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INTERVIEW WITH JAIME LOPEZ, silent film piano accompanist


One of the aspirations when we started this journey does today, November 16, two years was to not only provide the analysis of films, but also help meet the disclosure and the media and people who help spread the silent art, preserve, recreate and enrich the present. One hopes, in this sense it was closer to the office and accompanying pianist accompanying silent films. In another article of this blog, "The silent film pianists" , and offered an outline of what the situation was pianist in the early twentieth century. Now, the Jaime López hand, we approach the work and concerns of an actual piano. A truly enriching interview that begins with self-presentation of the respondent, whom we thank for his words here.

I started studying music at age 7 in the choir of Infantes del Pilar de Zaragoza. It was a boarding school where I spent 6 years in which, above all, learned music, since he had to attend to the worship of the Cathedrals. Yes, learned by immersion, but we do not want.

I did my studies at the Conservatory and soon, in 19 years, I started playing in a pub in the city that was called "Pianola."

My first "official" job was at the Dance School of the City of Zaragoza. I was a piano accompanist and ruler of sound in the Ballet de Zaragoza disappeared for ten years and returned to my Town Square Professional Dance Conservatory, where I am today as a pianist.

By the way, I joined bands, made music for gymnastics, music rehearsals with the Drama Centre of Aragon, I worked on some discs ... now I focus more on the silent film and a regular contributor to "The Magic Lantern" Days Silent Film Uncastillo, the programming of "The Bell of the Lost", a charming pub in Zaragoza, and the cycle of Mills Music and Word (Teruel).

How did you get this job, as an original purpose or as a specialization as a musician?

I came by chance. My Friends "magic lantern" (a fabulous film project for children who are in Zaragoza) called me because they needed to accompany The Adventures of Prince Achmed , Lotte Reiniger. With the audacity that gives ignorance, I agreed without hesitation ... and even today. This addictive.

Did you follow any specific academic background, if any, or with practice learned from a career opportunity? Is there a tradition of academic, public or private, here or in any other country in this regard? Specific training

not think there is. At least here in Spain.

I started playing the piano in a pub Zaragoza named "La Pianola" in which he accompanied as "Granada" by Agustin Lara, the song of the Cola-Cao. Hilarious were years in which I acquired an ease and ability to improvise which are indispensable in the accompaniment of silent films. Then

chance

help too. Do not forget that all my professional life I've been accompanying ballet and ballet is just a dumb story told with music and movement. I am convinced that Giselle in black and white, would be a great argument for a silent-movie melodrama. It has everything. In this way, my way of ballet to the silent film was only a small change.

As for tradition, in Spain there are not many musicians who do it. But there are great.

For those who want to venture into this world as a professional, what advice, readings, music codes, etc. would you recommend?

"Repertoire? Everything you hear can be used in a movie. Everything.

music I love cartoons. Some feel that Mickey mousing (for which he does not know, the usual music that accompanies the scenes of the cartoon) is an easy solution and considers inferior. I find it fascinating. The persecution of Tom and Jerry are musical prodigies. Obviously, not try to follow that way the Murnau Faust, but for comic scenes is the most direct and immediate.

The only advice I give is ... dare to dare.

I can assure that it is not as complicated as it may seem from the outside. The end result of the joint music / image far exceeds the quality of music that can be added. And always in the next movie you make can avoid the flaws you see in the present.

And who, without engaging in it, I know something of its history, trends, and others, especially books? There

lot of information on the Internet and specialized sites (like yours) that perform a special informative work. Or www.cines-clasico.com, maintaining impressive forums on the most disparate of cinema.

The literature is almost endless:

· Álvarez, Rosa; Arce, Juan Carlos .- The harmony that breaks the silence. Conversations with Pepe Nieto. Valladolid : 41 th International Film Festival, 1996.

· Nieto, José .- Music for the image. The secret influence. Madrid: SGAE, 1996.

· Theodor W. Adorno and Hans Eisler film and music. Madrid: Basics 1976 (2 nd ed.1981).

· Gillian B. Anderson Music for the silent films. 1894-1929. A guide. Washington DC: Library of Congress, 1988.

Hundreds of publications, books and magazines offer courses on various aspects of film and music.

I recently wrote in relation to an article published here on the situation of the pianists in the era of silent films and I said that their conditions have not changed much. Is it so precarious that situation?

