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Music of Silence - Analysis of Silent Movie Music
Arpi Mardirossian - mardiros@usc.edu
  • Showings of silent films almost always featured live music
  • Music gave the audience vital emotional cues
  • Movie theaters had piantist, organisits or entire orchestras
  • Early on, the scores were improvised
  • Later on, it became common for films to have original, specifically composed scores
  • Scores composed for specific types of scenes, called Photoplay music, were also common