Tag: wurlitzer
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When a Whistle Isn’t a Whistle
I make mistakes during shows, and usually I’m the only one who notices. As an artist, often that’s all I come away with from a performance. On Tuesday I used the “toy counter” on the virtual Wurlitzer I often accompany silents with in a few spots, and one use undercut one of the gags, I’m…
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The Sounds of the Silents — Theatre Organ on DVD
One of the reasons a majority of people associate the piano with silent film, as opposed to theatre organ or orchestra, is that it had been the type of accompaniment utilized the most on a majority of home video editions of silent films. I’d like to address a question that came in from my recent series…
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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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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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talking with Joe Franklin
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I was interviewed by the one and only Joe Franklin for his radio show a week or two ago, and the segment aired today on his weekly segment on “Bloomberg on the Weekend” on WBBR-AM and on Sirius XM radio. Listen to my appearance on the radio with Joe here:http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3523697345-audio-player.swf
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Radio City Music Hall Wurlitzer (again)
May 6 – I was back at Radio City Music Hall for some practice time on the Wurlitzer today, in prep for next week’s SVA graduation. Turns out I won’t be using the organ at the ceremony — nothing to do with RCMH, it’s just that the sample recordings I’d sent in didn’t quite fit…
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Radio City Music Hall Wurlitzer
Here are some photos taken on Tuesday at Radio City Music Hall. I was there as part of an invited walk-through of RCMH held by SVA’s creative and tech teams for their annual graduation exercises. Last year I played piano for their graduation, improvising 15-or-so pieces of music while graduates came up one-by-one to get…
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more photos from Stumfilm Dagere i Tromsø
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This is the Verdensteatret Kino (“kino” means cinema), with banners hung for the festival. I love their logo of a dialog balloon with an “X” where dialog would be. This is the oldest kino in Norway. Here is a photo of one of the murals that line the walls of the Verdensteatret (translated: “World Theater”).…
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Radio City Music Hall
I made my Radio City Music Hall debut yesterday, playing for the graduation ceremony of the School of Visual Arts. I improvised 90+mins of music while the graduates came up and received their diplomas…17 groups in all. I used the RCMH’s 9-foot Steinway grand, which was placed extreme downstage right, where I had a clear…