A highly creative endeavour: Interview with musicologist and silent film pianist Martin Marks

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claus Tieber ◽  
Anna K. Windisch

Martin Marks holds an almost unique position to talk about silent film music: he is a scholarly musician and musical scholar. Besides his canonical book on the history of silent film music (1997), he has been playing piano accompaniments for silent films regularly for nearly four decades. In this interview we asked Martin about the challenges and complexities of choosing and creating music to accompany musical numbers in silent cinema. Martin relates how he detects musical numbers and he expounds his decision-making process on how to treat them. His explanations are interspersed with engaging examples from his practical work and based on both his scholarly knowledge and on his musical intelligence. He talks about the use of pre-existing music as well as about anachronisms in choosing music written many decades after a film was first released. In sum, this interview delivers detailed and informed insights into the difficulties and pleasures of accompanying musical numbers or other types of diegetic music in silent cinema.

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 563-583 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laraine Porter

Referencing a range of sources from personal testimonies, diaries, trade union reports and local cinema studies, this chapter unearths the history of women musicians who played to silent film. It traces the pre-history of their entry into the cinema business through the cultures of Edwardian female musicianship that had created a sizeable number of women piano and violin teachers who were able to fill the rapid demand created by newly built cinemas around 1910. This demand was further increased during the First World War as male musicians were called to the Front and the chapter documents the backlash from within the industry against women who stepped in to fill vacant roles. The chapter argues that women were central to creating the emerging art-form of cinema musicianship and shaping the repertoire of cinema music during the first three decades of the twentieth century. With the coming of sound, those women who had learned the cinema organ, in the face of considerable snobbery, were also well placed to continue musical careers in Cine-Variety during the 1930s and beyond. This article looks particularly at the careers of Ena Baga and Florence de Jong who went on to play for silent films until the 1980s.


Author(s):  
David Neumeyer

This chapterpresents an overview of the coverage of this volume, which is about film music studies. It chronicles the development of film music studies as a discipline and suggests that its rise is associated with the commodity history of feature films. It describes the evolution of the application of music in motion pictures, from the silent films era to the present time. This chapteralso provides an outline of the chapters in the volume.


Author(s):  
Shakhnoza Akramjanovna Azimbayeva ◽  

This article examines the role and place of British think tanks in the design and development of the country’s foreign policy towards the Central Asian region. This issue is studied in combination with an analysis of the history of the formation of British think tanks, the positions of these centers in relation to Central Asia in the early 90s of the twentieth century after the collapse of the USSR and the state of modern think tanks that study Central Asia and their influence on the decision-making process in Great Britain.


2022 ◽  
pp. 194187442110567
Author(s):  
Naomi Niznick ◽  
Ronda Lun ◽  
Daniel A. Lelli ◽  
Tadeu A. Fantaneanu

We present a clinical reasoning case of 42-year-old male with a history of type 1 diabetes who presented to hospital with decreased level of consciousness. We review the approach to coma including initial approach to differential diagnosis and investigations. After refining the diagnostic options based on initial investigations, we review the clinical decision-making process with a focus on narrowing the differential diagnosis, further investigations, and treatment.


Author(s):  
Richard Smiraglia

Taxonomy is the rigorous act of distinguishingdifferentiated concepts by naming and defining themwith precision. A case of taxonomic research arisesfrom film music history with regard to musicalcues, topoi, used to accompany silent film. Thepresent case study uses the Eyl Collection of Dutchsilent film music.La taxonomie consiste à distinguer rigoureusementles concepts différenciés par la dénomination et à lesdéfinir avec précision. Un cas de recherchetaxonomique est illustré dans l’histoire de la musiquede film, en ce qui concerne les signaux d’entréemusicaux, les topoï, utilisés pour accompagner lesfilms muets. La présente étude de cas utilise laCollection Eyl de musique de films muets néerlandais.


Author(s):  
Richard P. Smiraglia ◽  
Joshua A. Henry

Taxonomies may contain functional vocabulary and display relationships among concepts to facilitate the work of a domain. Silent film music is a work-based genre of musical performance. Musicians worked from cue-sheets of musical terms. This paper describes the conversion of a working list of musical cues into a taxonomy. Results show the taxonomical differences that arise from a work-based vocabulary. Also, the social realities of the time are reflected in this vocabulary of music for silent film from the 1920s. Les taxonomies peuvent contenir du vocabulaire fonctionnel et mettre en évidence des relations entre les concepts et ainsi faciliter le travail d'un domaine. La musique de films muets est un genre de performance musicale basé sur l’expérience. Les musiciens travaillent à partir de repères («cue-sheet») de termes musicaux. Cet article décrit la conversion d'une liste de repères musicaux en une taxonomie. Les résultats montrent les différences taxonomiques qui émergent d'un vocabulaire basé sur l’expérience. En outre, les réalités sociales de l'époque sont reflétées dans ce vocabulaire musical pour le cinéma muet des années 1920.


