Brown, Julie - The Sounds of the Silents in Britain

Early cinemas were noisy places with pianos, organs, ensembles of all varieties and sometimes full orchestras accompanied films. Britain, a key cultural player in the entertainment world both at the time and now, has a different history than the US of musical cultures and film production.

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CONTENTS

Introduction: The Sounds of the Silents in Britain
Julie Brown and Annette Davison
Speaking to Pictures
1. Professional Lecturing in Early British Film Shows
Joe Kember
2. Now, where were we? Ideal and Actual Early Cinema Lecturing Practices in Britain, Germany and the US
Judith Buchanan
3. Eric Williams: Speaking to Pictures
Stephen Bottomore
4. Sounding Scottish: Sound Practices and Silent Cinema in Scotland
Trevor Griffiths
Accompanying pictures
5. Suitable music: Accompaniment Practice in Early London Screen Exhibition from R. W. Paul to the Picture Palaces
Ian Christie
6. The Art of Not Playing to Pictures in British Cinemas, 1906-1914
Jon Burrows
7. The efforts of the wretched pianist: Learning to Play to the Pictures in Britain, 1911-1913
Andrew Higson
8. The Reception of British Exhibition Practices in The Moving Picture World, 1907-1914
James Buhler
Performance in cinemas
9. Selsior Dancing Films, 1912-1917
Stephen Bottomore
10. Song Performance in the Early Sound Shorts of British Pathe
Derek B. Scott
11. Atmospheric Film Prologues and the British Film Trade Papers, 1919-1926
Julie Brown, Royal Holloway
12. Animating the Audience: Singalong Films in Britain in the 1920s
Malcolm Cook
Musicians, Companies and Institutions
13. Workers' Rights and Performing Rights: Cinema Music and Musicians Prior to Synchronized Sound
Annette Davison
14. Sound at the Film Society
John Riley
15. Edmund Meisel's visual sound in The Crimson Circle (1929): The Case of the Vanishing Part-Talkie
Fiona Ford
Bibliography
Index