No, I have not really complain about. When it comes to acting, adrenaline clears everything. The laughter of an audience laughing at the plight of Buster Keaton help solve any possible discomfort. When I

attended screenings with live music, I saw a score ahead pianists who occasionally looked at the screen and others do not take her eyes off the screen without any score. Do you improvise or part of a score more or less internalized? I imagine that there is a previous work with the movies at home, composing melodies and knowing the scenes and possibilities. How does this work before?

that already are different ways of dealing with the film.

I do not use any score in the role, but before I developed a thorough work on the film.

usually get enough time the film to accompany you. First

see the film without sound and I "describing" written, more or less as if he were telling someone. During that process are the various issues that have to characterize the characters and situations.

Or not. You can spend weeks without finding the subject that adequately describes an environment and, suddenly, when you least expect, you find the idea of \u200b\u200ba song they are listening to your children. For example, right now, after months of searching, I am testing to use the love theme from The Incredible Hulk as the idea of \u200b\u200bLove Theme The three lights of Fritz Lang. With that is enough said. Once

musically characterized the characters and situations, write the subject in score and add to the written description. This is a fairly laborious process, but helps set the melodies in memory of a very precise way. In addition to finish putting together a complete script narration and music.

When everyone has a melody begins the making of the film itself.
Using a sequencer (I use Cubase , but it serves everyone, of course) I will accompany the images with my keyboard connected to your computer and save it as MIDI. In this way I make sure the sheet music for all music. After I add the images and sound and I think a movie with my music, I record on DVD, getting "my" version of the film. It takes work, but not difficult.

But let me add one thing: the real act of accompanying a film occurs when performing live.

Once you have finalized the DVD with your movie, go over it and say, "Look how well it has been, or what Light that ...." However, when you do live a different story. There comes a time when you become a sort of medium between the images and the viewer and notes how it is music going through you from unintentionally. It may seem an exaggeration (which has happened to him no sound of pure snobbery, I understand), but that happens.

And if you hear a child laugh at a joke you just follow the rush is awesome.

What do you think there are differences between composing for silent films and talkies?

The first and most immediate, in the silent film music have to do constantly. The silences are deafening silent movies.

Then there are the differences in narrative and action of the characters somehow also influence the music.
In the silent film music puts into the mouths of the characters the words that are not heard. Usually helps to describe situations such direct argument as a dialogue in the talkies. On the contrary, no one would hear a spoken movie soundtrack that was heard continuously over the talks. It would be burdensome and excessive.

That is why the musical resources to be used are different.

Do you think your role is to accompany or play?

certainly follow. Interpreting an image
music otherwise than as a viewer is watching is quite difficult to achieve. After all, you are also a spectator. The music is a function of the image. Furthermore, if a spectator suddenly discovers "listening" music, is that it has come to the forefront and taken the place of the image.

A mistake, in my opinion.

In silent films, many titles were different scenes chromatically by emotion or by topic. I imagine that this kind of resource helps you to develop or implement various types of melody. Or limited?

I think I have ever occurred. In Visages d'enfants Of Feyder are some scenes tinted blue to highlight the nocturnal action. Personally, I'm supposed to aid the viewer time to understand the music as "night."

remember the case of music for the last Murnau, which I found very loud for a movie so intimate, but it was the music chosen in his day, composed by Becca. When there is a score already established, what is the relationship with her pianist?

Whatever they say, the scores are only there to help the musician, not imposed. Indicate the "what" not "how", which is important.

While doing

Fausto, Murnau, found in the Film Archive Luciano Zaragoza Berriatúa a book which featured a photograph with the score of the theme of the girl. It was a very nice that it coincided with the idea that I had to watch the movie without sound, so I took it. But it would have no problem not hire or change it to make it otherwise.

I think after what I have told of Fritz Lang and The Incredible Hulk will understand what I mean.

silent film fans have lived since the organ of the American editions of Grapevine or the old English Currency, to large orchestrations often working with the ARTE channel and better cared issues, to issues that put any kind of music to the film, go or not go to the movie. I think for example in some intriguing titles that make you move to the music of Hitchcock Presents or the old-fashioned and cutting-edge electronic music that have had films like Metropolis . What do you think of it? Where do you think can be the boundary between the evolution of music, respect for the film and its era, and the need for a style of musicians and labels that edit my movies?

I think it's essential to find the right tone of the film, its particular environment. So I see no sound, because the images and transmit enough information.

insist that the function of music is to accompany and enhance the images. They are able to evoke or create the right receiver (in this case the piano) music that fit your message.

