Over the years, I've talked with many fellow accompanists about the accompaniment of silent films. And as many people I've had conversations with, there were as many opinions on the "right way to do it". As it is today, opinions ran wild in the 1910's and 1920's on the right way to accompany a film. Each week you could pick up your copy of "Moving Picture World" or "Moving Picture News" and read articles by people like George Benyon, Clarence Sinn, or Ernst Luz telling you their ideas of what to do and what not to do. I always call the early, "Pre-Roxy" period of accompaniment the "wild, wild west of film accompaniment". Early accompaniment, if present at all varied drastically from theatre to theatre, town to town and accompanist to accompanist. This is still true almost 100 years later.
As a disciple of the late, Lee Erwin, the number one rule of accompaniment we were taught was never take the audience out of the picture. At the end of the day, "the film", the drama, is the most important element that you are dealing with. You are part of the story. You're music will support emotionally what your physically see on screen. Your music is the spirit of the film and without music you only see shadows on the screen. No matter what kind of instrument you are playing, no matter how great or clever your accompaniment is, the film and supporting its narrative is the most important aspect an accompanist can bring to a show. I can not stress this enough.
Lee Erwin's philosophy also included not using any music that is "known" that can take you out of the picture. You don't want to be in the middle of a death scene like in the film "Wings" where the main character Buddy Rogers just shot down his friend Richard Arlen and Arlen
is dying and all of a sudden you hear a song like "I'll Be Seeing You". First, it will definitely take you out of the dramatic moment instantly and you'll say "I know that song" and most likely you'll foster a laugh from the audience because of the "musical pun" the accompanist just made (again, this is not your intent).
Unfortunately, if an accompanist decides to use the original cue sheet for "Wings" you'll find many cliches or puns in the cues like the Walter Donaldson song "My Buddy" to be used for the death scene. Now, one could say today that modern audiences won't know this song from 1922, but personally, I find the song totally wrong for the moment melodically and harmonically. My personal take on this scene is to play it very sparse with a lot of single sustained notes. (side note: never overplay a scene. It will become distracting to the image).
There are times though when you have to play a song that is referenced in a film. This is the case of "My Best Girl" where Mary Pickford turns on a record of "Red Hot Mama" a song that was associated with the flappers of the late 1920's. Now, most people today wouldn't know this song to begin with, but it is a case that source music (diegetic sound) can certainly be used since it is referenced.
"The Phantom of the Opera" from 1925, the old war horse of a picture, where every person that has
a keyboard in October becomes a silent film accompanist, has many many cues that are both diegetic music (music that comes from the screen, like a band playing) or non diegetic music (background scores). Phantom not only covers music from a real opera, Gounod's Faust, but also the Phantoms own music in his lair. Phantom utilizes three points in the original opera 1) the ballet at the beginning of the film, 2) The Finale and 3) the "Jewel Song"a very famous aria that every lyric soprano knows. Each piece of music that comes from the action on screen should be played during these sections of the film. Can you get away with not playing them? Sure. Again most people probably wouldn't know the Faust nowadays unless they are schooled in opera. Being able to play the original opera music just helps to add another layer to your score.
While we're talking about Phantom, lets talk about the organ that he plays and the kind of music that he writes. The Phantom IS a composer after all. An 1800's composer, too. Now, I ask, would the Phantom be playing a Bach Toccata from a 100 years earlier? Please people, DO NOT PLAY the Toccata and Fugue in D min. Don't do it! Its an ameturistic move on the part of the accompanist to do this. Its not dramatic and just buys into the bad stereotype of an organist. There are a couple things you can do for this scene. 1) for a brief moment you see the music for Don Juan Triumphant. You can pause the DVD and transcribe this music. Its not a great piece of music, but it certainly diegetic. or 2) come up with a beautiful piece of music that is the total opposite of the perception of the Phantom. I always believed that no woman like Mary Philbin would ever fall for the Phantom unless his music is the most angelic sound ever written. She swoons to his music. So I ask, why would she swoon to Toccata and Fugue?
Let's talk about "The Big Parade" by King Vidor, MGM pictures 1925. The Big Parade is one of my favorite films. As an accompanist it offers a wide variety of musical types; similar to "Wings" but not as many planes flying around (which is a challenge of its own). The Big Parade offers Marches, Waltzes, Battle Scenes, Love Scenes, you name it. It is a great movie for training people how to play
a film on because of its dramatic variety. The Big Parade uses Diegetic and non Diegetic music like many others, but in this film you have people actually singing to lyrics on the screen. The main song that the soldiers sing are lyrical variations on "You're In the Army Now" (be careful with this song since the sheet music isn't written the way we know the song today). Not forgetting that we don't want to take audiences out of the drama, we need to play this song or you will look stupid, plain and simple. This is a time where you have to play a fairly known song (even today, people know the reference) to match not only the singing on screen but the almost "sing-a-long" type title cards on screen. Now the Big Parade also utilizes a song as the "Love Theme" called "La Douce Fievre" (The Sweet Fever). This song is so associated with the film that its referenced in the movie "Show People" a couple years later when "The Big Parade" is mentioned. This is definitely a song that is not known today. Would your audiences miss it if you didn't play it? Probably not, but its such a good piece, why not use it. The Big Parade also boast a published 1925 score by William Axt and David Mendoza that is complete and fairly through composed. A lot of scores of this period are compiled from other works including J.S. Zamecnik's "Wings" score. Axt and Mendoza use this piece as the main love theme of the picture and also use it to weave in and out through out the picture with other themes. I use the song when I accompany the Big Parade. I find it a perfect piece for the moment and why work harder to come up with a melody that isn't as good?
I can go on with more examples of films that use known music in drama, but the main thing that you need to remember is to support the drama, that includes using source music from the picture when called for while NEVER TAKING YOUR AUDIENCE OUT OF THE PICTURE. Remember, as a silent film accompanist, the greatest complement you can get from an audience member is: "I forgot you were even playing". If you get this complement, you did your job!
