Silent Film Music - Term Paper Example

?“Silent Film Music” enter the Number or College 16th January Introduction: Music is theart that people can express their feelings from the combination of the instrument’s notes. The word “music” originates from the Greek word '' ??????? '' which means “The art of the Muses”. “Muses” were the Greek goddesses who create the inspiration of literature and arts in the ancient culture with poetic lyrics and myths. In theory, to create music or maybe it would be more accurate to say to create sound, some special things such as notes, tempo, rhythm, scales, chords, harmony, melody and especially instruments to take out the sound are needed. As many composers say, composing music is like using all your skills to bring out what you are thinking, feeling and have in mind, to expose your bare soul the moment of the situation you are composing for. So, music creates emotions that we are already capable of feeling, it is enjoyable and makes us feel good and sometimes makes us want to dance and that is based on a biology theory. Also, music can relate with mathematics as many philosophers said. Music is everywhere, in radios, CDs, films/movies. As people know, films without sound are not understandable. This is the reason why back in the early years of films, the producers soon decided to connect their pictures, movements and ideas with sound. Silent films began to have more meaning through them. The 1920's, stands out of the history because of the radical changes that America underwent. In that decade, America, while being one of the wealthiest countries, had the resources to evolve in almost every field and therefore many effective changes in fashion, hairstyles, entertainment and music are recognized. Therefore, all films during that period were acknowledged from the wide public as one of the most powerful factors of the contemporary life. At the beginning of that time, it was found from the industry that the popularity could help with propagate to itself the relative for arts of music. During the influential years of the Silent Films, the musical accompaniment was reinforced by a pianist striking a tuneless mechanical instrument, with the same loud tunes and melodies in the ears of someone, whether the screen showed a romantic scene of two lovers kissing or a villain threatening an innocent civilian. But during the 1920's all this had been changed when large images began to circulate with a specially prepared effective score. Major film industries presented the known deluxe shows with symphony orchestras to accompany films but also involved short presentations on stage in the context of full scale recreational programs which often included actors, singers or a variety of show acts. In the early 1920's, Jazz ruled the background music on films, but regularly films with variety in their music gave the opportunity for popular jazz mitigated by the classical music, both accompanied by the film as part of extra entertainment acts. Many of the best musicians in the country were now playing in film houses and in some theatres the cost of music was the third than the total operating theatre cost. Discerning businessmen searching to optimize cost-effective modalities for the provision of musical background for the films were the motivating power behind the introduction of the organ pipe accompaniment. Pipe Organs that were installed in Churches were changed to respond to the requirements of the film theatres by adding tremolo effects.  2. Silent Film Music “Where words fail, music speaks, and without music, life is just like a journey through a desert.” (Anderson, 2008) The beauty of music is found in every soul as everyone can appreciate good music. Music regulates our moods and leads to a healthy life. Music is soothing and music is something to which every ear responds. It is proved through a research that the rate of heart beat changes when music is turned on (What is Music, 2004). It’s like a therapy, where the most genial words fail, music tends to soften the vicious of hearts. It’s easy to play any musical instrument, as all one has to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself. Every person perceives the same music differently. Similarly, every person plays the same musical instrument differently. Music is present in our lives. We are surrounded by music, it may be sad, it may be sweet, it may be horrifying and at time it may be surprising but whatever it may be it is present there. Sounds when flow form music (Cook, 2000). If we listen to our environment all we hear are sounds. When in rhythm, the sounds take the form of music. Movies have always been a popular thing among humans. This entertainment form dates back to the ancient times. In the Greek times, different stories were narrated by live actors performing on the stage. This thing was further developed by narrative dramas i.e. on radios and then with the help of moving images. The moving images did not come with sounds from the very beginning. Films are amalgam of sounds and images. Before films were invented, stories and dramas were narrated with mere sound effects and dialogues on radio. Images and sound both are required to give the full feel of a movie. Therefore, films cannot be enjoyed to its full without sounds being a part of it (Buhler, Neumeyer and Deemer, 2009, pp. 247) The history of sound cinema dates back to the year 1927, ‘The Jazz Singer’. Edison’s Kinetoscopes were the discovery which led to giving life to cinema. It was a “show inside the box”. One could see moving images in them at such a rate that they seemed moving. Photography freezes motion and when number of photographs are taken together and moved at a certain rate then they appear to be moving, it is what the movie or moving picture is all about (Mugu Brainpan, 2006). The first film ever made was a 30 seconds long movie known as story less vignettes. For some years it was a jaw dropping phenomenon to come across a movie. Several movies were made in this way. Edison’s motion pictures were made better and better by every passing day as many experiments were made to achieve different results. Dickson was the reason of its fast promotion. 