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Automatic
Dealing with the Various Types of Musical Instruments Intended for Public Places, Pneumatically or Electrically Controlled
MUSIC AND MUSICIANS FOR THE AUTOMATIC ORGAN
The Future Development of the Automatic Organ Rests Largely Upon the Development of Music
Rolls Adapted to It, and the Educating of Musicians to a Realization of Its Proper Use
It has frequently been pointed out in this sec-
tion that the big and rich field for expansion
which exists throughout the country for the
development of large and fine organ installa-
tions, either manual or automatic, or both, is
being held back very greatly by the lack of
competent musicians. There are many ways
of looking at this statement and much that can
be said pro and con, but the opinion of those
who are in a position to know best is that the
motion picture organ will continue to be a sort
of exotic in the business world until it is more
familiar to a large number of musicians and
until the task of playing it acceptably is put
within the reach of the many.
The writer of this article has always been
much interested in the organ and in its applica-
tion to the theatre and to the home, but any
one who knows anything of the instrument's
past history knows also that there have always
been, in this country, at least, fewer good organ-
ists than good organs. When the possibilities
of the organ in relation to places of entertain-
ment was first seriously taken up, it was found
that it was one thing to sell and install a fine
organ in a theatre and quite another thing to
get a man or woman who could make it sound
like anything commensurable with its cost. This
difficulty has continued to exist, and now that
the motion picture player-piano with organ at-
tachment is becoming larger and larger and is
developing into a great organ installation in
more and more cases, the question is arising
as to how we are to supply good music for it in
adequate quantities.
Two Ways
There are two possible ways of doing this.
We can, on the one hand, develop a library of
music rolls and an adequate playing attachment
on the player-piano order. On the other hand,
we can undertake to put the training of or-
ganists upon a basis where the attention and
interest of young piano students will be attracted
FOTOPLAYER
for the finest
Motion Picture
Theatres
AMERICAN PHOTO
PLAYER CO.
San Francisco
New York
Chicago
and steps taken towards supplying the many
theatres, which are installing or have installed
fine organ-piano combinations, with musicians
capable of playing them in a way which will at-
tract the public and keep them coming.
"Those Pedals"
Let us take the second proposition first. In
talking the other day with the successful rep-
resentative of a certain motion picture player,
whose territory covers certain flourishing
Southern States, we found that this gentleman
has given considerable and careful attention to
the question of assisting his customers to ob-
tain competent musicians. When a motion pic-
ture man installs in his theatre a large or me-
dium-sized instrument of the motion picture
player type, he usually finds some young lady
or youth who is a fair pianist, or who perhaps
has played the piano in the same theatre pre-
vious to the new installation. This young per-
son approaches the organ with curiosity and
perhaps with interest, but very soon finds that
it is very much more than a mere large piano.
The variety of tone-colors, he or she finds, must
somehow be reduced to system, and then there
are the terrible pedals. It is not too much to
say that most of the "organists" very judicious-
ly keep off the pedals entirely. This is all very
well, but just this accounts for the fact that
the sound of so many motion picture organs is
so appallingly thin, empty and unbalanced.
Well, now, if means can be devised whereby
the aspiring young pianist can obtain instruc-
tion which will fit him or her to tackle the
organ intelligently, it will follow, in many if not
in most cases, that the interest awakened in this
way will become absorbing, and the young mu-
sician will find the greatest pleasure in master-
ing the fine instrument entrusted to him.
The motion picture theatre musician who as-
pires to play an organ in a way that will at-
tract the public need not expect to create a
sensation, for the movie theatre public is never
particularly high-class or critical in its tastes.
But between this and merely "stalling" a great
gulf is fixed. Two especial realms of technique
must be opened up to the performer. One is
the use of the pedal organ and the other the
due management of the stops. Unless and until
these have been mastered the organ remains a
half-played instrument satisfying no one. Un-
fortunately, this is just the description which
is most frequently applicable to fine, expensive
instruments in movie theatres. They look very
nice, but they sound empty and unsatisfying.
Improvisation
In addition to all this there is the faculty of
improvisation, which is an absolute essential to
every movie musician. In one sense every such
musician must and does possess it, at least to
a certain degree, for it is quite impossible to
play a picture unless at the very least one can
modulate fairly smoothly from number to num-
ber of the music selected. It is unhappily only
too true that many picture players seem to
have little or no sense of the fitness of things,
for one often hears a picture played through
in such a way that the musician seems to have
deliberately chosen the most thoroughly wrong
pieces imaginable for every incident shown on
the screen. Now, with the organ, the impro-
vising faculty is given a scope vastly greater
than the piano allows, and just as soon as the
musician has learned something of the real or-
gan technique, any improvising talent he or
she may have is wonderfully enriched and de-
veloped.
Instruction, then, is the thing we must seek.
How? There are various ways in which we can
look at this.
Scholarships
One way suggests itself immediately. Why
should it not be possible to arrange with the
several good schools for organ playing to en-
dow a number of free scholarships, and make
these available for the use of selected young
movie pianists throughout the country? If this
were done, even by one single manufacturer,
the advertising value would be in excess of any
expense likely to be incurred thereby. More-
over, the organ schools or teachers themselves
are just now taking a very considerable interest
in the concert organ, whether for motion picture
or for the home, and are thinking out plans for
teaching non-church playing, as it might be
called, in such a way as to adapt a race of
theatre organists. The main difficulty in their
way has been the question of cost and the free
scholarship plan is the only one possible, so far
as the writer can see.
Movie Rolls
Some time ago this department obtained a let-
ter from a Pacific Coast music roll company,
setting forth a description of a line of rolls
especially adapted to playing pictures on player
organs. The method of obtaining master rec-
ords of music suitable for special films for
selected types of film-drama was there set forth.
The idea is worth consideration, but even it
rests upon the possibility of using some intel-
ligent person for the due manipulation of the
rolls. Correct tempo, correct choice of rolls
and correct manipulation of stops is just as
necessary in this case as correct technique to
the manual organist, and the mere use of a
playing attachment does not of itself make
movie organ music acceptable or attractive.
There is a large field for the further de-
velopment of automatic instruments in theatres
and the home, but until the music question is
rightly and permanently handled upon a well
thought-out basis the whole industry will lag
more or less, or at least will fall short of achiev-
ing the importance which is rightfully its own.
HONEYMOONING AT PALM BEACH
S. R. Kelso, Jr., of Kelso & Co., piano makers
of New York City, is spending his honeymoon
at Palm Beach, Pla., having been married on
New Year's eve. He and his bride will re-
turn to New York about February 1.
The music store of Arthur Davis & Son, of
Milledgeville, Ga., is being moved to new and
|arger quarters in that city.