showed that Tally was right and DeMille was wrong -- when choosing a movie theater, audiences felt the musical accompaniment was more important than most other factors, including what film was being shown. They were out for an evening's entertainment, and good musical accompaniment was a key part of the experience. Sometimes -- as in radiotelefonia's recollection of theaters in Buenos Aires -- the orchestra just play tangos regardless of what was on the screen. The film-makers definitely wouldn't have liked it, but there's no evidence that general theater audiences didn't have a great time.

Studios did attempt to provide full scores for films--and it is still posible to find printed scores from ca. 1915 when there were attempts by Triangle and Paramount to provide scores for all their releases--but it just wasn't profitable or practicle for any but the biggest pictures and the practice was soon dropped in favor of the cue sheet which offered only suggestions of what might be appropriate--and which were often disregarded or heavily modified by musicians in the theaters.

This makes total sense if you think about it, and I feel the same way. You imply that it was a bad thing, but remember that the musicians in local theaters were probably very good at what they did, and knew best what music would work in their theaters, for their musicians, for their audience.

If I compile a score using themes from my library, I can pick a good balance of pieces we already know and new pieces to add to our "mental" repertoire. If I spend money to rent a score for a week, I don't get to keep the music, whereas if I used that money to buy photoplay music I get to add it to my library. And the rented score will likely all be pieces no one in the orchestra knows, so it will take longer to get right, it may not work well for my instrumentation and I won't know until it's too late, not to mention that as orchestra leader I'd have to watch the movie a number of times to figure out the exact speed for each section. So I'd much rather compile a score from music in my library than rent one.

But, it is interesting to me that that theater organ has fallen into such disfavor as an instrument for scoring silents, as it was by far the most common instrument for accompanimnet in the silent era.

One of the issues in using a theatre organ for a score for DVD release is the expense involved -- renting the theatre, hiring technicians to tune and prep the instrument and to be on hand during the recording in case something ciphers or needs repair. Another is the various technical requirements to properly record a theatre pipe organ. Top that off with the fact that, until recently, the speakers on most TV sets didn't do justice to the sound of the theatre organ in that they don't give you the mid-range and, especially, the bass you should hear (and feel), but things are improving.

I've found in the last couple of years, though, that when I've been contacted to score something for DVD the request has been for theatre organ and not piano -- "Sherlock Holmes" (Kino) and "Phantom of the Opera" (ReelclassicDVD) being recent examples.

The great thing about the Miditzer is that it makes it possible for an organist to bring the mountain to mohammed, so to speak...in that you can bring the theatre organ sound to any cinema or theater in a way that's affordable and (somewhat) convenient.

Ben

Well, that wasn't true everywhere, of course. Twenty minutes is an awfully short time to hire an orchestra for, so I'd view that comment with a little skepticism unless there's more than an organist's recollection to back it up. I've more often seen orchestras listed as being hired for two to four hours a night, and the organist playing before, after, and during a dinner break. But what you want to remember is that orchestras played in the best theaters at the best times, so the number of people who saw silent films with orchestras is higher than you'd calculate based on the number of theaters that used orchestras, and the number of hours they played.

They were not playing for twenty minutes. They played for the vaudeville show and/or prologue, which would have kept them plenty busy through most of the day.

Remember that the opening night was often considered a dress-rehearsal. "We'll have it right by Friday." As long as there's someone to get the pieces of paper in the right order, the first night's show would be adequate for rehearsal. The musicians in question were... HAD to be... excellent sight readers. I recently took our score for THE GENERAL to Mississauga Ontario to perform with a group I'd never met before. We had one rehearsal from 2 to 4 pm, then played the show that night. It went remarkably well. It's not a perfect example since the orchestra did have the music a week before we got together, but with an orchestra that was USED to playing this way, and probably knew half the music because they'd played it in other films earlier in the year, it would have been even easier, and within about a month, I expect it would be routine.

Undoubtedly true--but the question remains: Why did all those theaters install all those theater organs? It wasn't just for the sing-along.