1894 marks the year when Dickson was found interested in audio and worked on sound a lot. There was an article in Phonogram which was a magazine. According to that magazine Dickson was working with Dr. Wangemann for recording purposes. The magazine called Dickson “an artist” and Wangemann a “musical expert”. Dickson put in a lot of efforts to make a good movie with good audio as well. In the year 1889 he made Circa which was appreciated by the audience as well. It combined kinectoscope images and phonographic sound. With the death of Dickson, the sound thing came to halt for about three decades. In 1998, the Domitor film society came into existence. Cavalcanti (1939) states that sound did not become a part of the films with the invention of “sound films” but instead it became a part of the films with the invention of films themselves. According to Cavalcanti (1939), films without sound never existed because the action in the films was always shown with the help of some music. The phonographs were used before to give the film its soul. The next device used for this purpose was the ‘barker’. Films were played in cinemas and the use of barker limited as a man’s voice could not get heard all over the cinema. Also, it was difficult to continue dialogues by one man speaking all over the movie. Proper emotions could not be delivered as well with the fatigue of one person speaking from the beginning of the movie till the end. Barkers did not vanish from the cinema business at once. Some people claim to have heard one in the 1910’s or 1912’s as well. There are places where the literary rate is low and people are unable to read subtitles therefore, barkers are used there instead. It is easy for the people there to translate the movie into their language and narrate it to the audience. Music was required in the films to get rid of the noise of the projector and to inculcate emotions in the dialogues. With the success of cinema culture, there was piano introduced as a musical instrument, after that trio, after that orchestra. Certain themes were associated with certain characters and atmosphere. The musical instruments were played differently wit the combination of different instrument to create interesting compositions. Music started getting encouraged and enjoyed by the audience. Other than the dialogues, the background music there were sound of the atmosphere and the helping sounds introduced in the sound of the film. Speech, music and noise were started getting acknowledged. Some of the directors did not believe that sound was something important to work on. No sound analyst came to the foreground as well. music started to become a part of the movies. But the images moved at a slow pace hence making the film appear boring. One of the examples in this context is “The Great Ziegfeld­a huge”. With the passage of time, good stories and plots were introduced in the films. Three Smart Girls Grow Up is a good example in this context where a sister gets up to sing a song in honour of her sister who is marrying a wrong person. It was a work done on music. Then the directors gave importance to the dialogues and at the end to the noise. The world nowadays realizes the importance of sound, dialogues, background voices, noise and helping sounds. There are special sound engineers hired for every movie. 3. Conclusion We understand things differently when it comes to objective and subjective part of the things. Objective observation is that id I see a bird, I am able to describe what it looks like etc. but understanding any art form understands the subjectivity in it. It is to understand what lies behind the apparent meaning. Sound is present in everything in this universe. Music is when different sounds come out at a specific pace. Music can become noise if the interval of sound is kept too fast for the human ears to acknowledge. Music has great effects on mind. If there is a movie or a scene in real life without sound or music then the person witnessing the scene loses interest easily from it (What is Music, 2004). According to O’Donnell (1999), music has great affect on learning and memorizing. It can help people build new memories and remember old things. Mozart’s music can help stimulate left and right brain resulting in maximization of learning and retention of memory. Music has great effects on the retention on memory. Music has different affects on our brain, if we listen to sad music we feel sad and gloomy and if we listen to encouraging music we feel determined (Sacks, 1995). Music is the only thing a person can respond to if all his senses fail to work (Sacks, 2008). The Greeks played live dramas with the help of narrators and actors acting live. This thing was continued with the development of drama. Dramas were narrated on radios with the help of using dialogues and helping sound to make the stories interesting. This was further taken a step ahead with the invention of movies. The movies were not accompanied by sound always. But they were not totally silent as well. According to Altman, (2005, pp.), the silent films were not actually fully silent. The evolution of sound from narrator to recorded sound was always there. With the passage of time and the advancement of technology, the sound department evolved and made music and sound better. People are now aware of the sound quality as they are of the image quality. There are people who cannot watch movies with a bad “sound quality”. If we analyze this thing at individual level, we conclude that a movie with a clear visual and a bad sound quality is not enjoyable and even most of us would not watch it rather than a movie with a good audio and average visuals would be watched by majority. Nowadays, the sound engineering and sound departments are given a lot of importance. They are paid highly as well. The Hollywood movies have a good sound and music quality as well as good visuals. Realistic sounds make the audience get interested in the movie and grasp their attention for long. 4. List of References Altman, R., 2005. Columbia University Press. Silent Film Sound Anderson, H., S., 2008. Music Quotes by Famous Musicians, Sheet Music Fox. [online] Available at < http://www.sheetmusicfox.com/quotes.html > [Accessed 16 Jan 2012]. Buhler, J., Neumeyer, D., Deemer, R., 2009. Hearing the movies: music and sound in film history, Oxford University Press. Cavalcanti, A., 1939. Sound in Films, 1996. Mind Tools. [online] Available at < http://lavender.fortunecity.com/hawkslane/575/sound-in-films.htm > [Accessed 16 Jan 2012]. Cook, N., 2000. Music: a very short introduction, Oxford University Press. Mugu Brainpan, 2006. The Pre-History of Sound Cinema, Thomas Edison and W.K.L Dickson. [online] Available at < http://www.spencersundell.com/blog/2006/04/10/the_pre-history_of_sound_cinema_part_1/ > [Accessed 16 Jan 2012]. What is Music, 2004. [online] Available at < http://whatismusic.info/chapters/whatismusic-2-what-is-music.pdf > [Accessed 16 Jan 2012]. O'Donnell, L., 1999. Music and the Brain, Music Power. Retrieved December 6, 2011, from http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n15/mente/musica.html Sacks, O., W., 1995. An anthropologist on Mars: seven paradoxical tales, Knopf. Sacks, O., W., 2008. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Picador. Read More