[00:00.00]NARRATOR:Listen to part of a lecture in a music history class.
[00:03.96]MALE PROFESSOR: So, uh, if you were a musician in the United States in the early twentieth century, where could you work?[00:10.31]MALE STUDENT: Same as now, I suppose...[00:12.17] in an orchestra mainly ?[00:13.34]MALE PROFESSOR: OK, and where would the orchestra be playing?[00:16.24]MALE STUDENT: Uh, in a concert hall ?or a dance hall?[00:18.76]MALE PROFESSOR: That's right, [00:19.47]and smaller groups of musicians were needed in theaters as accompaniment to visual entertainment, like cabarets and variety shows; [00:27.71] but, the largest employer for musicians back then was the film industry—especially during the silent-film era.[00:37.82]MALE STUDENT: Really? You mean being a piano player or something? [00:40.12] I thought movie theaters would have used recorded music?[00:42.82]MALE PROFESSOR: Well, no, [00:44.06] not during the silent-film era.[00:45.78] We're talking a period of maybe 30 years where working in movie theaters was the best job for musicians. [00:53.61]It was very well paid. [00:55.83] The rapid growth of the film industry meant movie theaters were popping up everywhere?[01:00.70]so suddenly there was this huge demand for musicians. [01:04.66]IIn fact, over 20,000 jobs for musicians were gone—disappeared—at the end of the silent-film era. Twenty-thousand! [01:14.90]OK, so, from the beginning, music was a big part of film. Even at the first...
[01:22.62]FEMALE STUDENT: Excuse me, Professor? [01:23.96]I think I read somewhere that they used music to drown out the sound of the film projectors ?[01:29.98]MALE PROFESSOR: Ye-yeah, that's a good story, isn't it? [01:32.28]Too bad it keeps getting printed as if it were the only reason music was used. [01:37.06]Well, think about it. [01:39.00]Even if that were the case, noisy projectors were separated from the main house pretty quickly—yet music continued to accompany film ?so ?[01:49.50]As I was saying, even the very first public projection of a movie had piano accompaniment?[01:57.55]so music was pretty much always there.
[02:00.60]What's strange to me, though, is that at first, film music didn't necessarily correspond to what was on the screen. [02:08.12]You know, a fast number for a chase; deep bass notes for danger; something light and humorous for comedy? [02:15.73]and that's instantly recognizable now, even expected. [02:19.72]But, in the very early days of film, any music was played.
[02:24.64]A theater owner would just buy a pile of sheet music, and musicians would play it, no matter what it was. [02:31.91]Pretty quickly though, thankfully, everybody realized the music should suit the film.[02:37.51]So, eventually, filmmakers tried to get more control over the musical accompaniment of their films and specified what type of music to use, and how fast or slow to play it?[02:50.64]FEMALE STUDENT: Are you saying there was no music written specifically for a particular movie?[02:55.50]MALE PROFESSOR: Yeah, original scores weren't common then. [02:58.50]Rarely, a filmmaker might send along an original score composed especially for a film?but usually a compilation of music that already existed would be used.[03:09.88]Yeah, that was a good time for a lot of musicians. [03:14.12] But that all changed with the introduction of sound-on-film technology.
[03:19.33]Actually, even before that—organs could mimic a number of instruments and also do some sound effects, [03:26.64]so they were starting to replace live orchestras in some movie theaters. And it only takes one person to play an organ ?
[03:34.48]MALE STUDENT: OK, but even after that, someone still had to play the music for the sound recordings, the soundtracks?[03:40.09]MALE PROFESSOR:Yeah, but, think of all the movie theaters there were, most employing about six to eight musicians. Some even had full orchestras. [03:48.83] But in the early 1930s, most theater owners installed new sound systems. [03:54.60]So suddenly a lot of musicians were looking for work.
[03:58.37]Once recording technology took off, studio jobs working exclusively for one film company, eh, studio jobs did become available.[04:07.95]But the thing is, each major movie company pretty much had only one orchestra for all their productions, a set number of regular musicians.[04:17.68]So if you could get it, studio musician was a good job---
[04:21.97]If you were cut out for it, musicians had to be able to read music very well, since the producers were very conscious of how much money they were spending. [04:31.34]They didn't want to waste any time. [04:33.54]So a musician was expected to play complicated pieces of music pretty much without any preparation. [04:40.75]If one couldn't do it, there were plenty of others waiting to try. [04:45.31]So there was a lot of pressure to do well.
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