Another thing is that obviously is not the same orchestra that the ten fingers of a pianist.

not necessarily have to be a film more intimate piano with orchestra. I can assure you with a piano can do waaaaay flourishes and all kinds of slapstick, if necessary. And there are more than enough orchestral resources for a scene is wonderfully intimate.

As for electronic music and avant-garde, I do not understand at all. I dare not say it's bad, but me as a viewer does not work. Is a more aesthetic appeal, but I do not like.

And that Metropolis lends itself to such experiments. Just opened in Zaragoza at the end of last year a dance theater show, with music by Victor Rebullida , employing the resources of music Contemporary with a fabulous result.

I do not think that is normal. I am afraid that is not a matter of aesthetic choice, but the budget.

Regarding the latter, is there historical trends of interpretation for silent films they face, theoretical schools that are aligned to one or another musician to define your style? It is an invitation to whether we can make a minimum timeline of how this art has been addressed.

Humans are so used to unite image and sound (even after a flash forward to the thunder, as well says Salvador Àngel Batlle) without it is almost impossible to accept as real the images on the screen.

has been said that cinema pianists joined to silence the noise produced film projectors, but not exactly true.

The music and sound effects have always accompanied the theater since the Greeks and Japanese kabuki through the Elizabethan theater. We must not forget that cinema began as a sideshow attraction and is needed from the outset all the fanfare as possible to attract staff.

Initially incorporated cinemas pianists to accompany the images with popular songs had nothing to do with the images. It was a show and we had everything. The crowd booed the bad songs that I knew and hummed. They spoke and commented on the movie and read aloud the subtitles could not read.

A ambientazo.

As the film is becoming a business, entrepreneurs choose more the musicians hired to accompany these films.

Gradually the music was refined and distributors of movies sent along with the tapes shown in the songs that could accompany the scenes. Encyclopedias songs appeared largely of classics, broken down by situation: music for dueling, to persecutions, to love scenes, for robbery ... The best known were Motion Picture Moods for Pianists and Organists and Encyclopedia of Music for Pictures , Erno Rapee, the Kinobibliothek or Kinothek Giuseppe Becce or Music-sheets of Hugo Riesenfeld.

theaters that could have kept budget more string quartets and the great theaters, orchestras.

In an effort to simplify the orchestral resources came new instruments: the musical electrical bells and organ Wurlitzer, one of the most important instruments of the period, with a lot of records, imitating different orchestral instruments, and includes effects such as gunfire, birds, thunder ...

not until 1914 with The Birth of a Nation by David W. Griffith, when the first film with his own music. Of course, consisting mainly of fragments of classical works. Thereafter
begin to realize the importance of music in the outcome of the movie, and with the advent of talkies, appear composers specialized in film music.

guess names like Carl Davis are a reference. I also see Japanese musicians often appear in the list of composers. Not to mention national names such as Joan Pineda. What are the basic names for you and you have a title that we have to fix on everything, because you consider it a masterpiece of composition for films?

course there are great film music. The version of José Nieto to The village of the damned , Florian Rey, is a work of art. Not even to speak of His Holiness John Williams, Ennio Morricone, Max Steiner and Bernard Herrmann ... That is the Olympus.
But I am a pianist and a much more limited resources. I've heard recordings
Javier Perez de Azpeitia superb pianists and other embodied that have interested me at all. My colleagues in the Silent Film Days Uncastillo Carlos González, Mariano Villanueva and Josetxo Fernández Ortega are true masters.

And now, back to you: where can we see in the coming weeks or months?

I live in Zaragoza and I'm in for everything that moves. At the moment
I have referred to the Days Uncastillo Silent Film and the next cycle and Word Music Molinos (Teruel), but there are contacts with the Instituto Cervantes, the Goethe Institute, some universities and other institutions that are at the Aragon expected to materialize.

What annual events in Spain or in nearby countries you recommend?

Why not, the days of silent film Uncastillo and the cycle of music and words of Molinos (Teruel). There are dozens of silent film festivals and I have participated in the Aneres (France) which is very interesting. Many films and pianists and environment charming.

also a pianist, you are a spectator. What are your movies titles head? Do you enjoy as a spectator or just simple music that sounds like you put in the foreground?

From silent films I love Buster Keaton and Charles Bowers for laughing, so absurd that they can become. The Young Sherlock is a masterpiece of ingenuity.

series, Fausto and Dawn of Murnau, The village of the damned, Florian Rey, The three lights of Fritz Lang ... I think I'm a bit melodramatic.

The truth is that if they finish in the music by looking too professional strain and that is a nuisance.