Category: Recognizable Music
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Lee Erwin And…Nas?
A Silent Film Cue Played on a Wurlitzer Gets Sampled On A Rap Record Lee Erwin’s silent film scores are not that easy to find and listen to. Luckily the tracks he recorded for several Buster Keaton features are on the now out-of-print “ultimate edition” DVD and Blu-ray releases from Kino. You can also hear…
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Silent Era Movie Theater Music Libraries Covered All the Bases…Except One
About eleven years ago I was hired to compile a book of vintage silent film mood music. To make my selections, I went through inventories of a handful of collections of music published and used during the silent film era — some that were in special collections at libraries around the country and one or…
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Matching Music: Dramatic Boost or Overkill
In selecting “appropriate music” for a scene in silent film accompaniment, there’s a fine line between support and simply mirroring what’s onscreen. It’s something I learned and developed during the first few years I was accompanying silents at NYU. It’s a question I still grapple with today. What do I mean by mirroring? This may…
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How to Play the Piano or Organ for a Halloween Silent Movie
As a fan and proponent of silent films, I’ve enjoyed seeing that every year at Halloween time, more and more shows of silent films are happening. It’s occurred to me that this means there are a lot of musicians accompanying a silent film for the first time and may be wondering how to go about…
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Hitchcock’s “Blackmail”: underscoring MacGuffins and Spoilers
Or…What to Expect When You’re Expecting Something from a Hitchcock Movie I accompanied Hitchcock’s Blackmail (1929) on piano a couple days ago at MoMA, and I recalled and repeated the way I usually try to handle the murder scene. I know…I probably should have yelled “spoiler alert” there for you, but you can pretty much…
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Hooray for Hollywood and the 2018 TCM Classic Film Festival
Three Songs You Won’t Hear During My Accompaniment to “Show People” — and Why One of the bugaboos in film accompaniment that my mentor Lee Erwin (1908-2000) had, and one I share, is the use of “song title puns”. In fact, anything that make an audience member’s brain say “Hey! She’s/he’s playing ______!” instead of…
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Marion Davies Marches On…!
Happy Birthday to Victor Herbert, Composer of “Babes In Toyland”, “Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life” and the elusive “Marion Davies March” Victor Herbert’s March of the Toys wafted over my WFMT app this morning, in honor of the composer’s birthday, and I immediately thought of Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy – and then Marion Davies. Stan…
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Buster Keaton inspires Don Lockwood
As you know, using recognizable music is a big no-no for me (unless it’s specified onscreen). And so, I was puzzled by hearing a certain song from a 1950s MGM musical in my head while playing for Keaton’s The Cameraman the last few shows I did. There is a moment after the kiss in the rain,…