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Movie Music
Accustomed though we are to speaking of the films made before 1927 as "silent", the film has never been, in the full sense of the word, silent. From the very beginning, music was regarded as an indispensable accompaniment; when the Lumiere films were shown at the first public film exhibition in the United States in February 1896, they were accompanied by piano improvisations on popular tunes. At first, the music played bore no special relationship to the films; an accompaniment of any kind was sufficient. Within a very short time, however, the incongruity of playing lively music to a solemn film became apparent, and film pianists began to take some care in matching their pieces to the mood of the film.
As movie theaters grew in number and importance, a violinist, and perhaps a cellist, would be added to the pianist in certain cases, and in the larger movie theaters small orchestras were formed. For a number of years the selection of music for each film program rested entirely in the hands of the conductor or leader of the orchestra, and very often the principal qualification for holding such a position was not skill or taste so much as the ownership of a large personal library of musical pieces. Since the conductor seldom saw the films until the night before they were to be shown (if indeed, the conductor was lucky enough to see them then), the musical arrangement was normally improvised in the greatest hurry.
To help meet this difficulty, film distributing companies started the practice of publishing suggestions for musical accompaniments. In 1909, for example, the Edison Company began issuing with their films such indications of mood as "pleasant", "sad", "lively". The suggestions became more explicit, and so emerged the musical cue sheet containing indications of mood, the titles of suitable pieces of music, and precise directions to show where one piece led into the next.
Certain films had music especially composed for them. The most famous of these early special scores was that composed and arranged for D. W. Griffith's film Birth of a Nation, which was released in 1915.
電影插曲
儘管我們習慣於將1927 年以前的電影稱為"無聲電影"，但是就無聲這個詞完整的意義上來說，電影從未真正的無聲過，從最初開始音樂就被視為必不可少的伴奏。當盧米埃爾 的電影在 1896 年 2 月美國首屆影片公映展覽上放映的時候，影片便用當時的流行曲臨場鋼 琴伴奏。最初，這些音樂伴奏與電影沒有什麼特別的關係，用什麼曲子伴奏都行。但在很短的時間內，為一部莊重的影片演奏快活的音樂所產生的不協調感變得顯而易見，因此鋼琴家們開始注意將自己的作品與影片的情調結合起來。
隨著影劇院在數量上與重要性上的不斷增長，在一些場合，除了鋼琴師外，還要加上小提琴師，或許還有一位大提琴師。較大的影劇院裡還組成了小型的管絃樂隊。在很長的時間內，為各部影片選擇配樂完全掌握在樂隊指揮或隊長手中，而通常把持這種職位的資格不是技巧或鑑賞品味，而是擁有一個大的音樂作品的個人收藏。因為直到電影上映的前一天晚上樂隊指揮才能看到影片(如果這個指揮真正有幸能夠看到影片的話)，音樂安排通常是在非常匆忙的.情況下臨場進行的。
為了解決以上的困難，電影發行公司開辦了為音樂伴奏印製提示單的業務。例如 1909 年愛迪生公司開始將一些諸如"喜悅的"、"悲傷的"、"活潑的"之類表明影片情調特徵的提示與影片一起發行。這些提示逐漸變得更加具體，並且出現了包括影片情調說明、適用樂曲名稱和樂曲轉換點等內容的配樂說明單。
某些影片擁有專門為其創作的音樂。這些早期特創樂譜中最著名的便是為 D. W. 格雷夫斯 1915 年上映的影片《一個國家的誕生》所創作的音樂。