I find that hard to believe. In small towns, piano and piano-with-drums were common throughout the era, partly because it's cheap and flexible. If you have the only theater in town, why spend a lot of money on an orchestra or theater organ? The audience has no alternative, and it works well enough. The orchestra and theater organ were like the Spanish Rococco decor and stars in the ceiling -- it gives your theater a competitive advantage over the cheaper older theaters. Besides, the theater organ takes some training to play, while darn-near every teen-age girl in town has been taught to play the piano. (Witness Phyllis Haver being hired as a silent film pianist by sitting down and playing at a theater where the previous pianist had quit.) I've met far more people whose grandmothers played piano in silent film theaters than people whose ancestors played orchestra instruments or theater organ.

I'm not knocking piano--only saying it was relatively rare to have solo piano as accompaniment after the early 1910s. I cite no less an authority than Harold Lloyd, who said: "We never intended them to be played with pianos. When you see them played with pianos, that's not the way the public saw them. They're being misrepresented." This is why Lloyd hired Gaylord Carter to score most of his films on the WurliTzer. A couple of these scores are included as extras in the Lloyd DVD set.

Now don't everyone jump on me. As I say, I personally am not knocking pianos. I am merely passing on what one of the leading silent filmmakers said on the subject. There are a number of fine accompanists who play piano and piano is often a practical consideration today when there are few working theater pipe organs instaled in theaters, renting electronic theater organs (if you can find them) is expensive and a Hammond B-3 is also expensive and doesn't really provide theater voicings.

But only the smallest theaters in the smallest towns would have had piano-only accompaniment--and for the most part they would not be playing major studio product--but the low-end fare that was ground out on "poverty row."

When Bob Mitchell was studying organ as a boy, the only place he could practice was the local movie theater in Pasadena before it opened for the day. This was a small theater, and as I mentioned they ran the first show silent because it didn't pay to have a musician--but even this relatively small house had an organ--and not a piano.

Actually, reusing pieces makes things a lot easier, because we all know them already. Ask a jazz combo whether they'd rather play two hours of classic standards or two hours of new original compositions! We re-use stuff all the time. Because a lot of it's very good writing, and when you're doing a brand new score with 90 minutes of music, it helps if it includes a few pieces that you already know as mental resting places. Our love theme for The Kid Brother is excellent -- so good that we also use it in The Wishing Ring and Quality Street. So far I've never heard anyone complain, partly because we haven't played those three films in the same place. Audiences at the time accepted music reuse much more readily than today's audiences. At small theaters where the pianist had a limited repertoire, audiences got used to the music selection and expected the same small number of pieces for villains, lovers, chases. Think how many people find comfort listening to oldies radio stations nowadays, even though they hear the same songs week after week.

There's no question that reusing pieces and sight-reading musicians make orchestral presentations easier. But the other side of this equation is that re-use can become monotonous if one attends the same theater every week and the orchestra is playing the same music week after week. At first, and especially if the music is appropriate for the scene, no one would notice but week after week it would become obvious. So, there would be a need to "freshen" the repertoire on a regular basis. Even in seeing Gaylord Carter many times thorough the years I became familiar with his "bag of tricks," but it was certainly less of a problem when Carter was playing a handful of shows a year in the area and not playing at the same theater every week. I'm sure he made more effort to inject fresh melodies into his scores when he was regularly playing in theaters.

Though as I've said before, the only known survey of what audiences looked for in a theater [from a Fresno statistics class, quoted in Koszarski's book "An Evening's Entertainment"] showed that Tally was right and DeMille was wrong -- when choosing a movie theater, audiences felt the musical accompaniment was more important than most other factors, including what film was being shown. They were out for an evening's entertainment, and good musical accompaniment was a key part of the experience. Sometimes -- as in radiotelefonia's recollection of theaters in Buenos Aires -- the orchestra just play tangos regardless of what was on the screen. The film-makers definitely wouldn't have liked it, but there's no evidence that general theater audiences didn't have a great time.

