ep. 39: “Adventures in Sound!”

“Adventures In Sound!” – Ben tracks his own journey to find the digital devices that best re-create or at least evoke the classic theater pipe organ experience under modern screening conditions.

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Topics

Ben discusses the “temporary” theme for the podcast, “Those Keystone Comedy Cops”

Ben’s instrumental evolution 

• Learning to play the organ
• Lee Erwin, theater organist, as a mentor
• Difference in technique between piano and organ
• Expanding colors and instrumentation
• Developing the Synth-Org (Sample sounds included)
• Synth(esized) sounds vs. Digital samples
• Limited availability of real theater organs
• Deploying the Kurzweil PC-2 system with a MIDI pedal unit
• Examples from two scores for Edison: Invention of the Movies

Underwriting announcement: The Alice Howell Collection on DVD from Undercrank Productions

Ben’s musical journey continued

• Jim Henry introduces Ben to the Miditzer
• An excerpt from a Miditzer score Ben created for The Penalty
• The difficulty of recording and reproducing a real theater organ for home video
• Introducing the sound of the theater organ to the modern audience, the authentic sound of silent film
• Orchestration is fun in theory, but…
• Graduating to Hauptwerk, courtesy Paramount Organ Works, and adapting it to a single 88-note keyboard
• Please rename the system! And suggest how to talk about silent film without using the word “silent”!
• Scoring for home video as contrasted with a live appearance
• The piano is more suitable for the intimacy of The Silent Comedy Watch Party

Recommendations:

• The Eye Film Museum
• The National Film Preservation Board

Links from the episode:

• The Silent Comedy Watch Party, Sundays on YouTube
• “Those Keystone Comedy Cops” by Charles McCarron. Download a copy, learn the words, sing it with your friends
• Appreciation: Silent Cinema Organist Lee Erwin – A four-minute radio story about Lee Erwin featuring some of his music.
• Watch Man Without A World directed by Eleanor Antrim at Vimeo
• Edison: The Invention of the Movies distributed by Kino Lorber – With scores by Ben and many others
• Learn about Ray Kurzweil, inventor of the music system and many other things
• The Alice Howell Collection from Undercrank Productions, 12 rare silent comedies with a female star who foreshadows Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, and the great women physical comedians.
• A review of the Alice Howell Collection which highlights the major contribution Ben’s scores make to the set.
• What is a “sound font”?
• The legendary Hauptwerk Digital Virtual Theater Pipe Organ

Recommendations:

• The Eye Film Museum in Amsterdam. Explore the online offerings here.
• The National Film Preservation Foundation. More free fun here.
• Sign up for Ben’s e-mails here.