Live accompaniment: cinema pianists, organists and cue sheets

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Genre

Live accompaniment: cinema pianists, organists and cue sheets · Silent films were never silent. From the first screenings around 1895 a pianist played along, later in large halls a theatre organ or a whole orchestra. The musician improvised or chose pieces from a library of short, characteristic fragments: a ‘hurry’ for chases, a ‘misterioso’ for suspense, an ‘agitato’ for quarrels or danger. From 1913 the publisher Sam Fox brought out such collections, with music by John Stepan Zamecnik. Film companies sent cue sheets along: lists that indicated for each scene what kind of music was suitable and how long it had to last. In this way a shared language of musical clichés arose. Sound film later largely took over that language.

Listening

• 
  The Phantom of the Opera · Gaylord Carter, 1925
• 
  Intolerance · Gaylord Carter, 1916
• 
  Orphans of the Storm · Ann Leaf, 1921

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

• Film Music Map^NL Map

See also

• Giuseppe Becce
• Gaylord Carter
• Ann Leaf
• Romanticism
• Film d'Art: the first original film score
• Symphonic silent film scores (Hollywood and Weimar)
• Disney and classic cartoons (Mickey Mousing)