I'm not suggesting audinces didn't have a great time. They wouldn't have gone back if they hadn't. But for years filmmakers sought to have some control over the accompaniment for their films--and the visual integrity as well. Big theaters routinely cut films to allow for longer vaudeville shows. The problem was that providing full scores for the average release was costly and not terribly effective, because the theaters often ignored the scores, or portions thereof.

And NO--I am not suggesting that this was necessarily a bad thing, or that local theaters and conductors didn't have a better handle on what their musicians could play and what their audiences wanted to hear--all I'm saying is that after attempting to provide full scores for most of their releases in 1915-17, the studios abandoned the practice except for the biggest roadshow films. The cost was greater than the benefit for them.

I'd be interested to find out what the musical practice was in the UK....my impression (Possibly/probably incorrect) is that the larger cinemas here had orchestras of various sizes, the smaller cinemas perhaps a three-piece - Piano, violin, percussion perhaps; and only the smallest having a solo pianist....and that this was the case right up to the introduction of sound.
For an example, Asquith's Cottage On Dartmoor, we see a four or five piece band playing to a silent film - then downing sticks for beer, sandwiches and a game of cards when the Harold Lloyd talkie comes on. (This was itself a sound reel, the sound version - disc? - of which is lost).
The impression I get is that over here the organs weren't often used for accompaniment, but for introit/interval/exit musics as part of the entertainment package. Urbanora's Bioscope Blog recently quoted a contemporary article featuring the then Dr Malcolm Sargent turning down a fabulous sum for playing in a West End Cinema, and that certainly implied discrete items on the programme, nothing more. And as such, these organs and their organists continued for decades after the introduction of sound. One locally, on special occasions, still does.....

They were not playing for twenty minutes. They played for the vaudeville show and/or prologue, which would have kept them plenty busy through most of the day.

Okay, that makes sense.

Now don't everyone jump on me.

I apologize for sounding like I was jumping on you -- that post came off more confrontational than I intended. I like a well-played theater organ very well, but in my opinion the musician behind the keyboard or baton makes a much bigger difference than what instrument they're playing. I'd rather hear Phil Carli play the piano than many organists play the best-installed and maintained instrument. It's like the accordion -- it can be played tastefully, it can rock out, but it's very easy to play cheesy circus music on it too. All I'm saying is that I don't think you can argue that piano-only silent film accompaniment is somehow historically incorrect.

But only the smallest theaters in the smallest towns would have had piano-only accompaniment--and for the most part they would not be playing major studio product--but the low-end fare that was ground out on "poverty row."

The theaters with pianos also got top films, as I understand, but much much later in the run after they'd played the bigger theaters. I don't think that Hollywood or Los Angeles can be held as typical of most of America, where I still believe that piano-only held on until the end in most small theaters. Like you, all I've got is anecdotal evidence, not statistics. I do know that Louisville Colorado (a small coal mining town at the time) had two movie theaters, both of which had pianos, not organs, for the entire course of the silent era (though one theater didn't make it to 1929). I don't know all of the theaters in Boulder Colorado, but one at least had the "Sherlock Jr." orchestra of piano, violin, and drums; because I met the drummer in the 1980s. He mentioned that they never used written music, and were proud of the fact that they never wasted money on it. They stole popular tunes off the radio, and played together by ear. I'd bet that they re-used tunes I suspect that if we were transported back to almost any theater outside of New York, L.A., or Chicago, we'd find a very strange form of accompaniment that made a lot of compromises, and that the local audience simply was used to. And I doubt that those were the theaters where Harold Lloyd saw his films -- he can't have known (or had much control over) what the theaters were like where his films were shown on their third run.

Again, I am making no comment here about the desirability of piano-only presentations, just defending that I believe they did exist and were also fairly common. Of course, I know of theaters in Denver that had theater organs -- the Paramount still does, and the Princess (long gone) was notorious for having a massive theater organ totally out of scale for the size of the hall -- but again, Denver was a bigger market with more competition than Louisville, Loveland, or Boulder.

[silentfilm]

Here's a postcard advertising a "licensed" show at the Opera House in Washington, Indiana for January 22, 1915. There was an eight-piece orchestra playing for the films.



