Congrats ! You have won a Blackstone Original 4-Burner

Congrats ! You have won a Blackstone Original 4-Burner



 

ending on the size of the exhibition site, musical accompaniment could drastically change in scale. Small-town and neighborhood movie th

 

eatres usually had a pianist. Beginning in the mid-1910s, large city theaters tended to have organists or ensembles of mu

 

sicians. Massive theatre organs, which were designed to fill a gap between a simple piano soloist and a larger orch

 

estra, had a wide range of special effects. Theatrical organs such as the famous "Mighty Wurlitzer" could simulate some orchestral sounds along with a number of percussion effects such as bass drums and cymbals, and sound effects ranging from "train and boat whistles car horns and bird whistles; ... some could even simulate pistol shots, ringing phones, the sound of surf, horses' hooves, smashing pottery, thunder and rain". Musical scores for early silent films were either improvised or compiled of classical or theatrical repertory music. Once full features became commonplace, however, music was compiled from photoplay music by the pianist, organist, orchestra conductor or the movie studio itself, which included a cue sheet with the film. These sheets were often lengthy, with detailed notes about effects and moods to watch for. Starting with the mostly original score composed by Joseph Carl Breil for D. W. Griffith's epic The Birth of a Nation (1915), it became relatively comm