Epoch Silent Film

Silent film of the 1890s-1920s was a large step toward modern film, and a pivotal part of entertainment today. The silent film era has three different phases: from early cinema (1895-1905), to the Nickelodeons, to the Picture Palace. For early cinema, the music that was played for films in different theaters wasn’t “regulated.

This meant that there wasn’t one piece or even type of music that all the theaters were supposed to play for any particular scene. Theaters could be very different from each other: Vaudeville music was expected to accompany film like it was an “act”.

On the other hand, places like Hale’s tours would use sound effects to make the film realistic and music accompaniment wasn’t really concentrated on as much. Going to one theater and watching a film, could be very different musically from another theater playing that same film. In the early cinema era, it was often normal—depending on the size of the theater—for there to be a piano or small orchestra.

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Nickelodeons—so named because they were named after the cost of admission: a nickel in 1905—was another step of change in silent film. Illustrated songs, which were played in these theaters, would have a singer and richly colored slides which played behind her as music joined in. This was also a time where the music to accompany when people entered and exited the theater became common (mostly as a distraction). Over a short amount of time nickelodeons and theaters changed from showing short scenes in 1905, to 1915 when, “the production of feature films of modern length was.

. .becoming standardized” .

In nickelodeons, it was quite common for popular songs/music—like ragtime--to be played over films. One problem that arose from the use of popular music like ragtime being played was that there were scenes where the feeling of the music didn’t match the scene that was being played. Upbeat music just didn’t work with drama scenes, and therefore nickelodeons began to use classical music for drama. This was a transformation where the music stopped being used to just entertain people, but to compliment the scenes themselves. This also led to the improvisation of music during film along with music made for topics. In improvisation, a musician would play a piece of music during the film but improvise some of it to line it up better with what was happening in the scenes. Some theaters used music made for topics; for example, there may be a piece of music that is good for sad scenes or one that is good for revenge scenes.

Some difficulties that arose with nickelodeons is because there were so many that cropped up so fast, it wasn’t uncommon for musicians who weren’t trained to do music for the theater to be hired. Something that helped with this problem was the invention of the foot player (although it was often not used in small theaters). The foot player was an instrument that was easier to play, and therefore didn’t need a musician, but still provided a wide range of music (through piano rolls) and sound effects. Another problem that arose during the “playing the picture” era in nickelodeons was that films were normally only shown three times, which didn’t give the orchestra and musicians enough time to practice the piece and edit it to fit the films.

The last event of silent film was the Picture Palace, which arose during the 1910s. Pictures palaces were often grandiose, had large orchestras, and introduced to film music the use of organs. They played music and film often in the same style as vaudeville, with the musical performance being more important than the film itself. The picture palaces were primarily in large cities, whereas nickelodeons and small theaters profited in small towns. The picture palaces also had live performances, and musicians became pivotal to these theaters to the extent they were made into managers of the entire theater and given more control over how the musical pieces and films interacted and how they were done.

All in all, picture palaces retained much from the nickelodeons (e.g. improvisation), but also changed in how they lined up music to match what was happening in performances/film and used “thematic variations” more often for these changes in the characters on-screen actions. As 1920 went on, music in the film became more and more similar to what we see today. For films, accompaniments began to be created by the musicians in the theaters, and there was more effort put in to have the music and picture on the screen go well together. Special scores (made by commission) began to appear, and leitmotifs began to be used for specific characters or situations.