Thursday, August 13, 2015

Thematic Music Cue Sheet For THE GAY DEFENDER







Silent movies were not actually silent. They were run with a musical accompaniment. Here is a Thematic Music Cue Sheet for the 1927 silent movie THE GAY DEFENDER.







2X Enlargement:






Ebay Seller's description:

This is the Thematic Music Cue Sheet for the 1927 silent feature film THE GAY DEFENDER, starring Richard Dix and Thelma Todd. Back during the silent film era, cue sheets like this one would be sent out to movie theaters in advance of a film so that the musicians could assemble a suitable musical accompaniment.  In addition to identifying the on-screen cues where the music was supposed to change, Thematic Cue Sheets also provided the title, publisher and the first few measures of an appropriate piece of music to use for each cue.  (If a theater didn’t have a particular piece of music in its library, the orchestra leader or music librarian would substitute something similar.)  Using the few measures of music provided for each cue, a talented theater organist could also improvise an entire score just from the cue sheet!  Only a very small number of these cue sheets still survive and these are not, as a rule, easily accessible to the average person who wishes to consult them.  4 pages, measuring 9-1/2 inches by 12-1/2 inches. 





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