Notes on "Sam Fox Moving Picture Music"

By Rodney Sauer (1998)

"Sam Fox Moving Picture Music Volume 1" by J.S. Zamecnik is probably the first music ever published for creating film scores. Several composers had created complete film scores before this time, but the usefulness of this music was limited by its being assigned to a particular picture. Most musicians, realizing that they would be playing for thousands of films, would not invest in music that was only useful for only one picture that would be gone in a week. They wanted a permanent library of useful pieces from which they could "compile" their own scores to any movie. The Sam Fox Moving Picture Music series was designed to fill this need.

The Music

If this early film music often sounds simple and naïve, that's because it is. The films of 1913 were largely melodramas, westerns, travelogues, and slapstick comedies, and Zamecnik composed music appropriate for those genres. This music was composed to be played by beginning to intermediate pianists, playing in the dark, while watching a film out of the corner of their eyes. A perfect example is the first Hurry music, written so that in the first twelve bars the pianist needs to change right-hand position only twice.

Later pieces by Zamecnik which show off his talents as a composer better- he was an accomplished composer who had studied for five years with Anton Dvorak and had already written more ambitious pieces- but the composition of good evocative music that can be played by mediocre pianists under lousy conditions is a feat any composer could be proud of! These pieces are also remarkably short, again this is appropriate for most films of 1913. If you use these themes for movies from the late 1920s you will find that you will run out of music long before your scene is over. The fact that this music sometimes sounds "clichéd" is a testament to the lasting influence of Zamecnik's early compositions in the accompaniment style of silent film musicians.

This is an early edition with plentiful typos-for instance there is a key-signature change missing in Death Scene, the second section needs to be in B-flat. There are also missing accidentals and similar errors elsewhere in the book. I have corrected these in the MIDI performances that accompany this book. The selections are heavy on "exotic" and "hurry" music, since this is the kind of music not found elsewhere in a typical pianist's repertoire.

The MIDI Files

The MIDI files are not simply a computer-realization of the notation. They are an interpreted performance of the music. They should be played back using a piano sound, as the use of damper pedal is critical to the interpretation. It does really weird things if you play the pieces with an organ sound. I don't suggest that you try to create notation from these MIDI files, since the rubato and tremolos will cause no end of trouble. Use the notation in this book. Most Web browsers can play back the MIDI files, although you may need to download them to your computer before opening them from the browser. For playing the files from a Mac to a MIDI keyboard, I highly recommend MIDIgraphy, a shareware program that can be found on the Web.

Zamecnik knew that these pieces would not be played as written-performers would have either taken repeats or not taken them depending on the length of the scene. I have taken some repeats and left others out purely at my whim. Most of the pieces are marked D.C. (da capo), meaning that you can jump from the end back to the top and start over if the scene is long enough. I have done this once or twice in the MIDI files when the end of the piece doesn't sound "final. "

Although the music is public domain, my performances are copyright 1998. This means you can play them freely for yourself and your friends, but you may not use these performances in a commercial work without my permission. You may of course do whatever you like with your own performance from the sheet music.

My silent film quintet, the Mont Alto Ragtime and Tango Orchestra is currently working on recording some of Zamecnik's later orchestral silent film music. If you would like to be notified when the album is available, please e-mail me to get on my mailing list.

Rodney Sauer

rodney@rddconsultants.com
401 Spruce Street
Louisville, CO 80027

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