Exhibitors Herald (1927)

March 19, 1927 13 EXHIBITORS HERALD Music for V^hildren’s Shows By Irene, Juno Organist, Stanley-Crandall Theatres, Washington, D. C. The subject of music for the children’s shows is one which has received but scant attention, but to me it is one of the most important things in music and films today. Children receive impressions quicker and with greater force and a different re-action than grown-ups. When Harriet Hawley Locher was appointed head of the Educational Department, Stanley-Crandall Company, and started her Saturday morning shows for children, she knew what she wanted to accomplish. In her four years of this work, the department has grown and she has been the center around which has been built one of the finest departments that could be established. Harriet Hawley Locher has visited cities in every state of the Union speaking on Children’s programs, and Women’s Clubs and organizations have looked to her and received necessary information for starting them in their city. * * * The branch departments are successfully started and considered a permanent part of the educational work, and Mrs. Locher has every reason to be proud of her achievement, but what they do not know is the relation of Music and the Picture and the Child. When I was appointed to the Chevy Chase theatre for the Saturday morning shows this year, I suggested to Mrs. Locher that we experiment with the children and their musical reaction, and find out just what appealed to them. What they did or did not like, and if musical accompaniment to the film really meant anything to them. So Mrs. Locher and I, together with Gladys Mills, under whose personal supervision the Chevy Chase shows are conducted, took our children apart, found out what made them tick and put them together again as good as new. And we found out that musical reaction with children was 100 per cent. We have such pictures as “The Thief of Bagdad,” “Peter Pan,” “Brown of Harvard” and others. Irene Juno, organist of the Stanley-Crandall theatres, Washington, D. C., whose music articles in “Better Theatres” have attracted nationwide attention. mostly the super specials. All gruesome matter is chopped, also drinking or drunken scenes unless direct comedy. And, speaking of comedy, the song “Show Me the Way to Go Home” seems to have been universally ac Organist readers of “Better Theatres” will he especially interested in “Organ Numbers,” introduced this week as a regular weekly feature of the “Presentation Acts” department in Section I of the “Herald.” Under that heading the “Presentation Acts” department will list organ selections and features used each week in the country’s leading theatres. In addition to reports received from its representatives in the field, the “Presentation Acts” department will provide in each weekly issue a convenient blank form by means of which organists can report titles of their own organ numbers direct. “Better Theatres” directs its organist readers’ attention to “Presentation Acts” for this service which will enable organists to know what numbers are being used in theatres throughout the country each week. cepted as a “drunk” song. In one picture we had a comedy drunk scene and I did not play the song. One of the kiddies began to sing the first line and hundreds of little voices took it up. I found the key they were in, and we used the chorus twice through. * * * Don’t hush your kiddies if they sing at the morning shows. Rather encourage it. It is natural for them to sing, and every Saturday morning we sing from ten to ten-thirty. Fifteen minutes we use songs and slides. They enjoy the ballads we have found, but like something with rhythm. The most popular songs with them this season are Bye Bye Blackbird, For My Sweetheart, Collegiate, Show Me the Way to Go Home, Mary Lou, and I often have calls for Barney Google, California, Here I Come, Glory Halleyuha. Over There, and Keep the Home Fires Burning. The children flock on the organ bench and in the orchestra pit and call for the songs they want. One little boy insists on having Sweet Adeline played for him, but it is not a general favorite unless a direct cue. As an illustration of the working of the child mind when* Fairbanks flew through the air on his horse one childish voice piped up “There goes Barney Google.” Barney Google had been suggested to all present and I played it and they sang. Such a thing would have been unbelievable in correct scoring of a picture, but there were no musical critics in the house, and what is more to the point, no one would have cared if there had been. * * * We never “work up” a scene which might be too exciting with the exception of a race or hurry. Never enough mob scene to make an impression, and never “scarry” music, unless a decided comedy. One does not realize the impression “scarry” music can make on a child unless it has been tried, but at one show we had a substitute organist not versed in playing for children. I was not present and {Continued on page SO)