Here's a program from the California Theater in from January 1925. They list a "California Theater Concert Orchestra" orchestra playing before the feature, but it does not explicitly say that they play during the feature also...



Here's a program from the Paramount, Paris, France theater from March 9th, 1928. This is definitely a major theater in a large city. It has an orchestra, a jazz band and a theater organ playing in the program.



PROGRAMME
du Vendredi 9 au Jeudi 15 Mars


PROGRAM
from Friday March 9th through Thursday March 15th


Ouverture du BARBIER DE SÉVILLE... ROSSINI
par L'Orchestre PARAMOUNT, sous la direction de Pierre Millot


BARBER OF SEVILLE Overture... ROSSINI
by the Paramount Orchestra, under the direction of Pierre Millot


ACTUALITÉS MONDIALES
cinematographiées par PARAMONT-ACTUALITÊS and PATHÉ-GAUMONT-METRO JORNAL


WORLD NEWS
shot by PARAMOUNT NEWSREEL and PATHÉ-GAUMONT-METRO NEWSREEL


LES MICROBES DE KOKO
Dessin animé Paramount

Unknown KOKO the Clown cartoon
Paramount animated cartoon

Miss VIOLA MAYER, aux Orgues Wurlitzer
RIEN QU'UN SOVENIR .. .. ANDERSON
accompagné d'une présentation scénique.

Miss VIOLA MAYER, on the Wurlitzer Organ
NOTHING BUT A MEMORY .. .. ANDERSON
accompanied by a scenic presentation


LOCATAIRE ET PROPRIO
Une Paramount Christie-Comédie avec JIMMIE ADAMS


Unknown, literally TENANT and LANDLORD
A Paramount-Christie Comedy with JIMMIE ADAMS


ENTR'ACTE
(en soirée seulement)

ENTR'ACTE
(en route)


Sensationnelle Attraction !
L'ORCHESATRE DE JAZZ du "FLORIDA"
G.-W. LARAZAY et ses "Red River Symphonists".


Sensational Attraction !
THE JAZZ ORCHESTRA OF FLORIDA
G.W. LARAZAY and his Red River Symphonists

Thanks Ben. Frankly, I neither play nor prefer the organ for silent films and rather prefer piano, or even better, a symphony (both of which I do play ).

Taking nothing away from your own work, Michael, of which I'm fond--especially loved your recent score for "The Gaucho" . . .

Thanks Bob. May I quote you on my press page?

I certainly make no apologies for NOT being an organist. I wasn't there so I can't comment on what history was. And while I do care from a musicological point of view, I don't care in terms of what I produce. This is 2009, not 1909 and we live in a different world, with different marketing, a different cinematic experience and history and a different audience with a very different taste, expectation and tolerance for what is and is not entertainment.

Moving images are no longer the mysterious objects of the future but relics of the past. Historical recreation is fine, but I'd hate to see that as the gold standard of silent film presentation. Fortunately, that standard is not the rock score for Metropolis from the 1970's. That did a lot to bring silent film back into mainstream attention but was, IMO, demeaning to the film and here is the key for me as a composer and accompanist:

Is what I provide supporting the film? Is it engaging as a musical work on it's own at the same time? Then it is a "success" as an accompaniment.

As someone who has watched 1000's of silents now, I can enjoy a well done piano score as well as a great organ score and a beautifully executed orchestra score. Jug bands... not so much

At the end of the day ... or in this case, the film... the measure for me is not what instruments are used, but whether the music served the film. If it did not, then it was a failure. If it did, it was a success. The historians and aficionados who have decided ahead of time to reject certain instruments are in their own class. But if the art form is to survive, they alone will not fill enough seats or buy enough DVDs to keep the films alive. They HAVE TO appeal to a contemporary audience with their diverse tastes and expectations and in that regard, there's plenty of room for a wide range of musical accompaniments AS LONG AS they support the film in an entertaining way.

Thanks Bob. May I quote you on my press page?

As Curly would say: "Natcherly!"