Neurosurgery ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 63 (suppl_3) ◽  
pp. A54-A68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin S. Smith ◽  
Christopher I. Shaffrey ◽  
Mark F. Abel ◽  
Christopher P. Ames

ABSTRACT OBJECTIVE To review the concepts involved in the decision-making process for management of pediatric patients with spinal deformity. METHODS The literature was reviewed in reference to pediatric deformity evaluation and management. RESULTS Pediatric spinal deformity includes a broad range of disorders with differing causes, natural histories, and treatments. Appropriate categorization of pediatric deformities is an important first step in the clinical decision-making process. An understanding of both nonoperative and operative treatment modalities and their indications is requisite to providing treatment for pediatric patients with spinal deformity. The primary nonoperative treatment modalities include bracing and casting, and the primary operative treatments include nonfusion instrumentation and fusion with or without instrumentation. In this article, we provide a review of pediatric spinal deformity classification and an overview of general treatment principles. CONCLUSION The decision-making process in pediatric deformity begins with appropriate diagnosis and classification of the deformity. Treatment decisions, both nonoperative and operative, are often predicated on the basis of the age of the patient and the natural history of the disorder.


This rich collection of essays by film historians, translation scholars, archivists, and curators presents film translation history as an exciting and timely area of research. It builds on the last 20 years of research into the history of dubbing and subtitling, but goes further, by showing how subtitling, dubbing, and other forms of audiovisual translation developed over the first 50 years of the 20th century. This is the first book-length study, in any language, of the international history of audiovisual translation to include silent cinema. Its scope covers national contexts both within Europe and beyond. It shows how audiovisual translation practices were closely tied to their commercial, technological, and industrial contexts. The Translation of Films, 1900–1950 draws extensively on archival sources and expertise, and revisits and challenges some of the established narratives around film languages and the coming of sound. For instance, the volume shows how silent films, far from being straightforward to translate, went through a complex process of editing for international distribution. It also closely tracks the ferment of experiments in film translation during the transition to sound from 1927 to 1934 and later, as markets adjusted to the demands of synchronised film. The Translation of Films, 1900–1950 argues for a broader understanding of film translation: far from being limited to language transfer, it encompasses editing, localisation, censorship, paratextual framing, and other factors. It advocates for film translation to be considered as a crucial contribution not only to the worldwide circulation of films, but also to the art of cinema.


2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (7_suppl) ◽  
pp. 188-188
Author(s):  
S. L. Chang ◽  
J. C. Presti ◽  
J. P. Richie

188 Background: The AUA and American Cancer Society both recommend a shared decision-making process between clinicians and patients for prostate cancer screening with PSA testing. Data are limited data regarding patient preferences for PSA evaluation in the United States. We assessed the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of men who proceeded with or opted out of PSA testing in a nationally representative population-based cohort. Methods: We analyzed male participants from the 2001 to 2008 cycles of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) who were 40 years old or older without a history of prostate cancer, recent prostate manipulation, or hormone therapy use (n = 6,032). All men underwent or refused PSA testing after a standardized explanation about prostate cancer screening by a physician. A multivariate logistic regression was conducted after adjusting for survey weights to identify independent sociodemographic and clinical predictors for opting out of PSA testing. Results: Overall, 5% of the study cohort refused PSA testing. The analysis revealed predictors for refusing PSA testing (Table). PSA testing preference was not influenced by a family history of prostate cancer, previous prostate cancer screening, education level, socioeconomic status, insurance status, or tobacco history. There were no significant time trends for PSA testing. Conclusions: Despite equal access to PSA testing in our study, there was unequal utilization. We found that Black men were more likely to refuse PSA testing. Our analysis also suggests that a perception of suboptimal health or uncertain future outlook may discourage men from undergoing PSA evaluation. These patient preferences for PSA evaluation should be factored into the shared decision-making process for prostate cancer screening. [Table: see text] No significant financial relationships to disclose.


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