NARRATOR：

Listen to part of a lecture in a music history class.

MALE PROFESSOR：

So, uh, if you were a musician in the United States in the early twentieth century, where could you work?

MALE STUDENT：

Same as now, I suppose... in an orchestra mainly...

MALE PROFESSOR：

OK, and where would the orchestra be playing?

MALE STUDENT：

Uh, in a concert hall... or a dance hall?

MALE PROFESSOR：

That's right, and smaller groups of musicians were needed in theaters as accompaniment to visual entertainment, like cabarets and variety shows; but, the largest employer for musicians back then was the film industry- especially during the silent-film era.

MALE STUDENT：

Really? You mean being a piano player or something? I thought movie theaters would have used recorded music...

MALE PROFESSOR：

Well, no, not during the silent-film era.

We're talking a period of maybe 30 years where working in movie theaters was the best job for musicians. It was very well paid.

The rapid growth of the film industry meant movie theaters were popping up everywhere... so suddenly there was this huge demand for musicians.

In fact, over 20,000 jobs for musicians were gone- disappeared-at the end of the silent-film era.

Twenty-thousand!

OK, so, from the beginning, music was a big part of film.

Even at the first...

Excuse me, Professor?

I think I read somewhere that they used music to drown out the sound of the film projectors...

Ye-yeah, that's a good story, isn't it?

Too bad it keeps getting printed as if it were the only reason music was used.

Well, think about it.

Even if that were the case, noisy projectors were separated from the main house pretty quickly- yet music continued to accompany film... so...

As I was saying, even the very first public projection of a movie had piano accompaniment... so music was pretty much always there.

What's strange to me, though, is that at first, film music didn't necessarily correspond to what was on the screen.

You know, a fast number for a chase; deep bass notes for danger; something light and humorous for comedy... and that's instantly recognizable now, even expected.

But, in the very early days of film, any music was played.

A theater owner would just buy a pile of sheet music, and musicians would play it, no matter what it was.

Pretty quickly though, thankfully, everybody realized the music should suit the film.

So, eventually, filmmakers tried to get more control over the musical accompaniment of their films and specified what type of music to use, and how fast or slow to play it...

Are you saying there was no music written specifically for a particular movie?

Yeah, original scores weren't common then.

Rarely, a filmmaker might send along an original score composed especially for a film... but usually a compilation of music that already existed would be used.

Yeah, that was a good time for a lot of musicians.

But that all changed with the introduction of sound-on-film technology.

Actually, even before that- organs could mimic a number of instruments and also do some sound effects, so they were starting to replace live orchestras in some movie theaters.

And it only takes one person to play an organ...

OK, but even after that, someone still had to play the music for the sound recordings, the soundtracks...

Yeah, but, think of all the movie theaters there were, most employing about six to eight musicians.

Some even had full orchestras.

But in the early 1930s, most theater owners installed new sound systems.

So suddenly a lot of musicians were looking for work.

Once recording technology took off, studio jobs, working exclusively for one film company, uh, studio jobs did become available.

But the thing is, each major movie company pretty much had only one orchestra for all their productions... a set number of regular musicians... so, if you could get it, studio musician was a good job- if you were cut out for it.

Musicians had to be able to read music very well, since the producers were very conscious of how much money they were spending- they didn't want to waste any time.

So, a musician was expected to play complicated pieces of music pretty much without any preparation.

If one couldn't do it, there were plenty of others waiting to try, so there was a lot of pressure to do well.