At the end of the day ... or in this case, the film... the measure for me is not what instruments are used, but whether the music served the film. If it did not, then it was a failure. If it did, it was a success. The historians and aficionados who have decided ahead of time to reject certain instruments are in their own class. But if the art form is to survive, they alone will not fill enough seats or buy enough DVDs to keep the films alive. They HAVE TO appeal to a contemporary audience with their diverse tastes and expectations and in that regard, there's plenty of room for a wide range of musical accompaniments AS LONG AS they support the film in an entertaining way.

I agree, and I'm open to any approach--as long as it works with the film. Of course, this is always a matter of taste, so what I may think works would not necessarily be to someone else's taste. My initial comment that renewed this thread was not intended to dis any approach, merely to state that I disagreed with the current trend among many to pooh-pooh the theater organ.

Among current accompanists (and this is not intended to be an exhaustive list) some like Robert Israel, Phil Carli and Rodney Sauer take a more historical approach using music from the period. Others like yourself and Jon Mirsalis do not. And I like both approaches.

Where I draw the line is when I think the music calls attention to itself and does not serve the picture. The example I'll use (though it's not a silent) was Phillip Glass's score for "Dracula." Now I actually like a lot of Glass's music, and have liked some of his film scores, but his "Dracula" (especially in its live presentation) was a horrible exercise.

Set aside the premise of the project (i.e. they would have put music in origianlly if they could have), which was a completely bogus jumping off point, but what Glass was doing was really a piece of performance art with colored lights shining through from behind the screen, music overpowering dialogue, poor choices in matching music to picture, etc. It was just a mess, and all designed to let you know every minute that Phillip Glass was an artist and so superior to the film on the screen that he had condescended to come down from his musical Olympus and bless the great unwashed with his brilliance and let them know what REAL art was all about--and it certainly wasn't about "Dracula."

I don't care for Maria Newman's scores that I've heard--not because of the modern atonal music--but because she seems to make no efffort to match the music to the mood of the scenes on the screen. She'll play through dissolves and fades, tempo and mood shifts as if they never occurred on screen.

I don't mind the percussive approach of the Alloy (or is it the Clubfoot?) orchestra on a picture like "Metropolis," which has a cold detached quality to the emotional presentation even though it has a rather bombastic approach to the visuals--but I don't thik this sort of instrumentation works for a picture like "Lonesome," which is essentially an emotional chamber drama--even though it has some spectacular visual elements.

I don't much care for the score on the Fox DVD release of "The Iron Horse," not because I dislike the music (much of it is quite good) but because the composer takes every fade out (and there are lots of them--there is a fade out and in at every title) as a scene ending, when in fact many of the fades are not intended as such. So the score jumps along in fits and starts in ten and fifteen second bursts of music and there is no musical flow to the score within the scenes.

I have certainly heard bad organ scores, too. As much as I admired Gaylord Carter, when he played "The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg" late in his life it was a total mess--even though he'd played the picture on its initial release. Chauncey Haines, considered the best movie organist in Los Angeles in the 1920s, mostly just "diddled" by the time I heard him. But I did hear him play "Isn't Life Wonderful?" once and he played a very melodic and thematic score and it was finally possible to hear what audiences in the 1920s had so much admired.

So, by all means, musicians should be free to experiment and try new things. The only real criterion I have as an audince member is: does it work with the picture?

Recording technique is quite possibly the key to making an organ recording memorable or dull. Actually, some of the best recordings of a theatre organ that I've heard so far are on a couple of British dance band 78s from 1927--the combination of the reverb in the recording hall, the Western Electric system, English Columbia's mirror-like pressings, and the joy of the songs themselves rank them among my favourites.

I might as well ask whether reed organs were a common accompaniment in the silent era. They had their greatest popularity as home instruments before films were even invented, but they must have remained a fixture in many small towns (the church at the beginning of The Miracle Woman clearly uses one). I enjoy their sound, although it can be an acquired taste and perhaps tiresome to hear for a solid hour or two (to say nothing of the constant pumping required of the organist!).

-Harold