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FOR MANAGERS AND OPERATORS 417
MUSIC
The musician is a very important part of motion picture exhibition, and his work can very largely enhance or very largely detract from the excellence of a presentation. There is now a decided demand for improvement in the work of the moving picture theater musician or orchestra. Space to go exhaustively into the subject of music for the moving picture would require a volume by itself. Therefore we can touch upon it here only in a general way. In the columns of the Moving Picture World, Mr. Clarence E. Sinn, of Chicago, ably conducts a department dealing with music for the picture, and from his department those who have kept the files of the Moving Picture World may glean much valuable information on that subject. Of late some of the film manufacturers have been issuing a musical programme for their various subjects. This is very valuable indeed, and the plan should be adopted by all producers.
As to the number of musicians to be employed, that is always and invariably a problem to be met and settled by the individual manager. In thousands of small houses a piano player only is employed. Many small houses use a piano player supplemented by a trap drummer, who usually attempts, with more or less (generally less) success, to make various sound effects. As a rule it would be far better to dispense with the trap drummer and pay a salary sufficient to employ a really good piano player. But whatever is done in the matter of music, one rule should be absolutely adhered to, viz : The music should follow the picture and the music or musician absolutely must not be allowed to speak to anyone during the time a picture is running. How often have we seen a young lady piano player drumming out the music of a topical ragtime song, while at the same time industriously masticating a wad of gum and talking to her "gentleman friend" seated in the front row. The aforesaid topical song serves for the death bed scene or the picnic party. She does not know what is on the screen, neither does she care. Such work is crude, and, to the everlasting credit of progressive managers, is disappearing. Pay your musicians a reasonable salary — a salary sufficient to command excellence — and then demand the best there is in them. If you do not get it from them then, get somebody else.
In closing this topic, let me caution the manager that if he hopes to reap any large degree of success as a manager, he must make a loyal friend of every one of his employees, still he must do this in a way that will not let them for one moment forget the fact that he is "boss."